Jake's Backdoor Hippie-palooza, 2014 Edition

BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
hark said:
That's snow on the mossy rock??? Really? It looks like a very soft, fuzzy piece of material! Lol! :p

Actually there is a lot of detail in that snow, Jake. Enlarging the photo really shows an incredible amount of minute detail. I just did a quick check to see which lens you used--170mm--must be your f/4 zoom. That's a nice lens! :D Thanks for the information. :)
Click to expand...

I lied, it's not necessarily a rock but just some water weeds that have managed to stay green as it's gotten colder. I don't believe it's "snow" as much as I think it's crystals that have formed from the constant flow of water vapor from the running stream up into nearly 0 degree air. So they grab only the first thing that catches them and stick, and they just grow from there. It was all over all the branches in the road-side stream, but I just didn't have the nerve or will to risk climbing down into a ditch I might not be able to get out of (or worse yet, might fall into) to get the shot while my car sat in the middle of the road with the hazard lights on (a VERY rural road on a Sunday morning - I saw only one other car in my 20 minutes on it).
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
@hark, here's a close crop of a photo from yesterday that didn't work out, but it shows the feathery nature of these ice/snow formations. Quite beautiful, and if it hadn't been so blasted cold and treacherous there I would have spent a lot more time trying to capture it.

_D621777.jpg
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
2014-006:

20140106-_D621820-Edit.jpg



Flickr link: Cleared For Landing | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

We get these snow geese locally every year, and I never get a chance to shoot them. This year, I've made it a priority to stop and take a photo if I have my camera with me, even when it's not convenient. So when I looked to the left where I almost always catch them flying and saw a mass of them on the ground I pulled over, turned around, and drove to where they were. Try as I could I couldn't scare them into all taking flight, but I stood around long enough to catch some incoming.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
2014-006: LR Only

20140106-_D806044.jpg


First one of the Geese.


20140106-_D621808.jpg



We went from 2 degrees F yesterday morning to 50 degrees and rainy this morning, causing the ice that had formed over 3 days to split apart and rush downstream as 7 inches of snow melted when combined with the temps and an inch of rain. Tonight the temps dive back down to 2 degrees. At least the rain stopped and the wind dried the roads before it all froze.
 
Last edited:
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
BackdoorHippie said:
@hark, here's a close crop of a photo from yesterday that didn't work out, but it shows the feathery nature of these ice/snow formations. Quite beautiful, and if it hadn't been so blasted cold and treacherous there I would have spent a lot more time trying to capture it.

View attachment 65587
Click to expand...

BackdoorHippie said:
Hoar Frost!! That's the term I knew I knew but couldn't remember. LOL
Click to expand...

'Hoar Frost.' Well that's a new term to add to my vocabulary! I've never heard of it before. It's actually quite pretty and highly unusual. Hmm...might make for an interesting macro shot! ;)

Thanks for posting this, Jake. The info is very informative. :cool:

I like your snow geese photo, too. It's the first I've ever seen white geese--we get the grey geese during the warmer temps. The only flocks of white birds we get are seagulls which we have year round. There are several small lakes and quarries they tend to frequent...as well as WalMart parking lots for some reason! :rolleyes:
 
Whiskeyman

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
You got a lot closer to those geese than I typically was able to get to them when I lived in North Dakota along the Missouri Flyway.

To get them to take flight , try hunting them with a shotgun. Guaranteed they'll take flight, but away from you, and you won't get that close to them either.

WM
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Whiskeyman said:
You got a lot closer to those geese than I typically was able to get to them when I lived in North Dakota along the Missouri Flyway.

To get them to take flight , try hunting them with a shotgun. Guaranteed they'll take flight, but away from you, and you won't get that close to them either.

WM
Click to expand...

The field they were in is a regular stop for them when they're not in Merrill Creek Reservoir about 5 miles away. While I was close, I suspect that they were well aware of the 6 foot deep drainage easement along the side of the road that separated me from them. I tried tossing stone and the best I could do was go to the other side of the road and then run at them stomping my feet. The first time I did it I got a few of them to take off, but after that they knew I was no threat.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
You guys have never lived in NJ, have you? Even if I had and not been arrested for discharging a firearm on the side of the road and within 100 yards of a school building (which probably would have gotten me labeled as a domestic terrorist), I suspect the farmer just out of view to the left might not have appreciated it.

