Photography – Page 42 – Circadianreflections Blog

” My only true love, darling. I live for furs. I worship furs! After all, is there a woman in all this wretched world who doesn’t? ” Cruella De Vil in Disney’s 101 Dalmations

June 28, 2013June 28, 2013Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Gear, PhotographyTagged "Fast Food Toys", Camera Gear, Photography, San Jose California Nature Photography, Speedlight, StrobistLeave a comment

I’m continuing to play with my Speedlight off camera. I have to re-learn how to set it up before I can use it if I let too much time pass between using it off camera. For this shot I used my homemade Snoot for the lighting on this. This is my Homemade Snoot on my SB600.

I made it with an old tea box, and Gaffer’s Tape

“How To” make my Snoot:

What I used and did–
A tea box
Scissors
Box cutter
Gaffers Tape
Painters Tape
SB600 w/Finished Snoot

I cut the box to fit around the Speedlight then covered both the inside and outside of the box with Gaffers tape. I couldn’t find any Velcro in the house so I used Painters tape to temporarily close the Snoot around my SB600 Speedlight. I had planned to put Velcro on the seam so I can re-use the Snoot for future projects, but I never got around to that.

I think it works pretty well. These characters I’ve had stored since the 1990’s.

The Mesquite Dunes and Amargosa Range

June 20, 2013June 20, 2013Posted in PhotographyTagged Death Valley, Nikon, Photography, San Jose California Nature Photography, Travel and TourismLeave a comment

The Mesquite Dunes and Amargosa Range, originally uploaded by CircadianReflections Photography.

Via Flickr:
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

Photographing the Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley, CA (pamphotography.wordpress.com)
Sand Dunes in Death Valley (tctravelers.wordpress.com)
Sand Dunes (ecdcphotography.com)
Zabriskie Point Sunset (circadianreflections.wordpress.com)

Sunrise Lake Tahoe Nevada

June 17, 2013June 17, 2013Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Landscapes, Nature, Nikon, Photography, TravelTagged Flickr, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, Photography, San Jose Nature Photography, TravelLeave a comment

Sunrise Lake Tahoe Nevada, originally uploaded by CircadianReflections Photography.

Via Flickr:
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

Western Tanager-Male

June 3, 2013June 3, 2013Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., Nature, Nikon, Photography, WildlifeTagged Birding, Photography, San Jose California Nature Photography, Western TanagerLeave a comment

My first Western Tanager Photograph! I’ve seen this bird before, but wasn’t able to capture a photograph of it that time. I’m very excited about this capture. This may be one of 5-6 Tanagers in this area that may be nesting here. If so it’s rare. I read yesterday, “The Breeding Bird Atlas of Santa Clara County reports the species as an
“uncommon to rare breeder” in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range, with lowest altitude nests reported at 400-500 feet. Lake Almaden has an altitude of about 200 feet, so if nesting occurs, it would be at the lowest altitude ever noted in the county. ” Tom Grey

I was in this location yesterday with Dali, Tom Grey, and several others who like me were very excited to see these birds.

Here are a few more poses I managed to capture.

Trying to keep a low profile,

Surveying the area,

A backward glance,

” Never yet was a springtime, when the buds forgot to bloom.” ~Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

May 6, 2013May 6, 2013Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., PhotographyTagged Bearded Iris, Margaret Elizabeth Sangster, Nikon D700, Photography, San Jose California, San Jose California Nature PhotographyLeave a comment

” Never yet was a springtime, when the buds forgot to bloom.” ~Margaret Elizabeth Sangster, originally uploaded by CircadianReflections Photography.

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

Another Iris from Nola’s Iris Garden in San Jose’s eastern foothills.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 28-105 | Texture by Kim Klassen| James Beltz Glamor Glow technique

Bearded Iris Morning

May 5, 2013May 5, 2013Posted in Copyright 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved., PhotographyTagged Bearded Iris, Camera Lenses, Flowers, Nikon, Photography, San Jose California Nature PhotographyLeave a comment

I went to Nola’s Iris Garden yesterday with a Meet-Up group. It’s in the Eastern Foothills of San Jose, CA.
This should have peak season for them, but we’ve had several days of really warm temperatures lately and that has taken its toll on the Iris. I found most of them wilted and tired looking, but walking through the rows of Iris I did find several that were in good condition.
Nola’s specialize in Bearded Iris and are open to the public in April and May. I’d like to revisit this nursery next year and hopefully see it in all its splendor.

I used my Nikon D700 with my Nikkor 28-105mm AF-D micro lens for this outing. It’s an older lens which can only be found on the used market today. I purchased it to have a “walk around”, light mid-range zoom for hiking. The macro function wasn’t something I was really interested in at the time I purchased the lens, but I’ve used the macro function quite a bit since purchasing it, and I’m really happy with the results. The macro is a 1:2 ratio not a true 1:1, but I can get even closer using my Canon 500D Close-Up Lens with it.

Orange Beard

Colorful Housing

Farm tools

Woody met John Deer

A view of the Eastern Foothills from the garden

Mossbrea Falls

April 16, 2013April 16, 2013Posted in California, hikes, Landscapes, Nature, Nikon, PhotographyTagged California, Mossbrea Fall, Nikkor, Nikon, Nikon D300S, Nikon DX format, Photography, Travel, Waterfalls1 Comment

Mossbrea Falls, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

One from my archive. This fall is in Northern CA. It’s quite an adventure to get to it. There is no trail to the fall. One must walk along railroad tracks for about a mile. Trains still use the track so you might have to jump out-of-the-way and wait for the train to pass on your way to or from the fall.

Once there if it’s been a wet season you’re rewarded with a wall of water cascading down the mountain. I believe the length of the wall or mountain side that the fall cascades down is as long as a football field. I had to shoot it in bits and pieces To take it all in at once was a bit overwhelming at first. The only way I could “see” to photograph it was to break it down into manageable frames.
I’ve looked at my photos off and on since I took them never being motivated to process them beyond a few basic adjustments then I saved them as PSD’s, closed the file and moved on.
I took another look at the “works in progress” over the week-end because I’m planning to pass this way again next month and I’d like to revisit the fall on my way north.
While looking at them again I finished a few photos here’s the first.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 17-35mm| B+W Neutral Density filter 0.9

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