During a quick trip to Spring Lakes, saw this creepy sight.
What I'm Up Against
Little Bit of an Eclipse
Being in the eastern United States, we were only able to catch a small portion of today's eclipse. Look forward to seeing photographs from my friends in California and hopefully from Australia.
Continue to be Impressed
The new Tamron 150-600 continues to impress with its sharpness and reach.
Morning Stroll
Shooting out the car window and not setting the correct exposure, saw this giant Wild Turkey strutting his stuff on the way to work.
Wild Turkey Nikon D7000 ISO 800 600mm f/8.0 1/1600
Clear Skies, Waxing Moon
Really liking the new lens, first clear night to shoot the moon.
Sunset at Spring Lakes
Spring Lakes in Bellbrook, Ohio is a set of spring feed, man-made ponds. Being spring feed, the lakes stay ice-free all year long, and serve as a local host to a variety of water fowl and song birds. Just stock with fish, the Ring-Billed Gull hunt shad.
Mrs. Blue Bird on My Feeder
A first here at the house, Eastern Bluebird at the feeders on the back porch of our house. My wife, Louise, spotted the bluebird yesterday and put meal worms out for it. But, so far the bluebird likes the suet feeder. Appears to be a female, but will need to verify with some birding expert friends.
First Moon Landing (with the Tamron SP 150-600/5-6.3 Di VC USD )
First shot of the moon with the new Tamron 150-600. Good test, but the weather wasn't participating - slightly hazy, with a lot of moisture in then atmosphere. Looking at the camera data, also noticed I didn't properly set my ISO following shooting wildlife earlier in the day. Would have preferred to shoot at 100 ISO.
Day Two with the Tamron 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD
Few more images taken with the Tamron 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD. Beautiful sunny day today, great chance to test the lens out some more. Impressed with its ability to track moving objects. Once the lens is locked on, its easy to track and keep your target in focus. The Mallard is a good example of close-up work - this guy decided to swim right up to me.
Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three
Here are several test shots from the new Tamron 150-600mm lens shot on my Nikon D7000. Overcast for most of the day, but I was very excited to get out and run the new lens through its paces. The Ultrasonic Silent Drive is truly quiet. This is good and bad, sometimes its hard to tell if the lens is doing its job or not. While my first shot outdoors yesterday was of a soaring Turkey Vulture, this lens will take some getting used to for birds in flight. With 450mm of range, there is a lot of lens to search through before finding the target. Once it finds the target - very happy results so far.
Like Christmas Morning
Very excited today...the FedEx driver should be delivering a new exciting lens today - the Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD. Can't wait to test this lens out and share sample images.
Completed the photo shoot for HouseMade. Think they will love these images.
Getting Warmer
Test shots from commercial shoot this week - working with our friends at HouseMade on photography to support their new seasoned salts and rubs. Can't wait to test out on some grilled chicken.
Winner, Winner, Turkey Dinner
Woke up to Wild Turkey in the backyard this morning. Before I accidentally scared them off, this one posed on the woodpile for a couple shots. No turkey were harmed in the taking of these photographs.
Flower Power
Haven't taken the chance to photograph flowers in a long time. Looking to build on my collection of flora on black background - here are two shots of a white and purple chrysanthemum. Can't decide which angle I like best? Any thoughts?
Friendly Neighborhood Pileated
We have several pileated woodpeckers that live in the woods around our house. Personally one of my favorite birds - large, loud and bold. I've had the pleasure to capture them numerous times, but still have on my bucket list getting a good in flight picture to capture all their beautiful markings. The females are easily noted by the gray forehead, while the males' cap extends all the way forward to the beak.
Success
First successful batch of maple syrup.
Lunch Bunch
Thanks to Stefan Minnig for the photo of Jeremy Mudd and I. If not just for practice - we try to get out every day we can at lunch to shoot and improve our skills. Great to have some nice nature reserves close to work.
Jeremy Mudd (front) and Peter Bartlett (rear) by Stefan Minnig
Maple Syrup Time
Sap started flowing yesterday - so last night was the first try at 'brewing' maple syrup.
On the photography side - broke out my old Nikkor 1.4 50mm lens to grab some snap shots in the low light of our kitchen. This lens from Nikon is a wonderful classic and still in production today. Solid, all metal construction, this is the lens I first learned on. Loved the action of the sap boiling, but between the steam and being rusty at manually focusing - proved tricky to capture. The challenge - my original camera, a Nikon F3HP has a high eyepoint prism with a split prism. The new digital cameras are 'focused' on auto-focus with smaller view finders and no split prism - making manual focus much harder. Tried to use the range finder feature, but found this to be spotty at best.
On the maple syrup front - first, this bottle is what you get from 2 1/2 gallons of sap. Tried to brew this batch in the kitchen. Lots of steam! Moving further production out to the garage. Second, went just a couple degrees over on the brewing and this batch ended up too thick, but delicious.
Flash back one year
Weather didn't look too different last year on March 2nd. The snow was coming down heavy and the birds were enjoying the peanuts at the feeder. Thought I'd share a couple shots from last year - we ventured out at lunch today to shoot, but all we brought back were fuzzy pictures of a Great Horned Owl. A rare sight for our group of photographers, but it was in no mood to have it's picture taken. Oh well...some days are like that.