Category: Photography

House Sparrow

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Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I hand-held the 80-400mm G lens a good deal while in Death Valley. I set up my tripod for landscape photography, but not for the birds. I confess I don’t have many keepers from the Hand-held shots. The extra length, and weight really gives me away. I have weak hand-holding technique with the long lenses.

With time and practice I’m sure I would improve, but really I think shooting from my tripod or monopod with the SideKick would net me the best photos and most keepers.

A quick note about this male. He’s the only one I saw and he had 3 or 4 females around him all the time. I notice Finches are the same. Do they have harems?

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-400mm G Death Valley National Park- Furnace Creek area

The Mesquite Dunes and Amargosa Range

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Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This is from my May trip to Death Valley. It was windy most the time I was there the first two days, but on this evening the winds subsided a little, and the sky was blue so He-Man and I struck out across the flat toward the Dunes. I stopped a few times along the way to capture vistas of the dunes and mountains behind them.
There was sand in the air and blowing off the dunes. You can kind of see that on the dune in the sunlight on the bottom left if you look around the edges around it. It gave the image a softness I like. I also liked the shadows and light on the dunes and mountains.

I rented the new Nikkor 80-400mm G for this trip and I used it to take this photo.
Someday I’d like to upgrade my 70-300mm VR with this lens.

I’m also trying out On One Perfect Suite 7 Premium. I’m a week into the 30 day trial. I’ve used Perfect Portrait quite a bit, and Perfect effects, and focal point.
I haven’t been able to figure out how to access Perfect Layers from LR yet so I sent OnOne customer service an email asking them how to do that. I’ve heard from them this afternoon, so I’ll try it tomorrow.
I’m not really skilled in Lightroom either, but with Adobe’s new Creative Cloud scheme that requires a monthly fee I’m looking into different software to do the layering development work I need.
So far I like Perfect Portrait, and Effects a lot. The presets are really nice and you can fine tune them. On this photo I used Tonal Contrast, and in the Landscape Preset Folder I used Fall Enhancer. In Lightroom I tweaked the highlights, shadows, exposure, clarity,  and did a little dodging and burning.  Then to finish up I went into CS6 to add my watermark, and resize the photo for the web.  I know…I need to figure out how to do this Lightroom. I think it’s possible.
For help with the techniques and “how to’s” in Lightroom I’m using the book by Scott Kelby called the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 book for Digital Photographers, and John Davenport’s Youtube.com Let’s Edit series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfmccqzrt18

I’ll let you know how I like Perfect Layers in the coming days.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-400mm at 112m| Circular Polarizer| Tripod

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House Finch-Female or 1st yr Male?

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Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved

I’m not getting out too much this week, but fortunately there’s been some good backyard birding the last two days.
This is a House Finch. I’m hoping it’s a junvenile or 1st yr Male, but it’s probably a Female looking frazzled.
While holding Jaxon in my lap this afternoon a Black Headed Grosbeak landed on my birdbath for just 10 seconds or so. Jaxon moved and scared it.
This evening I sat outdoors with my camera hoping it would return, but it didn’t.
Instead I saw this Finch and the neighborhood bully Mockingbird in some wonderful Golden light, and the Towhee pair that live nearby and have been daily visitors to my yard and birdbath since early Spring.

I hope the Grosbeak returns tomorrow and I’m ready.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 300mm F4| Hand-held

Life in the Garden

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Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

My Hydrangea is blooming! I get such a thrill each year when this plant blooms. In the winter it looks like it has died, but so far has come back with lovely blooms for many, many years now.
How long does one Hydrangea plant live? I hope forever!

Nikon D700| Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 G| Hand-held

Sunrise Lake Tahoe Nevada

Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Landscapes, Nature, Nikon, Photography, TravelTagged , , , , , Leave a comment

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Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved

I mentioned that I only had one full day to spend with Jackie so I left home the evening of the 5th and arrived at Jackie’s vacation Condo about 11PM.
Jackie showed me  the bedroom I’d have, then a quick tour around the condo. It was a lovely condo. My bedroom was spacious, and I had a bathroom to myself. We chatted for sometime on the deck while taking photos of the stars then we called it a day because I wanted to rise early to get the sunrise on the lake.

Sunrise is really early here at this time of year so, I set my alarm for 4AM.
I slept in a bit, but we made it out the door and to our destination in plenty of time for sunrise.
The sky was pretty flat, but we did get some nice pinks, and light on the distant Sierra Mountain Range.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 17-35mm| Singh Ray Graduated Neutral Density Filter| Induro Tripod| Markins Q20 ball-head

 

 

Clark’s Nutcracker

Posted in Birds, Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Nature, Nikon, Photography, TravelTagged , , , , Leave a comment

Copyright © 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Clark's NutcrackerMy friend Jackie had thought to take or purchased bird food to lure  birds to her deck while on vacation in Lake Tahoe.
She had been feeding them all week; throwing bird food loaded with peanuts,seeds, and berries on the decking, setting it on the railing, and tossing some to the roof top below the deck.
By the time I arrived the birds to my delight were coming really close to us to get the food. I think we spent 2 hours on the deck photographing the Stellar Jays, and Pygmy Nuthatches.
Just as I was getting ready to quit shooting and get ready for our excursion around the lake this bird flew to the top of a farther Douglas Fir I think.  It’s not a bird I’d ever seen before. I thought it was a Thrasher at first by its bill, but KUDO’s to Jackie who identified the bird when she got home to New Jersey as a Clark’s Nutcracker.

It’s taking flight off the tree in the photo above. I’m glad I got this shot because it shows more wing and tail detail than my earlier shots of it just sitting and surveying the landscape in the photos below.

Clarks Nutcracker profile 2

Clarks Nutcracker Left Profile
Here’s another photo of a Pygmy Nuthatch with a bug or something in its bill.

Pygmy Nuthatch

Here’s a snapshot of Jackie and I in late afternoon light hanging around the shore waiting for Golden Hour and Sunset.

Jackie and I waiting for sunset Lake TahoeNikon D300s, and D700 w/Nikkor 300mm f4, and 17-35mm.

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Life in the Garden

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Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve been looking forward to my Agapantha blooming because the Hummingbirds like it, and this plant is right outside my window. This morning I was out on the patio with Jaxon when she flew in for a taste of Nectar. Fortunately, I thought to take my camera with me.

Nikon D700| Nikko300mm @f8| 1/800 s| ISO 640| Manual Priority| Spot Metering| Hand-held