Great pics, brings back memories. I grew up just up the road from the Moland House, back then it was a privately owned residence. Washington's Crossing and Bowman's Tower were the subjects of many class trips.
alberio wrote:
I think I like your scope also. I'm looking into a good astro spot in NM. Got ant suggestions?
The stretch of Highway 285 between Vaughn and Roswell was where I first saw the milky way - it was so bright and full that it seemed cloudlike. There are many places in the Jemez mountains, west of Los Alamos that also would provide minimal light pollution.
Around here, SE AZ, easily identified this time of year by the mesquite bean content. :-)
We have a nest just outside the patio door, in a wind ornament. Here is mom and her two babies.
Every year the parents return to a nest on our community club house.
You may need to turn bracketing off. Another google solution is to reset the shooting menu, though I'm not sure what that entails.
unlucky2 wrote:
Excellent, I wonder how you are doing this. I have local bats, they visit almost every knight chasing insects. They do not visit my feeders (that I know of) and I have very poor luck trying to capture them. Are you using a flash and a trigger ? I have tried lighting portions of my yard hoping to catch them around the lights, but they stay in the dark. I have tried on camera flash and have nice pictures of where they were. I tried focusing on a location using bulb and wide aperture resulting in wonderful grey blurs. Presently researching sound motion triggers and strobes so I wonder what you are using.
Excellent, I wonder how you are doing this. I have... (
show quote)
The long nose bats are nectar feeders, they feed on various flowers; and hummingbird feeders are like watering holes for them, making them easier to capture. I've tried motion detection, but the width of the triggering range of the device is too great to get good pictures. The bats are always in the edges. For these pictures I pre-focused on the feeder, tripod mounted, with a 200-600 zoom; and used the built in flash. I have a 25 foot USB cable that I use to tether my camera to my laptop. I have a program called "Control My Nikon", that allows me to change the ISO, f-stop, and exposure; as well being able to see the pictures right away and make adjustments. For these pictures, I just exposed at random. I have a lot of pics of just the feeder.
I have some pics I took in times past of bats flying around the back porch. Again, remote triggering when I see the shadows flying by. The first night, the bats were early. I even had the nose of one in the very first picture I took, to check my settings. The next night, I waited for 2 hours, and there was no activity.
This a wider view from 2 years ago. It provides a little more perspective on how many swarm the feeder.
Tjohn wrote:
I found focusing on the center of the feeder to be best but back up a bit and see a lot more action. Best of luck.
That was my plan. These were taken with my 600mm, hoping for a good closeup shot. Unfortunately, the bats and weather have not co-operated the last few nights to allow follow-up shots.
This time of year, these bats pass through the area headed south. The will drain a hummingbird feeder overnight. These images are from my first night, testing exposure and focus settings. My focus was on the front of the feeder, of course most of the visits were to the back of the feeder.
It is the time of year that the new version of PSE is due out. Typically the previous version then goes on sale. Received an email from Adobe offering PSE2019 for 59.99 last week. Might be worth the update for all the enhancements and changes.
Windows or MAC? Usually, in Windows, file changes, (rename, delete) are a 2 step process.
If you are in the Tucson area, there is a coatimundi hanging around the bird feeding/gift shop area of Madera canyon. He does like the sweet water of the hummingbird feeder. The blur by the feeder is a hummingbird trying to figure out what to do.
Hard to imagine the size, even knowing those trucks have tires that are close to 10 feet in diameter.