Tom (BacSi67) Retired, 70's USN Hospital Corpsman, Married, two cats, South East PA, 30 miles north of Harrisburg, Enjoy walking in the the forest, listening to Nature, watching beautiful Sunsets, Fly Fishing, visiting Bethany Beach Delaware, Photography

Hi Stina,

No Sorry, I do not have any pictures of that little sparrow, I never had a decent camera back then and although I tried taking pictures of birds but was discouraged with the end results.

Tom

Sorry about all the spelling errors, some times my fingers type faster than I can think and I even though there is a preview button here, I sometimes forget to use it, (and) it would be a very good idea if there were also a spell checker here to take advantage of.

Tom

Hi Stina, You have a real heart for animals, I can sense that about you from how you describe this little story, you are a kind and gentle person who loves animals and birds. Just the way you describe how you came across this little bird says alot about you. Now I share similar feelings with you about these beautiful creatures and so far you have done a fine job of taking good care of this little bird, now, about the amputation part, here's what I would do, apparently you have given this a good deal of thought, and that is good, however before i would take this dove to any Vetrinarian I would get several opinions from a few Vet's, and see what they have to say, then pick the best. This is a very serious operation on any animal or human as you well know, not trying to be harsh here, but I know as I would like if it were me to make this decision; you wish the very best outcome for this little bird, and as tramatic as it will be for this little cfreature it will be in some pain for a few days. I know birds do survive with only one goog leg, having lost the other leg, I at one time had a large bird feeder next to our deck on the back of our house and during the winter when the snow fly's, there are many birds that came to our feeders, one such bird was a little English Sparrow who I noticed would only ead seed on the deck floor, he could not compete with the others at the feeder.........he only had one leg!...and would hop in tiny circles and balance himself with the tip of his wing on the side where he only a very short stump, not long enough obviously to support himself from not falling over. He did allright and i saw him again the very next year. I always felt sorry for him, but i know he was doing fine because he survived the winter and cme back again later in the following spring, he was a happyb little bird, that was over 15 years ago and I often think about him when I see a bird that is having problems feeding, usually other birds would knock him from the feeder, but he would pick himself up and go about feeding on the deck boards, so I placed a large sheet of plywood down and fixed some sides to it so the seed would not scatter off the edges of the board during a wind.....Made me happy too. So think about what I said and good luck to you and especially that little Dove. (BTY), if you do go about this, please, would you keep me posted about how everything is going?

Tom

Sorry, I tried, maybe you could put those lenses up for sale on the Forum, never know, someone may be able to use them.

Tom

Gidgette, Not knowing what model your old Nikon is, depends; I cant even guess if your older Camera lenses will work let alone fit. When Nikon went Digital, they kept all of the lens mounts similar, however the older ones may work on your newer camera, but you will need to focus in Manual mode.

On your D-90, there should be a page in your Manual that lists "Compatible Lenses" with subtitles such as "Compatible CPU Lenses and a chart on how to tell the difference between CPU , Type G lenses and D Lenses"; and a "Diagram" on how to Identify AF-S from AF-I Lenses.

There also should be a chart on "Compatible Non-CPU Lenses" Leading you to "Incompatible Accessories and Non CPU lenses". If you look at these charts and lists, plus the diagrams, I believe you will see how to find your answer on one of those areas. It is difficult to tell without knowing which Nikon 35mm Model you have., check your newest Nikon Manual.

Hope this helps some.

Tom

Beautiful, Terri, ( got to warn you, this is going to be a very long read)

