Green Anole, Cardinal, and Sophie

The male green anole was back on the fence today and I was happy to see him. I took a few more photos of him using the 55-250 lens and aperture priority mode. In this one he has his dewlap partially extended. Settings were f/9, 1/250, ISO 200.

In this photo you can see the bright green and light blue around his eye. Settings were f/9, 1/250, ISO 320.

The cardinal was in the back yard today too, singing up in a tree. I used spot metering in this photo and it did help. The settings were f/9, 1/320, ISO 500.

And then there was Sophie, very happy that I was home from work and out in the yard with her. Settings were f/9, 1/125, ISO 500.

I’ve ordered the book I think I’m ready for now, “Understanding Exposure” by Bryan Peterson, and also a monopod to help steady the camera. They should be here later this week.

This is the last day of February so I’ve completed two months of daily photography and posting pictures here! I have a lot more to learn but I’ve made a lot of progress in the past couple of months.

Green Anoles

I was really happy today to come across two green anoles on the fence. Anoles are small lizards that are usually abundant in our area in spring and summer, and I’ve enjoyed watching them, photographing them, and even writing about them over the past few years. This was also a perfect test of my 55-250mm lens for anole photography, and of my ability to adjust camera settings. It seems that the 55-250mm lens will work for taking pictures of anoles. I was able to stand back a few feet and zoom in to take pictures, which was less disturbing to the anole than working closer. As for the camera settings, well, I still have to keep working on that. I got my best results with some help from the camera–using Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, or Program mode. Most of my fully manual shots came out lighter than I wanted even though the meter was telling me they were correctly exposed. Camera shake was a bit of a problem too since I’m still hand-holding the camera, and I lost some pictures that way. But even with my Canon Powershot SX100 IS I had to deal with camera shake, so that’s not just because of my Rebel XSi.

Here’s the first green anole I saw, a male who flashed his dewlap at me a few times (a territorial display to warn me away) when he first saw me. In this picture he’s watching me suspiciously, and you can still see a little of the pink of his dewlap on his throat. Green anoles can change color from bright green to brown, and he’s more brown than green in these pictures. This was one of the few manual photos that I could use. The settings were f/18, 1/250, ISO 400.

Here’s the same little guy in a Program mode photo. The settings were f/5.6, 1/250, ISO 200.

A little later I saw the second green anole, a smaller one that was probably a female. She was molting–anoles shed their skin periodically–and seems to have already molted the skin on the front of her head, which looks brighter. You can see the old skin that’s about to come off on the back of her head and neck. The specks by her nostrils are either salt (anoles get rid of salt in this way) or possibly some skin left from molting. This photo was take in Aperture priority and the settings were f/9, 1/320, ISO 500.

Saturday with More Birds and Bumblebees

Today was another nice warm sunny day.  My best photos today were of the mockingbird, who was posed on a low branch singing away.  I was able to get fairly close and got several nice shots of him.  The settings were f/14, 1/250, ISO 400.

Another photo of the mockingbird, beak open in song.  Settings were f/14, 1/250, ISO 400.

The bumblebees are loving the redbud tree in my neighbor’s yard.  It’s amazing to me that I can take pictures of bumblebees in the yard next door.  Settings here are f/14, 1/500, ISO 400.

And here’s Sophie, faithfully by my side as usual.  Settings were f/8, 1/160, ISO 400.

From my backyard today I also saw the House Finches, the cardinal, a Yellow-Rumped Warbler, two Red-Tailed Hawks, and three Double-Crested Cormorants.  The hawks and the cormorants flew by overhead at different times, and I attempted quick photos with almost no time to adjust focus or settings.  So the pictures were blurry and exposure was wrong, but fortunately they were enough to confirm the birds’ identity on the WhatBird website forum–the people there really know their birds.  Here’s a Red-Tailed Hawk–settings were f/8, 1/1000, ISO 400.

I also took some photos of the finches and the warbler that I was dissatisfied with, even with a little time to adjust focus and settings.  However, I also fiddled with that dioptric adjustment again today and I may have to get that reset again.

