More photos from around the house

Playing with the software, realized that there is an alignment feature to align each picture to a reference to capture the light variation without increasing the blur.

In spite of using a tripod and taking the individual images in self timer mode, the few seconds it takes to change the exposure setting and clicking the shutter somehow moves the center of the image by a few pixels and that is enough to change the quality of the picture.

Found this trying to image a cabbage rose in our front yard.

Went back and zoomed in on a single rose in the flower vase and it came out crystal clear with fantastic detail even inside the shadows within the petals.

Original plan to go to take a picture of the golden gate didn't come through. Will have to try that another day..

For now, I am like a kid in a candy store.. so many possibilities with the same camera...

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Woodland Park Zoo - Photoblog

There comes a time in every mans life when he starts straying.. and gives in to temptation. You have been faithful and loyal to what you thought was a "vision to behold", the "apple of your eye" etc. etc. only to find by chance that sometimes you might just have missed out on a lot of fun.

Okay. We are not talking about my woman here, though god knows that Seattle women who come to the Woodland park zoo on a summer weekday can make you doubt your own resolve. That zoo can as well market itself as a pickup bar! As usual we digress, especially after a whole post has been dedicated to this topic already..

Now that you have guessed the names of all those animals from their butt shots, here are their portraits. But before going further, we have to clarify. The Canon digital rebel with the simple 28-80 (non image stabilized) lens is not exactly zoo material, except for low light shots.

The BIL has recently acquired a Nikon D40 with the works (body, wide angle, telephoto, tripod, etc. etc.). He had the 55-200 lens on his Nikon and in an impulsive move, I grabbed his camera to take a shot, simply because my camera couldn't zoom that nicely. Lo and behold, what a shot!

The rest of the zoo trip, would borrow his lens at every opportunity.

Love my Canon. This is not a camera limitation. If the old Tamron 18-200 lens was there, it would have done the job. There are no imminent zoo trips, so the wait for the lens will continue.

All shots taken with D40 except the snakes which were taken with the Canon.

Finally, our wild ones..

At the end of this trip when we were driving back, one thought kept crossing my mind. Human beings, inspite of all their flaws are the most fascinating of creatures.

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Mendocino - Flowers and trees

A few photographs of the flowers, trees, random birdies and wild animals on the recent trip.

The flowers and trees..

The birds..

and finally the wild animals..

When we went to pay the day fees for the Russian Gulch state park (you pay 6 dollars per vehicle for an all day pass and can go into any state beach on the coast for that fee! you just put the pass on your dashboard and you are good to go..) the park employee gave us a map of the coastline. On one side of the map was an ad for the canon parks photo contest that is currently on..

The first sample photo on there was ?

A lighthouse photo by AP. It was great to see a blog buddy's photo there..

If you have not yet entered this contest, strongly encourage you to!

and good luck!

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Photo Sans Lens ?

That was an attempt at a pun, after San's request to try taking pictures with just the camera body!

I tried.. All I got was an overloaded CMOS sensor!

After some repeated pleading and researching, I found a lens for near 100 bucks which was

1. new
2. had some zoom as opposed to a 50mm
3. if possible a canon lens for the canon digital rebel xti
4. at least a f/3.5
5. an autofocus (EF lens)

and I got 4/5 on a New Canon EF 28-90mm f/4-5.6 III lens for <120 bucks from a local photo store!

Granted it is not a f/2.8 or a USM (ultra sonic) but the thing is great for the pictures I usually take!

Going to play with this lens over the long weekend..

and now for some pictures.

The first one is my princess photographed with the old S30 (the thing had to be taped at places to hold the battery, CF card etc. and the picture had to be cropped to get rid of the light spots, but still...)


and the second one is a photo taken today with the two of them posing for me

Some lens is better than no lens!

Just like that Cereal ad. which says "Kid tested, mother approved" why doesn't Canon come up with a nice lens that is "dad tested, mother approved"?

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Patience is a virtue

That is one virtue that I don't have and I know it!

Jr. on the other hand seems to have been gifted with infinite patience.

As the video clearly demonstrates, she just sat there for a full 8 mins, then continued to be there for another 5 before she got all upset that the battery charger was not turning green..

Finally I took the half charged battery and put it in the camera. She now takes pictures with the old S30. Her hands shake when she finally clicks the shuttter but the pictures still come out okay.

I seem to be going through a Jinx. The Tamron lens wont autofocus when the subject is close. The Zune player's screen cracked and it was not even dropped. It cracked because of temperature fluctuation is my guess. To top things off, there is a viral infection in my eye and all this happens on Sunday.

This is one of those weeks where I just want to go close myself in a small room and shout .. no.. scream!!

Would like to think on the brighter side of life though. The manual focus ring still works and my fingers are not bandaged, so I can take pictures. The Zune dudes aka Microsoft, said that this is a most common failure mode on the player and I should be able to get this screen in any local electronics store (although they won't pay for it) and my eyes are getting better or at least the pain is gone with the drops they gave me.

It may be a day or two before I come back to blog...

Until then..

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