“Turkey day,” yeah, right

Al Denelsbeck

There is a large number of people and sources claiming today is Turkey Day, and so I got an early start and went out to the nearby pond to chase pics, hoping to expand my turkey images, which are fairly sparse. Alas, none of these sources seems to have the faintest clue, because there wasn’t a turkey to be seen anywhere, despite the wide variety of other avians lurking about. Never trust the media.

rufous-sided or eastern towhee Pipilo erythrophthalmus making brief appearanceSecond, at some point in the not-too-distant past I remarked about not being much of a bird photographer, so it seems only fitting that this year I’ve done a indisputable shitload of bird photos (notice that I never said they were good bird photos.) So yeah, never trust me either. Except for not missing any regularly-scheduled posts – that I can do.

But yesterday’s rains and fairly decent temperatures this partly-sunny morning meant that the bird activity was prodigious, and I heard at least twice as many species as I photographed; some of them were just being difficult. Among them, a staple this time of year, was this rufous-sided towhee, or it seems eastern towhee is now preferred, which is a shame because there’s, like, an eastern everything, but how many rufous-sided species do you know of? Regardless, the scientific name hasn’t changed, and that’s Pipilo erythrophthalmus. Yes, that’s pretty distinctive too, but it doesn’t roll off the tongue as well – in fact it gets tangled up in there and makes you inadvertently spit when saying it. “Towhee” actually comes from the sound the bird makes, the easiest way to know they’re around since they tend to forage in the brush and foliage, but who knows where “erythrophthalmus” comes from? If it made that sound people would probably stay locked indoors more.

Almost as secretive, today anyway, were the northern mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos,) which first prompted my awareness of them by noisily ripping up the pinoak trees for their acorns.

northern mockingbird Mimus polyglottos snagging acorns
Out near the ends of the branches, the leaves tended to be thick enough to obscure the birds unless I looked hard, and getting a nice photo of one was proving to be difficult. They were also being pretty territorial, chasing off the cardinals that were attempting to consume the same food, which was the only time either of them seemed to be vocalizing at all, curious because there were certainly enough other birds making a racket this morning.

After chasing off a cardinal, one of the mockingbirds paused long enough to give me a stalker’s view.

northern mockingbird Mimus polyglottos peeking from between leaves
It took a few attempts to get those olive eyes to appear between the leaves, and be sharp enough to keep, but then soon afterward the same bird flew down to a mailbox to pose nicely against the fallen leaves on the lawn.

northern mockingbird Mimus polyglottos in alert pose on mailbox
The semi-resident Canada geese (Branta canadensis) were of course on hand, and believe it or not, we have a decent sampling of fall colors right now – more on that in a following post. So I was endeavoring to do what I could to add some zing into the frame, by choosing my vantage point carefully and using the reflections. Nothing elaborate, but better than the original view that I had as I approached.

Canada geese Branta canadensis against reflections of fall colors
I have enough photos of Canada geese, but hey, nothing else was posing so cooperatively; I found out yesterday that there seems to be a species of grebe hanging out at the pond now, but so far it has remained out of decent photographic conditions. However, someone else down there provided, with some reluctance, enough poses to flesh out the post a bit more.

Canada geese Branta canadensis and great blue heron Ardea herodias facing off
I was lucky enough to spot this great blue heron (Ardea herodias, and the only “great blue” anything that I know of,) before I got too close and spooked in into flight, so with some slow and careful approaches, I could again make use of the tree colors in the water, for a bit anyway.

[Edit: I lied, as I discovered while adding the tags to this post. There is also a great blue skimmer, a species of dragonfly, and I must have been aware of this because it’s a tag that’s been used before.]

great blue heron Ardea herodias against reflections of fall colors
The heron was pretty cool until I crouched to change my angle, and it figured this looked too much like a predator getting ready to spring, is my guess. It flew off towards the other end of the pond, landing in the shallows further along my intended path. Fine; we’d just have to see if it remained put as I worked onward.

It was actually more cooperative than any heron at the pond so far this year.

great blue heron Ardea herodias perched in shallows
The colors here weren’t ideal, but still enough to make it clear what time of year it was, anyway.

Herons are funny. Lots of people walk their dogs around the pond, and there are more than a few spots where the dogs can have immediate access to the water, so the herons have every reason to be spooky, yet they tend to be more mellow than, for instance, central New York where the threats had to have been much less immediate. At the same time, I’ve seen the same species in areas of Florida where you could almost walk right up to them, so what, exactly, constitutes a threat to them remains to be seen. Today, at least, this one was less spooky than I often see around the pond, but not complacent either.

great blue heron Ardea herodias perched on submerged piling
I was able to circle around this one to view it from the opposite side, the bank that supports those trees in the previous photo, but then it flew off without any clear ‘threat’ from me.

