Tip Jar 2: Custom settings

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

info screen on back of Canon 70D with User Defined Mode 1 selected
One of the things that I tell my students when they’re first learning how to use a camera is, don’t let yourself get confused by all of the options. Camera manufacturers now try to accommodate as many different photography types and styles as possible, meaning that many of the options on modern camera bodies may never see use by any individual photographer; there are several different things on any of the bodies that I’ve owned that I never had the occasion to use. However, you should be familiar with everything showing in the image above, because they relate to most of the basic functions and a few things that can give you a handy edge. One aspect of these, highlighted in orange here (this is a typical display for Canon cameras, though others are similar) are custom settings, or user-defined settings.

At first, you may not have a particular use for these, or understand why you might want to have something like this handy and able to be activated within a couple of seconds, but as you define a routine subject matter, or style, or set of conditions, such things come in very handy and can save a lot of fiddling around when you should be just getting the shots. I’ll use mine as examples, but bear in mind that there are a lot of options and your own tastes will dictate how to optimize your own custom settings.

pair of images from Canon 70D menu showing User Defined Mode 1 and settingThere are three User Defined Modes here, allowing the user to save the parameters of Picture Style, Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation, and Color Tone to a given preset that can be made active in moments. Here, my Definition 1 shows Standard style, neutral Sharpness, but lowered Contrast and Saturation, and then neutral Color tone. And the reason for this is, I shoot primarily in natural light; sometimes brilliant sunlight with high contrast and the ability to overpower colors and bleach out highlights, and sometimes full overcast with its very low contrast and weaker color response. So I have a couple of presets to counteract these traits, which could otherwise exceed the limits of typical digital photographs. This setting is what is used in those bright sunlight conditions, reducing the contrast and saturation to help keep the color response and dynamic range (the range of brightness from full black to full white) within control. You’ll notice, however, that I’ve only adjusted by one ‘step’ on these, while three are available. In my experience, having the camera make more drastic adjustments can often result in images that begin to look unrealistic, yet you may find that your own uses benefit from higher settings. Something to remember: if the camera saved the image file with certain adjustments, you likely won’t be able to reverse these if they’re too strong. And at the same time, if the sunlit snow bleaches out to pure white, you’re not bringing detail back into the image. I have a decent grasp of digital editing and can make adjustments if needed, so I tend to prefer keeping the in-camera effects to a minimum, but again, season to your own taste.

Custom Control assignment menu on Canon 70D
There are myriad other settings that you can program into the camera for quick activation, often linked from something like the Mode Dial, as well as several presets (like Exposure Auto-Bracketing) that can be accessed easily. Most decent camera bodies also allow you to assign certain functions to some of the easy-to-access controls on the back or at your fingertips, as shown above. Two distinct settings from my own cameras here: The ‘AF-ON’ button, near my right thumb when holding the camera, actually turns the autofocus off, useful when tracking something like a distant bird to prevent the autofocus from grabbing the horizon when the bird crosses it; and the Multi-Controller (kind of like a joystick on the back of the camera, the star-thingy at lower right in the menu) selects which autofocus point is active, allowing it to be switched quickly for framing situations where I don’t want the bit right in the middle to be what the camera focuses upon. Again, these are for my shooting style; I don’t recommend them to anyone else unless they feel they can actually benefit from them. There is no ‘one size fits all’ in photography.

It can be worth it to sit down one quiet evening and pick through the Custom Functions menu (or whatever it might be called on your own camera body) and review the settings to see what’s available and what you think you can use – and this probably isn’t a bad idea to do once a year or so as your tastes and subject matters develop. The same can be said for the manual. Reading one cover-to-cover can be tedious and even confusing, but picking out certain functions to see what they actually do might suddenly make your work flow smoother, and/or give you ideas for something new to try. If you run into something that you don’t understand, a quick web search will usually enlighten you. However, it is important to remember what you actually changed on your camera – maybe even take notes. That way, when you suddenly find that your images aren’t appearing as they always used to, you know where to start looking first.

