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I Photographed a Bumblebee!

April 21st, 2012 Thomasso

Yes, I succeeded in capturing a bumblebee in mid flight while shooting some flowers over at the railway station in Fort Langley. As I was shooting these yellow flowers, and a Bee flew right in front of the lens and landed on the cluster of flowers I was focusing on. At first I thought it was a housefly, or moth, but it landed there right in front of me, and it started collecting pollen from the flower. I started following the bumblebee, shooting it with the camera, as it flew from one spot to another on the bush. Then, I realized that there were more than just the one bumblebee at the bush–there were a bunch.

So I had plenty of chances of getting shots of the bumblebee(s), but shooting them was fraught with challenges. Focusing was the biggest one. I turned off my auto focus and waited for the bumblebee to appear in the field of view rather than trying to track it down like a radar guided missile with the camera’s auto focus. Lighting was my other issue that I was challenged with. I was standing on the wrong side of the bush, facing the Sun, and I could not move around because this was garden with fencing, so my mobility was limbed at this site. But I did the best that I could do.

I was not prepared for shooting bumblebees. I had the right lens, my 30mm macro, but I should have put the camera into aperture priority mode so that I could control the shutter speed more efficiently–i was shooting in auto mode–lazy. A faster shutter speed means capturing the wings of the bumblebee frozen in time instead of a blur of fluttering wings, like I have here.

Oddly, I never once thought once about getting stung?

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Fort Langley IGA – Slowly but Sure

April 21st, 2012 Thomasso

Soon, soon Fort Langley will have its marketplace food store back, just a little further to go. The construction seems to be going at a good pace, and you can see what the final shape of the building is going to be. but for now it is just wait and see.

Posted in Around Town, Events, General, Photographs | 2 Comments »

Busy Week – So I Stopped Blogging For a Bit

April 17th, 2012 Thomasso

I have been going like crazy with my work life. Several developments have been going on there, some are beyond my blog becuase of the sensitivity of my employer and their business affairs, but other events are blog worthy, like spearheading the safety program, setting up two new departments from within our office, and taking on more of a hands on role with contracting and marketing. Funny, becuase I was never trained to do this academically. So, busyness is my time spent over the last few days. So much so that I have not had time to get out an shoot photos with my camera. Tonight I spent a few moments looking at old photos from three years ago, taken with my old point and shoot camera, searching for some shots I took of some friends. Sadly I did not find those shots, but along the way, searching through my DVDs, I found some other shots that were great, as far as I am concerned.

I remember taking this shot of the roses becuase it was a by chance shot that I found these rose bushes, and had my camera with me, along with the perfect shooting conditions. The sky was perfect, and the light was very good, and the roses were overhead. I like to think of this shot as my “rose coloured lens” shot.

This one was also taken in 2009, I believe in May or June, and was taken with my point and shoot camera at the time. Only if I have my DSLR back then this shot would have been very different?

Well, anyway, I am going to bed, and I will probably be knee deep in work for the rest of the week continuing tomorrow. Just as well, as the rain has returned and the weather has cooled down–for the rest of the week in the five day forecast. Be well!

Posted in Around Town, Art, Astronomy, Bitching about weather, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Photographs | 1 Comment »

New Shots: Moss, Tracks and Holly Bushes.

April 14th, 2012 Thomasso

I am rushing all over the place this weekend, armed with my 1 metre long list of to-dos, and I have some dead-lines. So much to do, yet so little time to do it all in. Actually, I am just doing what I can without burning myself out becuase I have learned from last weekend that running my butt off just does not make any sense at all. So I am coasting. If I do not complete all of my tasks, then so be it. How can you fire a friend who is helping?

For an hour today, this evening, I walked down the street from my home to shoot plants and other objects along the road. I caught the Sun right at the perfect time, that “golden hour.” I got some cool shots.

I love the above photo, it is a Holly bush. I love the bokeh (the blurry background that is out of focus–happy Kay) with the Sun shinning off of the other leaves.

From tracks to moss. The above photos is taken looking between two sections of railway tracks that were laying on blocks of wood along the ditch beside the actual railway. I used my favourite 30mm Macro lens for that shot.

More moss. Again, using my favourite 30mm Macro lens.

Have a great day, and I hope you enjoyed my photos!

Posted in Around Town, Art, General, Photographs | 2 Comments »

Today’s Beautiful Sunset From Fort Langley

April 7th, 2012 Thomasso

It was a beautiful sunset, and me and a friend walked down to the river to do sunset shots on our after diner walk from the park. The sky was clear and the light was a very orange colour as the Sun sank below the horizon. The river water was like glass, and it made for a nice effect as the sun light reflected off from it in this golden colour that you can only get late, or early, in the day. For me, after such a cloudy winter, seeing this sunset was nice, as we are deprived of these sunsets here along the West Coast.

