So things are steadily moving towards spring (even though we did have more snow on the ground this morning) and we're starting to get our annual migrating visitors on the pond. One new visitor we've never seen on our pond before is a small black and white duck called a Bufflehead. While not the showiest of ducks, it made up for that by being at least semi-cooperative.

Most of the other ducks that visit during their migration as extremely skittish and fly off with any attempt to approach the pond. This little guy on the other hand didn't fly off, but he also maintained a very healthy distance. As you can see in the first shot, I just couldn't get close for any kind of close-up shot. He tended to maintain about a 200 foot distance (as you can see in the left most photo below) no matter how I tried to position myself.

So after about an hour I decided to try something to get him to move in a little closer. I texted Anya who was in the house and asked her to approach the pond from the other side. That worked perfectly, and the bufflehead split the difference between us and moved a bit closer so I could get at least slightly better photos...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, Various exposures. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

These are all uncropped images, and I notice that they don't show off the nice iridescence that is the Bufflehead's one bit of flashiness. I'll try to remember to crop a few tonight for a bit closer of a look at that.

- Bill

A few more butterflies today... this time in vertical orientation.

- Bill

So other stuff pushed in front of getting these posted, but when we went to see Niagara Falls while it was frozen, we also stopped by the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory. Here's a nice assortment from the day's visit...

Thanks for stopping by.

- Bill

Just stopping by to share a shot of some deer...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 380mm, 1/500th sec at f/8. ISO 320. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

Well, the Horseshoe Falls never really freeze (well, neither set of falls at Niagara Falls freeze completely, but there is much less ice build-up on the larger Horseshow Falls.

That doesn't mean it is any less impressive...

This first view I liked because of the ominous feel to it. The heavy mist, the hint of that huge boulder of ice at the bottom peaking through...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 27mm, 1/250th second at f/11.0. ISO 100. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

And this one shows off a nice contrast of the fast rushing water and the ice coated cliff-side next to it.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 42mm, 1/500th second at f/11.0. ISO 100. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

These next two show off some weird igloo shaped mount of snow and ice sitting off to the one side of the main pool under the Horseshoe Falls. I have no clue how or why it formed like that, or if it is a typical formation. I was extra curious about the "tunnel" that seemed to be burrowed into it, and the enormous cracks running down its sides. Of course, there's no point of reference for size here, but it was massive. You can also see the churning ice down in the water... most of those pieces looked to be about the size of cars.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 21mm, 1/250th second at f/11.0. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 37mm, 1/250th second at f/11.0. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

And lastly, another overall shot just showing that absolutely impressive waterfall...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 18mm, 1/500th second at f/11.0. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

I know it was just over a month ago that I shared photos of the local opossum, and we've seen him plenty of times since, but today the weather was nice enough that I went out and stalked him a bit. Well, "stalked" is a bit of a misnomer, since I probably could have walked right up to him without any issues... But I managed to get some much closer shots. Here's one...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/500th sec at f/5.6. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

I still have plenty to process from the Niagara Falls trip, so stay tuned!

- Bill

Ok, I usually don't go in for panoramic photographs, but Niagara Falls was really a subject that begged for the treatment. I was amazed with how simple Photoshop CS5 made stitching the images together. I'd tried panoramic images in the past and the results were always less than stellar, but these turned out nice... and literally all I had to do was point PS:CS5 at the set of images and it did the rest. All I had to do was decide how I wanted to crop the image after it was stitched together. I then had the challenge of getting my gallery website software to accept some pretty large photos (the biggest of which is over 70MP!).

I also don't know what the best way to display these is, but here goes...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM AF at 10mm, 1/200th sec at f/16. ISO 100. Raw conversion Adobe Camera Raw, Composite image built in Photoshop CS5.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 53mm, 1/250th second at f/11.0. ISO 100. RAW processing Adobe Camera Raw, Composite image built in Photoshop CS5.

I'll see if I can come up with a better way to display these as they really are much more impressive if you can see them larger where the panoramic effects are really illustrated.

- Bill

Well, as I sit here I look out the window and I am quite literally in a cloud. The weather is warming up and everything is starting to melt, but the combination of warmer air and the foot of melting snow everywhere is combining to make everything a thick soup of fog. I can barely see the stand of trees across the way, but I can definitely see spring coming.

However, the other day, Anya and I played hookey from work to take a day trip up to Niagara Falls to see it while it was still frozen. Reports say they expect the ice to last into May, but we figured we didn't want to risk waiting that long, so with decent weather (no snow, and warmer temperatures) we took the drive up. We were rewarded with 35F temperatures and a blazing bright sun that made it feel even warmer. The sun did end up producing a challenge with the exposure (very harsh whites and drastic shadows), but I still enjoyed the day.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 30mm, 1/250th second at f/11.0. ISO 100. RAW processing Adobe Camera Raw.

I've still got a ton more photos to process, so definitely stay tuned and I'll try getting more up as soon as possible!

- Bill

Ok - I haven't posted in a couple weeks, but I have a really good reason! For the past 5 days, my camera has been taking photographs non-stop. Yes - five straight days of taking photos, once every minute, to make the following video.

After trying time lapse with the moon rise, I thought I should try something else again soon. With the weather being absolutely disgusting of late and really wishing spring would get here sooner, I thought some flowers blooming might look cool. Right around the time that I did the other time lapse, Anya had brought home a single hyacinth in a small pot from the grocery store, but it bloomed before I had the thought to try it. Luckily, the next weekend was Valentine's Day, so I bought Anya another hyacinth and then quickly stole it back.

To be honest, I did not originally expect this time lapse to take as long as it did. Anya's first hyacinth seemed to bloom in about 24 hours, so I was planning on that. What ended up happening was 5 days (and as you'll see, I cut it off a little early too). In order to achieve that, I had to change memory cards three times a day, camera batteries twice a day, and batteries in my intervalometer (the device that handles taking all the photos on the schedule) once a day. Because I chose to make exposures once per minute, I had plenty of time to do each of those maintenance tasks in between images without any problem.

In the end, I had 7228 images totaling 162GB. I tried processing all of them into a video, but it ended up being about 4 minutes long, and that just felt a bit too long, so I decided to drop half of the images to trim down the total length of the video. I might go back into the video processing software (Premiere Elements 11) to see if I can figure out how to either speed up the video or whether the 4 minute video does work. Having more frames in the video would make it smoother, but I still like the shorter running length.

Anyway, here's the current version of this video...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 18mm, 1/6th second at f/8.0. ISO 100. 3614 frames taken every 60 seconds. RAW processing Adobe Camera Raw, video rendered in Adobe Premiere Elements 11.

Oh - something I failed to do on the last time lapse was to accompany it with some music. It took me a while to decide on the final piece to use, and part of that decision was based on the running time of the video. In the end, though, I think it really fits the video well. If you are curious, the piece is Camille Saint-Saëns' The Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium.

Thanks for viewing.

- Bill

So for a recent assignment on a photography forum that I post to regularly, one of the members picked "Time and Motion" as the theme. That instantly got me thinking time lapse! I've been wanting to try my hand at time lapse for a long time, and as things usually go, procrastination got the better of me.

Anyway, this apparently was the right motivation!

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 31mm, 1 second at f/5.0. ISO 2500. 695 frames taken every 5 seconds. RAW processing Adobe Camera Raw, video rendered in Adobe Premiere Elements 11.

As you can see, it isn't the best attempt, but I definitely learned a few things to keep in mind for next time.

Thanks for stopping by.

- Bill