Tip Jar 23: Batteries

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I had two other potential topics slotted in for this one, and had stalled in deciding which one to tackle, much less begin on. Then yesterday my gut decided I should be spending a lot more time in the bathroom, and I didn’t get to either of them. Finally stabilizing much later, I still decided to put the whole post off until today, and instead just started checking out Walkabout Estates by the headlamp, as is my wont. That’s what led to the topic for this post, and this is a little more of a ‘learn from my mistakes’ thing, but also partially the frustration of not being able to effectively monitor certain things.

The two key portions of the preceding video were the video camcorder, and the off-camera lapel mic that connected to the parabolic dish – both of these failed, solely because of batteries. Let’s do this in order.

The mic connected to the parabolic dish is a Sony ECM-44B lavalier mic, which uses an internal AA battery for power. This can last quite a long time, but there’s no on-off switch for it, so I have to assume that the power doesn’t flow until the recording source is reading from it. There also is no external indication that it’s working, no LEDs or anything, so really, the only way to tell that the battery is still good is to check what was just recorded. That’s how I got caught by this one, in that I really didn’t know I was capturing inadequate audio until I’d returned from getting the video clips and reviewed them. I was extraordinarily lucky in that I could return to capture more once I’d replaced the battery, and that enough audio existed on the first clips that I could enhance it, though the quality certainly suffered from that.

Right before I set out on the second session, I plugged the mic into the little digital recorder that I use from time to time when only audio is needed; this has the ability to monitor the audio realtime, so I could tell that it was working. The camcorder doesn’t have this option. So the primary way to tell if the mic battery is still good is to switch the recording source and test it, which is not a huge hassle, but enough of one when you’re trying to capture something that might disappear at any moment. Another way is to voltage test the battery, but the Sony mic has a screw-on sleeve over the battery compartment that has to slide over one of the wires exiting the housing, so I can’t actually do this while the mic is mounted to the video rig. Stupid, fussy little things.

And then there’s the camcorder battery. Now, I’d fully charged it just over a week previously to have it handy for a wedding that I was shooting, but didn’t actually use it. So the sum total of legitimate drain on the battery was about two minutes of goose video in the past week. That’s it. When I went out last night and began the recording, I did indeed check and the battery indicator was reading 3/4 charged – which is not where it should have been, but adequate. Except it wasn’t. With just a few minutes of actual operation time, it was dying. That’s not acceptable.

Now, where was the failure? Just over a week of merely sitting should not be enough to drain a lithium-ion battery, which have enormous shelf life and charge integrity, more so since this was an extended capacity 3000 milliamp-hour version. The camcorder even has an automatic shutoff after two minutes of standby, so it’s not like I forgot to shut it down. So this leaves four potential causes:

1) As I was heading up the road tracking the sounds, I was using the video camera to record the audio, but it was likely also trying to autofocus on virtually nothing, since I hadn’t turned on the external video light yet. The occasional appearance of a streetlight as I aimed roughly at the noise source (the parabolic mic attached to the video stabilizing rig) might have made the autofocus struggle to snag something, draining more power than normal. Still, this seems excessive, since this was two minutes of active recording time;

2) Parasitic drain. I already know the camcorder has a tendency to use a little power when completely inactive and turned off, which no device should ever do. I understand it in things like TVs, which maintain a trickle flow to keep components warmed up enough to turn on instantly, but there’s no such excuse for a camcorder. Even the internal clock should use such a trivial amount of power as to be inconsequential, since my wristwatch uses a little 3v ‘coin’ battery to last for five years doing the same thing while also displaying it;

3) A bad battery pack. They have a life of course, and will lose longevity as they start to die out. This seems most likely, and this one’s been getting a lot of use in the past year or so;

4) A bad charger. Also a possibility, and next to impossible to distinguish from a bad battery.

Therein lies the problem. Determining which of these causes, if not multiple ones, has no simple solution. If you’re lucky enough to have a multitester that determines amps, you can test a battery to see if it’s not up to full charge (in this case, 3000 mah) when fully charged, and narrow it down to a bad battery or charger. But then, it’s a matter of replacing one or both to determine which it was. Also note that the amp-hour rating for batteries is notoriously exaggerated, with few actually hitting the numbers they claim, so testing them when brand new is the only way to know when they’re dropping off. If you have a tester that tells amps, which I don’t.

As for the autofocus using too much power? That would take a decent amount of testing to determine, with careful notes of actual longevity. Not worth it to me, just something to keep in mind as a potential drain.

Parasitic drain? The best solution is to remove the battery between uses, and I do this with the audio recorder because I know it will run its own batteries dead just sitting in a drawer for a couple of weeks. It’s also better for the dry-cell batteries like AAs and such, since the same drain can cause them to corrode and leak. But this also means, on systems that maintain a date (both the camcorder and audio recorder) that you have to reset the date every time you insert the batteries again, a hassle when you’re trying to capture something before it disappears. Or you can cope with everything having a time stamp of January 1, 2000, just after midnight. I’ve dealt with this too, and it messes with decent sorting and cataloging.

So, how to avoid these? There’s no simple solution. Spare batteries, of course, and maintaining a charging schedule works best – with a lot of batteries for different devices, this can be more of a chore than it sounds, especially when a full charge can take hours on some of these. You end up with a rack of chargers that you monitor periodically to remove or swap batteries when they’re charged.