[Also, get in the habit of checking out all of the basic settings, like the illustration at top, routinely, as soon as you switch the camera on and even from time to time during a session. It is remarkably easy to change something and forget about it, only to have it affect a whole slew of images that you never intended it to. Ask me how I know…]

And one more thing, that’s been beneficial to me on countless occasions: learn how to operate your camera by feel alone. Know how many clicks you need to move that control dial to adjust your aperture where you need it, or the mode dial to go from aperture-priority to full manual. Know which one of those switches on the lens barrel turns off autofocus (this is always fun since lens manufacturers don’t feel obligated to uniformity.) The same goes for your tripod, flash unit, camera bag, and anything else that you use routinely. First off, you may not always have adequate light to actually see these, and in my case often enough, I may not want to shine a light around. But it certainly helps when you don’t have to take your eye away from the viewfinder to adjust the camera as needed within a second or so, and it even makes you look more professional in front of anyone.

So go personalize your camera to make it the tool that works best for you, and have fun with it!

One step behind

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I’ve been trying to get this video finished and uploaded for a couple of days now, and just tonight I had finished it off but, before I had even uploaded it, obtained even more clips that really should have been added. Instead, they’ll be along within a few days – otherwise I’ll never catch up. And yes, this is more backyard pond video.

This is to note that I added the mounting plate to the bottom of the custom rig that goes on the bottom of the cheapo video mount/stabilizer, the bit that I forgot when designing it – it was a simple addition, permitting the use of a monopod or tripod with the flashlight mount. And it works quite well.

I made a small mistake in the main design, in that the flashlight needs a little more vertical play for best aiming, but otherwise everything works great. It’s also easy enough to handle and doesn’t require a few minutes of preparation like using the off-camera monitor does. I still need work on my smooth handling and especially shifting my grip (even if it’s just remembering not to do it while the video is recording, or editing that bit out when I do.)

Audio, however, is still under refinement. I tweaked my normal settings for the voiceover track here, possibly nothing that you’d notice but I think this makes it smoother and easier to edit – Audacity has a ton of settings and I’m slowly learning what works best, but I’ve cut my editing time in half while also improving the quality, so that’s a win. Onsite audio is another matter, and I’m toying with a couple of ideas. The clips I got tonight (that you’re not seeing yet) made me realize that I might want the parabolic dish instead, despite the fact that this cuts the lower frequency tones a bit. I also want to try out a couple of ideas for cutting the background road noise; one is to find the frequencies where it’s strongest and simply cut that band out (potentially making the audio seem strange,) and the other is to record a background baseline on another recorder, separated from the video rig, and use that to subtract from the audio track on the video. In theory, this will wipe out all of the background traffic noise, but in practice? Plus there’s the whole idea of setting up a separate recorder, and most especially, synching it to the video clips which would be started and stopped at will. This might be a stupid idea.

Overall, however, I’m pretty psyched that I can walk out the back door and get stuff like this. As long as I don’t encounter any bears…

Estate Find 53

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

We’re not doing it weekly anymore, but the Estate Finds will still creep in here and there, and this one certainly merits attention; we’re doing away with the roman numeral horseshit though. This is what greeted me when I went out front today:

bird feeders pulled over and damaged
That’s part of our bird feeder system. Two feeders down, both damaged, one crook tilted crazily. Now, the soil tends to give way over time and rain and cause things like this to start leaning on their own, but typically not this far.

shattered bird feeder
This was the feeder on the crook, obviously having seen better days.

bird feeder pulled off supporting wire
This was the other one, with the supporting wire pulled completely out of the top. I might have chalked this up to the blue feeder and crook toppling over and hitting this one, except they couldn’t reach the level of this. Plus the shattered feeder wasn’t all that close to this one or its crook. And then we have the suet feeders.

suet feeder sitting opened five meters from other feeder damage
This one had been quite close to the house, right in front of The Girlfriend’s art room window, hanging from a crook that was also leaning way over, now better than five meters away from it. That’s not the work of squirrels, much less the wind (which wasn’t very strong recently anyway.) But worse was the second one.

suet feeder bent and with hinges ripped open
This was twice the distance away, and forced open enough to bend the sides and rip apart the hinges. It would take me some force to bend the side like that.

In other words, we likely had a bear visit last night, right in front of the house. Now, a few months back I spoke with someone who had to take his hummingbird feeders inside each evening because the black bears would raid them, right under his roof overhang, and he was only a few kilometers off. But at the same time, we’re in a residential development, even with the ponds right there, and surrounded by either fairly busy roads (you’ve heard the traffic in the background of the videos) or a deep creek that bears are unlikely to cross. So, not impossible, but there are plenty of reasons for them to avoid the area. and this is the first evidence that we’ve seen of them.