See what I mean about the colour, in the above image?

The above image was shot with my 30mm macro lens, and the bottom two were shot with my 55 to 200mm telephoto lens.

The above image was just after a fisher cast a line across the river.

The colours are just stunning! The above image is some driftwood sticking up above the water near the shore.

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Enjoying the Long Weekend – Another Photo Shoot & Hike

April 6th, 2012 Thomasso

I went back to Brae Island this morning to do some more shooting. Met more photographers, though these people were much more serious then the people I met last night. These guys were on the hunt for boaters on the river. They were armed with Canon cameras, with super expensive 500mm lenses that could see a tick on the shoulder of a rower one hundred metres away. I call this “canon” perv lenses becuase they photograph anything over long distances with sharp clarity. These lenses are way out of my price scale.

So anyway, I started off with my new 14mm lens, capturing the clouds and water as I started off the day with some good Sun.

Then I switch it over to one of lenses that I hardly every use, my 55 to 200mm lens. I did some macro shooting with it, going for some good bokeh shots.

…and.

The weekend is still young – lots of shooting time left in the day!

Posted in Around Town, Events, General, Photographs | 1 Comment »

More Photos from Yesterday’s Hike With the 14mm

April 6th, 2012 Thomasso

I am still looking through all of the photos I took yesterday, picking through them, looking for those awesome shots that stand out. I am still in awe at this lens, the 14mm super wide angle, which is a lens that I have always wanted for my camera, (but not including my 30mm macro). Getting the lens just before the start of a long weekend was an awesome set of circumstances too, as the timing could not have worked out better. The weather held up, giving Fort Langley some unexpected sunshine, and to end the day off with a very nice sunset.

It is hard to believe that I was standing only 20cm away from this tree sprout in this shot. The distortion is there, but hardly noticeable to the viewer. It is cloudy out today–which is good becuase big puffy clouds means good wide angle lens shooting!

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Testing my 14mm Lens Out in the Field

April 5th, 2012 Thomasso

I took the 14mm lens out into the field on Brae Island across the Fraser River from Fort Langley, BC, and walked the hiking trail shooting like crazy with my Sony A33. Field testing this lens, I learned right away that focusing and adjusting the F Stop is very picky when running in full manual mode. I guess I got too lazy with a camera that does really good automatic mode shots, and completely forgot how old school cameras worked.

It is freaky looking through a 14mm lens! I never had such a wide angel lens before. I basically have a 90 degree field of view and with a good F2.8, the images are fairly sharp.

Extreme macro shots are very nice with this lens too. My minimum focus distance is about 29cm, so I can some good bokeh with it.

However, I bought the lens for doing land scape shots – and this lens does that very well. I also want to some night time photography shooting star trails and sky shoots. When I get some cloudless nights, I will set this up for that.

So, off into the sunset I kept shooting. The day turned out great, and I met another photographer along the way too. He invited me to the local camera club. I may go to it, just to check it out.

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There was Sun Today: I Did a Short Hike – Taking My Camera Alone Too!

April 1st, 2012 Thomasso

Although not scheduled on the weather forecast, the weather changed enough to mark the afternoon with some sunny breaks. Perfect for sneaking out down to the trail to photograph the forest kicking into spring. Without further ado, here are some of the shots I took today while on the trail (Fort to Fort) in Fort Langley.

I would like to point out that these water drops are one hundred percent natural. These are from Mother Nature herself, not from a spray bottle–as in, it has rained here for two weeks straight, on and off, so there was no need for the water spray bottle. Sadly, it was windy out, so focusing on such a small object was a challenge because of the inconsistent gusts moving the branches around. Finally, I just used one hand to hold the branch still enough, and hoped for the best taking the shot.

Next, below, I was working with my noise density (ND) filters going for the shot that had way too much light in the sky.

What I did was use a graduated #3 noise density filter, which added 3f stops to the sky and left the ground and water areas of the photo in their natural levels of light. Had I not done this, the clouds would have looked over exposed, and would look almost whiteout at the point where you could not have seen the detail in the cloud formations. These filters were the best $30.00 I spent on filters–wonderful deal.

By the way, it is still way to cold for the beginning of April. Nonetheless, it is nice to finally reach April. Hoping for better weather to come!

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General, Photographs | Comments Off

IGA Update in Fort Langley

March 26th, 2012 Thomasso

This is just an update of how far the IGA building is going, in Fort Langley, in its construction. Nothing special, other than they have the roof done, and they appear to be working the walls now. It also seems like they are putting it together at a faster rate now.

It will take some getting use to now entering the IGA from Church Street instead of off Mavis Avenue. Also remember that they are building a “L” shape building around the store with shops and apartments on top on the second floor. It will look really nice once it is all done.