So K’s possums got a big brother recently: The whole family. Note the little sores on the small one? That’s where their whiskers are coming in. Here’s the biggest one by himself. He needs a bit more enrichment, so he gets to hang out with us on occassion. I didn’t quite capture the possum tongue, but he was licking me. Very cute 🙂
K is taking care of some baby possums for the next week. They are about 16 grams (1/2 oz) each. Obligatory pictures included…
Okay, I’ve made some updates to my Yellowstone pictures Changelog: I’ve added my favorites (which had been stuck in another directory and didn’t get in the first release) I’ve cleaned up the brightness on the first 8 shots (the camera had set itself to an exposure compensation of -0.7 for some reason) I’ve fixed the gallery problem that etselec noted To do: Fix the stupid lens smudge in some of the wide angle shots near the end of the trip Add some minimal captions Go back to the original, larger shots and crop out tight images on some of the birds (like the sandhill cranes with their chicks and the peregrine falcons)
When we came back from Yellowstone this year, I had about 1,800 pictures to go through. I’ve finally selected the best 200 or so. Some of them need a bit of cleanup in terms of brightness and in a few cases, getting rid of a mark that was on the back of a lens which shows up when the camera is stopped down. Using the open source principle of release early and often, I’ve put these images online in their current form. I’ve also got a few more that I put in my “best category that I haven’t done yet, but will tonight. ...
Last year, I mentioned High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography, where you combine multiple pictures taken at different exposures to create a single picture where all of image is properly exposed. I didn’t do much with it at the time because, a) it’s not really possible when you shoot slide film, and b) there didn’t seem to be a good hdr program for linux. a) was resolved when I went digital in November ...
Sorry I’ve been absent for a bit. I got sick the Sunday before we left on vacation and didn’t even start feeling better until Thursday morning. The we headed out to Yellowstone for two weeks on Saturday. The vacation was great, although yesterday’s trip home was a nightmare. We got diverted from our connecting airport to Rochester, MN. That meant that we didn’t get to Minneapolis until an hour after our connection was supposed to leave. Fortunately, the connection itself had been diverted to Deluth, so we still beat it by an hour. We did make it home, but rather than the plane landing in NC at 10pm, it didn’t get in until 12:30am. We didn’t get home until after 2am. With getting the dogs from boarding and doing some shopping so that we would be able to eat, I haven’t had a chance to write up much about the vacation. ...
K and I are going through the preparations for our trip out to Yellowstone and I was looking into the photography setup. I headed over to B&H, found the circular polarizer for the lens of my new digital camera, then went over to the film section. For a number of reasons, I still think that landscape shots should be taken using slide film, preferably slow slide film, ideally Velvia 50. It does things with greens and browns that make my heart all fluttery (yes, I know this makes me a big photography nerd). But when I got to the slide film section, I couldn’t find Velvia 50. Velvia 100, yes, but no Velvia 50 – it has been discontinued. Now, Velvia 100 is a nice film, but it’s really just not the same as Velvia 50. For landscapes, it’s too fast – I would rather have the slower speed. After all, my digital can imitate 100 speed film, I want something slower. I bought the 100 speed anyway – I still think that slide film is better than digital for landscapes. ...
I was taking the dogs out last night and saw a periodical cicada emerging from it’s nymph stage. Kind of cool – definitely an interesting picture: Now I wonder if I have to worry about my fruit trees :-/
Not a whole lot going on this weekend. A little shopping, a little work around the house, etc. Saturday, Bryn’s husband, Adam, came by and took a look at some trees that were worrying me. Having a master arborist tell you that, while they are dying, they won’t come down immediately was reassuring. I had this fear that they were going to come down any minute. We’ll probably still want to take them down this fall, but at least we get to pick the times 🙂 ...
er, sorry just a minor Red Dawn reference – it’s not my fault, I grew up in the 80s. Now that I’ve got that out of my system, a note on a new toy. As I mentioned before, I’m going to go (mostly) digital on my trip to Yellowstone. I bought 8 GB of memory cards which is only 800 or so pictures in raw format. For the past several years, I’ve shot around 800 pictures in film. On the one hand, I suspect I’ll take more pictures in digital since the marginal cost is basically zero. On the other hand, I’ll have the ability to prune out any bad shots. Still, I suspect that I’ll wind up wanting more memory cards. ...