By the way, I’d noticed on my previous visit that the rains had driven the pond level high enough to submerge the old dock pilings at this end, but the heron demonstrated just how shallow the tops were under the surface, since it’s way too far out into the water to be at typical wading depth. I couldn’t see them at all, but the bird knew where they were.

When it flew off, it headed back towards the end of the pond we’d both started from, and I could see from its altitude that it was likely heading for a tree perch, so I dismissed it and started watching for other subjects. In a few moments, however, the heron reappeared out over the water heading in the opposite direction again, passing me to take a perch in some pines on a small island. I had no decent view even though I could see roughly where it was from the landing behavior, so I moved on slowly.

I’ll take this opportunity to mention that, for several minutes as I worked my way along, I could hear a belted kingfisher sounding off repeatedly towards the far end, and was plotting it aurally. Kingfishers are a target species of mine, because I have yet to get any images of them that I’m pleased with; they’re both hyperactive and spooky, and most times I only become aware of their presence when I’ve scared them from their perch and sent them, chattering excitedly, well away from me. So as I ambled on, I kept listening, and steering in its direction. Also while watching for the heron.

As I began getting a clearer view in that general direction, I started searching for the great blue again. If you’ve never tried it, tracking birds in this manner goes like this: you may get a good idea of where the bird landed, but it’s obscured in some way by intervening foliage, so you change position to try and find a gap to see through. This can change perspective and angle, and very often introduces new foliage to block your view, but sometimes requires a significant difference in direction. You may have been pretty sure that the bird was along a particular line of sight, but as you move, you have to try and triangulate when you never knew for sure where along that line the bird was in the first place. The result is searching hard for something that you know is in a particular vicinity, but not exactly sure where, and not even sure if you can get a clear view from your new positions. And it doesn’t help that the bird may see you coming and decide to vacate its position, which you may or may not be able to witness as it occurs.

As I got to a nice gap in the trees closest to me, I was more under the heron’s landing spot, and a good sixty or more degrees off the original angle; I saw something, and I suspected it was the heron, but couldn’t be sure even with the 100-300 lens. The image at right is full-frame, and about what I could discern in the viewfinder. No telltale curve of the neck, no beak, no legs, so was it the heron, or a stump? Was I looking up under its tail? I really just fired off a few frames to do what I’m about to show you, which is to magnify and crop the image to make out details that were not visible at the time.

great blue heron Ardea herodias keeping a wary eye on the photographer
Yeah, I was right this time, but unaware that the heron was now keeping a sharp eye on me, tired of my slow-motion shenanigans – you can just see the beak extending straight up from the top of that ‘stump,’ and the eyes making their bare appearance past the intervening twigs.

About this time, the kingfisher broke from cover very close to me and flew around in a broad curve, and this was to be the pattern for the next few minutes. I at least had the advantage that it simply couldn’t shut its beak for twenty seconds at a time, something that I’ve never witnessed before. Usually they only make noise like that when they’ve been spooked from cover, but I’ve noticed it just when flying to new perches, so it seems to be a territorial thing too; why, today, it was being so freaking noisy I cannot say, but I’ll put it down to the large number of other birds sounding off on their own, none of them posing either a threat or feeding competition to this particular species, so, you got me.

By the way, while we’ve already seen mockingbirds in this post, kingfishers are the ones that by all rights should possess that name, in my experience, because their raucous chattering call, announcing that they are now eliminating any chance I had of getting a decent view, is just kind of rubbing it in.

But at one point, just when I thought it had left the immediate area and I had turned back to the heron, the kingfisher came straight in towards me and alighted on a branch not very far off, in full view yet directly backlit by the hazy sky. All I was going to get was a silhouette, but I’d take it, especially since its distinctive crest and large beak were highly visible. The trouble was, I was in plain sight too, and had to turn about 90 degrees and raise the camera, which the kingfisher simply didn’t take to, as slow as I tried to accomplish it, and soon flew off. While I figured it would be gone for good, it actually skipped around the area more times, never coming as close, but as I changed position I thought I might get lucky and snag a decent view.

