This eagle was on a river a few hundred yards from the ocean. Probably a good spot for a fish eater. Thanks for your kind comment.

Chris

Near Rialto Beach, WA, in Olympic National Park. Strongly cropped, lightly post processed. Nikon D5100, 55-300 mm kit zoom at 300 mm, hand held.

During the 2012 Venus transit of the sun I was traveling on business, with my Celestron 90 telescope and a Canon camera, but no Canon T-ring. I had only Nikon and Pentax. After many colleagues had viewed the ongoing event through the telescope one happened to have a Nikon DSLR. We connected it to the scope and took a few shots that he later e-mailed to me. That really saved the day.

What a beautiful photo. I was last there in 1969, and it's every bit as wonderful now as then, especially with your help as the photographer!

That would also agree with what n3ge said, and makes sense to me.

Does a mirror-less camera have some sort of beam-splitter mirror, or is the main sensor used for both the live-view and the EVF display?

I rode the train there a few times in the early 1970's. These excellent pictures really bring back great memories. One trip was a "Dinner Train" to Oakdale and return. I think Engine #3 had a small diesel helper engine. Picture number 1 is my favorite. I may post a couple of mine if I can locate them and scan them (slides).

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack.

Amazing pictures, such magnification, without tirpod! I took my first Moon with a Meade StarNavigator telescope and Nikon D5100 last night.

Full moon last night

I am planning to buy the Nikon D5100 soon. Will I be able to use my 1968-era Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4 to similar advantage, without auto-focus, etc.?

That's a good one!

About a year after the sun glasses mentioned above were made the glasses frame broke, so I had that repaired so I could use the sunglasses. Then they broke and I gave up and just use generic clip-ons.

I agree about the beer, and that's one reason I make home brew. I also like Scotch, and definitely avoid bacteria water.

I recall there was a bad fire at Angora Lake a few years ago. Has the area recovered? It was a beautiful lake with a small resort and a few cabins that I thought might have been destroyed.

Actually quite informative. So the circularly polarized light is created inside the linear polarizer by the quarter-wave plate so as not to mess up the focusing and metering. This is why in the film camera days we only needed the linear polarizer. It makes me wonder why the focusing and metering isn't fooled by the unfiltered polarized light from the sky...

I once had polarized sunglasses made to fit my prescription glasses, and they did not align the polarization axes. My two eyes got different amounts of glare and reflection reduction, and it gave me nausea. I sent them back and had them remade and they apologized for the mistake.

CPL: technical question
I think CPL stands for Circular Polarizer Filter, but I think linear polarizers, such as are used in sunglasses, are what are used in photography. I'm pretty sure circularly polarized light is very rare in nature. Also, these are really filters, not lenses, are they not? Why the term CPL?

I have used many versions of Windows, and am very particular as to the arrangement of my desktop icons. As suggested by Elliot Design, right-click on an empty spot on the desktop, select View, and uncheck Auto Arrange Icons. They will stay put. Sometimes if you update an application its icon will move to an open part of the desktop, but it is easy to put it back where it belongs, especially if you have align to grid checked. To help recover icon locations in case they do get scrambled, I do a Print Screen and then paste the result into Paint and save an image file of the desktop. Then I know how the icons were arranged.