I find just running at them is usually enough, but as I said, there was a 6 foot deep trench between me and them. This worked for me.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
2014-007: Learning Expedition #1 - Focus Stacking

Way too cold and way too busy today to bother to try and go out and shoot something. But I did get my focus rails yesterday, so I decided I needed to try and do some focus stacking. What did I learn? Focus rails aren't made for larger objects like this - or at least I can't figure it out yet. I seem to get more image-to-image size variation with the rails than I did with just turning the focus knob. So, here is attempt #2 of 2. You can see I missed at least two stripes across the middle. I only shot 5 images and definitely not ready for Carnegie Hall, but hey, it's an experiment on a cold day and at least I learned something. LOL

Shot with my D600 and Sigma 105mm, merged in CS6. A little add'l post merge cleanup in Viveza 2 and Lightroom.

20140107-FocusStack1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Too cold... Too cold. Man you should be glad you're not in my boots today. It's freaking cold up here and the wind factor just adds to it. I don't even dare to take my camera out. Maybe I'll do a shot through the window... Brrr it's freezing here. :)
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
It's all about what you're used to, and wind chills of -20F and lower are not what I signed up for - but I'm not complaining as I got to spend most of my day in a warm office. I did open the window to blow some more bubbles and see if they'd stick around for me to shoot, but they immediately launched left and right with the wind. I only wish I'd been shooting video because more than a minute after I shut my window a frozen bubble flew by, still at 2 stories high. I'm using this project as an excuse/reason to get out of the house every day, but I realize there are some days that I won't be able to do that, so these are the days that I will allocate for "projects". Today's will likely be refined over the coming days as I get stuck in as I'd like to get it nailed before shooting snowflakes again.
 
wud

wud

Senior Member
BackdoorHippie said:
Maybe what I need to do is a better job of proofing before I upload. But here's the thing that really bugs me about this forum (sorry jdeg): It limits you to 1000 pixels on the long side for uploads, which I get for storage reasons, and it will resize and strip EXIF data if you go bigger. But even when upload at 1000px and I have to choose between presenting a very small image, which you really can't see and only some people will bother to click on so it expands, or presenting it "full size", which in reality isn't really full size but a compressed view of the full size image. Go to the image in question above, right-click on it and choose "View Image" (or whatever your browser offers like that), the image you get is the full 1000px image, and it''s larger than the "full size" image displayed (note: I've discovered that if I remove the frame to the right with the "New Threads", "Latest Posts", etc.) it finds the room to display properly. It does this on every browser I use on every monitor I have. So I have no real way of presenting photos in a photo forum that allow them to be displayed in-line as they were produced and viewed on my computer for everyone. That sort of sucks, if you ask me. I suppose I could produce them at 800px, but I got out of point and shoots and camera phones because I don't want to shoot at 800px any more.

Ach, now I'm just ranting. But you get my point, right?

I'm thinking what I may do from now on is post using the "Large Size" option, which will still compress the image, but allows you to click on it and see the 1000px image, where as the "Full Size" option does not allow you to click on it since it assumes it's displaying at full size even when it may not be. I'll also include links to the Flickr photo if I've uploaded it. In fact, I'll go back and update the images above later today so that they are consistent.
Click to expand...

I get your point ;) I upload to my gallery here, and insert via "My Photos". When I see your images, I think they are same size as mine (what this box allows), guess the design of the entire site should be changed, if we want to keep the frames on the sides.

Yes we could resize to 800px, but I like to be able to see the images big/kind of big..





Sent from Tapatalk
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
2014-008:

Today I managed to get outside for 10 minutes to feed the birds, so I brought the camera. 5 minutes in my fingers were numb, 8 minutes in they were in pain. 9 minutes in I shot this. Some days I suppose it's just good enough that you shot something. I'd been listening to some late 60's music while working out today, so I was inspired ...

20140108-_D806154-Edit.jpg
 
Top