Thanks to everyone for their comments. I'll have to do a little experimenting with this.
Sincerely,
Lee

A friend just showed me a feature on the iPhone on ios16 that allows one to "cut out" a person or other objects with solid lines. The procedure is to open a photo and place your finger on the subject. The photo appears to be "scanned" as you will see some white lines move around the image being cut out. Then you are given the option of Copying or Sharing the result which will be the cutout section on a white background. It can then be pasted to messages and e-mails. The resulting file is a PNG that I am not familiar with. I tried pasting the cutout over different photo (jpg)backgrounds with no success. Perhaps those of you who have experimented with his new feature can add your findings. Here are a couple of tests showing the technique.
Lee

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Good luck! Hope you get some great shots.

Are you at Midland's River Days? I was there yesterday for the launch at 7:00pm but didn't stay around for the Balloon Glow. I'm not sure how far the viewing area extends but I ended up shooting into the sun. Here is a link to an article I found that may be helpful:
https://www.ephotozine.com/article/how-to-photograph-a-balloon-night-glow-14308

Here's a link to a Flickr album I shot with a Canon SX50 .

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjA1ZWC

You can see some of the challenges I had facing the sun. Just an amateur hobbies. Good luck! I'll follow this thread to se if you post any shots.

Lee

Thank you! I'll give Dehaze a try.

One interesting result of using such a mirror lens is that the specular highlights show up as doughnuts. Have fun experimenting with your new lens.

Yes, they were plastic colanders. My apologies for forgetting to answer your question earlier.
Lee

I knew all of you would easily guess what was in the photo. One colander was too much green so I just stacked an orange one on top What got me to thinking about this kind of shot was an inexpensive shutter release I got for the iPhone. I suppose the self-timer would also work. I'll try a few more experiments of placing the phone inside something to see what happens. Boredom is a terrible thing!

A neighbor sent me a friendly challenge to "make" a picture using something in the kitchen. After thinking about it, I thought I'd try an abstract to see if he could guess what I photographed.
Sincerely,
Lee

Hi,
I looked for the ISS trail but could not find it. The link will take you to a capture I made of the ISS a while back using a 20 second exposure on a tripod. https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-713547-1.html

There is a site that will notify you when the ISS is passing over your location. As soon as I find it,I'll post it.
Sincerely,
Lee

It is spotthestation.nasa.gov . It will only send you a message when there is a good viewing opportunity. Sadly, so many times it is overcast in my location.
Lee

Nice candid shot! I like the back lighting from his radiant heater. Don't think I've ever seen one used as a light source. 8-)
Lee

A while back a neighbor challenged me to take a photo a day and add a Haiku (remember those from English class where you had three lines with 5-7-5 syllables?) Here is what I sent today.
The big day is here...
"Will you be my Valentine?"
Asked by young and old!
Sincerely,
Lee

I held an old R72 Hoya infrared filter i used to use with B&W film in front of the lens of my iPhone 12 to see if there was any infrared sensitivity and took a shot out my patio door. The initial image was cast in red as shown below. Using the array of filters in the iPhone 12 I converted it to black and white and was surprised by the result. In doing some research, others have suggested using a Lee 87 IR filter. Here is a link to that article if you are interested: https://www.dpmag.com/how-to/tip-of-the-week/infrared-with-an-iphone/
Lee

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My thanks to all who posted. It was pure luck that I happened to get the ISS trail near the Big Dipper. Now all the neighbors are interested in looking for the next ISS flyover. 8-) Lee

Hi Mac. If using a handheld meter taking a reflective reading off of the same part of the subject, I would assume the reading would be very close. The other method of using a handheld meter is to take an "incident" reading using a half sphere covering the meter's sensor. That measures the amount of light falling on the subject as a whole. I have never done any tests comparing results to reflective readings in the past I used the incident meter reading using studio flash and also outdoors. The incident reading always gave me accurate exposures. I think for the extremes that you mentioned, one would always have to figure in some exposure compensation so you didn't end up with gray snow or a gray cat.