Definitely, charge everything before an important session, like a paid gig. I was charging batteries for two days before the wedding, to be sure that I had everything and spares. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do one swap (most of the batteries I have are decent capacity, and none failed,) but being able to switch quickly is paramount when stuff is happening.

The batteries that aren’t able to be monitored, like dry cells in the mics and so on? Voltage and amp testing of these is fussy, so it’s up to you and your habits as to how useful this is – I only do it when something is looming, but for paid gigs, I just swap for new. Batteries are not good for landfills and, even in places that claim to recycle them, many don’t, so I use the batteries until they’re determinedly dead before I discard them. Most of the AAs that I use are rechargeable anyway, but some devices (like the Sony mic) don’t like the power curve of rechargeables – they’re virtually always 1.2 volts instead of the 1.5 of dry cells, and often lower mah ratings than alkalines – so there’s a limit to those too.

Monitor your usage. There’s no easy way to do this either, except for meticulous notes, but over time you’ll get a feel for when a set of batteries isn’t lasting as long as before, and then it’s time to have a new set waiting in the wings. Especially, carry a backup with you every chance you can, which is what camera bags are good for, but stuff some in your pocket if you aren’t carrying the bag. It’s impossible to be prepared for everything, and I get caught from time to time, but far less so once I realized how often these things occur.

Quality batteries. This does not necessarily mean name-brand or original equipment manufacturer, and in far too many cases (most camera brands, certainly,) this actually means you’re paying a lot more for the same thing than if you just bought aftermarket. Though admittedly, many aftermarket brands suck, so finding the ones that don’t takes time and research. I can say I’ve had as good luck with Kastar batteries as I have with Canon’s own; there remains a chance that Canon’s are actually a rebranded Kastar or something similar – a lot of manufacturers don’t actually have factories for their own batteries, among other things, and simply relabel some other brand’s offerings.

Along those same lines, however, I worked in Florida with a wedding photographer that bought AAs in bulk for flash units, some off-brand source. We routinely voltage-tested all of them before we put them in the bag, since one out of every eight to ten was literally without any charge at all. When used in a sequence of four like in a flash, they work, briefly, the other batteries covering the slack. But a dead battery in a sequence will actually get reverse polarized by the others and soon wreck the power curve and longevity of all of them, leading you to wonder what the hell is going on. Not a bad habit to test all new dry cells before use.

So, here’s hoping you learn a little from my mistakes and don’t repeat them – at least, too often. It’s impossible to avoid getting caught at times, but we can reduce the number of these with good habits.

(Off) Estate Find 63

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Poking around at night by the headlamp again, endeavoring not to get eaten by a bear, I realized there was a faint sound that kept repeating, and I didn’t recognize it as anything ‘typical’ – the frogs were making a racket down at the pond, but this wasn’t a frog. So I started following it. This took me off of the property, so technically this isn’t an Estate Find, but I was there initially, so I’m counting it.

I located the noisemaker roughly a hundred meters from where I’d first heard it, and you’ll hear the audio in the video clip, so you should get the idea that this was initially right at the edge of hearing – I consider myself lucky that I can still hear things like this at my age, especially since I know that The Girlfriend cannot. I also had to pass directly under a streetlamp as I came closer, to say nothing of the headlamp light itself, so I was also lucky in that the noisemaker stayed put, but that was probably a factor of its age.

This is a good example of not just using one’s ears, but in realizing what particular sounds might mean, or at the very least, don’t belong among the ‘normal’ lineup of things you’re likely to hear. I suspected a bird, but I was honestly thinking more in lines of a nightjar (which I also would have been delighted to get, but likely would not have stuck around as long as this one did.)

Now, after the batteries died, I simply turned and walked back to Walkabout Estates, and hadn’t gotten very far when the calls of both mother and child get a lot closer together, more ‘talkative,’ so I turned back and could just barely see (the headlamp is dimmer than the flashlight I use for night video) that mother and child were now on the same branch right next to each other, with absolutely nothing I could do about it. Grumble mutter blaspheme and all that. As I said in the video, I’ll go into that in the post following.

Still, while hearing barred owls all the time around here, this is only the third or fourth time actually catching sight of one, and the first in capturing it on video, so I can’t complain too much. Well, not justifiably, anyway…

Numbers don’t lie. Do they?

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I realize my posting has been pretty thin of late – still tackling home projects, still stalling on another video. And then I go off on these tangents that don’t help at all, but I want to put them down while they’re still fresh, so here we are.

While working on the post about Ultrafinitism, I had read that it was not gaining as much acceptance as the form/realm that permitted infinity, because it had no axioms or distinct rules, and while I pointed out that in and of itself, it disproved one or more of those axioms, I still toyed with the idea that there was a simple addition or change to mathematics that would clarify the matter and prevent some of the unprovable and undemonstrable nonsense that pervades math, or at least these advanced axioms. And for giggles, I started working them out – and then abruptly realized that not only was it far simpler than even that, but I’d been voicing the ideas multiple times in posts without distinctly pinning them down. So try this:

1) Numbers are not real. They have no existence in and of themselves, and do not define anything. Rather, they are defined by that to which they are applied, specifically the scale or increment. For instance, one may have three apples, or a mass of 390 grams, or a volume of 540 cubic centimeters – but none of these might accurately compare to the others, meaning each apple does not automatically mass 130 grams. The scale defines the numbers that apply.