Yes they are very hard to get to pose for you, I have not had much luck in getting butterfly shots, and you do need loads of patience, and Patience is what you need with anything you love doing. I meant to also comment on the depth in the flower pic and The Great Blue Heron (Bird) pic you sent, just fantastic, I like to shoot at around 5.6, and rarely any where near 2.5, my most favorite times of the day for photography are Very early in the morning just at twilight as the sun is coming up and also in the late afternoon, near 4 pm and wait for the "Golden hour" as the Artists people call it, when there is a Gold sheen color cast over most everything blending all colors into a marvelous setting. I would love to try night photography of a city on the horizon, I saw one of Philadelphia some time ago taken around 10 pm and it was absolutely stunning. Sunsets are my favorites and also sunrise shots, I have some taken this year, would love to share them with you, Something else I would share with you in protecting your work from Theft by Fraud is very important to you especially if you upload your photos to a reputable web site that will market your work for you, there are some of them out there that are very good at promoting you, advertisers of all sorts look at these web sites to purchase photographers work for their advertising markets and it can be very profitable for you. I am looking at one right now and trying to make up my mind to try it for a while. To protect your work you can invisibly Im-bed a watermark that cannot be seen , only by selective means. I did have a photograph stolen from me right under my nose by someone who I thought was a good friend; It took place at a Veterans art and Photography exhibit held at the Veterans VA Medical Center this past summer. I was exhibiting some of my work along with some 25 other Amateur Photographers, all Military Veterans... The Exhibit is held twice a year and gets your name and work out to allot of folks, and you are allowed to sell your work and fair prices. The public is invited but not allowed to display ( only Veterans can be participants; anyway, my would be friend arrived late, he had quite a distance to drive and he was having some problems with his legs, his wife with with him as was my wife Valerie. There were no more spots available, however I had two large tables and I was only showing about 10 pieces of my work, and I offered my extra table to him and re-arranged everything of mine on a single table, a bit crowded but I wanted to help my "friend".

I' call him Bill, (not his real name), I know he does not even know about this Forum so I feel safe here. "We were in Nam at the same time and in the same Marine Division, I a Navy Hospital Corpsman, he was a Combat Rifleman, but we did not know each other back then and never as we could tell crossed paths ( little history here), So we met up at the VA one day and talked and became "good Friends" He enjoyed Photography and Art, I enjoyed Photography and Writing, we hit it off together.( not to get to the point)
He was displaying Photography Note Cards with "his" photos on the face of the cards and packaged in sets of 6 to eight cards with envelopes and tied nicely with red white and blue ribbons (very clever and patriotic) for anywhere from $14.00 a package to $20.00 a set , business cards included with each set. not long after he was set up he had a person very interested in a certain set of Note Cards, selling for $20.00, the man asked him if he would sell the set for a bit less and my"friend replied", "well I would, except that photo was taken during the day of the Winter Solstice last year and the temperature was around 10 degrees and a bit of very cold wind on top of that, he further went on to say "I nearly froze to death and got frost bite on my nose and fingers waiting for the sun to get at the right position where it would make a fantastic Sunset, I worked really hard standing there in the bitter cold, and the braces onmy legs were almost frozen to my skin and my fingers were beat red, I just cant let that Sunset go for anything less than what I have it priced at" Well I could not believe what i was hearing, but the man said , well OK, I really want that pack so will you take a check, my (Friend) said well sure, if it's on a local bank, laughing sheepishly, ( I will never forget this) (me)...my (friends) wife took a look at the cards and said" Bill, Tom has that same photo in an 11 x 14 framed and matted on his table, He turned and looked and said, Gee Tom, where did you get that? looking at me face all red and a stupid puzzled look on his face, Valerie looked at me and knew I was going to say something and she was hoping I was not gong to knock his block off his shoulders. I said, "Gee Bill, don't you recall how we both said we could send each other photos over the internet and we would critique each others work, I sent that to you, "No no he replied, I don't remember that at all I think I sent that one to you. In the mean time the man wanted no part of the discussion, he handed my(friend) the check and picked up the Note Cards and was on his way. By this time I was boiling, I said, Bill I need to show you something, I reached into my camera bag and opened a Memory Chip storage zippered purse, where i had about 12 memory cards stores, I found the one dated October, 2010 and removed it, then took my camera and removed the present card from my camera, slipped in the October 2010 card and showed him the exact same photo on the memory card, he said you must have saved that from the email I sent you and then you sent it to your printer from your lap top and printed it out.............I stopped him right there and said Valerie take my laptop out of the carying case and turn it on, where I procedded to open my picture file and brought up the same exact photo and went to the EXIF information and showed him the Camera make and my name as the artists and owner of the file and the date it was shot and the name of the picture : Winter Wheat Sunset. I had got down on one knee and composed the photo with some of the Winter Wheat slightly blowing in the cold breeze with the Sunset in the background.....I had him. His wife was mortified, It really ruined our friendship, I have since dis-associated my self from him and I have blocked him from emailing me and I no longer answer the phone when I see his number come up on caller ID. He has never apologized either. This is Theft by Fraud. I wonder at times just maybe he has done this very same thing to others., Well I warned you it would be a long read, next time i will try to keep my notes to you shorter..BTY... I'm still laughing

