Testing, testing, Part II

Under the docks at Brown's Bay.

It had been a bright, sunshiny day. In town, everything seemed sharp-edged, colours washed out to whites and off-whites. By supper time, I'd had enough, and headed north, out of town to the greens and the browns, and the cool of the evening. On a whim, I turned off at the Ripple Rock sign, and drove down to Brown's Bay. Maybe I'd have supper in the restaurant there.

There was no "cool of the evening" in Brown's Bay, yet. There were a few hours to go to sunset, and the light shimmered off the water, making me squint. (I'd forgotten my sunglasses in the car, and was too stubborn to go back for them.) Most of the boats in the marina were white, glaring, dazzling, featureless white.

Looking straight out to the breakwater. Vivid setting; a bit more saturated than what my sun-dazed eyes registered, and not as sparkly.

There was darkness and coolness down below the docks, but the contrast was too strong: I could make out vague white shapes down there, see the rings tiny fish made as they sampled the dust floating on the surface. When I was right above them, I could see the fish.

I couldn't see anything on the camera screen. I took photos anyhow.

Those vague white things, Plumose anemones. The camera on the Vivid setting saw them much better than I did.

A few of the fish, and two varieties of large kelp. (Broad-winged and Seersucker kelp?)

The docks float on these blue plastic tubs, home to a community of anemones, worms, mussels, and limpets. And, I think, a few green sea urchins.

The restaurant was noisy and crowded; I'd have to sit outside. In the sunshine. No. I got back in the car and drove to Sayward for a sandwich. The sun was setting as I drove home.

Brown's Bay is just north of Ripple Rock.

I'm pleased with the results using the Vivid setting, at least for underwater life. I've been testing it today with spiders and crickets; I'll post some of those tomorrow.

Testing, testing. Experimenting with colour control.

I've been learning more about the controls on my camera. (There are so many, and the manual is so confusing!) An article on Digital Photography School alerted me to the Picture Control settings, and I've been experimenting with them. The author recommends using a Flat setting for landscapes; it reduces blowouts or too dark areas, but needs careful processing later.

I took a few photos on Flat. They turned out flat. There was too much guesswork involved on tiny things where I didn't already know what colours they should be.

I switched back to Standard, and then, on a whim, to Vivid. This setting emphasizes colours and contrast, not really my style in landscapes, especially the grey-green landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. But it never hurts to experiment.

I turned to the aquarium; here, a vivid setting might help. Colours fade underwater, especially when the photo is taken through algae-covered glass. And here are the first sample shots, some good, some not so good.

A mud snail, Batillaria attramentaria, eating algae off the glass. Lightened, background noise despeckled out, and sharpened.

A grainy hand hermit, Pagurus granosimanus. The vivid setting shows up the blue bumps on his legs and chelipeds.

A carnivorous snail eating an inoffensive algae eater. I saw it first on the glass, prying the tiny snail off. Once the little guy was captured, the predator let go and dropped to the sand.

A nude hermit, recently molted, resting before he goes looking for a new shell. This was well back in the tank, where usually everything is greyed out. Post processing was only needed to reduce noise and sharpen.

Turned around and heading down to look for a shell. Despeckled and sharpened only.

And one photo that didn't quite work:

Orange-striped green anemone, Halliplanela lineata, on the glass.

The anemone was surrounded by extreme pollution; bubbles and swimming thingies, luckily behind the critter, but still confusing. The vivid setting highlighted them all, so the background had to be cropped out and re-worked; a long, slow job. But I'm impressed by the pattern in the base, so I've included the photo.

I went to Brown's Bay in the sunshine, with the camera set to Vivid. Bad idea; I've deleted all of the landscape photos. But I got a few critters under the docks, where the setting seems to have been helpful. I'll process those tomorrow.

Testing Shutter priority mode

I usually keep my camera set to Auto, and toggle quickly from manual focus to autofocus. Both settings have their advantages; manual focus for face shots on critters that happen to be sitting still, autofocus for their more rambunctious moods. I've tried the aperture priority setting; it works out fine for larger objects, where I want the background to lose detail, but for the unpredictable smaller things, spiders and hermits and the like, it leaves me too often with the whole critter just out of range.

I hadn't tried Shutter priority before; "they" say it's for long exposures with a tripod, or on the other end of the scale, for sports and other fast action photos. And I rarely have opportunity for either.

But how about in macro photography, where the tiny subjects are almost too fast for my shutter finger? For the last few days, I've been experimenting with the fastest shutter speed setting my camera can handle. And I'm happy! I managed to "freeze" some amphipods!

Amphipod hiding in the sea lettuce, tests the current with one antenna, one leg. More legs are visible through the sea lettuce.

Tail end of an amphipod. Their legs stick out in all directions, which makes sense, seeing how they move about; they swim or scramble forward, backward, or sideways, "upside-down" in our terms, or right-side up; it makes no difference to them.

Courting pair, waiting for her (the small one) to be ready to mate. The male appears to be staring down a worm inching its way along the eelgrass. "Scram, or I'll stab you!" he says.

These photos are almost as they came from the camera, except for resizing and adjusting the white balance. I took out a few scratches on the glass, as well.

I had to jack up the ISO to 800, so there's a bit of noise in the darker areas, what with shooting through old glass and moving water. But the colours are truer than at my usual settings, and the flash doesn't produce the awkward highlights that show up at slower speeds. And even a running hermit crab gets his photo taken!

Very small hermit (less than 1/2 inch long) on a barnacled clamshell.

Another tiny one, at a crossroads high in the eelgrass.

Tentacles, tomorrow.

Happy about a lousy photo? Yes!

