Nikon – Page 43 – Circadianreflections Blog

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

August 15, 2016Posted in Astro Photography, Astro-Imaging, Night Photography, Night Sky, Nikon, Perseid Meteor Shower, Photography, Star Trails, Starry Night, Wide Field Astro-photographyTagged Astrophotography, Marcus Aurelius Quotes, Nikon, Perseid Meteor, Photography, Star Gazing, Star Trails, Starry Sky, Wide Field Astro-Photography19 Comments

While watching the night sky for Perseid Meteors Friday night I shot just under 300 frames. In all those frames I only managed to photograph 3 meteors! The rest that I saw were over my head or just out of the frame.

What to do with all those frames of stars? Stack them to make a Star Trail image is one thing.

Passing car headlights, other star gazers using their flashlights, and headlamps…maybe my own red headlamp too unintentionally light painted the trees, and foreground bushes for me.

If I get a chance to photograph the Perseids or any other meteor showers this year or next I’ll use my 16mm Fisheye lens to get more sky in my frame.

more to come…

2016 Perseids

August 14, 2016August 14, 2016Posted in Astro-Imaging, Astro-Photography, Meteors, Night Sky Imaging, Nikon, Nikon DF, Perseid Meteor Shower, Photography, Wide Field Astro-photographyTagged Astrophotography, Green tail Meteor, High ISO, Meteor, Night Sky Photography, Nikon, Perseid Meteor Showers, Star Gazing, Wide Field Astro-Photography31 Comments

I went out Friday night/Saturday morning star gazing hoping to photograph a meteor or two of the Perseid meteor shower. The Perseid Meteor shower is an annual event occurring from mid July to mid August as the Earth crosses the orbital path of Comet Swift-Tuttle; the parent of the Perseid meteor shower. Debris from the comet litters its orbital path, but we don’t get into the dense part of it until the first week of August. It’s this debris that slams into Earth’s upper atmosphere at 130,000 mile per hour lighting up the night sky with streaking Perseid meteors.

This year was to be particularly good for viewing more meteors because of our position in the debris path.

I saw a few really great meteors with wonderful balls of fire streaking through the sky, but the best image I made in 4 hours of sky watching was of this little meteor with some red at the head and a green tail. It’s a first time I’ve photographed the green tail.

There’s some of the Milky Way in there too, but faint, but there were oh, so many stars!

It was a wonderful night for star gazing.

Source-Earthsky.org

more to come…

Thursday Doors 32/52 Little Red Riding Hood’s Grandmother’s House

August 13, 2016August 13, 2016Posted in Legoland California, Nikon, Photography, Thursday Doors, U. S. Theme ParksTagged California, Legoland, Legos, Little Red Riding Hood, Nikon, Photography, Theme Parks, Thursday Doors19 Comments

Daughter and I took #1 Grandson to Legoland California this week. We spent 3 days visiting the park. It was a first time visit for us, and we all really enjoyed it.

I didn’t get a door post scheduled before I left which means I’m late this week with my post, but I want to get my post out in the week thereof. 🙂

I hoped there would be an interesting door or two and there were!

What luck on the Fairy Land Cruise we spied Little Red Riding Hood knocking on Grandmother’s Door! Grandmother's House Door

When she got inside she noticed that Grandmother had changed since her last visit! But, my oh my Grandmother, what BIG CUPBOARD doors you have! 🙂

Grandmother's House Legoland California

I don’t know how many Lego bricks it took to make Little Red Riding Hood, or the Big Bad Wolf, and a few other pieces in this set, but it and the other builds are incredible!

I have more doors, but will save them for another post.

If you’d like to see other doors posted this week click here. That link will take you over our Thursday Doors host Norm Frampton’s Thursday Door page.

Nikon Df| Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 VR -rental lens| Delkin Digital Film

I’m really, really behind with emails and reading posts. I’ll be catching up this week!

More to come…

Fiery Skipper & Gear Review

August 7, 2016August 7, 2016Posted in Butterflies and Skippers, Camera Gear Reviews, Close Up Photograhy', Insects, Nature Photography, Nikon, PhotographyTagged Butterflies and Skippers, Camera Gear Reviews, Fiery Skipper, Insects, Insects of North America, Lenses, Nature, Nature Photography, Nikkor, Nikon, Photography12 Comments

I’m renting a Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G VR lens for a week to see if I like it well enough to replace my older 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-D Micro lens. I sat in the backyard hoping the Skipper would show up so I could see how the lens handles close up imaging with my Canon 500D Close Up lens attached to it.

I really would like 24mm on the wide end, and having a little more reach couldn’t hurt.

I’ve shot less than 200 frames since picking up the lens late Friday afternoon; so far I am liking what I’m seeing.
It’s sharp, contrasty, auto-focuses quickly, and is pretty quiet. I don’t hear or feel VR (Nikon’s lens stablization) kicking in, but it must work b/c I was able to snap off a throw away low light shot made in my living room at 1/13s hand held and it’s pretty good…in focus and not blurry!

It’s easy to carry. It weighs 1.56 pounds which is just a tick under my 17-35mm so, the weight feels natural to me. What I’m trying to say is; I’m comfortable holding it and my camera. There’s not much difference weight wise between having the 28-105 or this lens on the camera to me.