2) By extension, creating any given number does not imply any application for it until it can be assigned to objects, scales, or measurements. While any number can be imagined to any value/degree of whole or decimal places, this has no meaning without application, any more than listing letters creates a new word; it does not exist as such until it has a definition, preferably agreed-upon by multiple people at the minimum.

Anyone can, as they wish, scribble down a shape or symbol and then claim that it means something, or has certain properties – but that doesn’t translate to any such properties actually existing. While a great deal of mathematics applies quite well to describing and comparing real, physical traits, this does not mean that, by extension, whatever lengths you might take the math to will have application as well. Beyond physical constraints, you are only dealing with make-believe.

Most especially, what these two axioms do is eliminate a very large amount of ‘theoretical’ (these aren’t in any way theories in the scientific sense) and ‘infinite’ progressions. As a ground rule, it doesn’t alter Set Theory, or Zermelo-Fraenkel Choice axioms if you prefer, save for a) eliminating the idea of infinity, and b) stipulating that all sets abide by application. As yet, I have not found a place where this breaks down, but again, I’m no mathematician, nor even close, so we perhaps know what end I’m talking out of.

But it didn’t stop there. Prompted by a communiqué with The Manatee (outside of the comments on that post,) I started wondering why humans, as a whole, have spent so much time on inapplicable math, and now strongly suspect that it ties in with other aspects that I’ve wondered and talked about. Evolutionary psychology is a pet hobby of mine, pondering what makes us (any animal) think and react in the way that we do; an awful lot of it comes down to, we evolved to think this way because it worked better than the available alternatives. We humans like to believe that we carefully consider most of our decisions, but it’s likely far less than we believe, and we’re prompted towards certain decisions or biases by inherent traits that assign greater importance to certain factors. The big three – avoiding death, eating, and reproduction – are undeniable, but there are plenty more that are likely there, just not recognized too often. The way we respond positively to large eyes in a small face, a trait of infants, or negatively by the crying of the same. The nonsensical fascination with sports to such a huge degree (tribal instincts.) Making posts about things we think we might have figured out…

And I came back to one I’ve long known: we are pattern-seeking animals. This on its own likely had a lot to do with our progress towards industrialization, since we recognized properties of certain things, like how to start fires and make metals and so on, but it also drives us too far, believing in superstitious things like gambling ‘streaks’ and gods that are angry because we didn’t feed the volcano or ate meat on Friday. Way back in the long-ago, pattern recognition helped us survive, in two ways. First, most animals actually have patterns to their coloration, shapes, and even behavior, so this would let us spot both potential prey and potential predators from the ‘chaos’ of natural foliage. And by extension, we can see a pattern to this very chaos, in that leaves grow in certain clumps and branches taper to specific ratios, so we can spot the differences within. Additionally, asymmetry is often an indication that something is wrong with a species, perhaps signifying a lack of health or a poor choice to mate with.

Mathematics is, almost entirely, patterns. Ratios, repetition, progression, and so on. We recognize when a tree or flower is symmetrical, and not just prefer it, but try to define how and why. We can easily spot the sine wave of water, or the expanding circles of a splash, as well as the break of these patterns that indicate something else is acting upon them, perhaps right under the surface. Douglas Adams (in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency) pointed out one that we barely even register despite its pervasiveness: our ability to not just recognize the consistency of a parabolic arc, but predict its path from mere milliseconds of observation and catch a flying ball, much less throw something accurately enough to hit a target, one of the many factors that allowed us to progress past the ‘caveman’ stage. And the application of math to physics is undeniable, as well as showing us how predictable many things are.

Yet this, to me, is where that search for patterns leads to a bias that works against us. Because we like the idea, because we have a desire to find something, doesn’t mean that it’s actually there. I’ve touched on this before when discussing phi/the golden ratio/the rule of thirds in art & photography, which doesn’t stand up to examination (and none of those three actually match anyway.) It’s far more a matter of confirmation bias, of selecting only those factors that fit, within a reasonable approximation, and ignoring all of those that don’t. And the bare fact that we can spot patterns in places, especially differentiating them from non-patterns, illustrates that nature/the universe isn’t actually all that good at mathematical precision.

Now we do, in fact, have mathematical formulae that underlie all of physics – of everything. The four fundamental interactions – the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity – dictate how everything behaves, describing the interaction within the entire universe, from neutron stars down to the friction of simply holding something in your hand. They can be expressed mathematically, certainly. Aha! See that? But I’m not arguing that math doesn’t have its place, only that too many mathematicians fail to recognize its limitations. It wasn’t mathematicians that predicted or defined these forces either, but meticulous observations and measurements by physicists.

And that led to part two of what may be behind a lot of this, what I tend to call the ‘puzzle drive.’ We are obsessed with solving things, figuring them out, finding the solutions, so much so that we do it for fun, and I find it hard to believe there isn’t, not just a positive reward system within our brains when we’re successful, however trivial the puzzle might be, but also a negative ‘punishment’ system as well, bolstering our frustration with failing to solve such things – again, no matter how trivial. We play games all the time, and only a few of them tie into other survival traits.

