Harvest moon

The moon is always beautiful and fascinating. Friday morning I opened the front door and the moon looked a little bigger than usual and it was full. 

So made Jr. wait for school and took a few pictures from our doorstep.

After a few mintues realized that using the extender would definitely give me a better shot. So put that on and took a few more pictures. It was a setting moon. 

Moon photos are always better if there is a backdrop that shows it in scale.. this one was just a handheld shot but it is beautiful in its own way..

Later that evening got to see a lot of posts from the previous night on the rising moon. Apparenlty it is called a "harvest moon". Had no idea. Have been living in a very busy and warped world recently. 

Just happy to be able to upload some pictures and be normal again!

Elephant Seal outlook - Point Reyes day trip

Last weekend, our plan was to go see the super bloom of flowers that is moving north over the California hillsides. This thing was so huge it was visible from space, per reports from the missus!

We went on a day trip with the cousins to do multiple things.. Have a trip with family after a long time, go see the elephant seals at Point Reyes and catch the flowers on the hillsides. We did all three..  

The view from the elephant seal lookout trail was amazing. You could see the seals nursing pups and the visibility was great. 

you can see the seals basking in the bottom of the picture.. thousands of them! 

Here is a slideshow of the views from the trail in HDR..

There was a fourth thing that was on the cards.. Take a picture of San in the fields of flowers.. Call it the DDLJ Kajol shot if you will.. I had to work with winds that could knock you over (my cap flew off in the wind and had to be retrieved!) and it was difficult to hold the camera steady. It was bright and sunny, but you want to understand the concept of wind chill, you should visit Point Reyes! 

The photos in a sea of flowers with the sea in the background were not a roaring success, but it got a "satisfactory" grade! 

A slide show of the seals and the seal colony.

And a few videos .. some timelapse of the waves at the lookout and others of the seals and their noises!

Strongly recommend this for a day trip in early May! 

Next time I should go with a nice jacket!

Bloody eclipse..

One minute I am on an international call. Next minute there is a lot of commotion outside the house...

Turns out a large gathering of people in our neighbors driveway decided to watch the eclipse. Given the vantage point was a few steps from our house, decided to capture it right there.

The moon's redness was almost gone by the time I got set up..

Then the clouds moved away and got a series of shots which ended just a few minutes ago..

do click image to see the larger version.. 

It was fun catching this on our neighbors driveway and chatting with folks at the same time!

The lens returns

Recently, my Canon extender just gave in and dropped the 70-200 lens to the ground. In my impulse to stop the lens from hitting the ground, I put my foot out to "catch" it. It was a painful mistake. First the foot took a few days to heal. The lens was not broken but just dented. 

Sent the lens and extender to Canon service to get fixed. The lens came back and it would mount on the camera body okay. The extender which was supposedly fixed, had the same problem. Canon made me send it back again to be checked out by a "senior technician".  The whole ordeal cost 500$ for a problem caused by a Canon part malfunction. Unfortunately, the warranty on the extender expires in 3 years and this was year 4. Even if it was valid, it would not cover the more expensive lens that goes on the extender.

Finally got a chance this evening to put the lens on the extender and see if the whole assembly worked like before.

Looks like it .. 

This little one went for the same flowers every ten minutes or so. 

Got it on the third cycle. 1/1600 th of a second, f5.6, ISO 3200 and still cannot catch the wings. 

Will try 1/4000 or 1/8000 tomorrow and see how it goes. Hopefully the bird will visit when it is brighter outside.

Warning to folks like me who buy 300 dollar extenders in an attempt to not spend on a 400mm zoom lens. Bad idea. The extender fails, your lens is toast! 

Just talk to the CFO at home, use my painful example and get yourself that 400mm lens!

Alaska animal sightings..

On our recent trip to Alaska we saw many animals on the Denali Bus tour, on our way to and from Denali, at the wildlife conservatory in Turnagain Arm.. 

You could watch animals cross the desolate roads.. closest we saw this was at Yellowstone. The area of the preserve has to be really huge for this to happen is our guess!

Here are some of the pictures .. 

That was Dall sheep on the steep cliff faces, elk, grizzlies, moose, musk oxen, an owl, Ptarmigan which happens to be the state bird in Alaska, wood bison which is endangered and caribou! 

We are definitely going to plan another Alaska visit for a longer time in a couple of years.. Apparenlty you need to have 20 photographs published to be able to apply for a permit to go inside the park to photograph wild life and it is a lottery system of sorts. Will get there in time!