Brain freeze- Snaphappy playing & learning

[snaphappy]

The caterpillars have arrived UGH! They're everywhere take a step and pop another step and pop Yuck sounds like walking on bubble wrap. We have very few trees in our yard but look across either of our neighbours yards we can see trees rapidly thinning trees. When the caterpillars are so thick you can see them with your eyes on skinny little trees from 500+ft away yuck


Even the trees at our back fence are covered in the leaf eating menaces


Many pretty rainbows with the rain, sun, rain, sun, hail, sun, rain, sun.....


A couple of my sons broody chickens, the tiny black one has 3 chicks under her and the other nest box has 29 eggs under those hens. Oh the ugly naked chicken on the end is just fine she is a Turken which does not have neck feathers LOL she's supposed to be that ugly


Same trees as first pics but taken this evening and very little green left

 

[snaphappy]

The Grizzly following along while we walked and getting annoyed at moths fluttering up at her

Blue moth


These ones look black when flying

Ugly hen dust bathing in the wet sawdust pile

2 for 1 shot I don't have a macro so these all taken with my 70-300VR

Little frog in a puddle

The caterpillars are unreal its soooooo yucky the roads are slick with them, my barn is covered, can't touch anything outside without first looking because every single area of the city and outer limits are just covered in them. I got out of vehicle to take this pic because its not a busy road but only got one shot because I went to adjust and realized I had at least a dozen or more caterpillars climbing up me and had to get daughter to help me remove them so I didn't sit on them in my vehicle YUCK!

 

[piperbarb]

I can totally empathize with you regarding the caterpillars. When I was growing up on Long Island, NY, we would get periodic infestations that would be like what you are experiencing. Totally gross and vile.

 

[snaphappy]

So had to make a trip out by the osprey and eagles nests again and gave it another try. Reading other posts I think I need to explore my focus options other than single point but mainly my problem is that my 70-300mm just doesn't have enough reach. Family moaned and groaned but ended up enjoying my stop. As we heard Osprey calling and then watched small ravens take on an eagle that arrived on the scene. Raven couple took on the eagle for awhile then Osprey left the nest to take on the fight but a second eagle arrived to harass osprey. Made for some great chases and eagles finally left and osprey settled back in the nest.

 

[Michael J.]

I would like to see an eagle in wild-life. THX for sharing your photos with us.

 

[snaphappy]

Found some Falls so tried out smoothing water for the first time



This one handheld just to see if I could do it


Went farther up the Falls and found this beautiful spot and wish I could have smoothed more but no place for tripod so handheld with nothing to brace on but mossy wet rocks. 1/10 was best I could handhold

 

[snaphappy]

Goslings at 11days old and Duckling at 5wks old out with mom in the morning after a rainy night


A try at flowers for the challenge I really like the yellow when changed to B&W. Not the cleanest flower or background so still searching out flowers


A couple ducks became moms on the weekend

 

[snaphappy]

Some more flowers and wet leaves I found and tried playing with
Like the red flowers and all the green but too distracting and flowers too centred


Chives and grass after a rainy night found the water droplets had ALOT of highlights even though I was in heavily overcast light


Ferns covered in spray from waterfall


Lost definition in the white I think


Really like these red flowers but just couldn't get them to look good in B&W no matter how I tried to compose or light. Really wish I hadn't lectured kids on not touching nature because would have liked to take one home to try it with a light less distracting background


Found this interesting one my daughter said looked like shoes but again distratcing background wish I snuck it in my bag...

 

[snaphappy]

I like this 1st composition better I think with the layers of fog visible from my higher vantage but the moon is so darn high. I wish I had better manipulation software and skills. I removed power lines etc though



Twice in the last few days I've tried out my ND filter with interesting results. I like that it darkens so I could try a long exposure for the water (in earlier post) and it does seem to give colour a saturation when using a faster shutter


Nothing like a stormy sky to show you how filthy your sensor is.... It took some playing to be able to get even these sky pics sort of right because I'm still working on reading my light meter to get the darker results I wanted. The lightning kept flashing around me but everytime I was pointed in the wrong darn direction and I'd adjust and next time I'd get lightning behind me again. I thought I'd finally caught a flash but found wet hail had landed on my lens and smeared everything. So not only did I get soaked and beat by hail but no lightning photos.
Also ended up with 4 shots that looked like a big blue cross on the pic so I'm guessing I have to watch how far I turn my ND?

Oh these were a daytime storm so although clouds were dark it was very light so I used iso 100, smallest aperture F22 and still couldn't slow down my shutter much even with ND

 

[snaphappy]

Moved out of "P" for low light situations last night for the first time and now my camera will never move from "M" it is so much fun. I've enjoyed figuring out my light and deciding my shutter, iso and aperture during the day since my class but friday I went out to try stars in "M" and had so much more fun then just letting "P" figure it out for me. Here's some of my attempts from the last couple of days.
Moon rising

Star tries


Hubby noticed this above us as we fenced yesterday so ran and grabbed my camera. Not sure if he took it or I did since we took a few but fun that he's noticing things to snap as well and even turning my dials and experimenting too


Last night I went out to see if I could catch the moon between clouds I tried some PP but not sure on the results of them


As you can see from my last attempt the clouds moved in but the lightning had been flashing beside me so turned my camera down between the barn and coop and captured this


Well, that was exciting so hubby grabbed my kit lens for me and out we went for a night of lightning strikes I think they're a bit dark but since I'm still working on my camera skills I haven't delved into PP software yet






​I had fun being snaphappy the last couple nights

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

Good PP on the moon and I really like the lighting shots

 

[piperbarb]

Nice images!

 

[snaphappy]

Thanx guys learning to use manual and choosing my own settings has really raised it to another level of fun. I'm really enjoying learning and playing. Since hubby has realized how fun it is it makes it even more fun.

The first lightning shot was using my 70-300mm and I just swung my tripod towards where lightning had last struck while taking moon shots. I really just got lucky as mysettings worked and I got a sky light up almost as soon as I hit the shutter on my 30sec exposure and then half way through I got an actual lightning bolt. Its really an "almost" since most of the bolt is down behind building I was shooting over but hubby heard "yeah" from inside the house and so started our evening of watching the storm and deciding where we thought the next strike might happen

 

[snaphappy]

Little duckies enjoying the evening outside with us


Romeo checking us out

 

[Moab Man]

I love those lightning shots!

 

[snaphappy]

I'm a bit behind in going through my shots but here's some more

Busy beavers down the road from us I'll have to remember to revisit this in better lighting now that I noticed it

 

[snaphappy]

A murder of crows in the caterpillar eaten trees
​

 

[snaphappy]

Friday nights moon rising at 70mm instead of 280mm

 

[snaphappy]

Max and a couple ducks snoozing in the shade

 

[snaphappy]

Still getting to know this town so found a new area to explore
The Fraser River from another view point. The smell of the wild roses was so beautiful with the breeze, too bad the caterpillars ate all the trees. The river is still very high and parks are all still closed along the river but I guess the Sturgeon have lots of water to swim in
attempted some PP removing power lines and buildings is it noticeable?