Given this, it’s easy to see that finding something interesting within math can lead one to suspect (or hope, perhaps) that they’d found some solution, something meaningful, perhaps even a new trait of physics or of the universe itself. It does not help that mathematical proofs do not have to apply to anything real or predict anything – they just have to “add up,’ as it were. Nice and neat. These traits might also help explain why there’s such a thing as ‘chaos theory‘ despite the fact that there is no application and no actual predictions from such. In contrast, most of the hard sciences don’t even mess about with proof; instead, weight is given to the evidence that exists and supports any particular idea, and most especially, how well it predicts future findings. It’s rarely nice and neat, and very often goes through modifications when dictated by the evidence we find in the real world.

There’s a distinction here, a difference that I think escapes attention far too often. Mathematics can be used to express many ideas, including most of physics. Indeed, we don’t have any other way to explain these if we didn’t use it. But that means it’s a tool, just like language itself. The universe doesn’t care about the numbers, doesn’t even know what they are, doesn’t have the concept of knowing. It just has properties. And while we may hope to gain insight into further properties by applying our knowledge of ratios, this can only work if they exist to begin with. Yet we can only know that if we skip the axioms and find the supporting evidence – math alone cannot dictate or fulfill our knowledge.

In some cases, a hammer is the right tool for the job, but this does not extrapolate to being appropriate for every job, despite anyone’s wishes or any proverbs which insist that it should.

Ya got a dime?

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Hang onto it, because you’ll need it in a moment.

Towards dusk, The Girlfriend and I were next to the liriope patches alongside the walk when I spotted movement. Expecting an anole, because of course (they do own the property,) instead I found a micro-subject that The Girlfriend was astonished by. I went to get something to capture it within while she kept her eyes on it, and luckily it remained in place and actually wasn’t too hard to capture. Well, I mean, for someone as experienced as I…

The photos proved a little harder, since my subject was disinclined to use the plant that I gathered for a natural setting, instead hopping around several portions of the bathroom. I always do small active subjects in the bathroom, since it’s small and relatively clean and uncluttered, making it easier to spot and recapture escaping subjects. But this means we only have shots of it on the acrylic sheet covering the sink, or my finger:

unidentified juvenile frog on author's finger
This is among the smallest of the frogs that I’ve seen and photographed, about half the size of your pinky nail. It clearly seems to be a juvenile, perhaps only days away from tadpoledom, which means identifying it is next to impossible, since none of the adult characteristics have developed yet. I think I’ve narrowed it down to two possible species, based on what few markings there are. Note the faint stripe passing through the eye but not continuing past the shoulder, no visible eardrum, and the lack of back markings, which we see better here:

unmarked back of unidentified juvenile frog
So my choices right now are the ubiquitous spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer,) or the never-before-spotted little grass frog (Pseudacris ocularis.) While I’m favoring the peeper solely because we have oodles of them here, there are a few reasons to suspect the little grass frog. Peepers have distinctive back markings, though I can’t vouch for how quickly they develop. But peepers are also quite a bit larger than this, and twice the length of the grass frogs. Again, this one was tiny:

unidentified juvenile frog perched on US dime coin
This is why you needed the dime, so you could directly see the scale. Eentsy. But the other thing that makes me lean away from the grass frog is that their noses are pointier than this – again, maybe not at this age.

I snuck the millimeter scale into the shot too, for a more universal comparison.

unidentified juvenile frog on US dime alongside millimeter scale
Under 10mm in body length; an adult grass frog would be a few millimeters longer, but a peeper close to three times this. Any herpetologists that want to chime in, I’m not stopping you.

I returned my subject to the liriope, but dinner was ready so I couldn’t try any shots there. When I returned later, I couldn’t find it again – not surprising, though for a moment I mistook a beetle for my subject. While out, however, I wandered around checking for other subjects.

unidentified katydid nymph on liriope blade
This unidentified katydid nymph was perched on a blade of liriope, and might have made a meal for the tiny frog except I honestly think it was too big, perhaps 3/4 (or more) the length of the frog itself – not counting those antennae of course. The cropping was intentional – I like working the corners…

large pale specimen of southern toad Anaxyrus terrestris
This is a southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris,) a pale and large specimen, and as such probably massing a hundred times the tiny frog – I’m not exaggerating. This one was hanging out near the greenhouse where I was hearing (among many other things) a Copes grey treefrog calling – it’s actually a huge night for amphibian calls out there right now. The treefrog wouldn’t let me get any pics, and even this one hopped away quickly while I was trying for the portrait. I suppose word that I’m liable to capture them and restrict them to a bathroom for a bit gets around quickly…

The butterfly bush has been in full bloom, and I’ve been checking carefully since the flowers are a favorite haunt of crab spiders. No sign of those, but I did see another type suspended near a bloom cluster.

unidentified likely orb weaver stringing web from flowers of butterfly bush Buddleja davidii
Another unidentified specimen, but likely an orb weaver at least, and this one would have been a decent meal for the tiny frog, and probably ignored entirely by the toad, being smaller than its eye. Speaking of eyes, there’s the barest hint of a white reflection from one of the spider’s own, if you look closely. I even captured that from my next subject too.

juvenile black and yellow argiope Argiope aurantia on web strung from porcelain berry Ampelopsis glandulosa vines
The spiders are still small yet, so this black-and-yellow argiope (Argiope aurantia) was nowhere near the impressive size it could reach in late summer, as long as it escapes the attention of predators. Probably about 10mm in body length, but quite obvious with the typical ‘scribbling’ in the web. This was on the porcelain berry vine (Ampelopsis glandulosa,) that we provided with a trellis late last year and it took to it this spring with enthusiasm, so hopefully I’ll have some colorful subjects to work with later in the year.