Well, not exactly. When we moved in, I noticed some damage to the end of a drainage pipe that overhung a retaining wall of the back of the house:

notable damage to end of drain pipe atop retaining wall
Typical heavy-duty plastic (HDPE, probably) pipe, and the retaining wall is half a meter high. The previous owners only had a lap dog that couldn’t even reach this, and even if it could, it probably couldn’t have produced holes this size:

notable teeth holes in end of drainage pipe
I’d asked the owner about this, and he didn’t even know it was there. At the time, I’d suspected it had been from a coyote or at least a large wandering dog, but now I’ve revised that suspicion (and firmed it up a bit.)

No, we don’t have any surveillance cameras of any kind outside, and yes, that’s going to change soon; I’d intended for at least one to monitor the pond and backyard anyway, though it would’ve been unable to capture this going on. I guess I’ll have to add at least one for the front too.

But you go outside at night all the time, you say, Are you going to break that habit now? And the answer is, no, but I might take more time paying attention to the faint sounds I hear (and I’ve heard the occasional inexplicable rustle from the edge of the bamboo forest.) Here, it’s only going to be an American black bear (Ursus americanus,) a species that tends to be pretty shy and not at all aggressive – unless there are cubs at hand. Plus, the one time I suspect I was close (relatively – within a hundred meters) to a black bear, the musk smell was noticeable, and I’ve never detected that here. Still, we’ll see what happens, right? And if the posts stop, check the news for eastern North Carolina…

The start is not strong

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Yeah, I know, it’s a really poor posting schedule for the beginning of the year, and I’d like to say that there’s a good reason, and I will because I’m good at indulging myself, but honestly, there isn’t. It’s been fairly cold with little to see here save for the same ol’ subjects that aren’t doing anything new, though I do have a few video clips to finish off – should have done it last night but ran out of steam.

Then this morning, there was a decent fog, lifting even as I got out to do something with it. So we’ll start with a couple of pics.

mist-lined spiderwebs on almond tree
While the fog left behind plenty of moisture, there wasn’t a lot to leave it on that was photogenic, so I settled on the almond tree and its spiderweb rigging, likely always there but invisible without these conditions. Key, naturally, was getting them against a dark background.

It showed a little better on the weathervane.

morning mist from fog decorating 3D-printed wood duck weathervane
It kind of looks like the air has been so still even the spiderwebs haven’t been disturbed, but that isn’t necessarily the case; none of the strands appear to stretch between the movable duck sail and the fixed compass cross. This is all 3D-printed, by the way, and I’d say it was my own design but it’s only my own modifications of someone else’s designs. Still, I should probably upload it…

But we do have one image of the fog itself, before it vanished entirely.

backyard pond feeding into The Bayou with fog lifting
We need a comparison shot for this, though. The pond has been distinctly higher for the past couple of months, to the point that the channel to The Bayou is no longer a channel, but a broader flood plain as seen here. We compare it to a shot from not quite a year ago after the snow:

backyard pond by channel to The Bayou, under decent coating of snow
This is sized and cropped to the same perspective; the channel that the ducks and geese use passes in front of those two trees close together on the left. Which brings us to the start of today’s saga, since while doing some brief video clips overlooking the pond, I noticed that a soda bottle was floating near the edge, getting in the frame. I’ve been seeing one or two cycling around the pond recently, due to the higher water level (more on this in a moment,) but since this was close enough to the edge I decided I was going to get it out of there. Donning the mud boots, I went out with a small net and snagged it, then went after two more, though one of those was just far enough out that I flooded the boots. While I was doing this, The Girlfriend took another net and snagged some other trash that she saw, bringing up a little surprise as she did so.

small fish netted from backyard pond, possibly smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu
Saying that this is the largest fish I’ve seen in the pond gives you an idea of the conditions; the pond is fed primarily by rain runoff and possibly a small spring, and the channel connection at the southern end was narrow and quite shallow. So what we have are minnows, and since the pond is shallow, I suspect any larger fish that might wend their way into the area get found by herons pretty quickly. Based on illustrations here, I’m going to tentatively say this is a young smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu,) especially because it lacks the black gill flap of the bluegill, but my confidence in this identification is fairly low. Nor do I really care – I have little interest in fish, and absolutely none at all in fishing.

