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.

Despicable Me 2 Minions

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Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

It took 2 weeks, but I collected the entire set of McDonald’s Happy Meal Minions.

Back row- left to right: Phil Jelly Whistle, Purple Minion Noisemaker, Tim Giggling, Purple Minion Giggling, Stuart Blaster

Front Row-Left to Right:Tom Babbler, Jerry Wizar Whistle, Dave Banana Babbler

I’m getting a little better getting my Speedlight positioned so the black background stays black. This only required a few spot healing passes to clean up lint. Yeah!
I used my kitchen table for a larger work surface and placed the toys further away from the background, and bounced the light off the ceiling and a white foam core bd which I had placed on the right side of the set.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 24mm @ f8| 1/250s| ISO 500| Matrix Metering|Manual Priority|
SB600 TTL mode camera left bounced off a white ceiling, white reflector right

Common Yellowthroat-Male

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Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

If I’m right and this is a Common Yellowthroat it’s a first for me. I’m really excited about that. I only shot three bursts before it was gone and two of the three frames were nothing but blur. I feel pretty lucky to have managed to get this one. As you see I wasn’t metered correctly. I was taking photos of Sparrow just before this bird flew in my view and was metered for that lighting. Thanks to ACR in CS6 I was able to recover what I needed of the bird itself. PHEW! I think the “high-key” looks good though. It shows off the colors of the birds and fennel really well. The sky was still a bit gray at this time of the morning.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 300mm f/4@ f/4| 1/400s| ISO 400| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Tripod

Mockingbird

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Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This Mockingbird is a frequent visitor to my yard this year. He mimics a car alarm every afternoon from atop of the telephone pole. He’s pretty fearless too. I’ve seen him chase away crows on more than one occasion.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 300mm f4 + Tamron 1.4x TC| Hand-held

Vintage 80’s Open Toe Heels

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Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I’m cleaning out my closets and weeding out shoes and handbags. Thinking someone might want some vintage 80’s stuff I’m going to list these on Craigslist and thought I’d practice with off-camera flash. My first photo of these had a shadow I wanted to remove so I played with the positioning of my Speedlight and got rid of the shadow. Now I have a seam line to eliminate. Anyone have any tips on doing that without painting it in Photoshop? Curves isn’t doing it.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 24-70mm| SB 600 high camera left in ttl +1 EV.

Star Trails from Home

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Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I noticed that Polaris almost lined up with my front door this evening so, bored and Jonesing for some night photography I set up to shoot star trails. A couple of cars passed by while I was exposing so I captured head and tail lights too.

My Ginko Tree I see needs some pruning, and some TLC from the Gedde’s: My favorite tree service.

Nikon D700| 24-70mm G @ 24mm| f3.2| 30 x 60s| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Tripod

Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge, and Carquinez Bridge

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Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I took this impromptu photograph on the way home from a photography Meet-Up this past February. It’s been marinating in my archives forgotten. This was the first time I’d ever photographed this bridge. I hope to get up here again to do a little more exploring.

Looking at the photo brought back memories of shooting the bridge. My Remote Timer’s batteries died, and I didn’t have any spares so I was limited to 30second exposures. I increased the ISO to get a proper exposure. I remember being really thankful for the D700 at that moment.

For the History Buffs-
"The Carquinez Bridge refers to parallel bridges spanning the Carquinez Strait, forming part of Interstate 80 between Crockett and Vallejo, California. The name originally referred to a single cantilever bridge built in 1927, helping to form a direct route between San Francisco and Sacramento. A second parallel cantilever bridge was completed in 1958 to deal with the increased traffic. Later, seismic problems of the 1927 span led to the construction and 2003 opening of a replacement: a suspension bridge officially called the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge. Currently, the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge carries westbound traffic from Vallejo to Crockett, and the 1958 cantilever span carries eastbound traffic. Toll is only charged to eastbound traffic."~ Wiki-Pedia

I’ve lived in the bay area for over 40 years and I never had heard this bridge was really named Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge…It’s always been the Carquinez Br. I wonder how many others in the Bay Area are unaware? You learn something new everyday.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 24-70@28mm| f16| 25 seconds| ISO 640| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Tripod