Okay, back to sorting…

Tip Jar 22: Condensation

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Quick one this week – I think I mentioned someplace that I’ve been a little busy, and so too little time to prepare with images and so on. However, we’re just entering into the season for this in roughly half of the US, while the northernmost portions might see very little application of this advice, and the southernmost may have already been dealing with it. There are also times when it applies in entirely opposite conditions, too. So let’s deal with condensation.

Basic premise: If the humidity is anything above very dry and the temperature of your camera equipment, specifically the lenses, is significantly below the ambient air, condensation will form on the glass very quickly. Usually, this is from the equipment sitting within an air-conditioned house or car long enough to reach the same temperature, and then suddenly being exposed to the much-hotter summer outdoors. However, this can also happen when entering a hot and humid environment such as a rainforest or butterfly enclosure, or a greenhouse (or, actually, a busy kitchen.) But then, it can also happen in the winter, when the equipment has been outside enough to get significantly chilled, and then enters the average indoor temperatures. Having your lenses all foggy means you’re not going to get pics of much of anything until it clears, but worse, if this gets into the camera body itself, there’s a chance for both electronic trouble and actual damage, though such circumstances are rare.

The solution? Never expose your equipment to significant temperature differences. Though at times this is not only impossible, it completely ignores that we intend to be taking photographs at these temperatures. So, how to handle them?

Leave the lens cap on until the lens is well warmed up. This will take several minutes, as in, perhaps twenty or more. Do not take it off real quick ‘just to check’ – there’s no such thing as fast enough not to have the adverse effects. At times, if you’re in an environment with forced air (like a butterfly house,) you might be able to find the blower exhaust and leave the camera within the air flow to speed up the process, but the key is, the lens barrel does not feel even a little chilly when you handle it. Then it may be okay to check.

Take the equipment out of the bag. This is for going from air-conditioning to higher ambient temps. Camera bags are padded, which means insulated, and it can take an hour or better for the warmer air to bring the contents up to ambient.

By the way, I’ve tried warming the lens barrels in my hands, and it didn’t seem to significantly decrease the wait times, certainly not half as much as the suggestion below.

Use the sun. If you have direct sunlight, even through glass, place the camera and lens there to shorten the warmup time. This is the nice thing about them almost always being black – they absorb the heat from sunlight better. Monitor this, though – you never want your equipment in sunlight long enough to get hot, since this can also be damaging, especially by causing lubricant within the lens (for focus and zoom rings) to get thin and runny. Again, expensive repairs (or outright replacement.)

Do not switch lenses. Especially with another that’s been sitting in the bag, even after your primary one has warmed up. Condensation on the interior lens elements can take a very long time to clear, and stands the chance of leaving behind residue that is very hard (expensive) to clean.

Probably leave the battery (and film) doors closed too. Generally, the outside shell of the camera is resistant to ambient humidity, but not when any access doors are opened. The chances of getting so much humidity within that it damages anything is slim, but why take chances? A few minutes wasted is better than several hundred dollars worth of equipment or cleaning fees.

Ah, hell, we didn’t wait long enough. Or we didn’t expect the humidity to be high enough, or we simply forgot. Now the lens is all fogged up. Now what?

We still have to wait. It’s not going to remain clear, even if we wipe it away, until the temperatures have come closer to matching. Wiping isn’t recommended, for two reasons. First, this always takes the chance of scratching the lens with something coarse that we didn’t realize was present, and even if we use a blower of some kind to try and get rid of this, the moisture may be sufficient to keep it in place on the glass. Second, any cloths soft enough to use on lenses, like microfibers, aren’t terribly absorbent, and may push around as much moisture as they absorb.

Worse, they can also collect the moisture into droplets, and if there was anything other than pure water in the air, this takes the chance that residue gets left behind in spots, rather than carrying away as the lens dries naturally. Then we still have to clean the lens.

No, lens pens and the like do not work. They don’t absorb enough, so we’re only pushing the moisture around. Concentrated droplets take longer to evaporate than a light fog, so this may actually lengthen our wait times.

Blot, don’t wipe. If we have to try and clear things quickly, a very clean cotton cloth works better, because they absorb more. Just hold them against the glass and let them absorb, without wiping – it’s safest that way.

Fans again. Moving air is best for temperature exchange and evaporation – this is also best if our equipment got a little too damp from an unexpected rainstorm, or our bags got wet. Put them in the airflow and let them sit for a bit. The wetter, the longer.

Do not leave equipment in even damp bags – this is notorious for driving humidity deep into camera equipment. Take everything out and dry the bags thoroughly, at least overnight – the longer the better.

Can we save ourselves the hassle, and prepare ahead of time? Possibly, but probably not significantly. Leaving the loaded bags outside in a sheltered area, like on the screened porch or at least under an overhang and out of direct sunlight, for about an hour should bring the equipment up to the ambient temperatures. Leaving the A/C off in the car and having the windows open while we’re on the way can work. Not having the indoors A/C set as cold. But most times, we just have to be patient. And believe me, there have been plenty of times that I was rushing out to try and get some particular shot, to get nothing while I sat there fanning the lens madly to clear the condensation.

So, know the hazards, and what not to do at least. Good luck!

Yeah, okay, well…

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Bombarded by countless* messages pointing out my error, I realized that I didn’t do that little chant while I was preparing the month-end post, and somehow scheduled it for yesterday instead of today. In my defense**, it’s been a busy week and especially weekend, with too many simultaneous things vying for attention, and so I missed this and looked like*** an idiot.

So, another abstract for the real end of the month, and in like vein, another older scan – I could roughly date the slide this came from but I’m not going to. It probably falls within this century, anyway.

backlit oak leaves in process of changing color for autumn
I used this for the background of a few different things, quite some time ago, and in fact it shows up in the Leaves Set gallery, albeit reversed from this. But I still like the contrasting colors and the bokeh.

Plus, it allows me to sneak in one more post and another image upload for the month, so there’s that.

Herewith, June.

* ‘zero’ is indeed countless

** “In my crass attempt to deny my ineptitude,”

*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjzzI2fX5aM

May I leave you with this?

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I guess I’m not too tired of May puns…

Anyway, it’s the last day of the month, and so time for the end-of-the-month abstracts, We cheat and go into archival images for this, actually waaayy back, into negative scans from the last century. Well, the scans might not necessarily be, but the negatives certainly were. I came across these both when I was trying to find some other original scans, decided they needed to be in the lineup, and now is a good time for them.

underwater shot of pool surface with foot reflection
So this was in 1993, unless it was 1992 or 1994. No editing, here, just an underwater shot with one of those disposable waterproof cameras while our group of friends were horsing around at the pool – this is shot facing the surface, the rippling water distorting the view above, while the stray reflection of my foot makes an appearance. Actually, thinking on this, I’m not 100% sure this is my foot. No, there weren’t stray feet floating around in the pool, but I’m vaguely suspicious this was actually taken by The Manatee instead, and thus is his foot. I’m looking at my foot right now, and it’s not this grey, but I don’t think this was good film either. A mystery for the ages, unless The Manatee comes in and sues me for unauthorized use of his photo. If you’re seeing nothing above, we have our answer.

I definitely took the next one though, and it’s much older than that.

dock on Skaneateles Lake in heavy fog with barest hint of tour boat out there
This was as I was coming into work in Skaneateles, New York, during a heavy fog, and just happened to have the old Wittnauer with me – this is almost certainly 1988. The negative is long gone, or at least I believe it is – several choice (for a given definition) negatives that I’d had prints made of disappeared, and I’m thinking I misplaced the protective sleeves someplace that they later got discarded. Still hoping they appear tucked into a binder or book someplace, but it’s been too many years now. Anyway, if you look hard into the mist, you’ll see a dark shape in there, which is actually a tour boat at the end of the dock. The further detail not visible at this resolution is the lettering of the signs, saying “No Trespassing – City of Syracuse,” which I guess was the governing body for the historical stone dock sitting right behind the wooden one. The same stone dock that was used for excursions by the City of Syracuse, an historic steamship that used to ply this lake and whose wreckage sits under water just off the end of this dock – I’d actually snorkeled down to the remaining timbers one time, but it was after this image was taken. Get it, though? The entire pic is a reference to the ghost of the ship. Fartsy on so many levels…

Estate Find 53a

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Estate Find 53 was back in January, and this is simply a continuation of the story.

I had to go away for a while, ended up returning at roughly 1 AM this morning – spooked a handful of deer near the end of the driveway, but otherwise all seemed quiet. I got the first load of schtuff out of the car, had a quick bathroom break, and headed back out to get another load, flipping on the porch and walkway lights as I did so. Immediately outside of the front door, I heard a scuffle/thump right out of sight behind a camellia bush (so, not two meters away,) and took out my pocket flashlight to look around, suspecting a raccoon or something. Found a dark shape in the yard that I couldn’t place for a moment, and pieced together that it was one of the bird feeders when the eyes reflected back to me. Went right back in, grabbed the camera and the Vivitar 285 flash, adjusted settings quickly, and slowly went back out again. Focus was by the pocket flashlight held in my teeth, and couldn’t continue when my quarry looked away from me and I could no longer use the eye reflections, but I got a proof shot at least.

American black bear Ursus americanus scavenging birdseed out of downed bird feeder in yard
That, naturally, is an American black bear (Ursus americanus.) So, here’s the thing. After two raids and finding bear scat in the yard, we began taking the feeders in at night and set up a motion-detecting camera right by the feeders. And that was it; never saw any further signs, except for another pile of shit way down in the backyard that might have been there any length of time. No camera alerts, no signs of other foraging, nothing zip nada zilch. We figured our neighborhood bear had moved on to other, more promising yards. About two weeks ago, the camera came detached and we simply took it back inside.