Now that my boots were flooded, however, I decided to venture into The Puddle, the tiny little pond that sits in the middle of the backyard, because there’s an overgrown fountain and millstone in there that we’ve been meaning to clear off. The Puddle is bordered by an American tulip tree, a pin oak, and a few bald cypress, so the debris collects easily within, and even though the fountain and millstone were only a few meters away, they were mostly obscured. I got in enough to fish out the fountainhead, bringing it out for cleaning – we’re probably not going to restore the fountain since the water level fluctuates too much.

mossy frog fountainhead removed from The Puddle, in the background
That’s The Puddle in the background, so you can see it’s not exactly stockable or swimmable, and that little patch of teal right behind the frog’s back is the remains of the pump filter – underneath it sits the millstone (which is going to remain since it probably weighs a few hundred kilos.)

The day was quite warm – I was out only in a T-shirt – and having already gotten soaked and dirty, I figured it was time to tackle a couple of other tasks. The first was raising the wood duck box a little higher, which required the kayak and the ladder (see that link above if you haven’t already.) Both have to be lugged through the woods to the opposite side of the pond, and placing them is tricky, as is actually going out there to raise the box, so it had been waiting for a while until we got psyched out for it. And then, having finished with that, it was on to part two, which was cleaning out the creek a bit.

Here’s the scenario: While the pond forms the edge of nearly the entire backyard, Walkabout Estates actually encompasses a thin band of land on the far side of it, bordered by a creek; this was where we first saw the beavers. The creek runs under the road that you hear in the background of every outdoor video, and as such (and being in the southern United States,) it collects a shitload of trash from the various inconsiderate inbred fuckholes that toss their garbage out there since, you know, we’re not civilized enough to actually have trash collection here (that’s sarcasm – we do, every week.) The pond and the creek aren’t connected, per se, but there’s a small inlet crossover into a tiny channel that eventually ends up in The Bayou, though the flow through this is infinitesimal. However, with the water level up, there apparently is a little more back-and-forth happening, and a little bit of the trash from the creek makes it into The Bayou and then upwards into the pond. I’ve been looking at the trash in this creek ever since we moved here, vowing to one day get the kayak into it and collect as much as I could, and today became the day.

trash on creek that forms the boundary of Walkabout Estates
The sides of the creek are shrouded by undergrowth over a large percentage, and we weren’t prepared for the volume of trash that it held. I carried a small net and several trash bags in the kayak, tossing each onshore as I filled them, while The Girlfriend worked with a larger net from shore, fighting through the bamboo and old greenbrier vines. Between us, we filled six bags, but this was hardly a dent in the amount that the creek held. It was especially discouraging to get down a little ways, beyond what I’d ever been able to see from shore, and find what was waiting there:

disgusting collection of trash at natural dam on creek forming the boundary of Walkabout Estates
This is perhaps not quite as bad as it appears, since the creek has minimal draft and thus minimal flow, and the log forming this natural dam may have been collecting this for quite some time; I know I’ve seen the tire in there go up and down the creek by small increments over the past year. There is at least one other trash-collection session awaiting us, probably more, and then we’ll see how fast it accumulates again.

By this time, however, we were both exhausted, and in fact left the full trash bags stacked to be brought up another day. After pulling the kayak back out, I took the opportunity to register the evidence of beaver activity that had grown since I’d last been in that stretch (which has been longer than it should’ve, really):

extensive bark stripping by North American beavers Castor canadensis on unidentified tree
That’s quite a job, and shows just how high a beaver can reach when standing on their hind legs. We have another closer look:

extensive bark stripping by North American beavers Castor canadensis on unidentified tree, with author's sandals for scale
This is the first time I’ve been in the sandals since early November, I think – feels good. The tree will survive this damage easily, by the way – there are several others that show the same treatment, obviously years ago. These four images were all taken with the waterproof Ricoh WG-60, the only camera I’ll take out in the kayak, definitely very handy to have.

All of that pushed back several of the other tasks that I’d planned for myself today, especially since we both needed to clean up extensively once we returned, and we both felt inclined to nap after that. A couple of those tasks will be tackled once this posts, but for the rest, tomorrow’s another day. I just didn’t want you thinking, with the lack of posts, that I was getting lazy or something…

Tip Jar 1

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

So we come to a new weekly topic for 2026, as indicated by the title, and it’s where you’re obligated by even reading this to leave me a tip through that link in the sidebar. No, I keed, it’s actually where I leave you a tip, but it’s regarding things you can do with your photography. Cheap, I know.

