Can confirm

On Monday, we had clear enough skies for me to go out and check on the condition of the sun, or more specifically, the sunspots thereon. I could not actually make any out in the viewfinder, nor on the monitor when I had unloaded the card.


I considered myself a victim of bad timing, since we’ve been having so much activity in this form for the past couple of years, and the reason read more

Tip Jar 8: Curves, part 1

I’ve been meaning to get to this for a while, and finally tackled it this past week. Herewith, a tutorial on using the ‘Curves’ function in many image editing programs to adjust brightness and contrast within an image, selectively as needed.

As noted therein, this won’t work very well if your monitor is poorly calibrated for brightness, contrast, and gamma, so it’s recommended read more

That’s something to ponder

The other day (well, eight days ago) when The Girlfriend and I were out doing various property tasks, she came across three nearly identical finds that remain a small mystery, one I may be attempting to solve as I find the means to do so. To wit:


Right in one of the paths through the less-traveled sections of the property, she came up with this, the carapace of, most likely, a common read more

Sorting finds n+15

Just two this time, even though the last sorting session was pretty hefty – I just featured most of what I liked at the time that I took them (well, in a reasonable time frame thereafter, anyway.) So we only have these:


One of several images taken of a roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) while at Sylvan read more

Tip Jar 7: ISO

Fairly basic one this week, since I have several that I’d like to tackle that will take more preparation than I have time available for right now. So we’ll talk about one of the staples, and that’s ISO, formerly (unofficially) known as film speed.

Short explanation: ISO refers to how sensitive the digital sensor (or indeed, the film) is to light read more

Hardly the time

I’m supposed to be working on the weekly post right now, but I heard a noise outside and, since it was nearly 11 PM, I thought I’d check – you only get one chance to be eaten by a bear, you know? Though despite my cavalier attitude in the preceding sentence, I was cautious and went out slowly, read more

Not dead? Then it’s working

Once again, we find ourselves (that’s the royal “we,” not [necessarily] including you) on Darwin Day, without anything prepared to show for it. I have long maintained that we should be celebrating the scientist on some other day than his birthday, since the dead of winter is a hard time to find topical content. The fictional readers that I insist are real shoot back that I’m read more

Estate Find 54a: Aha!

The day is quite warm today, as in, no jacket required, and The Girlfriend and I were checking out the property, mostly tallying the beaver activity, which will come along in a later post since it’s on video. But right near where the ibis had snagged the suspicious, eel-looking thing, I was remarking about read more

Tip Jar 6: Autofocus

Today we’re going to talk about something that nearly every modern camera has, some better than others, but also has its faults specifically, so you know when it might become undependable and when to shut it off.

Autofocus has come a long way since its first application, but it still remains easy to fool in certain circumstances. Let’s begin with a little understanding of it. The most read more

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