Found a robin nest in the crook of a tree and had to take a picture. Six as it turns out each with a different focus point. Focus stacked them in Helicon Focus.
Robin Nest with 3 eggs
Category Archives: Nature
Blue Jays and Squirrels oh my!
A week behind in posting this, but here are some more pictures of animals in our yard. The Nikon Z50 is really a step up from my D3300 and the 50-250mm lens is fantastic. Not regretting getting one at all.
For more animals, check out my Spring 2020 in the Pandemic album:
Robins in the Rain
I played with my new camera yesterday by photographing the birds that gathered in our back yard. Due to the rain and a desire not to scare them off, I took most of them through the back door window, which wasn’t as bad as I expected.
The ISO of the images is higher than it should be and they may not be as sharp as I would like since I haven’t learned the autofocus system well. Rather impressed by the camera, though. A noticeable improvement over my Nikon D3300.
At least the birds are free to move about even if we aren’t during the pandemic.
MoS Butterflies
In early April, we went to the Museum of Science. There we visited the Butterfly Garden.
Here are the pictures I am most pleased with. Some were very patient, others weren’t. Focus on the patient ones and play with your f-stop and composition. A decent macro lens can really help, but oh how the depth of field can be thin if your f-stop is to small. A place like the Butterfly Garden, which has a decent amount of light, helps.
Photo Friday: Blood Moon
My son and I photographed the blood moon on the 21st in the freezing cold. This was the best one. Used a 1 second exposure that also captured some of the stars in the sky, though it shows up better in the actual Flickr image.
Expect I will try creating more sky photographs from the backyard when the weather gets warmer.
Warship Wednesday: USS Monsoor
Back in August I visited Bath with my eldest to see the ships Bath Iron Works was creating. This included the Zumwalt-class destroyers USS Michael Monsoor and USS Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, USS Hudner and USS Daniel Inouye.
The best way to photograph the ship yard was to take the Maine Maritime Museum‘s hour long Shipyards & Lighthouses boat tour.
The tour turns away from the ship yard and travels down the Kennebec River before returning, sailing past the ship yard to the Sasanoa River, turning around and traveling past Bath Iron Works to the museum.
I started the voyage with my 55-300mm lens. I got some photos of the various buildings along the river as well as some pictures of the ships under construction.
As we approached the ship yard, I switched to my 18-105mm lens. Unfortunately, I realized too late that the 2nd lens was set to manual mode with vibration reduction turned off. Ooops! Reminder to self: recheck that the camera and lenses are setup the way they should be before leaving.
Later in the day, we surveyed various vantage points across from the ship yard. After parking at the Dairy Queen near Sasanoa Point, I walked along the Sagadahoc bridge (Route 1) over the Kennebec. While very few people walked over the bridge while I was there, there wasn’t much space for a tripod, so I shot handheld. With the late afternoon sun high in the sky and the air over the river hazy from the August sun, very few of the pictures came out well.
On a return trip to see the LBJ, now that it is in the water, I’ll aim to arrive before sunrise and try using a tripod since that helped with the USS Hudner pictures. The rest of the pictures are at my Bath Iron Works photo album.
Photo Friday: Boston Harbor Birds
While photographing the USS Hudner, I also caught some pictures of birds in Boston Harbor. Double-crested Cormorants and seagulls mostly. They are also at my shore bird Flickr album.
Pictures from the Smithsonian National Zoo
I posted more pictures from my trip to Virginia and Washington DC in August. This time, they are of the Smithsonian National Zoo.
Spiders
From near:
And farther away:
Seagulls of Georges Island
While on Georges Island, I had to take pictures of the many seagulls that hangout at and fly over the island. Here are a select few I particularly like and a slide show of them all.
Slide show: