Uploads from Velocity of Sound, tagged f11, with geodata

Motivated by Hunger, Emboldened by Food

nobody@flickr.com (Velocity of Sound) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:18:06 -0800

While trudging through the snowed-over paths of the North Woods, I came across two patches where someone had dumped a hefty amount of bird seeds. I generally prefer to avoid shots of birds at feeders, as it seems a bit unnatural and feels almost like cheating. The prominence of seeds in this photo sort of ruins it, in my mind, but it made the titmouses (titmice?) cooperative...

Distance to subject, according to EXIF data (which may be inaccurate), was approximately 5.8 meters (19 feet). This was shot hand-held at 500mm (35mm equivalent field of view of 1000mm), and was uncropped except for the removal of a few pixels off of the top and bottom to change the aspect ratio.

This is a Tufted Titmouse, seen in the North Woods of Central Park, New York City.

Flower Stepping

nobody@flickr.com (Velocity of Sound) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:58:07 -0700

Velocity of Sound posted a photo:

A black insect on white flowers in bright light makes for a rather challenging shot. Frightening-looking insects like this also make insect macrophotography even harder for a setup with a very close working distance. Admittedly, I held the camera at an arm's length away and used Live View for this one. The flash riles some insects, and as such I didn't use it here.

Olympus E-520, Zuiko Digital 50mm f/2.0 Macro lens with Olympus EX-25 extension tube to allow for high magnification. Manually focused with the aid of Live View and a bit of courage. This photo has been cropped by about 50% to remove a lot of uninteresting blurred-out bits. A fair amount of post-processing was done to bring out the details on the black insect.

This is an unknown species of insect (wasp of some sort?) on a "Queen Anne's lace" flower, taken in the English section of the Conservatory Gardens in Central Park.

The Nutty One

nobody@flickr.com (Velocity of Sound) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:05:26 -0700

Velocity of Sound posted a photo:

Here's another white-breasted nuthatch, this one posted for Suzie!

This may look a bit plain and ordinary as far as bird poses go, but nuthatches are very rarely caught in a pose like this. They're usually clinging to the side of a tree, snaking their little neckless head upward, and pointing their overly long, sharp beaks in various directions as they peer around. This particular nuthatch was rapidly flying around this tree and other branches (perhaps playing), and only stopped to rest in this position for a few seconds before taking off and continuing with his flight antics. It's a nice pose.

For those wondering, the coloration on the bird's underside is normal - the bird has not "soiled" itself. The orange/brown usually appears a bit lighter - the darker coloration may be due to the lighting, or it may be unique to this nuthatch.

Post-processing note: I removed some foreground and background branches along the upper and bottom parts of the photo, as they contributed nothing to the photo. I used Aperture's "repair" tool (which is most commonly associated with removal of skin blemishes and acne in human photos), and it did a fantastic job. Some cloning around the bird had to be done manually, but everything else was automated. Seems pretty effective for replacing elements with bokeh.

Shot with an Olympus E-3 and a Sigma "Bigma" 50-500mm, used at 500mm (1000mm equivalent field of view in 35mm film terms). The lens was mounted to a Manfrotto 679b monopod by a Manfrotto 234rc head. This image has only been cropped to alter the aspect ratio (some bits were taken off of the top); no "digital zooming" was peformed otherwise. Distance to subject (according to EXIF, which may be inaccurate) was approximately 7.3 meters, or 24 feet.

This is a white-breasted nuthatch, as seen in the Ramble of Central Park, in New York City.