One bête noire is the focus ring on this rental lens is SUPER hard to turn. Doing photography in the dark means one needs to be able to focus manually. While photographing the Moon and planet conjunctions both Friday and Saturday nights it wasn’t easy rotating the focus ring with this copy of the lens. I’m hoping it’s just this rental unit and not a characteristic of the lens. The rental copy has been well used. I can tell that because the gold lettering stating the lens specs is just about worn off, and the focus ring is a pain to use.

I haven’t uploaded last night’s images yet, but hope I was able to dial in a well focused shot. I’ll be posting those images soon.

You won’t get graphs, charts, and scientific testing with my reviews. I’m all about how the lens feels, works in my hands, and how good or bad the images look. I’ll be printing several images as well as pixel peeping on my PC to see how well they look.

My kit this week will be Nikon Df| Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G VR

Canon 500D Close Up lens

B+W Polarizer

2 Singh-Ray Graduated Filters

2 B+W Neutral Density Filters

SB910 Speedlight

Cable Release

Either my Nikkor 20mm f1.8G or my 16mm f/2.8D Fisheye for ultra wide angle photography.

Iphone 5

Both images made with the Nikon Df| Nikkor 24-120mm f4G VR| Canon 500D Close Up lens|Delkin Digital Film| PS CC 2015.5

FWIW: I’ll be off line most of this week. I’m still behind reading posts, and will get further behind this week! I’m getting some posts ready in advance and scheduled, but won’t be able to comment or view posts easily. Y’all have a great week! I’ll catch up when I get back. xx

More to come…

Clark’s Grebes

August 6, 2016August 6, 2016Posted in Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Clark's Grebes, Nature Photography, Nikon, PhotographyTagged Bird Photography, Birding, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Clark's Grebes, Grebe Behavior, Grebe Chicks, Nature, Nikon, Photography20 Comments

Today I thought I share some images from my Spring Grebe excursion. We met at 5:45am to get out on the water to see the sun rise over the mountains and get that great light.

We were so fortunate to have a lovely morning with a rosy glow, and the Grebes were up and feeding already as well.

The male Grebes impressed me by how hard they work to feed the family. I’ll try to convey that with some images.

The male making a fish transfer to his mate and a hungry chick poking its head out in anticipation;

Clark's Grebe Pair making fish transfer

…but that little fish was a slippery one and she dropped it, fortunately, she was able to retrieve it quickly!

Clark Grebe Pair

Here a Clark’s Grebe male is just about to make the transfer;

Clark's Grebe Male making Fish Transfer to Female

Here’s a Clark’s Grebe male feeding a fish directly to a chick. That fish looks too big for that tiny bill!

Clark's Grebe Male Transferring Fish to Grebe Chick

With several mouths to feed the male does a whole lot of fishing!

He helps with swimming lessons, and even gives the female a break by allowing the chicks to swim from Mom’s back to his. Western Grebes: Yes, it’s a butt shot. 🙂

Western Grebes

Seeing this was so exciting and so darn adorable!!

Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2015.5

Have a wonderful week-end Everyone!

More to come…

Thursday Doors 31/52 N°213 W.

August 4, 2016August 3, 2016Posted in Churches and Cathedrals, Doors, Manhattan, New York, Nikon, Nikon DF, Photography, Red Doors, Thursday DoorsTagged Catholic Church, Churches, Manhattan, New York, Nikon, Photography, Potted Garden, Red Doors, St John the Baptist Church, steps, Thursday Doors26 Comments

I’m back in my NYC files for this week’s Thursday Doors post.

After walking the Highline and working up an appetite we stopped at a Taco Vendor’s on the Highline and enjoyed street tacos and nachos. Full now we headed back the way we came and we were wondering what to do next when I spotted the Empire State Building’s spire. It didn’t look like it was too far away so, we decided to walk there.

While walking there I spied this red door and had to stop for a picture of it.

St. John the Baptist Church’s Parish Office Door

Red Doors

Right next to it was a garden gate with which led to a side door to the church.

St John the Baptist Church Side Door

I loved the potted garden, and the doors with the clover moulding and pretty stone archway.

I never saw the front of the church or the inside, but wish I had! I have no information about the church building or church I’m afraid.

This post is part of Norm 2.0’s Thursday Doors. If you love doors and would like to see the doors others are posting, or post doors you’ve photographed and join other door lovers from around the world click here.

At the end of Norm’s latest Thursday Door post is a little Blue Link-up/View button click it to be taken to a page with all the links to view all the posts, and add your own if you’re a door enthusiast too.

More to come…

An Abundance of Cheer!

July 29, 2016July 29, 2016Posted in Composites, Cultivated Flowers, Flowers, Images with Textures, Photography, Still Life, Still Life Photography, StrobistTagged Composite images, Cultivated Flowers, Flowers, Images with Text, Images with Textuers, Kim Klassen, Nikon, Off camera flash, Photography, Still Life, Strobist17 Comments

My week-end wish for you. 🙂

Still-Life

Strobist- SB910 @ 1/4 pwr camera left low-ish bounced off ceiling; triggered via Commander Mode in camera. ( After composing and developing this image in 2014 it’s been marinating on my back up drive) and published now. Marinating an image can be a good thing! I hated this image back then, but like it now. 🙂 Time is a wonderful thing to perception, and feelings. There’s a great lesson here to those who are listening and seeing. 🙂

Texture “savor” by Kim Klassen

More to come…

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