A little backstory. Many, many moons ago when the continents were different than they are now, I received a book, largely out of the blue, called The Joy of Photography. I was going to say that I was probably about 10 or 12 years old, but it was first printed in 1979, so closer to 15 or 16 I think; I had expressed an interest in photography but, as yet, hadn’t any real means of pursuing it, and instead of a camera, my mother had purchased this book at a closeout sale someplace. This might be seen as a poor substitute for an actual camera, but it was perhaps more inspired than she even realized.

Published by Eastman Kodak, the book was (and is) overflowing with information, and a well-rounded collection at that: everything from examples of images from famous photographers, to illustrations of styles and techniques, to what actual effects things like filters and film types produced (this is well before digital, of course,) to putting together your own darkroom and getting good results from it.

image of two pages from The Joy of Photography showing darkroom print processing
I don’t think I ever would have considered making my own darkroom had it not been for this book, but within a few years I had obtained an inexpensive (ancient) enlarger with a selection of film processing accoutrements and had turned a spare closet into a darkroom, beginning processing my own B&W negatives and prints. The results were absolutely terrible – even with several other books serving as guides, there’s no substitute for actually working with someone experienced – but it was a start, and I’ve done darkrooms in four different locations that I’ve lived, and may do a fifth before the year is out.

image of pages from The Joy of Photography illustrating depth-of-field
The version that I have now is the third printing, still from way back in 1991, and many of the original photos have been changed – I know because I practically had that book memorized. The images above were in the original, however, and do a great job illustrating how aperture affects depth of field – they made it click in my head, perhaps the first memory I have of advancing my understanding and technique. There are hundreds of photos within, all quite clear and illustrative, and no small number of them were inspiration for later efforts of my own.

image of pages from The Joy of Photography illustrating size, space, and depth
In the first printing, cameras had exposure meters, motor drives, and just a few methods of electronic assistance, but could still largely be considered manual; by the third printing, they’d added parts about more automated, ‘point-and-shoot’ cameras, but the book is dated now with the advent of digital cameras. Still, most of what is covered within translates remarkably well to digital, as long as you understand how; bits about daylight versus tungsten film now translate to white balance instead, for instance. For anyone just starting out in photography, I wouldn’t recommend anything this old because it will introduce confusion unnecessarily, but I also haven’t come across anything since that has done such a thorough job of illustrating what can be done with photography, on such a broad scale and yet surprisingly specific as well.

covers of four photography books: The Joy of Photography, More Joy of Photography, Learning to Light, and The Complete Guide to Close-up and Macro Photography
I will be using this book, and probably a few others in my library, to prompt or even illustrate ideas for tips or techniques in the forthcoming weeks, but this week, we have a cop-out and yet an important one: read. Look for books that cover your preferred topics, or introduce you to new ones. Take a look at how others have approached their subjects, and I mean, really sit down and tear into them, seeing how the entire frame works and what impresses you the most, even to the point of recognizing that this shade of blue is what brings it all together. Periodically, just thumb through what you have on hand, or do a web search, or decide to finally attempt some technique you’ve only heard about. There’s little downside (if any) to expanding your mind and skills and repertoire, so dig into it. I’ll be back next week to see what you’ve learned. Okay, I would, if I could provoke a response from people, but instead I’ll be back with something specific to introduce you to. Should be fun!

Shocked, but pleased

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

It took me a couple of days to get to it, but I managed to sit down and design the flashlight mount for the cheap little camcorder mount/stabilizer, and then get it printed on the trusty 3D printer. I designed it in six parts, mostly so the height/angle of the flashlight beam could be adjusted to match the center of the camcorder’s field of view.

Rendition in Blender of original design for flashlight mount underneath camcorder stabilizer
The shocking part? Everything fit perfectly, with no modifications needed at all. The parts all fit together tightly when cleaned up from the standard printing schmutz (mostly from the supports necessary for ‘suspended’ pieces,) the flashlight snapped neatly and firmly into the two mounts that were perfectly spaced, the entire rig slides tightly onto the camcorder stabilizer, and the beam adjustment works exactly as intended. This is unprecedented for me – usually I have to tweak and reprint something.

Custom 3D-printed flashlight mount for camcorder stabilizer attached to stabilizer and camcorder
Well, okay, one caveat: I forgot to add a mounting socket on the bottom to allow using it with a monopod or tripod. This is a simple piece to add onto the rig, the weak point being that it won’t have mounting pegs because the sides are already printed. It will be glued into place, but I’ll probably also add a few screws in from the sides since this will have to be sturdy.

Custom 3D-printed flashlight mount for camcorder stabilizer
Now, the camcorder mount/stabilizer is a pretty common model and so the rig that I designed should be able to be used by others, and I will probably upload it – but the flashlight isn’t, and the mounts are very specific to its design, so perhaps not a lot of people would be able to use it anyway. Unless they’re semi-adept in Blender or some other 3D design program and can do the necessary modification for their own flashlight (mine is a Duracell 700 Lumen 3 C-cell zoom LED that appears to be discontinued.) And of course, how many people need the powerful zoom flashlight to be able to video critters at night?

custom 3D-printed flashlight mount for camcorder stabilizer, on its side to show beam adjusting screw on underside
This is the rig on its side so we can see the screw for adjusting the height of the beam – I snagged this nut and bolt off of Thingiverse rather than attempt to design my own, since I know I can’t. The rear flashlight mount isn’t even attached to it – the mount just slides up and down easily and sets atop the screw.

The big question, naturally, is: Does it actually work? Well,

Again, this is without a monopod or tripod, held slightly above waist high and usually just leaned against my belly. The monopod mounting socket is already printed but not yet glued to it.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned before, there is another video option, but that’ll be along a bit later on, after we greet the new year. Patience…

Remember, remember, the end of December

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Or something like that. It’s time for the end of the month abstract, is what we’re sayin’. Unfortunately, it looks like this:

mist droplets in webbing in front of unidentified spider
See, there were only about two things that I shot this month that looked even vaguely abstracty, and we’ve already seen those. I toyed with several different subjects, none of which even faintly worth the time, before finally getting these shots, which work, but I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a token effort.

mist drops in web in front of unidentified spider
Now, later on today, I might be able to rustle up something better, and I have a handful of images (and possibly a video) planned for another topic anyway, so this isn’t the last chance. But I have a deadline for these – self-imposed and completely meaningless as it may be, I still consider it a good habit. Granted, displaying images that I don’t have to make excuses for would probably be a better habit, so perhaps I have a resolution for the new year.

Still, I’m hoping that it didn’t escape your attention that the dark shape in the background is the creator of the webbing that these mist drops cling to, and that it even shows up lensed reasonably clearly in some of the drops of the first image…

At least I’m good at it

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

semipalmated plover Charadrius semipalmatus crossing tidal flat in silhouette
Why is it the holidays all come bunching up together? Isn’t someone smart enough to pick parts of the month or year lacking holidays, and fill in the gaps?

But I’m as much a slave to it as any other nature & wildlife, critical-thinking, 80s music blogger, and so we take the time to recognize that it’s Question The Value Of One’s Own Judgment Day, not to be confused with Question The Value of Judgment Day Day, which is an enormously brief holiday since there is absolutely none at all – it’s unfortunate that far too few people ever celebrate that one, or indeed, question a lot of things that they really should. We have plenty of posts on those topics, however.

Meanwhile, I have chosen to celebrate this one by trying to determine which three images of mine are going to be entered in a local contest next month, which fits the bill marvelously. I mean, I know what I like, but how far afield are my own tastes? Am I properly considering the fartistic aspects of those in the lineup? Are the judges leaning more towards ‘classical’ compositional traits, or more viscerally ‘pleasing,’ or what, really? Actually, I recall that it’s a ‘People’s Choice’ situation so I can probably forget about trying to hew to particularly recognized art styles, but then I can stew over what sorts of people will be doing the voting instead. Classic art prints (boats on the water at sunset)? Bold color accents? Cute animals (I’m kind of limited on those, unless we can count lizards as cute)? Abstracts? Slug sex? All right, I’m comfortable with ruling out that last one…

And then, the prints will also be for sale during the exhibition, so there’s the matter of pricing. This is ever-so-slightly a tourist town, but it’s off-season, so chances are we’re only talking local buyers.