But we left the bird feeders out overnight while we were away, for two nights, and this is what we get. A quick look at the aftermath:

multiple bent-over crooks and a damaged bird feeder from bear marauding
We have here the main bird feeding station, all crooks bent over a bit, one feeder emptied while somehow not removing it from the cook, another feeder opened on the ground (green thing to lower right.) As I watched from inside this very window, the bear returned and rooted around in this area, ensuring that it had emptied both feeders but hoping for more (I guess since I was home now.) But this meant the bear and I were separated by less than two meters, albeit with a wall and window in between.

The other one was more impressive.

bent over crook with formerly attached bird feeder in background
That’s the other crook that held a feeder, in fact the one seen in the first pic, visible as an out-of-focus splash of yellow in the background. Obviously the bear had been at this for a while, spooked momentarily by the arrival of the car, and again but less so by my re-emergence from the house. I measured it: we were 11 meters apart at that encounter, and I have to say, it was an experience to be standing there that close to a wild bear. Not terrifying, since I know black bears tend to be more timid and spooky than their brown cousins, but I was definitely still on high alert. The bear, meanwhile, appeared less concerned (even though I probably outweighed it by at least 30 kilos.) Size-wise, it was about the same as a large Newfoundland or Great Pyrenees, perhaps a meter high at the shoulder and somewhere in the rough neighborhood of 70 kilos? I mean, I didn’t try to pick it up…

Curiously, that crook remained embedded firmly enough in the ground that it got quite malformed by the bear’s administrations to remove the feeder:

significantly bear-bent ground anchor of crook for bird feeders
Getting this back into reasonable shape was a little tricky, mostly in finding a way to anchor it to reverse those bends. None of the bird feeders was irreparable, either, in fact only one was notably damaged, having its loop for hanging pulled out; another had a bent bird perch. Even the suet cage was somehow intact, emptied despite being clipped closed. Either the bear had an extremely adept tongue, or it had inadvertently snapped the cage closed again after cleaning it out.

The bird feeders are all restored and refilled now, but yes, they will be coming in at nights, and the camera will be back in place shortly. At least the bear was complacent enough to allow me to obtain direct proof. The property keeps on providing subjects…

Psscchhfff, “topic”

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Who needs one, am I right? No need to get all hoity-toity with this – it’s a blog.

Which means I’m cleaning out a handful of images that have been piling up in the blog folder, unable to be attached to any theme.

spring peeper Pseudacris crucifer ready to leap from bamboo
Out one night and tracking a nearby ratcheting sound, I happened across this guy and got some nice poses, largely to try and invoke an identification since I’d never heard any of the chorus frogs make sounds like that before. There was a good reason for this: I was hearing the katydid not too far away, and not this one, which is only a spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer.) But the pose is nice, waiting for the security guards to pass before it slips in and steals the Blementibloop Emerald from under their noses.

At this time of year, working late in Deep 13 (my basement office, AKA Walkabout Studios,) I often hear small thumps from the windows, which is always (so far anyway) some variation of this guy:

southern toad Anaxyrus terrestris standing on hind legs at window to Walkabout Studios/Deep 13
Attracted by the insects that are attracted by the light, several different species of amphibians, in this case a southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris,) will thump against the glass in their pursuits, or just take the opportunity to turn the tables and spy on me. Naturally, I couldn’t let one standing on its hind legs pass. But don’t be giving me any flack about that window; it’s an old house with appropriately-aged sashes, and these sit right smack at ground level under the roof peak end that doesn’t have gutters. They’ve been cleaned – it gets right back this way with the next rain. They’ll be replaced with modern vinyl units eventually. Just shut up.

In fact, here:

juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus peeking over paver with hind toe raised.
I caught this juvenile green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus) peeking over top of a paver, and it flipped me the toe, and so I pass this on to you.

Out at night with the headlamp, I often get reflections coming back to me because of the minimal separation between the light source and my eyes, which tells me where to look closer. The flash unit on the camera has a greater separation though, so I can rarely reproduce the effect – I would have liked to have for these at least.

wolf spider Lycosidae in leaf litter, sans reflections from light
What I saw was one bright reflection, with numerous tiny little sparkly reflections above it, making me think I’d found Tinkerbell. No, I knew right away what it was, and thus got closer to this wolf spider for a slightly better view.

closeup of adult female wolf spider Lycosidae with new brood on its abdomen
The bright reflection came from mama’s eyes, while all the little sparklies came from the eyes of the young on her back – I really do need to figure out how to capture this quickly, because it’s a cool effect. Provided, of course, you can deal with spiders. This one was about average for a wolf spider, legs spanning roughly the size of a quarter.

Then there was this (same night, actually):

eye reflections from a pair of North American raccoons Procyon lotor and the water beneath
I usually see some variation of this, but not quite like this one. Let’s go in closer:

closer view of eye reflections from pair of North American raccoons Procyon lotor and the water beneath
Far enough away that the flash reproduced the reflections faithfully, but just close enough to get some of the surrounding detail, we can see now that it’s a pair of North American raccoons (Procyon lotor) and the secondary reflections from the water’s surface. I had a better initial view, since I was seeing over top of that intervening branch, but the camera sits just a few centimeters lower, enough to block portions of the reflections. I realized this and was moving forward to correct it, but as typical from the species, the raccoons did not maintain eye contact but were quickly moving off. We have cats that visit the property from time to time, and it becomes fairly easy to tell them apart just from the reflections, or behavior thereof. Cats will continue to stare in your direction, trying to determine what’s happening, but raccoons don’t wait around; they’ll look into the light for just a few moments, they turn away and start to move off. Occasionally, you’ll get a new appearance some distance away as they check to see if you’re advancing, often from up a tree trunk a little ways, but again, never for more than a second or two.