It was not to be, however, just as it wasn’t to be with any of the woodpeckers that I knew were in the immediate vicinity just a tad earlier, as I was rounding on the heron down on the pilings, but never got more than a fleeting glimpse of. Like I said, lots of species around announcing their presence, but not posing in open sight. And no turkeys.

great blue heron Ardea herodias still not quite clear
I managed a slightly better perspective on the heron, but not as clear as I would have liked, and within seconds of this frame it took flight again, this time staying well out of my range, but I couldn’t complain (well, if you know me, you know I damn well can and will, but what I’m saying is I shouldn’t.) It wasn’t a bad session for some casual shooting, without even taking the longest lens with me – I’d mostly been after fall colors and the play of sunlight and residual raindrops – and another post will be coming from the same session very shortly. I know this is now posting late in the day on Thanksgiving, despite having started it much earlier – got involved in other things somehow – so I’ll close by saying that I hope everyone had a decent day, didn’t get too embarrassed by their families or anything, and weren’t/aren’t stupid enough to get into that whole shopping-frenzy, runaway-consumerism thing. Cheers!

Done my part

Al Denelsbeck

Cranberry cheesecake and sourdough bread
Yep, I’ve done my bit! Cranberry cheesecake and two loaves of onion sourdough bread for tomorrow. Now it’s up to The Girlfriend for the rest.

Okay, no, I’ve done the bits that are kinda exclusive to me, but I’ll still be helping out with the rest – I just won’t be needing the kitchen for my stuff. And The Girlfriend does sourdough too, but we each have our own favored recipes; hers is more of a sweeter, dessert bread, while mine is aimed for sandwiches and paninis. Meanwhile, the cranberry cheesecake recipe is simply one that I found online a few years ago, but it’s fantastic, and pretty easy to do. Check it out, only change everything that reads “lemon” in that recipe to “lime” instead. You’ll thank me for it.

And no, no turkey – we have roast duck instead, which beats the hell out of turkey, but we can only get away with that because we’re feeding five people total (2 ducks.) And when those carcasses have been stripped down, they will become soup, which is also fabulous (and also my recipe.)

Yes I’m gloating. I’m not a ‘foodie’ or anything, but I know what I like, and often how to make it even better. And unlike my photos, you have to take my word for it… ;-)

It’s more important as you get older

Al Denelsbeck

I feel bad about posting this a little later in the day – normally I’m on top of things like this, I guess it slipped my mind – but today begins a holiday week, which is Respect Your Elders Week. Yes, all week, until Monday December 2nd, we are required to be respectful, kind, and obedient to those who are older, wiser, and more patient than we are. Not that anyone should need to be told this, really, but this is a reminder for those who tend to lose sight of, you know, the big picture, or fail to properly appreciate the help that we’ve received over the years. At the very least, we should be canning the snark for a bit.

Oh, and while we’re here, be sure to wish Mr Bugg a happy birthday! He’s only a hair over half my age, now.

Take that, younger Al!

Al Denelsbeck

I was thinking that the crescent moon was going to be bigger than it actually was this morning, so I checked with Stellarium and my sunrise/moonrise app to see when it would appear, knowing that it would be early morning close to sunrise and the sky should be perfectly clear. “Perfectly” is naturally imperfect, by nature – while we may not see distinct and visible clouds, there remains atmospheric humidity and distortion, the more so the lower we see something in the sky because we’re looking at a flatter angle through the sphere of air that surrounds the planet, so a greater thickness of it. And yet, with the help of my compass app (just burning the hell out of the ol’ smutphone,) I located it, and snagged a few pics.

very thin crescent moon, 28 hours from new
Not a lot to see, and might perhaps have been sharper, but there was no way autofocus would have even found this in the frame, so I was focusing manually on a little sliver. Then again, atmospheric haze so low on the horizon (this was only up 10°) might have prevented anything sharper anyway. The smudges to the right, by the way, are the branches of a tree in the foreground.

So I checked after editing the photo, and found that I captured this just 28 hours ahead of new moon, when the sun would be completely behind it and thus not illuminating the side we can see at all. I was curious, remembering that I’d attempted this once before, and went looking: actually, the previous attempt was 70 hours ahead of new, so I handily trashed that personal record. Go older me!

For giggles, I may try again in a couple of hours, when the sun is fully up (it had not quite risen when I got this one,) and see what I can see. I’m not holding my breath, because glare is going to be a serious issue, but it might be interesting. If something turns up, you’ll be seeing it here of course.

No, I wasn’t talking about you, Buggato ;-)

Red and blue

Al Denelsbeck

You are surely not thinking in terms of some damn sports thing; how unbelievably lame that would be! No, naturally we’re talking about red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) with the first bit, a pair of which were wheeling overhead earlier this morning. We’d gone through a solid day and night of rain, but the front pushed through leaving the skies crystal clear while dropping the temperature a bit, and the birds were celebrating this in fashion. I was still having a little bit of focus lock issues (appearing worse because of tight crops here,) and I’m still piecing together the reasons, but this is what we have for now.

red-tailed hawk Buteo jamaicensis crusing overhead
For reasons unknown, what used to be the most-populated hawk in the area has been much lower in numbers in the past decade or so, at least by my observations (and we all know not to question those by now,) but seem to be on the increase, so I was happy to fire off a few shots in a brief session. And by “few,” I mean “79,” but they weren’t all hawks, plus I was doing sequences as the birds circled, hoping to catch the best fleeting light angles and behavior. Above, not the sharpest pic that I’ve ever taken, but I caught the hawk in mid call, at least. Below, however, represents one of the reasons that I will fire off a lot or frames, because such positions tend to last only a moment or so and are hard to make out in the viewfinder.

red-tailed hawk Buteo jamaicensis with head twisted around
Now, the question for the ages, since the hawk was disinclined to answer me: is it looking up, or down? When I first saw them, before the camera was in hand – yes I put it down every once in a great while – there were two riding the thermals almost directly above the house, but by the time I returned with the 150-600 lens, one of them (judging from the unchanging location of the calls, because I never spotted it again,) had found a perch in a tree about 50 meters or so off. So I’m betting on ‘down,’ but who can say for sure in this day and age?

By the way, I say “riding the thermals” because that’s mostly how red-tails fly; they’re heavy birds and so conserve energy by picking days with nice updrafts to stay aloft over a prime area without flapping much at all. The crossroads very close by and the bright sunlight were combined to create a nice localized thermal in the immediate vicinity, so I could watch this one for several minutes without it moving off at all.

The next one, however, I’m not complaining about at all.

red-tailed hawk Buteo jamaicensis seen edge-on
This is sized for the blog and for pleasant framing, and so doesn’t get the best treatment here, but the sharpness holds up to near-full resolution; it could be a tad sharper, but for a moving subject at 600mm, it’s pretty solid.

By the way, I just realized as I was typing this that the photos here represent both individuals, so I guess they traded off on perches or something. I’m inclined to say the first, at top, is the male, mostly because of the tail, but also because of the calling, which makes the other shots the female – notice the difference in belly speckling. That trait isn’t a gender thing, but variations found throughout the species; some have the barest hint of the “belly band,” while others barely have any clear patches.

Now, why the pair was behaving this way right now, I can’t say (at least until my attorney clears it.) It seemed like mating behavior, but this is entirely the wrong time of year for that. However, I may have to do a little research, partially because of the species appearing next.

pair or perching eastern bluebirds Sialia sialis, female and male
Now we’ve gotten to the “blue” part, so you can stop fretting. These eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis) – female on the left, male on the right – were among the very many birds active this morning, and a pair checked out the bluebird house within a few meters of my stance in the front yard; they may have been disappointed because I’m fairly certain that it’s presently occupied by a southern flying squirrel. While I’ve never had this confirmed by anyone with ornithological expertise, I’ve seen it often enough to believe it, but it seems bluebirds at least will check out potential nesting locales on their way south in the fall, to have a place in mind on their return in the spring. So were the red-tails doing the same? Or were they merely taking advantage of the conditions? Maybe we’re under surveillance by the avian cartel? Is something about to go down? If the blog suddenly goes quiet, check the news for something strange.

“Oh, hello there”

Al Denelsbeck

That’s exactly what I said when I spotted my photo subject, but let’s build the drama first. It’s project day, and I was doing various things out in the yard. Once finished, I had to hose out a wheelbarrow and my shovels, and took the frost guard off the spigot and reattached the hose, then cleaned off everything. Or so I thought [Dramatic music here for no reason at all.] Finding one more thing in need of cleaning, I bent down and grabbed the hose again, and saw some movement fairly close to my face.

Now, the temperature isn’t bad, being around 13°c – I’m working in a T-shirt, but expending a bit of effort and sniffling a little, and that’ll be the peak temperature for today while it’s been a lot colder at nights. So I figured we’d seen the last of my friend here for the season.

black rat snake Pantherophis obsoletus alert in coiled garden hose
That’s a black rat snake (Pantherophis obsoletus,) and not only the first I’ve seen on the property, it’s one of the very few snakes ever found here. I’m pleased, because they’re my favorite local species, both able to get to an impressive size and pretty mellow, despite the fact that my subject here wasn’t very happy with having been disturbed and is definitely in defensive mode. Big fat hairy deal, really – the bite of a black rat snake is harmless and pretty innocuous; I’ve had more damage done by thorn bushes.

Don’t think that I missed the similarity to the circumstances of the last one that I found, less than a month ago (but the weather hadn’t yet turned cold then.) And of all the places to spot one, this seemed odd by being exposed enough not to conserve body heat very well, and also not likely to produce any food, but far be it from me to question the lifestyle choices of serpents. My specimen here is likely a little less than a meter in length, by the way, and perhaps slightly thicker than my thumb at midbody.

Let’s do a longer shot so you can see how well it was hidden from sight.

coiled garden hose with black rat snake Pantherophis obsoletus nestled within
And bear in mind, I was firing off the flash to help illuminate the corner, which is semi-shaded.

I left the snake alone, mostly to rush inside to make a new post (still panting with excitement,) but also to encourage it to stay. I must add that The Girlfriend may not be as thrilled about this as I am.

Supplies are low, outlook bleak

Al Denelsbeck

berries of unidentified tree
The last couple of months this year have been pretty poor for macro photography, from what appeared to be a bad birthing season to begin with, through a long drought that ended as the weather turned much colder, so subjects have been few and far between, and it’s only going to get worse from here (until it gets better again, but that’ll probably be in the spring.) So we’ll have just a couple of photos for now, and wait to see what the winter brings.

Above, the berries of… we have no idea. It’s a small, very spare decorative tree by the front door that was here when we moved in, never does very well, and produces enough leaves to put Charlie Brown’s christmas tree to shame, but only just. You’re looking at literally half of the total berries it produced this fall. If you know what it is, tell us, not that it matters much – someday we will replace it with something viable. This was shot in bright daylight against the clear sky, but at my typical macro settings which would normally render things a bit dark in those conditions if it weren’t for the flash unit, thus the deep color of the sky.

In years past, the yard has been pretty well populated with barn spiders (Araneus cavaticus,) but this year was a lot leaner in that regard – not exactly a bad thing, because walking around in the yard at night is otherwise fraught with the danger of walking directly through their large webs, which are generally created at night and may be placed anywhere from chest height on up. I personally would have thought we were past this season, but was shown otherwise.

barn spider Araneus cavaticus weathering the fall temperatures
This is a mid-sized specimen, so about 12mm or so in body length, and thoughtfully occupying the branches of a small tree against the fenceline, so out of anyone’s path. What she was intending to capture at this point, I have no idea; spiders themselves can be pretty cold-hardy, but their common prey is usually much less so. This was shot within minutes of the previous, same settings on the camera, but aimed into a shadowed area so it appears more like night.

unidentified mushroom
The recent rains had provoked a small outbreak of mushrooms in the yard, and I selected one that was reasonably photogenic, which just goes to show you how little else there is to photograph, because I generally ignore them. I’m not even going to go through the effort of trying to determine the species; if you really need to know then go look it up. I’ve done my part bellying down on the damp ground to get this perspective, because you can well imagine that a normal view would show you a bland little dome.

Now, out of curiosity last night I took out the ultra-violet flashlight to see what might fluoresce. I tried it on the barn spider above (nothing of interest,) and a large centipede that I spotted on the wall (ditto,) and some small snail shells that I’d collected from the lake of my youth in NY (so unreactive in UV light as to be completely boring.) With all of these failures, I was just shining it idly around the yard on my return trip when I got a bright flash of yellow: some of the mushrooms that I’d found earlier. Most of the ones I saw at this time were in varying later stages of collapse, so not the most photogenic subjects for in situ shots, but I collected a couple of caps to do shots indoors instead. Here’s the view in normal light, for comparison.

unidentified mushrooms in visible light
Nothing surprising or remarkable, of course. But now here they are in UV light.

unidentified mushrooms in ultra-violet light
That’s a pretty distinctive response, especially since the visible beam of the light is deep violet, and it could be spotted from a moderate distance as well; photographs don’t quite do it justice. But it only came from the underside of the cap, those ribs or flutes or whatever mycologists call them. Does this do something for the mushroom, or is it only a by-product of their composition? I have no idea – UV fluorescence is still being studied and pondered over, since some elements possess it naturally, but then various species seem to have it for a reason. The underside of the cap is the portion of the fungus that would get the least UV light, so…?

And I did try to find the same pinkish mushroom from further up to shoot it from the same perspective, but could not locate it. Maybe it had been eaten in the interim, or I’d already trodden on it. But I tried.

Storytime 47

Al Denelsbeck

moody red wine abstract, maybe
I can’t remember the exact reason behind this image (which is a great way to start a story, doncha think?) but I know it was for a photo challenge. Was it Low Light? Alcoholism? Weak Construction? I dunno, something.

I do remember staging this carefully, though granted this was not an hours-long process – more like twenty minutes or so all told. I picked a bare spot at the end of the counter and set up my three items, adjusting the tripod carefully to bring it together. Take a moment to drink it all in (A ha ha ha ha ha ha! Did you get that?) before we proceed.

