Category Archives: Photography

Bird Portraits

I have been working on taking pictures of birds using a portrait lens. These are all taken usually next to a dish of seed. Gear is a Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera (EPM-2) with Oly 45 mm f/1.8 lens (90 mm on a 35mm); Pixel Oppilas remote; Amazon basics tripod or Smallrig clamp tripod. 

 

Sunol and Coyote Hills Birds

These are all from either Coyote Hills Regional Park, or the Maguire Peaks Loop Trail in Sunol Regional Wilderness, except for the scrub jay who was in my backyard.

Bay Trail Bike Birding

After reading The Thing With Feathers and then Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle, I started being more interested in birds. Then I bought a Sibley Guide, and it got a little more serious.

I’ve always enjoyed the Bay Trail, on several occasions riding SF to Berkeley or the reverse. This weekend I rode from approximately Fruitvale BART to Hayward BART, going through MLK regional shoreline, Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline, and Hayward Regional Shoreline, and I brought my camera. When I’d ridden the trail before I’d often stopped to read the informational signs about birds, and I was surprised that I was able to photograph pretty much all the common birds I’d read about, plus several more. And a bat ray.

 

American Southwest Pictures

New pictures of the American Southwest roadtrip — Berkeley, California to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, are now up on xenotropic.net.  This was the first time in years that I’ve taken out my SLR, and it was a fun time and place to take pictures.  The full moon helped to create some eerie effects, particularly at the Grand Canyon.  Suzanne made me a tripod carrier for Christmas, which was great to make it easier to bring the tripod along everywhere.  I got several pictures including constellations — Big Dipper and Pleiades.  We also got started on winter camping, including camping in the snow at the Grand Canyon.

Picture of Camping at the Grand Canyon