Nikon – Page 44 – Circadianreflections Blog

Torch Lily

July 26, 2016Posted in Bokeh, Flowers, Kniphofia uvaria Torch Lily, Nikon, Non Native Plants and Flowers, Non-Native Plants, PhotographyTagged Flowers, Kniphofia uvaria, Nikon, Non Native Flowers, Photography, Red Hot Poker, Torch Lily, Tritoma20 Comments

Torch Lily has several common names- Red Hot Poker, and Tritoma, but its real name is Kniphofia uvaria. It gets it’s name Red Hot Poker from the shape of the blossom, and Torch Lily from the blossom, and the shape of its leaves which are similar to the Lily. They get to be quite tall, and can bloom at different times of the growing season. I made this image in the Spring while out birding.

It’s looks amazing against a green or dark background.

Flower Photography

It’s a non-native plant to California. It originated in Cape Provence of South Africa, but it isn’t uncommon here.

When reading about this plant I discovered it’s become invasive in south-eastern Australia and they consider it an environmental weed. I guess it spreads easily damaging native and sensitive ecosystems. It may come to that here too, but it’s pretty, and a show stopper.

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

Heads Up– Adobe PS CC had a Bridge, and Adobe Camera Raw Update today. If you have PS CC just open your cloud thingy and Bob’s your Uncle! I will say since moving to the subscription service Updates are easy.

More to come…

Humpback Whales

July 18, 2016July 17, 2016Posted in Monterey Bay, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, Travel and Tourism, WhalesTagged Blue Ocean Cruises, Humpback Whales, Monterey Submarine Canyon, Nature, Nikon, Photography, Sea Mammals, Travel and Tourism, Whale Watching40 Comments

Saturday I spent late morning until early afternoon at sea Whale Watching outside of Monterey, CA. We sailed about 12 miles off shore to the Monterey Submarine Canyon where there were quite a number of Humpback Whales, Gray Whales, and a Blue Whale feeding on Krill, and other little fishes that were abundant on Saturday.

“The Monterey Submarine Canyon is quite large…an undersea Grand Canyon. It’s 470 kilometers (292 miles) long and approximately 12 kilometers (39 ft) at its widest point with a maximum rim to floor relief of 1,700 meters (5,577feet).” ~Simon Sanctuary

It’s was quite exciting seeing the Whales! I didn’t see a Breach this time out, but saw lots of Spouting, or Blowing.

Humpback Whale Spouting

It was overcast, windy, and a bit choppy out at sea the whole time. The Sun only peeked out a couple of times.

I saw some Fluking when the whales are going to dive down as much as 50 meters.

Humpback Whale Fluking

Once they reach the depth they want they begin to slowly rise by spiraling up to the surface often in teams creating a Bubble Net. The purpose of the bubble is to congregate the Krill and prey and force them to the surface. The Krill and fish see the bubbles as a net and feeling trapped they stay in the center of the Bubble Net. The Whales come up with an explosion of air with their mouths wide open eating all they can.

Here are two images of a fin of a Humpback Whale when it breaks the surface while they’re under the surface spinning.

Humpback Whale Spouting w Flipper showing

Humpback Whale Flipper;

The Humpback often get under that Bubble Net and Lunge up with their mouths gaping open scooping up the prey. Here you see at least 3 working as a team.

Humpback Whale Lunge Feeding

I see four working together here.

Humpback Whales Lunge Feeding

Humpback Whale Lunge feeding.

Humpback Whale Lunge Feeding

Humpback Whales spend the winter in the warm waters near Costa Rica and Hawaii. Humpbacks, including mothers with calves travel thousands of miles to feast on krill, and schooling fish in the Monterey Bay while they migrate north to their feeding waters in Alaska. They grow to be 45ft to 62ft (14-19 meters) long!

I missed quite a few good photo ops b/c for the first time in my life I got sea sick. It’s NOT FUN! I will go again but, I’m taking medicine before hand.

The images are not converted to Black & White. It was so gray out that they look black and white.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 80-200mm| Lexar Digital Film| Hand-held| Developed in PS CC 2015.5

More to come…

Insects of Point Reyes National Seashore

July 15, 2016Posted in Beetles, Birds, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Butterflies, Insects, Photography, USA National ParksTagged Banded Birds, Beetles, Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Nikon, Photography, Point Reyes National Seashore, Skippers, US National Parks, White-crowned Sparrow29 Comments

I had pretty good luck spotting insects while hiking in Point Reyes National Seashore last week-end. I saw Butterflies, Beetles, and Grubs. Here’s a sampler. 🙂

I’m pretty sure this is a Skipper, but I can’t find anything that looks exactly like it in my books, or online so, don’t know what it is. I found it in Point Reyes National Seashore last week-end; July 9,2016. Anyone know what it is and what it is called?

