Twilight Photowalk Part 3: Panning

This was probably my least favourite part of the course, but it was still an interesting technique, and could probably be used quite easily for daytime photography... with birds?

The object of this was to focus on a moving object, and take a picture so that it looked like the object was still and the background was blurred. To make this happen, you have to focus on the object at about a 45 degree angle, and follow until the object is parallel, take the picture and keep following until after, so that you don't lose the movement.

 I'm not sure that the background was super interesting - more lights could be better? Anyhow. That's it for the photowalk!

Twilight Photowalk Part 2: Light Trails

 This was probably my favourite part of the photowalk: setting up cameras on tripods, having an 8s exposures and watching the lights show up. The worst part was waiting for the cars to come..

 Everything makes a different light - the top of taxis, buses, cars stopped... It would have been way cooler if there was more traffic, but I'm sure that I could set this up again somewhere else. :)

Twilight Photowalk Part 1: Night shots

Yesterday M and I took a 2 hour Twilight Photowalk with Amanda Kerr Photography. It was a Groupon that we bought last march for $45 or something!

We weren't too sure what to expect.. but we headed off, tripods and cameras in hand. The first part of the evening was a 45min (ish) discussion on different settings to use while shooting at night, what different things do, and a very basic description of each. Although I already knew some (shutter speed, a bit of aperature, etc), it was nice to have a more professional description.

The first set of photos we took was at the steam clock in Gastown. There were only four of us plus instructor in this course, but I guess we looked crazy enough that probably half of the people that walked by us thought we were taking their picture. As if, there are WAY better things to waste digital memory on!


Here's a few photos of the steam clock, with the cool colour-changing building behind.

 

The effect on this one is zooming part way through the long exposure. I really like this photo because the base of the clock is almost completely in focus, with the clock face going all crazy.

A few more trials of zooming while the shutter's open. It's something I'd like to try again.. I'm sure ther's a way where you could get the middle object completely in focus... I just didn't have it last night!

Parts 2 and 3 coming this week :)

Hummingbirds

We have hummingbirds at our feeder! Everyone that I tell that to gives me a funny look, and says something along the lines of hummingbirds not living here, it being winter and all. But.. it's not true. Anna's hummingbirds live in this area year-round. R saw one flying around near our house way back in December and I didn't believe him until I saw one for myself. We (of course!) had to go out a buy a hummingbird feeder..

I believe these are either juveniles or adult females. Today I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a male with the bright pinky-red breast/head. I'm hoping to get some photos of it sometime!

Boundary Bay

It snowed in Vancouver (and the Lower Mainland, I suppose) Friday and again yesterday, so R decided that we would definitely see snowy owls if we went to Boundary Bay. I looked at the Vancouver Rare bird report, which said that 28 were sited (on one day) near 72nd and Boundary Bay.

We started out at Centennial Beach, which is where we went last time. We went for a walk, saw tons of birds and people with dogs not on leashes (not sure how people are ok with that? It's a nature reserve...) and got some cool photos.

I'm not sure what happened, but all of a sudden the water went from looking like this, full of brandts.. 

 .. to this. They flew away in a matter of seconds, and all you could hear was wingbeats. Pretty awesome.

After being at Centennial Beach for a while, we decided to try and find the 28 snowy owls..

.. and found 14 eagles in a tree.. 

and snowy owls! So incredibly cool! We saw at least 9, and way too many people pushing to get closer for photos. Kinda sad, because most were way off the trails, and close to harassing the poor birds.

So. many. people. Lenses that were more than a two feet long. Huge scopes. Tripods for teeny cameras, tripods for huge cameras. Insanity.

We saw more than just eagles and owls. We also saw this bright tree (possibly crabapple) with tons of golden-crowned sparrows hanging out.

There was tons of people taking photos of this guy.. he (she?) was bigger than most, and had way darker colours on it's back. It was also sitting on a log, whereas the rest were nestled among the logs.

This little guy decided to ruffle his feathers for us.

And then settled down with a nice stare.

Happy new year!

Happy New Year!

Here's to new years, new goals and all things unknown.

This photo is basically how I feel about this year. Unlike most years.. after April, I'm not sure what city I'll be living in, and other than that, I have one week of plans in June... and then nothing..