Author: circadianreflections

My name is Deborah Zajac. I'm a photographer living in Nevada at the base of the Eastern Sierras. I am a passionate nature, landscape, night/astro photographer. I shoot predominately in color and use Nikon Digital Cameras, and lenses. I hope you enjoy seeing some of the photos I've taken while on my travels. Please feel free to leave a comment I'd love to hear from you.

Prairie Falcon

Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Photography, WildlifeTagged , , , 7 Comments

Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Saturday last I had the pleasure of Dali, and Rainey’s company for a few hours of birding.

We headed south about an hour from home hoping to spot Golden Eagles. We hadn’t gone too far down a country road when I spied a falcon on top of a telephone pole. I quickly pulled over and turned off the car so we could take photos without the vibration of the engine.

None of us was positive about the bird’s ID at the time, but we were excited because we knew it was a bird  we hadn’t seen before. Here’s how it looked when I first saw it.

First look at a Prarie FalconWith both Rainey and I clicking away we spooked it and he planned to flee the scene.

Ready for Take Off!

Ready for Take-Off!Take off!

Take Off!In Flight—

Prairie Falcon In FlightI was thrilled when I uploaded the images to find I had captured the whole sequence of flight on film. Upon closer look I thought this might have been a juvenile Kestrel, but Rainey confirmed it is a Prairie Falcon. A first for the 3 of us.

We also saw two Golden Eagles, which were flying away from us too fast to capture a photo. Later we saw a Bald Eagle sitting in a tree. Dali got the POD (Picture of the Day) as he got a good image of it.  I wish I could show you, but at the time of this writing he hadn’t posted it yet.   I was too slow to get the car parked, and out so, I missed the shot. When it got spooked and took flight another Bald Eagle took off with it. We hadn’t seen that one due to tree cover.

We saw this Loggerhead Shrike sitting on a wire. We hoped it would spot something good to eat and dive for it, alas it never did.

Loggerhead ShrikeWe also saw this pretty little Savannah Sparrow—X Marks the Spot:

X Marks the SpotSavannah Sparrow: Closer Look–

Savannah Sparrow Close UpOther birds of note that we saw were: A Red-bellied Sapsucker, Yellow-billed Magpie; (see Rainey’s image here) White Crown Sparrows, Acorn Woodpeckers, and Red-tail Hawks.

It was good birding. I hope to get out there again this week-end. With luck I’ll see the Eagles again.

All photos were taken with a Nikon D300s and AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/4 lens

4/52 Gear Porn

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Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved
Continuing with my “lighting theme” I tried another lighting set up with my
AF-S VR Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G IF-ED Lens.

I’m pleased with how even I got the lighting, and how white the background looks. I only added a little contrast, I dropped the exposure a tick in post development, and I added a wee bit of output sharpening.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 105mm @f/8 | 1/125s| ISO 320| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Hand-held| SB600@ 1/4 pwr camera left bounced off ceiling as Key light, and 1 EIKO 4800K bulb in shop light clamp for backgrd fill

The Traveler visits Disneyland

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Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved

I made a somewhat spontaneous trip to Southern CA with my daughter, and #1 Grandson to visit my son, and Disneyland. It had been nearly 10 yrs since my last visit to Disneyland.

We were there over the week-end so it was crazy crowded. The lines and wait times were long so we didn’t get in as many rides as we would have liked, but we rode our favorites, and we all loved seeing #1 Grandson’s reaction to seeing Mickey Mouse live and in person. He loves Mickey Mouse and was so excited. He smiled ear to ear and started to dance. We knew he must have had the Hot Dog Dance playing in his head. It made the trip. I’m looking forward to taking him again, and again, and again.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 35mm @f/10| 1/160s | ISO 320| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Hand-held

Grass Backlit Macro 1/52

Posted in California, Macro Photography, Nature, PhotographyTagged , , , 2 Comments

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Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved

For the first time I’m going to try to complete a Project 52 this year. Right now I’m leaning toward making my P52 a Themed project focusing on light/lighting using both natural light, and light modifiers but, we’ll see how that goes. It could end up being a little of everything.

Nikon D700| Nikkor AF-D 105mm @f/16| 1/125s| ISO400|Aperture Priority| Matrix Metering| Hand-held

Wrentit

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Wrentit, originally uploaded by CircadianReflections Photography.

Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

The light on this Wrentit’s head was perfect at this moment. It flew up here so fast and stayed only a minute before flying off again. It didn’t return in the time I remained there. I feel so lucky to have captured this with the light on its face and eye like this.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 300mm + Nikkor 14EII TC=630mm| f8| 1/640s| IS0 640| Manual Priority| Center Weight Metering| Tripod