I finally persuaded the VA to give me a shot of lidocaine/steroid's into my left shoulder. Yes the needle was long, thick, and square but the pain relief was instant and very welcome. As the pain was much subdued I thought to go out and take some snaps.

Mid-afternoon near our barnyard, Saturday, January 29, 2022, where the Black-tailed Doe was hanging out a few days ago. Juncos were everywhere expecting me to throw out some seed-I do not "chum" for birds or other critters but we do feed in the barnyard, not outside of it.

About 37 F-very kewl for this kid but tolerable. Partly to mostly cloudy, so no fast shutter speeds=no on the wing shots :-(

We have noted at least three Juncos with a varied color pattern-mutant? Managed to capture a few good shots of one of them.

The Varied Thrush shows up when either of us are in the barnyard area-looking for food.

Song Sparrows appear shortly after I whistle them up! Fun little guys and beautiful, complex songs!

Our chickens come out when the sun appears, then go back into their coop or under some table or other in the yard. A good deal of Bald Eagle and other raptor fly-overs; freaks out the chickens especially.

D500,500pF, 1/500, f 5.6,ISOs from 2200 to 5000! Handheld with less than painful hands and arms and all, no EC or CPL, yes some cropping and pp did occur. Asked about white balance. I use Auto outdoors for outdoor shooting.

Download and enjoy!

This is one of my ways to rescue an image I like but the focus(or motion blur) is almost sharp.
I use one of the editing apps that changes it to look like a painting, illustration or a cartoon.
This one the focus was just a bit off because the camera has very tiny pixels that are extremely sensitive to motion/vibration. And due to the light the colors are a bit washed out so I tweaked them a bit.
The result was the image was a bit soft so for this one I went with Photo Shop's "oil painting" effect.
1. full frame Out Of Camera - nothing done
2. cropped only
3. edited and converted to "oil painting" Yes I cloned out some things, including changing the highlight in the eye.
There are a lot of editing apps that allow this type of thing. Most have free trial periods or a few will give you a "lite" version for free. Though the free versions may water mark the image or something else to make you want to pay for the full app.

Walking up the stepped boardwalk to Lago Cantaros, we stopped to view the beautiful Cantaros water falls.

La Cascada Los Cantaros is a waterfall located on the river of the Cántaros within the Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi in the Los Lagos Department , province of Neuquén , Argentina .

The river is less than a kilometer long, but falls more than 100 meters between the Los Cántaros and Nahuel Huapi lakes , forming the waterfall. The waterfall is located at about 852 meters above sea level and freezes in certain periods of the winter season. It is accessed through a path with three viewpoints.

The waterfall is surrounded by a lush Valdivian jungle , characterized by a great variety of plant species. Located very close to the border with Chile , it is in an area of ​​high rainfall.
https://second.wiki/wiki/cascada_los_cc3a1ntaros

For more images and additional narrative about this area, please see my previous post:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-726906-1.html#12881815
Mark

Reviewing my archives I ran across a few cute shots of a cute little sparrow-Fox Sparrow.

The shots were taken just after Christmas 2021 in the terrible snow and cold we suffered through.

D500, 300pF, 1/3200, f 4, ISO 2200, no EC or CPL-held in my cold, arthritic hands. No background work, changes or replacements. Some cropping and pp did occur.

These little guys showed up in good numbers when the snow fell. They seem to inhabit the same territory as the Spotted Towhees-living in the underbrush. Some strife between the species but they generally went about their respective lives trying to stay warm and find food.

Download and enjoy!

There's a three week window during late spring when the California poppies bloom throughout the Sierra Nevada foothills here in California. This image was taken at Big Bar Road where it crosses hwy 49 at The Mokelumne river. I live up the canyon about 8 miles from here, and from my back deck I can see huge orange patches of the blooming poppies up and down the canyon. Pretty spectacular

Photo taken with my Fuji GFX 50R and vintage Nikon Series E 100mm f2.8. I love this lens. It is small, light, and very, very sharp stopped down from about f4 to f11. It almost completely covers the medium format sensor on the Fuji GFX 50R with just a very small amount of cropping needed. It is a manual focus lens which I love. It's always in my camera bag, and I use it with the Fuji GFX 50R and also my Nikon Z5 using $20.00 adapters from Fotasy.

I purchased a Nikon 2x TC (version III) to extend my Nikon 500mm pf to 1,000mm. I tested this combo for sharpness on my Nikon Z50 using a tripod. I was hoping to see the Kingfishers at the pond but only a group of Canada Geese showed up. They walked on the ice and then went in the unfrozen part.
20210125_Canada Goose_2814 by Elliott Cobin, on Flickr

20210125_Canada Goose_2808 by Elliott Cobin, on Flickr

20210125_Canada Goose_2831 by Elliott Cobin, on Flickr