Unknown Skipper or Butterfly?

Other insects I found while exploring different areas of the park were:

A ladybug, one of several I saw…

a green and black beetle called a Spotted Cucumber Beetle,

Spotted Cucumber Beetle

who was pretty hungry,

Spotted Cumcumber Bettle

…a Common Buckeye Butterfly

Common Buckeye Butterfly

…and a grub or grasshopper served a la carte to a White Crown Sparrow that is banded. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a banded sparrow.

Banded White Crown Sparrow

Nikon Df w/28-105mm lens and Delkin Digital Film, and Lumix FZ200 w/ Lexar Digital Film- Hand-held

More to come…

Thursday Doors 28/52

July 14, 2016July 13, 2016Posted in Architecture, National Register of Historic Places, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, Point Reyes National Seashore, Ranches, Thursday DoorsTagged Alligator Lizard, Architecture, Best Pad Lock, Door knob, Doors, National Register of Historic Places, Nature, Nikon, Photography, Pierce Point Ranch, Point Reyes National Seashore, Thursday Doors, Tule Elk Males29 Comments

Last week-end while in Point Reyes National Seashore I went out to Pierce Point Ranch which is where the road ends heading north in the park. I was planning to hike out to see the herd of Tule Elk, but it was so foggy reports from hikers returning from the trail said they’d not seen or heard the Elk. So, instead of hiking I stayed at the ranch and took photographs of some of the buildings and doors.

For the History Buffs:

“The Ranch was constructed by Solomon Pierce in the 1860’s. It was the most successful “butter rancho” in Point Reyes Township.

In the 1880’s the ranch was leased to a series of tenants, and in the mid 1930’s it was sold to the McClure family which operated it’s Grade B dairy until the about 1945, when dairy ranching ceased after 90 years.

The complex includes the 1869 and earlier sections of the two-story main house, the tank house, school, woodshed, carpenter shop, blacksmith shop, dairy, horse barn, slaughter house, hay barn, hog sheds, and pens. It represents the most extensive surviving historic complex in the Point Reyes National Seashore.

The Pierce Point Ranch on Tomales Point ceased operations in 1973. Three years later, Congress authorized creation of the wilderness area incorporating that ranch as habitat for the reintroduction of Tule Elk. Beginning in 1980, NPS invested in the rehabilitation of the ranch core, citing it as the best example of a nineteenth century west Marin dairy ranch. Pierce Point Ranch was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, and was subsequently opened to the public as an interpretive site.“~http://wikimapia.org/100600/Pierce-Point-Ranch

Dairy/Long Barn Doors:

Long Barn Doors Pierce Point Ranch

The Dairy/Long Barn- It was so foggy the sky was white so, I converted this image to Black and White.

Long Barn Pierce Ranch

another image of the Dairy and shed with a couple more doors.

Dairy Barn Pierce Point Ranch

This might be the school house,

Pierce Point Ranch Point Reyes National Seashore

Closer look of door of possible school,

Door to building at Pierce Point Ranch

A closer look at that door knob, and pad lock,

Door knob and Best Lock Pierce Point Ranch

Here’s an image of a male Tule Elk that I took here back in 2012. Can you see the velvet hanging off his antlers around his face? He’s scratching it off and polishing his antlers. I saw him on Bachelors Hill.

Tule Elk Male

The Bachelor’s; There were quite a few of them that year. They were also pretty far away. My lens was stretched beyond its limits that day too.

Tule Elk Males

The only wildlife I saw while at the ranch Saturday was an Alligator Lizard sunning itself.

Alligator Lizard

It was a great day despite the fog and no Elk.

Nikon Df w/ Nikkor 28-105mm| Delkin Digital Film, and Lumix FZ200, Lexar Digital Film,

The 2012 images were made with the Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 70-300mm VR, SanDisk Digital Film

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…

Trees and Foliage Abstract

July 11, 2016Posted in Abstracts, Foliage, Intentional Camera Movement, Photography, Photography Techniques, TreesTagged Abstracts, Blur, Flowers, Foliage, Intentional Camera Movement, Nature, Nikon, Photography, Photography Techniques, Pleasing Blurs, Trees25 Comments

I was up north in Point Reyes National Seashore on Saturday photographing nature, while walking through a wooded section I stopped to photograph the trees. They were Birch I think; they had tall, on the thin side white trunks and lovely green foliage.

I always like to play around with Intentional Camera Movement when I happen upon a wooded area with nice trunks, and foliage.