Friday Afternoon

I’ll start off with Sophie today, instead of leaving her for the end.  This photo was over-exposed, but I liked it and saved it the best I could with some post-processing.  Settings were f/7.1, 1/60, ISO 400.

And then there was Lulu.  Settings were f/7.1, 1/80, ISO 400.

There were a lot of robins around today, and I took a photo of this one in a tree in a neighbor’s yard.  There’s a leaf blocking the robin’s eye, but I was mainly pleased at my improvement in focusing.  Settings were f/8, 1/400, ISO 400.

This is the pair of house finches, silhouetted against tree branches and the sky as the sun moved lower.  The female is taking flight, and the male is at the right.  I really like the light, shadow, and texture of the background more than the birds themselves.  Settings were f/11, 1/500, ISO 400.

Mockingbird, Cardinal, and Bumblebees

Today was a sunny day and photography went much more smoothly.  I used the 55-250mm lens hand-held, with manual exposure mode and automatic ISO.

I took several photos of a mockingbird, a very common bird in our area.   This mockingbird was perched on a branch where I could easily see it and take its picture.  This one was the sharpest of the mockingbird photos, and there’s a nice blue sky too.  The settings were f/9, 1/400, ISO 400.

Another mockingbird photo.  Settings were f/9, 1/400, ISO 400.

Here is the cardinal.  It’s a dark picture with the bright red cardinal catching the setting sunlight.  Settings were f/9, 1/1600, ISO 400.

Another view of the cardinal at sunset, unfortunately with a branch cutting off his beak.  But in spite of the missing beak, I was pleased with my manual focusing.  Settings were f/9, 1/800, ISO 400.

I took a few photos of the redbud next door even though the house finches weren’t around.  I used f/14 to get a better depth of field.  When I zoomed in on this photo afterward I saw that I’d captured two bumblebees along with the flowers.  Here’s a crop of the area with the bees.  Settings were f/14, 1/320, ISO 400.

One for Wednesday

I got home late on a dark gray afternoon, and ending up deleting all my outdoor photos–I didn’t like any of them.  I switched over to the 50mm f/1.8 lens and took a few indoor pictures this evening, but I didn’t like most of those either.  So I finally chose one of those indoor photos just to get one posted for today.  This is Emma, one of my two 8 inch jointed Mowgli dolls by Helen Kish.  Mowgli can be a girl as easily as a boy, so this one is a little girl.  My other Mowgli is Emma’s twin brother, Sam.  Settings were f/2.2, 1/13, ISO 400.

I hope tomorrow is better!

Not Much for Tuesday

I got home late and didn’t have much time for photography, and I didn’t really like most of the photos I took.  Part of my problem, I suspect, is that I had the metering on partial through most of the time I was taking pictures.  But anyway here’s Bonnie.  Settings were f/8, 1/40, ISO 400.

And here’s Sophie, who’s beginning to want her picture taken every day.  Settings were f/5.6, 1/1000, ISO 400.  I should have changed the f stop for more depth of field.

Here are the house finches in the redbud tree again.  The male is on the left, stretching his head up to pull flowers to eat.  The female on the right with her back to the camera is busy grooming her feathers.  Not a great photo but one of the better ones from this afternoon.  Settings were f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 400.

This evening I switched over to the 50mm f/1.8 lens and took an indoor photo of a rose and a pair of buds.  Settings were f/2.8, 1/80, ISO 400.

The Cardinal Again

Today, Presidents Day, was another warm sunny day and also a day off from work.  The cardinal was around again all day.  At one point he settled high up in a tree at the back of my yard, and I was able to take some photos of him.  Here he is in the tree.  Settings were f/5.6, 1/80, ISO 400.

Here he is again–settings f/5.6, 1/80, ISO 400.

And one more, settings f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 200.