Tom

Hi Susieb, Yes she is a Calico, and her name is "Candi" and is a sweetheart, loves to be petted but not held for long, she is de-clawed and fixed, beautiful personality. loves to sleep at the foot of our bed (on the bed) with us, and during the winter we sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with her tappping us on our faces with her soft furry paw , wanting to climb under the blankets with us, she is almost human and loves to talk in her own way and loves to be talked to, she is an inside cat, they both are, and always have been , but Candi will try to sneak out between our legs when we open the door to go out side in nice weather, however we firmly tell her to get back in the house and she really listens to us. Now the other cat, he's afraid of the outside but likes to sit on a perch with Candi at the window to watch the birds and rabbits in the yard, his name is Di Di Mao, Vietnamese for " Come Here, and or get out of here, get out of here fast,!!, "Pronounced De De Mow! like (Di Di on out of here!!) if you know what's good for you; I picked that slang up when I was in Nam 40 some years ago. It really fits him and he is afraid of his on shadow, buthe too is funny, it took him 4 years (really) to let us reach out to him to pet him. He was born in the woods near Philadelphia, my daughter lives near there and has a friend who collectes the stray kittens near the parks in the area, she takes them to Vets and has them dewormed and inoculated and brought back to good health and finds good homes for them, well my Daughter thopught we needed a companion friend for Candi and she showed up one day with him and we fell in love with that little kittten, he was only 5 months old and Candi was 3 years old,( she was only a year old when we got her from the SPCA, ne r Williamsport, Pa; they are each others shadow's now, he is a Seal Point Snow Shoe Siamese Cat, they are very comical together and good company for each other, especially when we go away for a day or four, never over 4 days( cats will go nuts if you leave them alone over 4 days and that's pushing it.), so we are kind of tied down with them and cannot really go very many places far away from home, we would love to make a trip to Florida or even Alaska for a week or two, but we have no one we can count on to take care of them. All our children have their own families and pets and live to far away to check in on our two (kids), Any way Thank you contacting me, "Yes Susieb "We are cat people too and they are very smart"

Keep in touch,

Tom (BacSi67)

"Cracking up, ROTFLMAF!!!!! My wife Valerie is cracking up too, Wow, what a sense of humor you have, I Love it!! Absolutely Love It!!, Cheryl, you gotta teach me how to do that, Seriously!! You can use this Photo where ever you want and when ever, you earned it, "my new friend", you really have, I don't think I will be able to sleep tonight, I'm laughing so hard, I am going to try to copy this, if that is OK with you If I can (not sure how), and send it to my Daughters and my Son, they are going to split their sides.

Thank you, Cheryl I really needed a laugh today and you won the Prize........So feel free to use that photo anywhere any place you like, If you can sell it , you keep the cash, ...No kidding, you now own the CopyWrite ( I'm giving you permission to use it) to that photo!!!, but I'm asking you...Please can I use it too, I promise not to sell it!! LOLOLOL!!!

"Made My Day"

Tom

Tom

Hi Terri, Wow! you really had me fooled, I was thinking you used a Digital Canon Large format or Digital Nikon large format. If you can do this with a simple point and shoot camera, just imagine what you are going to be able to accomplish with a Nikon D5100, your husband will have to take you on one of those National Geographic extended cruises to the Amazon and get the Jungle shots, all kinds of snakes and critters and flowers, animals and beautiful Sunsets. I really and honestly I like your work, not kidding either. You have a very good eye for detail and composition, I will be watching the Forum in the Photograph section for more of your work. Excellent!!

I consider myself an Amateur Photographer, however I feel I do ok at it. But lately I have been slipping, too many things on my mind, too many trips to the VA Hospital for me lately, and it has slowed me down, hopefully I will soon pick up speed and get the dullness out of my photography.

Keep at it, looking forward to seeing more of your excellent work. A few points of really good advice here;

Point #1: Always use either a Skylite Filter, or a Haze Filter over your lens, and you will always have the Glass end of your lens protected from dust and scratches.

Point # 2: Always have a backup battery for your Digital Nikon D5100.