Trees and Foliage Abstract

I find the technique works best with tall stalked flowers and trees. One lowers the shutter speed enough to cause blur then you intentionally move the camera/lens in an up or down motion to cause the blur. For this image my settings were f/13, ISO 400, 1/13s.

I moved my camera/lens from up to down fairly fast to create the blurred image.

The key is slowing down the shutter speed and drag the lens in an up or down motion to create the blur. It takes a bit a practice to get it, but with several tries one can usually attain a pleasing blur=ICM image. You can create interesting affects zooming in and out, or shivering ever so slightly as well.

Here’s an image I made in 2014 with Agapanthus using the same technique. Agapantha Abstract

Nikon Df| 28-105mm| Delkin Digital Film| PS CC 2015

More to come…

Lazuli Bunting Watercolor

July 8, 2016July 7, 2016Posted in #WaterColorMonth, Art, Birds, Birds of North America, Draw a Bird Day, Nature, Photography, Watercolor, Watercolor PaintingTagged #WaterColorMonth, Art, Birds, Create Art Everyday, Doodlewash.com, Draw a Bird Day, Learning to paint, Nature, Nikon, painting, Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Watercolor26 Comments

Here we are already on July 8th! Which means it’s Draw-a-Bird Day over on CreateArtEveryday, and it’s also #WorldWatercolorMonth created by Charlie O’Shields over at doodlewash.com.

Yesterday afternoon I felt inspired to paint a Lazuli Bunting I photographed back in May 2014. I used a Pentel Graphic Gear 0.7 to lightly sketch the beak, and snag it’s perched on, but kept the rest the painting loose. I’m pleasantly surprised how well it came out for not trying to sketch the whole bird.

The Lazuli Bunting is a Spring/Breeding visitor in my region of Northern California. I was very excited to see it him and add him to my “life list” back in the Spring of 2014.

Lazuli Bunting in Watercolor

The image I used as my reference is here. P52 18 of 52 Lazuli Bunting-1st yr Male

Paint, Paper, Brush:

Sennelier L’Aquarelle in Cinereous Blue, French Vermillion, Bright Red, Burnt Umber, Ivory Black, Naples Yellow Deep, Warm Sepia, Hooker’s green, Phthalo Green Light.

I painted this in my Strathmore Watercolor Art Journal 400 Series 8.5″ X 5.5″ 140lb paper.

Brush: Di Vinci Artissimo Rd #1

I’m posting this on both Creatarteveryday’s Draw a Bird Day, and #WorldWatercolormonth. If you have a moment please head over and check out the amazing work being done by artists all over the world.

More to come…

Thursday Doors 27/52

July 7, 2016July 6, 2016Posted in Architecture, Manhattan, New York, Nikon, Photography, Thursday DoorsTagged Architecture, Cipriani, Cunard Building, Cunard Line, Doors, Golden Doors, Manhattan, New York, Nikon, Photography, Thursday Doors24 Comments

I’m back to my NYC files for this week’s Thursday Doors.
On our first full day in the city we decided to get a quick education of the lay of the land by taking the Big Bus City Tour. While on the top deck of the bus we passed this door.

Cunard Line Doors

This building is the Cunard Building located in Lower Manhattan. The doors and entrance looked like they were made of gold. I had to get a quick photograph.

I knew nothing about the building or its history so, I looked it up once I returned home to CA.

History gleaned from Wikipedia

The building was designed between 1917 and 1919 and built between 1920 and 1921 by Benjamin Wistar Morris, architect, and Carrère & Hastings, in a consulting role. While the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House already dominated Bowling Green, the Cunard Building was held in high regard almost immediately upon its opening in May 1921.[1] It featured more than 600,000 sq. feet of space in a modified Italian Renaissance style. Its great hall, which itself was more than sixty feet tall, was the home of Cunard Line and Anchor Lines with a number of other tenants throughout the building.[2] While 25 Broadway is considered to be its primary address, it’s also known as 13-27 Broadway, 13-39 Greenwich Street and 1-9 Morris Street. Within the borough of Manhattan it is designated Block 13, Lot 27.[3]

Its time as a ticketing hall ceased in 1968 and the building was sold in 1971. Its interior was converted to a post office, which remained in service until 2000.[4] On September 19, 1995, the first floor interior, formerly Cunard’s ticketing office, was designated a New York City landmark. The designation included the entrance vestibule and lobby, the passage to the Great Hall and the Hall up to the height of its rotunda. [3]

In 2014 the Great Hall became an event venue operated by Cipriani S.A.[5]

~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunard_Building_(New_York_City)

Nikon Df| Nikkor 28-105mm| Delkin Digital Film

More to come…

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: