Chicks...

What is that “FOWL” smell? I now know what that means, and where that phrase came from Domesticated Fowl…

Over the past month my wife has been conducting a 3rd grade classroom experiment. Part of their science class they had to hatch something. They had a choice of Butterflies or Chickens. They chose the latter.

She and her classs for the last 21 days have been brooding over their 30 something chicken eggs and one duck egg.

On March 12, 2008 she and her 3rd grade class became proud parents of two baby chicks. Just in time for Easter. First came Root beer, and then came Boots. Root beer is a brown color and Boots has feathers on his feet, fuzzy like Ugg Boots. They should have named Root beer, Sarsaparilla instead.

By the time I showed up at the school that day, another chick had hatched. Another little brown chick. This little chick was still in the drying phase of the ordeal, and couldn’t be picked up. This one we named Grace. Grace isn’t very sturdy on its feet.

We set up a video camera and my wife was able to get some video of the hatchings. Before my wife left from school that evening, three more chicks had hatched. I guess when they say 21 days they really mean 21 days.

When she arrived at school the next day, she greated by the peeps of 11 more hatchlings in the incubatior. The duck will need to cook for a few more days before it hatches. They are cute but noisy, peep, peep, peep. Even at only a few hours old they stink. Here are a few pictures I took yesterday of Root beer and Boots.

Silky...

I took this shot on our hike back from Mirror Lake in Yosemite. The time of day was after 4:00 PM. The sun had moved in the Valley and the river was in the shadow of Half Dome. This created a low setting allowing me to set my shutter to a slower speed. It was also dark enough I could leave the aperture open to get a better depth of field adjustment.

The key to making the water look silky is to work with a slow shutter speed. In some of these shots I had the shutter open for as long as 8 seconds. Two crucial pieces of equipment will be needed for these long exposure shots. One is a tripod so the camera will remain stable and stable. Two, you will need a cable release or remote release. The will eliminate and unwanted movement on the camera during exposure.

The best time is to shoot these types of images either early in the morning or later at night. Another good way is to take the image during overcast or cloudy days. Remember the key is to slow the shutter speed. If it is too bright or sunny sometimes you can trick the camera by closing the aperture. Keep in mind that the smaller the aperture opening the greater the depth of field (focal length).

This is the same shot. I cropped the image tighter. I straightened the image so the sight line would be level. In Photoshop CS3 I made the image warmer (not as blue or cold). I also did a little post sharpening.

Pano's again...

Today I am running a little behind so I have been looking for something to post. I haven’t had time to work on the post that would have been posted today. I will either post that entry later today or save it for another time. This post is going to be short and sweet. I have already posted an entry about panoramic photography. I thought it would be a good time to give you an update.

Why is it a good time to post this update? I am glad you asked. After all the rain we have experienced in the great state of California. The rain has quenched the thirst of our deserts, high and low. During the next few weeks we are going to experience a desert bloom. All the deserts in the state will start to see their wildflowers bloom in multitudes’ of colors.

While the deserts are in bloom this will make for good wide-angle and panoramic photography. Depending on where you go to see the bloom and what time of day to photograph, the images will be amazing.

Anza Borrego Desert State Park will be one of the better places to see the desert bloom. Anza Borrego doesn’t receive much rain fall though out the year. In some years it doesn’t receive any rain. However this year it has received almost 5 inches of precipitation.

I ran across a good article on http://www.popphoto.com/ if you want to read more about advanced panoramic photography, click on the link Tip for Shooting Panoramas.

Here is a panoramic image I took in early 2006 while snowshoeing in San Jacinto at the top of the Palm Springs Tram. My wife and I went to the edge and looked down 2500 foot cliff face. This is a view of the Coachella Valley. Palm Springs below to Indo in the distance at the far right. This is a stitch of three photographs. I found a fourth photo that had my wife in it and it fit so I stitched that in too.

I was using an inexpensive point-n-shoot Kodak digital camera. I didn’t have the ability to manually adjust the aperture or the shutter speed with this camera. The first photograph on the left needs to be color corrected for it to blend with the rest of the images.

Here is the before and after without some color correction.