Does everyone who exhibits their work go through these kinds of questions? I imagine it’s fairly common, but I’d like to meet the ones who have their answers pretty quickly and confidently. Meanwhile, just writing this is telling me I’m likely overthinking it; just pick a few representative pieces and be done with it – there will be other opportunities, and maybe this one will provide some guidance. I plan to be at the reception, so I can perhaps gain a little feedback there.

Shit – now I gotta figure out what to wear…

Ticking away

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I’m sitting here reflecting on perspectives, somehow believing that something profound will be produced by it and yet not really finding anything that isn’t trite, and the reason for this is, this marks the end of the seventeenth year of the old blogoblob. Reaching the age of seventeen, personally I mean, seemed interminable, and now I’ve been posting for that period of time. Weird.

I looked for some trivia related to seventeen, and only pulled up some South Korean boy band, and the US magazine of course (never actually read by seventeen-year-old girls, but always much younger than that – by seventeen they’d switched to Cosmopolitan in the belief that it was more worldly.) Neither of those was something I wanted to even attempt working with, so I let it go.

What I can say is that this marks the 3,233rd post, with at least nine of those being interesting. I could have put a list of some notable (to me, anyway) ones up here, but that would take a lot more time and it’s been taken up with far too many other things lately, but perhaps I’ll slip it in for the year-end retrospective or something. This year also set a record for images uploaded, and for a short while I was mentally fretting over too many of them not being my own, but that is no longer a concern; the previous record was 1,037 in 2020, while with this post we have 1,116, and a few more will sneak in before the end of the year.

This has also been the year of video, with 34 being uploaded specifically related to wildlife photography and/or this blog, plus a few others here and there; thirteen of those were Estate Finds as well. Most pleasing was capturing the wood duck broods (multiple times,) the epic snake battle, a yellow-bellied slider in the act of laying eggs, the hyperactive juvenile nutria, and of course, the saga of the mallard ducklings we raised. Refinements in the equipment, techniques, and editing are still being made.

[I have to note that, after knowing there were at least four distinct turtle nests in various places of the yard, not one of them seemed to produce any young – I was checking routinely. Two of them might have been raided by predators, based on faint evidence, and I’d found other examples of this, but two remained pristine. Just have to keep trying…]

So now we have a few photos that didn’t get into posts earlier.

dusky Canada goose Branta canadensis occidentalis barely visible behind thicket of yellow cow lilies Nuphar lutea shrouding the pond surface
The dusky Canada goose (Branta canadensis occidentalis) that was a regular visitor for a few weeks can be seen peeking out from behind the thick forest of yellow cow lilies (Nuphar lutea) that almost completely covered the pond surface in the height of the season. Not too long after this image, the beavers began harvesting those lilies and they nearly disappeared, then rallied and bounced back, then got harvested again. Somewhere in there, the dusky stopped visiting and never returned; while we have numerous geese now raiding the corn we throw down, none of them are the dusky subspecies.

numerous feeding pits of ant lion Myrmeleontidae larvae in sandy soil
These are the feeding pits of ant lions, which are the larvae of several species of lacewings (Myrmeleontidae) that are highly predatory at this age; I had a huge colony of these under the overhang alongside the outside door to walkabout Studios. The larvae sit at the bottom of these steep-sided pits that they construct themselves, waiting for insects (primarily ants, surprise surprise) to wander in and find that the sides are quite unstable and slippery, whereupon the ant starts to slide towards the waiting larva; their death slide is often assisted by sand flung by the larva. I had intended to do a detailed post and/or video, but never got around to it, and so this solitary image languished in the folder.

unidentified orbweaver Araneidae with wrapped captured firefly Lampyridae in web, still flashing
Here we have an unidentified orbweaver (Araneidae) with a captured firefly species (Lampyridae) that was still flashing regularly within its bonds; I was out without a tripod so I couldn’t do any longer exposures to capture this display. Even I look at this image and think the spider is facing away from the camera, but no, you can see the eyes when you look close. Soon after this, I read an article that described how some spiders would keep fireflies alive in the web because it attracted other fireflies to be captured, the arachnid equivalent of Uber Eats. I was thinking of doing a post on this, but never got any further pics or video and thus this one also sat there in the folders.

