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Photo of the Week - July 21, 2016

on July 21, 2016

Female Purple martin flies towards its nest box as its mate perches outside the box.

Boston Harbor Marina

Olympia, WA

July 21, 2016

Bird Boston Harbor breeding season Female Flying in flight Male Nesting Olympia pair Perching Purple Martin summer Washington

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Examples of the effect of different shutter speeds on the crispness & detail of the moon; and, the relationship between the moon & a light cloud layer.

Full Moon rises over Mount Rainier at Sunset

Full Moon rising over Mount Rainier View from Tumwater, WA October 11, 2019 I have been to the top of Tumwater Hill many times to watch Mount Rainier as the sun sets. I have also been there several times to watch the full moon rise. And, each time I have been to Tumwater Hill to watch the moon rise, I have been disappointed. Weather, timing, atmospheric conditions and location have never been in my favor. On Friday October 11, 2019, luck turned in my favor. Sunset was 6:32 PM. Moonrise was 6:14 PM. The two corresponded perfectly. The moon would be rising above the horizon just as the sun was setting. The day was clear and beautiful. When the moon began to rise over the horizon, everyone at the park was amazed to see the moon rising perfectly over the left flank of Mount Rainier. As it continued its ascent, the moon moved up and to the right. At one point, it was nearly perched over Rainier's crater. We were all thankful for our good fortune....

Mirror Slap and Camera Vibration at Slow Speeds

While photographing close-up images with my macro lens, I noticed something very curious. As I increased the depth of field for the images, they were becoming less sharp. I ran down my mental list of potential culprits and was unable to come up with a solution. I was... shooting on a tripod with legs and head firmly locked shooting with the remote cable shooting where I didn't expect ambient vibrations from machinery or foot steps not using image stabilization/vibration reduction (the lens I was using didn't have it) And then I remembered one of those long-ago lessons from photo school... the mirror of an slr camera can cause the camera shake when it lifts during an exposure Shaking caused by a mirror is called 'mirror slap'. It has almost no effect on shutter speeds faster than 1/60 second or longer than 1 second. It can be quite disruptive at shutter speeds between 1/45 second and 1 second. See the example photos at the bottom of this post to see the ef...

December 21, 2016 - Surf Scoter about to eat a whole clam

Male juvenile surf scoter eating a clam Budd Inlet in Olympia, Washington December 21, 2016 I have always had a strong stomach. I enjoy eating hot and spicy foods, with few digestive problems. My culinary escapades seem positively weak compared to the eating habits of the scoter family. Scoters are diving ducks who winter along the coasts of the lower 48 states. Many of them breed in the Hudson Bay area and in the Arctic. Surf scoters are a common sight on Puget Sound during the winter months. The males are sometimes confused with puffins because of their jet black color and orange and white beaks. The diet of Surf scoters is primarily mollusks, with some crustaceans, small fishes and marine worms thrown in to their diet. After diving for clams or mussels, Surf scoters eat the whole thing - shell and all. Their powerful gizzard helps them to process the food from the shells. I watched a small group of mostly female and juvenile scoters feed....

What does the f in f-stop stand for?

The f in f-stop stands for "focal length". Focal length is the length of a lens (18mm, 50mm, 200mm, etc.) The notation f/4 is a shorthand notation for the diameter of a lens opening, where focal length is divided by 4. F-stops show a ratio of the relationship of focal length to lens opening. Here is Ansel Adam's explanation, from his book, The Camera : “The lens aperture is simply the diameter of the lens opening, expressed as a fraction of its focal length. Thus a lens of 4-inch focal length with a diameter of one inch has a relative aperture of 4/1, or 4. The aperture designation is expressed as f/4, indicating that the aperture is the focal length/4. Another 4-inch lens that has a diameter of 1/2 inch would be an f/8 lens.” Adams, Ansel. The Camera . Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1980: 46. Some examples: A 200mm lens whose aperture diameter is 50mm has an f-stop of f/4 200/50 = 4 A 200mm lens whose aperture diameter is 25mm has an f-stop of f/8 200/25...

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