“Wait, three items?” you asked if you were on top of things, or “Oh, yes, of course three items,” if you were even more on top of things, because there’s a candle positioned behind the wine glass, the sole light source but also the item that’s giving the wine glass its particular look, and visibly reflected in the bottle. The candle flame itself didn’t quite work if it shone directly through the glass, so the camera was positioned to lose the flame in the distortion at the top of the wine level, while the candle body gives the glass a geometric highlight. The base of the candle can still be seen, but it’s so subtle that it easily escapes attention. The wine bottle was positioned carefully not only to offset the glass in the frame, but also to distance its shadow a little more – too close and it had this looming presence over the bottle.

If you were really sharp, you might have noticed that it’s a bottle of white wine, so not matched at all to the glass. And this last bit I don’t really expect anyone to have figured out, but it’s not wine in the glass anyway – I think it’s root beer, vigorously stirred to lose all carbonation and watered down to bring the color to the ‘appropriate’ hue. The focus on the glass rather than the bottle subtly communicates that the specific wine is unimportant. Overall of course, the idea was to produce a mellow vibe – more than a bit trite, and you know how I feel about alcohol, but also recognizable among the majority of people.

I don’t even need to point out that the top of the glass and the wine level indicate that the counter isn’t very level – everyone spotted that right off, I’m sure…

Now, a slightly more serious moment, and I do apologize and will be back to frivolous and trivial commentary soon. While the photo has a bare minimum of factors within it, there’s one that most often escapes attention yet still has a role in how the image looks, and that’s the highlight on the back wall. This one came simply from the flame peeking over the lip of the candle, but product photographers often shape and position these with extreme care, because that glow or halo can draw more attention in particular directions, as well as giving a better ‘feel’ to the key subject, whether that’s a more pleasing color tone or more distinctive shaping or what have you. In this case it almost indicates a warm glow above the glass, certainly directing our attention more there than to the wine bottle (which is far too indistinct for an advertisement, certainly.) But might it have been better if the glow centered more on the bowl of the glass? Can the color of the glow itself be more appealing? These kinds of things are carefully studied in advertising, and even though they may produce only a 0.01% increase in sales through subtle manipulation, that’s still an increase. Personally, I feel that most of this is overblown; people might like one photo better than another, but the number of people that are affected enough to be influenced in their buying decisions is, I suspect, a hell of a lot less than imagined. But some people actually make their money by convincing others that their input is valuable.

Only those who risk going too far…

Al Denelsbeck

… can know how far they can truly go. That’s the way the saying goes, anyway – I’ve always felt that encouraging people to exceed their limits wasn’t the wisest of proverbs, but at least it gives them something to put on a tombstone.

However, I am vaguely motivated to put up even more photos, to see if I’ll set a new record this year, because the only person I’ll compete with is myself. And while I could always toss up some images for the sake of it, I’m aiming for content that has at least a little interest, that has something to say in some manner. But what to do? Monochrome comes to mind, but I’ve tackled black & white numerous times before and even have a whole gallery devoted to it, so no. Maybe if I went in entirely the other direction? I do already have that image that I did an experiment on, sitting in the blog folder awaiting a time to tackle it, so maybe I’ll do an extended post on it? Yeah.

crescent moon at dusk
This is the deal. While sorting photos some time back, I noticed the barest hint of color coming from the sky in this dusk shot, taken while in SC earlier this year – the skies were too clear much of the time. But I was curious to see what happened if I boosted saturation in GIMP. This is something I rarely ever do; I have some in-camera settings to compensate for low contrast days, but for the most part, I tend to keep my images ‘as-shot,’ or occasionally tweaking the color more towards white light (rather than the blue-ish light found in deep shadows, for instance.) Bot sometimes the color just needs a boost, and this rarely exceeds a setting of “20” within the program. 20 what? you ask, and that’s a good question. Percentage, maybe? What’s being measured here? I don’t know, but the max is 100. So let’s slam the throttle against the stops.

crescent moon at dusk, super-saturated
Because the image was so muted in color in the first place, this doesn’t look too far out of line (especially when we’re bombarded with over-amped colors from much of our media.) It certainly accentuates the bare hint of sunset colors on the horizon there, but overall, it might only be a hair past what people would accept as ‘normal.’ We’ve started something here.

lily pads after rain
What’s funny is, I find nothing lacking in any of the images that I selected for this experiment – they were chosen for the limited palette, but the palette is natural, the product of the subject and in some cases (like here) the lighting and angle. But there’s no better way to make a photo seem bland than to compare it against an oversaturated version.

lily pads over-saturated
In most of these cases, I not only pushed the slider to 100, I did it again, going between 40 and 100 on a second pass depending on how much grain started to appear. This is noticeably harsh now, but still retaining the look of a photo – much farther and it becomes a painting in a head shop.