I am really impressed with my new camera, the Nikon D7000, once more. Because of this photo:

Skunk in the dark

And this one:

Skunk in the darker shadows of the rhododendrons

This skunk came to my garden around 8:30 in the evening. The sun had already set, and the shadows of the evergreens, hiding the sky, made him difficult to see, even a few feet away. He slipped away under the fence in the direction of Laurie's flower beds, so we went the long way around, to head him off; he's sprayed under our windows before, and the stink persists for hours.

Sure enough, the skunk headed for Laurie's nice, soft dirt, and "fragrant" bag of manure. Laurie was there in time, (I had gone back for the camera) and threw a rock in his general direction, so the skunk changed his mind and hurried away. By the time I got in position with the camera, he was far away, and all I could see was a hint of movement in the shadows. Laurie couldn't see him at all.

I took a photo, anyhow; documentation, at least. The skunk dashed under the rhododendrons, where I caught him with a second photo.

And the photos, cropped 'way down, and lightened up, actually showed the skunk, and the green of the grass and leaves! Better than my eyes, far, far better!

The skunk was around again tonight. We smelled him, but never saw him.

Sneaking up on gramps

More trial shots of the aquarium residents.

"I'm the king of the castle."

"Now you're not!"

I changed the colour settings on the camera, from RGBs to AdobeRGB. The colours now seem more intense, maybe too intense. What do you think?

More macro lens work

So much to learn! I've been working on focus.

I tried using the tripod, but it didn't seem to help. Tried manual focus. That works, so far.

The burrowing anemone, in the tank, through slightly algaed glass.

One of the three orange striped anemones, waving gently in the current.

These were taken hand-held, the first because I couldn't get the tripod around that side of the tank, and the second to be able to follow the swaying eelgrass. Not too terrible for a first attempt at Manual focus.

I'm having fun!

Miss B and the new lens

Tonight, Laurie spied a spider creeping out from under a bookcase to grab a tiny fly. One of Brownie's relatives; it's been a while since I saw one. We've had a long, almost critterless winter around here.

Time to test out the new macro lens. I took a dozen shots, then she objected to the flash and went to hide under the books again.

Photo #3, unedited except for lighting, and cropped to about 1/4 the original. (Click to see full size.)

The lens has its quirks. I'll have to do quite a bit of work to learn to use its good points and compensate for the problems.

I can't crawl in too close. That's good, and not so good. I'd never have gotten an inch from Miss B, here, as I would have had to do with the old cameras. But I'm also getting a lot of background, wasted pixels.

The closest I can manage to focus is at 6 inches. And there, the depth of field is next to nil. In the photo above, the tips of her legs and the back half of her abdomen are out of focus.

Miss B's fly, very small. Only a narrow strip of carpet is in focus; a quarter inch at the most.

The camera is quick, and has VR (vibration reduction) enabled. This really helps with camera shake, a big help when I'm on belly and elbows on the floor, hand-holding the camera, stalking a critter that moves about. Only three photos out of the dozen were badly blurred, a record for me.

And the flash works consistently, without a long wait to recharge.

Focussing, even in the semi-dark, is quick and accurate. When the spider wandered off, the focus followed her.

But. I'll have to work up to manual focus, to be able to aim at the part of the spider I'm interested in. Eyes and fangs, for example. The Auto focus just says, "Small object!" and aims for the center, ending up with a knee in focus and the eyes a blur.

Note: Steatoda bipunctata (Miss B and all her kin) make very messy webs. Even to their bug tie-downs. No neat butcher's packages for them.

Also: S. bipunctata's favourite food is sowbugs. With my nose on the carpet, I could see under the bookshelf. Miss B's stash of leftover dinners is a couple or three dried sowbugs.

A clammy aphrodisiac

It was going to be a busy day, and I was rushing in the morning to get ready. But whatever the rush, the critters need to be taken care of.

In a quick pass, I checked the water level, added ice (more on that, later), and dropped in a chunk of frozen clam, still on the quarter shell, for the day's meal. Ten minutes later, holding my morning coffee, I looked to see how they liked it. Each little piece of shell had a hermit on it, busily carving it up.

Another ten or so minutes; breakfast was on; I checked the tank while it cooked. Now the largest section of clam had one hermit and five Nassa snails, gathered from their usual hiding places under the sand.

Before I left, I had time for one more stop. The hermits were still at it. No sign of the snails, at first, but when I looked around the tank, there they were, six of them, all happily mating. Seems that clam meat is a love potion.

Nassa, alone again.

There was a row of fresh, creamy eggs on the eelgrass tonight.

(I hooked up the macro lens this evening. This was one of the first experimental shots. Very shallow depth of field, and I should be using a tripod for these. Hard to manage, when the snail won't stop snailing. I like the bokeh.)

It's about time!

I've taken the plunge; went out and bought myself a "real" camera. I've been having trouble making up my mind. Every camera I've looked at has seemed better, in some ways, than the last, and I finally just chose almost at random.

I got a NikonD7000, with two lenses, one for macro and one for the beach. I haven't even unpacked the macro lens yet, but tonight I had to walk around the house, taking sample shots while I figured out the basic controls. There's going to be a lot to learn with this one.

Here's a quick shot of a difficult corner in my place; awkward lighting, a variety of textures, etc. And I forgot to dust first, or even to straighten up the fabric. I took out one glare spot and resized the photo.

My favourite Japanese broken pot, Mexican sample of embroidery, and my melted wire "dragon".

Wrong lens; that should have been a macro shot. And I'll need to tweak some settings. But for a first trial, it'll do.

I took a photo of the aquarium from halfway across the room, with the tank lights off. And got, hidden in the depths of the eelgrass, a recognizable face shot of one of the mid-sized hermits. Wow!