There were times, believe it or not where I had forgotten to turn the power off to my camera and I was out on a photo shoot and , Shaaazam!!, no juice, I had to use my old standby 35mm film camera and it cost me allot in film developing., and, one time I thought I was being smart, and the night before a shoot I deceided to charge my camera battery, well in the morning, I left with all my gear, only to set everything up at the site and guess what?, yep, I forgot my battery., Just how stupid did I feel, totally embarrassed, I was with two other Amateur Photographer friends and they have never let me alone about this. So I now have two back up batteries. I have found a great store not far from where I live and I bought two spares. They have any type of battery you can think of, and at near wholesale pricees (saved 15.00 each) on them and they are Camera and Model specific, meaning I bought two more Nikon D5000 Batteries and charged fully both of them and placed in my camera bags with my gear and a visual note on the inside cover of each camera bag to alert me to routinely run a check on all batteries before a shoot.

The name of the store is "The Battery (Warehouse??? whatever)...Don't you just hate that when your brain freezes?. Anyway it is a chain store, so you may have one where you live. I will check on the name for you and when I do I, will write it down and let you know.

Remember Terri, "Always be Prepared for anything".... you would not believe, some of the things I carry in my camera bag, vest and car. Your Very Young, but when you get old like me, well you start forgetting important things. Got to go will talk again, if you would like. I am going to try to send some photos over to the Photography page later, please check them out.

Tom

Hi Mark H. (Benny Hill), On your question about Macro, Yes Macro Photography is really something to behold, it gets you right down to some of the tinest details on Mother Earth, that are really facinating. (and I am still learning about Macro.) I don't mind sharing what i have learned.

I use a Nikon D5000, and a few other lenses, among them are the standard lens that came with the camera. (18-55mm 1:3 to 5.6) w/VR and Manual switch.

I have also purchased a Nikon AF Nikkor 70-300 1:4 to 5.6 G lens with wide angle and telephoto adjust ring at end of lens w/Macro option.

I also have from my older Nikon N-10 35mm film camera, a lens that is full Macro w/Limit and Full switch, AF/s Nikkor 55mm 1:4-5.6D w/AF/M/VR@ 1:1/5.61ft 52mm, this lens fits my D-5000 and I have to use it in manual mode, though I do not mind because I get better focus control at really tight in shots. Need to use a tripod with it; however my bifocals are really a problem for me.

So there you have it, don't claim to always understand all the working data on the lens, no, not really, sometimes gets too confusing for me, so I wing it at times and shoot lots of frames and hope for the best. That's what nice about Digital, you can delete al the bad shots and not cost you anything. I don't shoot RAW yet, I have not yet learned how to do that.

I edit and print everything I shoot up to 8.5 x 11 size prints, anything larger than that I find Staples does very nice work for me, I have entered several Photo exhibits at our local Veterans Hospital, first exhibit I had a total of 39 photos on display on I think four large large black foam boards; this is an on going project for Veterans only, gets the kinks out of my PTSD Brain.... (We wont go there) I hope to up load some photos on this site for some opinions. If I were shooting only film, I could not afford all the mistakes I make.....But I am still learning and consider myself a learning Amature, that's why I am here, hopefully to learn......I have found out; if Ihave a question, ask, if I don't, well they that makes it difficult on me, so I don't mind asking questions and i also do not mind sharing what secrets i have learned over the years. If I don't receive an answer to my questions, I find some one or something who will be kind enough to help me...so don't be shy, it looks like there are enough nice folks on this Forum who are willing to share their hard learned knowledge. I hope I am not breaking an Forum Rules by writing allot. Writing is another one of my passions.

Hope to share and learn with you. I still have to figure out what photos I will be uploading soon.

Tom (BacSi67)

Hi "1geejay", I'm new here too, I really like that photo, I believe it looks like it is an Assasin bug (nice colors). We have all black ones up here in Pennsylvania, and they are very dystructive to our Pine Trees in the forests around here. Hope to exchange some photo info with you soon and learn more about photography. "Welcome aboard"

Tom (BacSi67)

Sorry everyone....My stupid error, Hope to get the hang of it soon, so I don't drive everyone nuts.....Trying to send a "snapshot to Cheryl's reply to me.

Tom (BacSi67)

Hi Cheryl, Beautiful story, looks very inviting, must be many interesting things to photograph on those Dunes. I never would have thought that photo was taken in MI, If I were to bet on it, (and I'm not the betting type) I would have lost.....Ha!; anyway, thanks for the comeback, hope to talk again soon, over some of our work.

Tom

Frick and Frack (DiDi Mao and Candi

Absolutely "Stunning" and "Razor Sharp, Love the Clarity and Composition How do you get you photos so sharp, mine are clear, however would like to know what lense and camera you used for those photos and what time of day was it/f:stop and speed,/Tripod? Wow!

BacSi67