In some subjects, there are more colors than we would immediately detect.

ghost crab semi-buried
Sure, there’s some yellow on the legs, and a hint of blue in the carapace perhaps, but the sand itself is ‘grey.’ This is only a half-step away from monochrome by itself, and rendering it as such wouldn’t make anyone look twice. In fact, even treated it with the high-contrast method that I posted about earlier eliminates enough detail that it virtually becomes unrecognizable. Nope – we’re going t’other way.

ghost crab over-saturated
Definitely too far, but the colors are complementary at least, and it makes us realize that there are other colors in there. Let’s do it again! (This is getting so exciting!)

marsh rabbit being complacent
This marsh rabbit was in open shadow not long after sunrise, so the light is still a bit blue, but that’s okay right now. The effect wouldn’t have been as interesting if I’d corrected back to neutral white light, because the greens would have become stronger. We need them muted a little.

marsh rabbit over-saturated
Yeah, wow, we could certainly do without the glaring foliage, but the rabbit looks good with a bit of indigo accenting, doesn’t it? Something for breeders to aim for.

I had to recrop this next one.

semi-submerged alligator
The gator itself was fine, but the loose organic debris in the water was colorful enough in the original to become unmanageable when boosted, so I cropped most of it out.

semi-submerged alligator over-saturated
I rolled this one back to 140 or so, because the water was starting to get all pixelated. But I’m reminding myself that I have to live someplace where I can see these guys are a more regular basis. While I know an awful lot of people that consider living close to such reptiles to be horrifying, those people are all dweebs – gators are supremely cool. Look at those textures!

And a last, fun one, even though we just had this as a post subject.

gibbous moon by telescope
This was taken back 10 years ago with the telescope that I had then, since sold. I’ve picked up another now, a little smaller, but as yet haven’t tackled the photography end of it, because so far my collimation efforts haven’t been up to snuff and focus is not ideal. It’s on the project list, so be patient (i need to order a proper collimating eyepiece.) This image, I admit, has undergone a slight color tweak, because there was a hair too much yellow in the mix, though I can’t say if this was courtesy of the atmosphere, the telescope used, or my camera settings. Whatever – it worked better with a trivial shift.

gibbous moon over-saturated
I had read somewhere that astronomers have done this kind of oversaturation just to figure out what elements are present in the surface itself, because they’ll all produce a different spectrum, so the colors are enhanced to magnify the distinctions. Is the green dominance in the terminator region indicative of anything? It’s possible – our sun puts out more light in the green spectrum than in any other color, and as a different wavelength it may have the greatest effect in shadows where there’s no atmosphere, but then again, it might also be an artifact of the image itself – a camera thing that isn’t real. One of these days I’ll do some tests above the atmosphere and compare them.

It remains the slow season of course, so new photos will be more scarce, but I do have a small handful of recent macro images coming, that I may yet add to. But before that, we have our weekly storytime.

It’s all gone dark

Al Denelsbeck

The sky did indeed clear enough to do some detailed moon shots, but alas, I was a hair too late.

For those just joining us and not having read enough posts on this blog, get the fuck out no one wants your kind around here I have, for no reason that anyone should examine closely, had the goal of just catching sunrise on the central peak of Tycho, probably the best known crater on the moon. Due to the geological nature of meteor impacts, the crater has a mountain of debris right in the middle, meaning that as the sun rises across the lunar landscape, at some point it touches the tip of this mountain before any portion within, and this is just barely visible from Earth, with enough magnification. If your timing is right.

Sunrise takes place a lot slower on the moon than it does here, because the moon rotates much slower, so the opportunity is much broader than here, but still fairly specific – I honestly don’t know what the exact window is, only that I keep missing it. This morning, I was aiming for sunset instead, because it’s dusk there now. Missed that too. Or I caught it, depending on your view, but to be specific, the sun was no longer illuminating that peak.

First, however, the conditions. In the previous post I said they were shitty but improving, and they improved enough to be of use, but not perfect – there was still a bit of haze in the sky obscuring things a little, and throwing a glow around the moon in a widely variable manner.

not quite half moon in hazy conditions
I bracketed exposure fairly broadly (never trust the camera meter for such things) to try and bring out the haze while retaining a smidgen of moon detail, and this was probably the best I was gonna get – you can see some scribbling along the terminator there. But we can do better.

not-quite-half moon in detail
This is tightly cropped of course, but about half the camera’s resolution, and my guess a few days ago of when to come back was fairly solid – there’s a chance that, had I been able to see the moon when I first checked (about 1 AM,) I might have just caught it. Taken about 5 AM, this was certainly too late. Let’s check the replay, shall we?

full res crop of Tycho past sunset
This is a full-resolution crop now. The yellow line is pointing to Tycho, and as you can see, they ain’t no bright spots within the crater. Nertz.