Some robins appeared today and I took a picture of one in my next door neighbor’s oak tree.  There couldn’t be any more branches around him but I was still able to focus manually on the bird to get a pretty good photo.  Even the shadows on his red breast are fairly sharp.  I also like this picture because of the true blue sky color.  A lot of the time I lose the color in the sky, or have to choose between a blue sky or the colors of the other things in the picture in post-processing.  Settings were f/5.6, 1/1600, ISO 400.  I was using manual focus but ISO was automatic, and I was using partial metering.  Maybe the combination of ISO 400 even in the sunny conditions, the very fast shutter speed, and the partial metering made the difference.  I’ll have to experiment to find out.

As usual Sophie was with me.  Settings were f/5.6, 1/250, ISO 400.

And Lulu came out with me for awhile too, but took a less energetic approach to back yard activity than Sophie.  Settings were f/7.1, 1/80, ISO 200.

I really think I need to get a monopod to reduce camera shake.  I can tell a difference in my pictures when I can lean against something, which helps keep things more steady.

Sunday Afternoon

I still have the 55-250mm lens on the camera.  There wasn’t a lot going on to photograph in the yard this afternoon, except for the cardinal.  There’s a bright red male cardinal out there who’s been perching high in the trees and singing.  I saw him way up in a tree in my next door neighbor’s yard and was able to get some pictures of him in spite of the distance.  Settings for this one are f/8, 1/40, ISO 400.

The settings for this photo are also f/8, 1/60, ISO 400.

Later I saw him at the top of another tree at the back of my yard.  Settings here are 7.1, 1/250, ISO 400.

Since it was warm and sunny I looked for little anole lizards enjoying the weather, but didn’t see any.  I tried zooming in on a fence top, and it looks like this might work to take photos of lizards on a fence from a short distance.  Settings were f/16, 1/15, ISO 400.

Sophie of course, looking very happy today.  Settings were f/13, 1/400, ISO 400.

And Lulu, relaxing in the yard.  Settings were f/5.6, 1/50, ISO 400.

I’m doing better with focus, both in using manual focus and in focusing in situations like the cardinal surrounded by branches.  I’m doing better at checking and changing settings, too, though I still forget now and then–which often results in losing a few photos that are too bright, too dark, white balance way off, etc.

Another Sunny Saturday

A bright, sunny, warm day today, with a high temperature of 79–not a typical February day even here!  I went outside several times with my camera and the 55-250mm lens.  I’m continuing to use manual focus with ISO set today on automatic.  I had to go back and check that when I saw that all the photos in this post had an ISO of 400, but the setting was on automatic.  Today I tried a few different things.  For some photos I changed the metering mode from the default evaluative mode to partial or spot metering.  I also took my first few pictures in RAW and post-processed them in Digital Photo Professional, the software that came with my Canon Rebel XSi.

There were plenty of birds singing and calling outside today, but not very many to be seen.  This is one of the few I spotted, a mockingbird sitting at the top of a grapefruit tree two houses down the street from me.  Settings were f/8, 1/640, ISO 400.

Another shot of the mockingbird later in the day.  I like the silhouette of the bird against the sky.  Settings were f/7.1, 1/2500, 1/400.

Here are a pair of pine cones in one of the big pine trees in my neighbor’s yard, using spot metering.  The only post-processing was the crop and some sharpening.  Settings were f/6, 1/1000, ISO 400.

A surprise today was spotting a squirrel stretched out on a branch up in a tree at the back of the yard.  This is the full photo and the only post-processing was sharpening and resizing to post here.  Settings were f/5.6, 1/500, ISO 400.

A closer look at the squirrel.  Settings were f/6.3, 1/500, ISO 400.

These are chokecherry buds that will be opening into small white flowers in a few weeks.  Settings were f/6.3, 1/160, ISO 400.

This is one of my RAW shots of Sophie.  I post-processed in Digital Photo Professional, and then saved it as a jpeg and resized it to post here.  It was quite easy to do–I was expecting something a little more complicated.  Settings were f/ 8, 1/400, ISO 400.

And one last photo of Sophie.  Depth of field wasn’t deep enough and the top of her head and her ears are soft, but I love her dramatic pose for the camera–and the single drop of drool at the corner of her mouth.  Settings were f/6.3, 1/320, ISO 400.