flower spike on recovering butterfly bush Buddleja davidii
When we moved here a year ago September, we brought three butterfly bushes (Buddleja davidii) from the old Walkabout Estates, one of which did okay, one thrived so fiercely we don’t walk too close in case it grabs us, and one struggled. So when that one finally produced its first flower cluster following the move, in July, I took note of it. It still didn’t get a firm foothold, but in late October it popped out a measly three blossoms while everything else was entering the autumn dormancy:

trio of singular blossoms on rallying butterfly bush Buddleja davidii
While I definitely like and want to feature some images, they go unused because I’ve been featuring too much of the same subjects and try to maintain a variety, so we have ones like this Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) fast asleep while clutching its teddy twig:

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping vertically on Japanese maple, clutching twig
To be honest, I could still be featuring the anoles routinely; not only are several living it up in the greenhouse, the weather got warm enough today that a few are scampering around the yard, while some turtles are basking on their own island.

And we close with another ‘avoided for the sake of variety’ images, a wood duck (Aix sponsa) portrait when the light and the pose was right, which is a challenge for such a wary, spooky species. One of these days I’ll find a way to be closer and not have to crop so tightly, but for now, this is what we have. And thus we enter in year eighteen with plenty more challenges to tackle and species to capture. Once again, thanks for coming by!

adult male wood duck Aix sponsa perched in tree on Duck Island in late afternoon golden light

Estate Find LII, oh so late

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Like, twelve hours later than my typical posting time – I am wracked with guilt. But to play on your sympathies, I haven’t been feeling well the past day or so, and so snuck in a couple of naps when I should have been working on this video. And of course, video editing takes so damn long in the first place, or at least, it does for me…

To add to that, nothing particularly new with this one, mostly experiments with a different video rig for night shooting, showing the refinements that still need to be made.

Further refinements will be along before too long; I said I had two methods to improve things, and the second has shown great promise already – but now we’re all out of Estate Finds, so I guess you won’t see that after all…

camcorder, video mic, and flashlight on inexpensive video stabilizer
A note about these cheap little video mount/stabilizers that you see here, basically a mount for the camera hanging from a handle: the point is that the weight of the camera acts as its own gravity stabilization, something that can also be done with a decent weight extending below the camera itself – you need something well below the fulcrum, which in this case is the handle that the other things are attached to. The problem that I created was that the flashlight weighs as much as the camcorder, almost entirely eradicating the weight below the fulcrum. I am in the process of changing the position of the flashlight – the mic is far too light to figure against this noticeably and can stay where it is.

camcorder on inexpensive mount/stabilizer with flashlight and video mic, marked to show key controls on camcorder
Another factor, though much less significant, is the location of the controls on the camcorder, the video start/stop button (marked in red) and the zoom control (blue.) The Canon HFS100, like many such little units, is made to be held in the right hand up near your face, with your hand through that strap on the body, so the thumb rests on the start/stop and the forefinger on the zoom control – but of course, dangling low from the left hand on that overhead handle puts those controls in a more awkward position. Not bad, if you’re not in the habit of using your right hand to steady the rig better, until you need to move said hand to operate the controls, which is what caused some of the fumbling seen in the video. With the flashlight moved to the bottom, this may no longer be necessary – we’ll see within a few days.

The absolute best improvement so far has been the Canon HFS100’s ability to maintain focus, meaning I don’t need to be doing it manually like I do with the Canon 7D DSLR, and this helps hugely. It’s not always perfect, especially when tracking, giving priority to its built-in stabilization instead, but it snaps in pretty quickly when the movement reduces enough. Also useful, the camcorder can be used with the external HDMI monitor that we’ve seen before – some of these clips used that, some didn’t. I’m also intending to try using a monopod, provided I can rig it so the tilting of the camera is not restricted, but that will be more modifications, since the handle mount/stabilizer has no attachment point. 3D printer to the rescue…

Now, there were several things that did not get captured on video, since we went down a few times at night to redistribute corn without the rig in hand – isn’t that always the way? I’m hoping to correct this very soon, possibly even tonight after this posts, but the rig won’t be updated yet.

And that wraps up this year’s weekly post topic, since it’ll be next year before Friday rolls around again and we’ll be on a new weekly topic. This is not to say that I won’t sneak in the occasional Estate Find anyway, because c’mon, but it won’t be weekly. And I’ll be back with more video refinements soon enough.

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