Dawg Pics' 2020: No more croppy photos.

Dawg Pics

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
I am bat obsessed. Drove to East Hemet, CA to see the bats emerging from under the bridge near the orange groves. This is possibly the larges Mexican Free-Tail bat colony in S. California. It was delightful to watch. I learned a lot by screwing up a lot of images first try out. Trying again tomorrow to see if I can get an improvement.

Mexican Free-Tailed bats flying into the sunset.

bat_trail_n_lr_5004886.jpg
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Dawg Pics said:
I am bat obsessed. Drove to East Hemet, CA to see the bats emerging from under the bridge near the orange groves. This is possibly the larges Mexican Free-Tail bat colony in S. California. It was delightful to watch. I learned a lot by screwing up a lot of images first try out. Trying again tomorrow to see if I can get an improvement.

Mexican Free-Tailed bats flying into the sunset.

bat_trail_n_lr_5004886.jpg
Click to expand...

Using two different browsers, the EXIF isn't displaying for me - but I have a supplemental EXIF reader extension in Chrome which gives me the info (and it could be a forum glitch which causes the EXIF to not show up). According to it, it looks like the image was taken at 8:17pm. Is that correct? I'm just wondering if that is the right time because I've never seen any bats but would like to keep watch. One of our local boy scout troops made bat houses which are installed at a park. In fact, I think I took a pic of one with an entrance hole near its top which allows the hawks to sit on top and peck at the hole.
 
B

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
For what it is worth (I know, not much :rolleyes:) the bats photo EXIF is not showing on my Google Chrome or Firefox. However EXIF's are showing fine on other photo's. :cheerful:
 
Dawg Pics

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
@hark
Yes, the time is correct. We got to the bridge around 7:30 and waited until the first scouts came out. The sun was just behind the mountains. My initial capture was an iPhone movie that is time-stamped at 7:49, which right after they started emerging en masse. Sunset is about 7:45.

It was spectacular, and what was surprising is that they came out in waves. Just when we though they are about all out, more flew out, and that happened several times.

We have bats in my neighborhood, and they start flying at about sunset. So, if you are looking you need to be out a little before sunset.


EDIT: My camera clock was off by 50 minutes unless I accidentally changed something while trying to figure out my settings. So the metadata shows 19:00 17.25, which is about an hour earlier than when I actually shot the image.
I had opened up my aperture a lot and didn't change it for this image, so way way way over exposed, and lack of focus. So, there you go. Live and learn. Shows how much you can recover using RAW data.
 
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Dawg Pics

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
Peter7100 said:
I would be more worried if they have came from Wuhan rather than the EXIF :eek:. Super capture though :encouragement:
Click to expand...


Thank you.:)

This image was pretty underexposed. I was having a difficult time because I really didn't know what to expect, and I had to run the shutter speed up. I should have knocked the EV back down. I mostly set focus by guessing and just shot a bunch hoping something would be acceptable. I changed the settings a few times, changed lenses and still only have a few things worth processing. This image could be better, but I was happy I got anything at all under the circumstances.

There is a fence taller than me that makes it kind of difficult, and if I stand on the bridge, I am shooting towards the sun. Anyway, it is good practice.
 
Woodyg3

Woodyg3

Senior Member
Contributor
Dawg Pics said:
I am bat obsessed. Drove to East Hemet, CA to see the bats emerging from under the bridge near the orange groves. This is possibly the larges Mexican Free-Tail bat colony in S. California. It was delightful to watch. I learned a lot by screwing up a lot of images first try out. Trying again tomorrow to see if I can get an improvement.

Mexican Free-Tailed bats flying into the sunset.
Click to expand...

Bats are really interesting animals. This is a nice shot!
 
Dawg Pics

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
@Roy1961

On the way out my door with dog in tow. Ran in and had no time to do any better. I saw your rainbow taken the same day about an hour apart.

cloudbow_500 N FR 6688.jpg
 
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Dangerspouse

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
We had a Rhodesian Ridgeback when I was a teen. That thing was CRAZY strong, and fast! My dad used to "walk" it by driving around the block, and the dog would chase him. That block was long too, almost a mile, and hilly - yet he was still able to drive at almost the posted speed limit the entire length without losing the dog at all. God, he was a good boy. Very docile and family friendly. Your looks lovely - I don't think I've ever seen a 2-tone one :)
 
Dawg Pics

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
Roy1961 said:
was that one to the right of the sun?

did you see the one on the left, wish i had my wide angle with me to catch them both.
Click to expand...

I don't know. I only saw the one as I was trying to get out the front door with Nola Mae. I wish I had seen two. I would have abandoned the walk temporarily. We were. having a "special" day. She was an insane mutt all day. I always see the coolest stuff when I don't have my camera. Today, I was driving home from the vet, and the sun was highlighting the misty rain over the lake. No camera. No place to stop if I did.:mad:
 
Dawg Pics

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
Dangerspouse said:
We had a Rhodesian Ridgeback when I was a teen. That thing was CRAZY strong, and fast! My dad used to "walk" it by driving around the block, and the dog would chase him. That block was long too, almost a mile, and hilly - yet he was still able to drive at almost the posted speed limit the entire length without losing the dog at all. God, he was a good boy. Very docile and family friendly. Your looks lovely - I don't think I've ever seen a 2-tone one
Click to expand...

Thanks. Nola Mae is some kind of hound mix---mayybee. The shelter said she was a Lab/Catahoula mix, but I have my doubts. She is fast and can jump. She jumped with grace onto my counter-top like a cat.

We had a Rhodesian many years ago that was fast and agile. No problems scaling a 6 foot fence. My Lab would try to block her but she just cut around her and was over the fence before we could say her name. We found out she was jumping the fence when my husband walked out the front door to go to work, and there was Boogie. She took off running, headed straight for a truck and then cut-right like it was nothing. I think his mouth fell-open. She was often a brown dot in the distance very quickly. One time, I took her down to Lake Pontchartrain, and she took off in the shallow water and kept going until I could barely see her. She came back to me when she decided she wanted to. That was pretty scary. She was like your Rhodesian. Great in the house and docile. She loved kids and often sought them out in the neighborhood. She kept crashing my neighbors BBQ to play with the kids. My. neighbor wasn't thrilled the second time she jumped over. She also learned she could knock the fence boards off if she hit them enough times.
I can believe it took a car to exercise your dog. We loved that Rhodesian dearly. She was a funny dog, and she made us laugh every day.



Boogie, The Rhodesian Reject (Partial Ridge, kinked tail). She was the "free dog" in the classifieds for a reason. (jumps fence)
IMG_2008.jpg
 
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