Old one here:

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis peering out from behind stem of Japanese maple
This one dated from back in March, and I think I’d already had too many Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) posted then, so it sat here. Obviously not too early in the year, since the Japanese maples were leafing out well. Curiously, the anoles seemed to have abandoned the Japanese maples entirely, not running around on them by day, not sleeping on them by night. Not sure why. They’re still quite active on the deck, though. Quite active.

pair of adult Carolina anoles Anolis carolinensis mating on hammock on back deck
Language is fun. While the italics might have carried the emphasis and meaning pretty decently, it’s not hard to say that two-word sentence out loud, in a certain way, and immediately make someone think it’s dirty. Very similar to the way that line from Raiders of the Lost Ark was delivered: “Top. Men.” And now I’ve introduced an entirely different meaning in your head and it will never leave – unless it was already there before.

Anyway, I was out on the deck doing copy photos for prints I had neither the negatives nor the digital files for, and these two were cavorting openly. Or canoodling. Cabaling? I best leave it here…

Some flowers to clean our mental palate (unless you think like that about flowers.) Two from earlier spring in April, two recent.

two blossoms of hairy-stem spiderwort Tradescantia hirsuticaulis
We had/have a good crop of hairy-stem spiderwort (Tradescantia hirsuticaulis) in the back yard, the one that we don’t mow, and we’re kind of glad we don’t because critters have now been coming into the yard to partake of these – you’ll see more video clips eventually. I was just playing around with the depth and color here.

Meanwhile, the azaleas were also in bloom, so I did a quick composition in contrast:

juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus failing to blend in with pink azaleas
Even with the help of the white stripe, this treefrog wasn’t camouflaging against the blooms very well. It obviously wasn’t too hot of a day, or it would have been tucked in someplace darker and cooler.

Nearby, but just a few days ago now:

black knight butterfly bush Buddleja davidii flower spike showing atypical bud pattern
Funny, only a couple of days after this, the flowers were bursting forth in brilliant purple, but I don’t feel like going out there just to reshoot this. But butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) flowers grow in distinctive conical spikes on the end of their branches, all clustered together, except this year this particular plant has some of them throwing out separate clusters further down the stem – mostly on the center stalks, too. Not sure what this means, but I can’t think ‘disease,’ since this bush is the biggest and thickest since we got it years ago.

And finally,

closeup of blossoms of blue salvia or sage showing raindrops
Last year we got three different salvia plants, in three colors: blue, red, and purple. The red somehow didn’t make it through the winter, but the purple and blue are both growing enthusiastically, the purple just now throwing out buds. The blue has been blooming heartily though, and I took a moment after a rain to do a few shots of it, mostly for the record, but a tight crop n one portion with the raindrops worked well – getting fartsy again. The brighter leaves in the background set off the stamens well too.

Well, that’s thirteen pics out of the folders, so I’ve done my job and cleaned things up a tiny bit – there are still plenty more in there, some quite old and probably need to be deleted. Still made a post of it though.

Send nutes

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I’ve stalled on this video compilation for too long, especially since I have another waiting in the wings that now has far too many clips to add to it, but here it is, anyway: more of what goes on at the pond edge, mostly at night, but there are a couple day clips in there.

Now, I’m well aware that a video this length will cause a certain percentage of people to simply skip it, unable to maintain interest that long or choose to ‘spare’ so many minutes from their busy social media schedule to watch the whole thing – as you can tell, I’m not terribly in favor of such attitudes. I have toyed with the idea of making single clips with brief explanations, that I upload more frequently, but I remain undecided on this approach, for multiple reasons.

The first is, it will likely mean that I have a running backlog of clips, something hard to keep track of as I sit down to edit these (“Wait – I haven’t actually shown the behavior that I just referenced, have I?”) The second is, it’s easier to feature new activities or behavior immediately following the previous, for contrast and explanation and simply drama. The third is, as mentioned before, that nature photography/videography is about patience; some nights you’re waiting for something interesting to happen, tracking your subjects around as they display much the same behavior that you’re seen (and featured) many times before; some nights there’s very little activity; some nights there’s none. These clips have been edited down to the interesting bits – just not the ultra-sparse, 1.8 seconds of immediate action that gets featured elsewhere.

Then there’s the editing. For sure, I’m more likely to edit a shorter collection of clips, or a single one, faster and not stall on them as I do. It also makes the voiceover easier – at least, to a degree. Very often, what I have to show and what (I think) should be explained are two entirely different lengths. You’ll already find portions where I change what I’m saying as something happens, courtesy of putting together the clips and then playing them back in edited form to record the voiceover. There are several ways around this (perhaps more if I actually researched doing proper editing,) and I’m considering the merits of these.

Meanwhile, I’m also tossing around potential or active improvements to both video and audio, which will remain an ongoing thing I expect. Every change comes with its own challenges or issues, to the point that some are simply not worth making, but I have to find that out first ;-)

So, what will happen in the future? Not sure just yet. But you’ll definitely see it here (if you’re actually asking the question, care about the answer, or even exist – you know, that definition of “You.”)

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