Photo: Mountain Stream
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Yes, this photo is a bit pedestrian, I will admit. I bought a neutral density filter while I was out in Portland at a camera shop early in the summer. It’s only a 2-stop, the densest they had. I probably need a few more to do some of the other tricks I’d like to pull of.
Basically, a neutral density filter makes everything darker. Why do you want to do this? So that you can capture the same amount of light with a slower shutter speed. Why would you want to do that? A variety of reasons, most of them involving motion blur and such. Water in particular looks somewhat crap at a higher shutter speed. You freeze the individual droplets and it just looks noisy. The lower you take the shutter speed, the more silky it gets. This is about half as silky as it could have been if I had taken it either earlier, or with with more filters.
All those ocean photos you see where the water looks like a low-hanging bank of fog? Those are long exposure shots, probably something like a 30 or 60 second exposure. This here is nowhere near that, but I don’t have an ocean to photograph so this is it. I like it anyway.
Photo: The Cycle
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In the past week, I have stumbled upon two carcasses. This is the skull of a deer. Been dead all summer from the state of decay. Deer carcasses don’t even make me flinch, as I spent a good portion of my time in high school collecting road kill and dragging it into a field, pointing a video camera and an infrared sensor at it, and recording whatever came to feed (possums mostly). I got over the smell and the sight pretty quickly in those years.
The second carcass I found was some kind of canine. Either a fox or a coyote–probably a fox, given the color of the fur that was around. The fur had been removed from the carcass, but it still had quite a bit of flesh on the various bones, so it had only been dead a month or so. Once upon a time, I probably could have told you exactly what it was by the shape of the skull and teeth and such, but I’ve forgotten most of what I learned about such things. The only thing that remains is some general knowledge. And an uncanny ability to stumble upon carcasses in the woods.
Photo: Rocky Mountain National Park
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Arriving at about 7:00 AM in the park, the clouds were still lingering around the peaks. I wasn’t sure if it was going to turn into a very rainy day, but it started to clear up within an hour or two. The low light really played havoc with my slow telephoto. I had to use the tripod and shoot at ISO400 to get anything decent. Noise, bleh. I never used to care about 400 or lower, but iStock made me afraid to shoot at anything above 100. Not that I have submitted anything there in months.
Feeling really sick this morning and I don’t know why. It’s very nonspecific. I feel alternately chilly (as in having chills) and light headed. I am thinking fever but I have too much work to get done to really slow down and check my temperature.
Photo: Dozing Elk
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Here’s another nice shot from Rocky Mountain National Park last week.
Today, I just want to back up my equipment and spend the day driving in the mountains. Alas, it is not meant to be. Work/duty/paycheck calls.
In case you missed it, the Roundbottom Foundation memberships went on sale this week, as well as the limited edition prints. Check out the Foundation page for details. They make great holiday gifts. They look pretty on a bathroom wall…
I gotta learn self promotion better I think. I got no other pitch.
