Rolling waves and dancing ballerinas

Slow shutter - somewhat impressionistic

Every now and then I try to do something a little bit different and this is one of those times. There were some lovely rolling waves and no birds, so I had a play to see what I could do with the waves using the big lens. I was looking for that moment when the wave curls over on itself and splashes back down.

Slowish shutter - loving the roll of the way and the splash

 The image blow is one of the smaller waves but I liked the way the water and froth gave the impression of little dancing ballerinas along the top edge of the wave as it reached it's peak. Then there is the visible power of the rolling wave in the next image appealed because of the smooth lines in the curves, followed by the final image looking into the vortex of the wave.  It was an interesting 30 minutes spent trying something different.

Dainty ballerinas dancing along the edge of the wave

Demonstrating the power behind the wave

Looking into the vortex of the wave

From the archives...

I haven't been out with the camera for a few days, the weather hasn't been the best and I have been pretty busy, so today's set of images comes from the archives.  These are from back in December/January when I was playing around with the Dandelion seeds

With Winter on its way and hopefully the rain that comes with it - will be lots of rain drops in the garden. I am hoping that on the days that I can't get out with the birds because of the weather, that I can try my hand at capturing rain drops instead.

A bit of fun

Sometimes it is not about taking a great photo, it is just about recording the moment. This afternoon the sun was so bright that any photo of took of the birds in the back yard was almost certain to be a silhouette, so there wasn't much point in trying. Then the birds decided it was bath time and I just couldn't resist. None of these photos are technically correct, or even close for that matter but they are fun to look at and that is what counts.

The communal puddle

 

Before I was able to park my car in our garage, I used to park it on the lawn. After several years of doing this, there were a few holes in the lawn where the ground got a bit soft and muddy over the winter. All that is left now is one dent in the lawn that fills with water whenever it rains. The birds love it! So much so that sometimes I will put a bucket or two of water in it for them to play in when there are been no rain.

So rejuvenated the puddle this afternoon with a bit of water and within minutes I had a huge number of birds splashing about in it. There were blackbirds, starlings, chaffinches, sparrows and waxeyes all in there together! It made for a very crowded puddle. The puddle is the one place where I haven’t seen any of the bird hierarchy that I witness in the trees and feeding stations. They just share the puddle without a care.

The waxeyes are very cute when they are wet, their feathers look so bedraggled and their big eyes just look so forlorn and sad. Either that or they catch me watching them and turn into angry birds! They give me such faces, as if to tell me that their privacy is important and I am violating it! I take no notice at all and carry on photographing them.

Oh on the blackbird front, we have a nest with eggs residing on the side of our fence in a clematis bush. Unfortunately I can’t get the camera in there or I would be recording their progress, but I can see them which is kind of fun. I just hope none of the neighbourhood cats find it. I don’t think they would be able to get in easily so they should be pretty safe. 

Bath time fun...

I went out this morning to the Petone Estuary to see what was happening  and after sitting there in the cold wind for a short while decided the answer was not much at all. There were some black backed gulls picking away at a couple of dead fish, and some red billed gulls playing in the wind currents but not a whole lot else. So I packed up and came home.

Not having my weekend photo fix satisfied, I got creative. I opened the one of the French doors and pulled the curtains – clipping them together creating a makeshift hide for myself and the camera. Then I tossed some bread scraps on the lawn to attract the birds. I was expecting sparrows, starlings, blackbirds and chaffinches and all of them arrived in quick order. What I was not expecting was the waxeyes as they tend to ignore the bread scraps.

These two flew in to see what all the fuss was about with the other birds and found the puddle of water nearby. I guess they decided it was bath time because they had a good play in the water for the next 20 minutes or so.  I got so many great images of the two of them, far too many to put here.

I was also experimenting with my camera settings as I have started shooting the birds on total manual mode. I have found that the big lens has a sweet spot at F8, so I work from there if I can keeping the shutter speed as fast as possible to capture the birds in flight. So far it has been working fine but I really do need a bright day to get the best out of it.

A day in Wairarapa

Last year I went on a damselfly hunt at Pauatahanui and I found several bright blue damselflies. I knew they came in different colours but I was surprised to see two different colours on the same trip in Wairarapa.

When I was a child my grandmother used to make floral arrangements with artificial flowers. They were all the rage at the time! She used to have me collecting up the small pinecones from the fir trees so she could use them in the arrangements. These tiny pinecones reminded me of those days past.

I can't help myself when it comes to reflections, as soon as I see something remotely like a reflection I just have to photograph it. With a little bit of magic they turn out like this one. The red is a reflection of some bright flowers on the edge of the pond.

 

I didn't have my tripod with me on this outing and I was surprised to be able to achieve these slow exposures hand held with my shakey hands.

Wellington Waterfront

Today started off like most weekends, with a planned outing to do some photography. We did a little shopping along the way and bought a nice light and compact tripod that is going to be just perfect for travelling. I am amazed just how many different type of tripods there are. I found a really cute one and its going to fit perfectly on my backpack.


After that we headed to Te Papa for lunch and then out to the waterfront to take some photos. Well that was the plan anyway! I fired off one shot and then my camera gives me an error message. I have had this on and off lately with the lens and I was putting it down to the cold, but this time was different. The next time I looked through the lens it was dark, it wouldn't focus and the camera wouldn't fire. It was about now that I went into panic mode. Here am I planning a trip away and my camera isn't working!

We headed back to the shop we got the tripod from and pretty much confirmed that it was the lens causing the problem and not the camera. That was a bit of a relief but it still left me with a very expensive piece of glass that wasn't working. We ended up buying a new lens as well as sending the other one off to be fixed. I just can't be without a working lens, at least this way I will have a backup when I get the broken one back - assuming they can fix it.

Once the new lens was on the camera it was back to the waterfront to try it out. Had to test it and make sure that the camera was going to perform well for me in Auckland. As we were walking along we saw this guy swing himself up the side of a pole. It looked like he was hanging sideways. Being cheeky I  asked him to do it again and surprisingly he did! The rest of the images here are shot from along the back of Te Papa. The low cloud made for rather gloomy looking photos but I kinda liked them anyway.

The new lens worked fine, as did the camera. I am comfortable now that my equipment is not going to fail me on my trip to Tiritiri.