The larger crater over to the right in the image, with a couple of smaller craters superimposed on the rim, is Clavius, while the small crater (with its own peak) sitting largely by itself in Mare Nubium is Bullialdus. There’s a chance I may go out a little later, after the sun is up here, and see if I can snag sunset on the peak in Bullialdus – it’ll be a little harder to make out since the air between us will be lit up by the sun, and scattering light more. Still, these were shot through a lot of humidity, so…

While we’re doing this, let’s see some detail over to the left.

tight crop of moon showing Copernicus
The more distinctive crater almost centered in the image is Copernicus, and this was noticeably the sharpest image that I got in the session, because some faint details of the rubble within Copernicus can be seen. Above it, more shadowed, is Eratosthenes, sitting at the end of the Lunar Apennines, a curving mountain range that shows up fairly well from Earth in the right conditions, even naked eye, and provides just a couple of specks here looming out of the shadows of the terminator. Most of that smooth open space is Mare Imbrium.

[By the way, these details are way the hell too small to make out in the viewfinder, so even with all attempts to render things as sharp as possible, manual or autofocus, really really precise focus is still a matter of chance, so refocus frequently. You can see that the sharpness is fading even around the curve of the moon, though some of this may be due to slightly thicker haze randomly distributed through the frame.]

One more thing to point out in this image. You can see two shallow craters ‘holding hands’ over to the right edge, little more than circles – those are Parry and Guericke. Continue the line that they create, to the left just slightly more than the distance between, and you’re within Frau Mauro, the landing site of Apollo 14 (and the proposed landing site of Apollo 13, before it blew a tire.) And no, no details of any landing sites can be made out from Earth, no matter what the telescope – they can barely be discerned from satellites orbiting the moon itself. BUT, go here, and use the zoom function. The dark spot towards the lower left marks the lander itself, and the squiggly lines are the tracks of the rover. For an idea of scale within my own image, though, the outer rims of Parry and Guericke are somewhere around 90 km (55 mi) apart.

A couple other notes, should you be attempting this yourself:

  • Turn off image stabilization, or whatever your manufacturer calls it. It was actually responsible for more than a few blurred images when it was activating for no reason, since the camera was on a tripod.

  • Have the tripod as low as you can get it. This reduces vibration. I was aiming pretty high in the sky for this, and would have had to have the center column raised a lot to use the viewfinder comfortably. Instead, I was sitting in the road (the trees in the immediate vicinity were blocking all views from the yard) behind my car.

  • Use a remote release. Don’t touch the camera. You’ll see why in a moment.

  • Mirror lock up is a great idea. This is exactly the kind of thing it’s used for.

  • Bracket exposure and focus widely. You’ll take a lot of shots, but a couple of keepers is all you need.

  • Don’t trust the LCD preview, for focus, exposure, or sharpness confirmation. It’s good for none of these, and in fact, good for almost nothing.

    • Here’s another look at a different exposure, which may bring out more shadow detail (no, still no sun on Tycho’s peak.)

    slightly overexposed not-quite-half moon
    This is a bit overexposed, especially since the moon material itself pretty much counts as 18% grey, perfect midtones. Notice how the lower edge gets really bright, which is because it’s getting more direct sunlight than the twilight areas front and center.

    And as a final aspect, I shot a few moments of video while out there, letting the camera pick its own exposure – it gets a bit darker, but the movement of the clouds/haze becomes much more apparent.

    The vibrations, start and end, come from my own hands pushing the Record button on the back of the camera, and this was despite my attempts to be as motionless as possible – why a remote release is highly recommended. But for giggles, just as the video starts, put your finger on the screen right at the bottom edge of the moon, and watch it move away from your finger – this is the actual movement of the moon in that time (or the rotation of the Earth, pick the frame of reference that suits your worldview.)

    Okay, so. While typing this out, The Girlfriend wanted to get some materials for a home project, so I had a mid-length interruption in there, and decided when we got back to shoot the moon again. Result: that shadow isolating the base of the peak in Bullialdus hasn’t noticeably advanced, even though Eratosthenes has about vanished. But check it for yourself:

    less-than-half moon in midmorning sky
    Again, Bullialdus is that smaller distinct crater, about two-thirds of the way down, all by itself.

    Now, don’t ask me about that grain, because I’m curious about it myself, and don’t think it should be there, but that’s a topic for another post perhaps. As for the orientation, well, that’s the way I shot it, but I was turned almost ninety degrees from the direction I was facing for the earlier shots. and the moon had tracked quite a bit more (for one, I no longer had to sit in the road.) So these are ‘as viewed,’ but at different points during the moon’s arc, so the moon is facing differently, yet still the same. Very zen. I think.

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