PHOTO-A-DAY: March 2013

itsnotmeyouknow

One from a cafe by the side of Windermere - a nice warming cappuccino and a slightly sinful blueberry scone with cream

Nikon D800 Nikkor 24 - 70 1/100 ƒ/4 ISO 400 32 mm

Rx4Photo

D800, Zeiss 100mm Makro-Planar *T ZF.2 ; f/2 ; 1/40 ; ISO 1100
Black velvet backdrop (a cheap purchase from the remnant section in a fabric store), gelled flashes on left and right both snooted with black construction paper to minimize light spillover.

Msmoto

Hands.....

proudgeek

Love the lighting Moto. Almost looks like her hands are illuminated from within. Here's one from the archives. I've always loved the expression on this woman's face.

D90 | 18-200 | 80mm | f/5 | 1/60s | ISO 800

Pierre

Benji2505

Nice one Adamz.

bland

@PierrePierre .. great shot!

pippigurl

@dredden: it' a Screech Owl.

mikep

went to cover an opera rehearsal today d700, 70-200

bland

Postman

More Iceland and more CPL and ND10 action. Just messing around really with the aim of smoothing the water in the tarn in front of me.

Fjallsjökull, one of the bigger outlet glaciers from the Vatnajökull Ice Cap.

mk2pop

great everyone.

GBH Heading away

D90, Sigma 100-300 f4 + 1.4x tc

SquamishPhoto

Nice one, bland. I like the composition and use of empty space as well as the blue back light. Did you add that yourself or was it stage lighting?


D800 • 200mm f2 @ f2.8 • 1.4x tele • 1/640 • ISO 500 • DX crop mode

bland

@ SquamishPhoto ... thanks, that light was already there. All I did was remove the mic stand.

SquamishPhoto

Cool. Its an effect I plan on remembering for use in the future. :]

Coastalconn

Grackle. These birds are very elusive for me... not too bad for iso 1600

Gitzo

@ Dredden........I'm pretty sure he's a saw whet owl; (BTW...the unlikely name is derived from the sound they make) Even though they are fairly common, you very rarely see them.

Golf007sd

Fantastic shots everyone. I need to set some time aside and go out shooting. Arrrrr

pippigurl

Birds everywhere!

Nikon D800 | Nikkor 70-200 f/4 | 1/100 f/4 | ISO 100

Gitzo

@ Coastalconn; You need to submit that grackle picture to "Birds & Blooms" magazine; that's an amazing picture. I don't see any room for improvement in the photograph, but that particular individual bird doesn't have quite as impressive a tail as some do; I'm assuming the picture was taken with available light, and if so, you sure "nailed it"! The irredescent green feathers are absolutely stunning.

Overall, that's the best picture of a purple grackle's plumage I've ever seen ! (and what a coincidence;........)
Last week, while I was sitting by the window watching all the birds at my feeders in my back yard, I had turned my head for a second to see what my cat was doing, and all of a sudden I heard this loud commotion coming from the back yard, turned back around, and the biggest flock of purple grackles I have ever seen or heard of had just descended into the back yard, all over the bird feeders, and even the pasture field over the fence was completely covered with them; all of the trees in the edge of the woods were covered with grackles; there must have been a million birds ! I was immediately reminded of the old Alfred Hitchcock movie, "The Birds"...........all of the red birds and other small birds that had been on the feeders quickly retreated up into the trees and were all gazing back down, like they were as astonished by this sudden invasion as I was. Even the three squirrels that had constituted their own "invasion" just moments before, took to the trees and were looking back down in amazement !

As my camera with a 300 mm lens attached was on my tripod beside the window, I started trying to get a shot of one big male, (almost exactly like the one here), and I swear, that bird stared right back at me, and kept hopping back and forth over about five feet of the limb he was standing on; it seemed like he was determined to keep moving back and forth on the limb so I couldn't get a decent picture of him; ( he sure succeeded !) I noticed something else also; purple grackles are fairly common around here, but when I see them, they're usually solitary, and their behavior is quite different than it is when they're part of a huge flock like those birds last week were. I told my wife, "a million birds right outside the window, and only I could end up not getting a decent shot of a single bird" ! I've been watching birds for over 50 or 60 years now, but I have never seen a flock of grackles that large at one time, any place. The amount of noise they were making was just amazing.
In hindsight, I guess I should have tried to get a video of them.

dissent

how about some more dead leaves!!!

mikep

found some birds for you guys, nice n' rare. d700, 70-200

proudgeek

Another old one. This is a Galapagos dove. Given the importance of conservation on the islands, you'll see that it's tagged on the left leg. I reprocessed this in Viveza to bring out the color around the eye and darken the background a bit.

D90 | 80-400 | 160mm | f/5.6 | 1/500s | ISO 400

hammers71

championship winning cricket side 2013
me on far right goatee beard and hat.

Msmoto

Battle of Guilford Courthouse Reenactment 2013