For Anya's birthday, we took a day trip over to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We got a later start than we had hoped, so we didn't get to do as much as we had planned, but one stop we did make was to the Beaver Marsh Boardwalk. The amount of wildlife alongside the trail and boardwalk was impressive - especially how many calm water fowl the provided some very nice photographic opportunities.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/800 sec at f/8. ISO 1600. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

I've got so many photos from this trip that I'm going to have to share them in batches or it would take me weeks to get through them all. Just mouseover the thumbnails below for the larger version.

Green Heron	Juvenile Wood Ducks	Blue Heron	Wood Duck (?)
Blue Heron	Water Lily	Juvenile Green Heron	Blue Heron

And one last fun one for this batch... I just love the inquisitive look that duck on the right is giving me. It really did feel like some of these birds were more curious than scared. I definitely was getting closer to these birds than I have ever gotten to any of them when they're here on our pond at the house.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/250 sec at f/8. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Be sure to come back tomorrow as I still have plenty more to share!

- Bill

Ok - so much for posting on a regular basis... work has been absolutely insane recently, and by the time I get home I am completely exhausted; add to that the need to mow the grass every five days and that we had one night with strong storms and that we went away this past weekend, and you've got a recipe for me not getting to post all the cool stuff I'd wanted to.

Anyway, that just means you get one big post today. So after getting the cool encounter with the owl on Friday evening, we then went to Jennings Environmental Center Saturday morning. Jennings is one of those places that really wasn't convenient to get to on a regular basis when we lived in the city, but now it is only fifteen minutes away, so we can pop on over there whenever we like.

This particular morning, we were looking for birds and flowers, and we found some of both.

First, we noticed this pair of tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor)...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/640th sec at f/11. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Both the male and the female were making repeated trips to and from the nest box with bits of sticks and grass to line their nest to get ready to lay some eggs...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/1250th sec at f/11. ISO 1600. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/1250th sec at f/11. ISO 1600. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

We looked for pink lady-slipper flowers, but couldn't find any... but we did find a couple patches of trillium - one of my favorite flowers.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/640th sec at f/11. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

We also saw a pair of Baltimore Orioles (Icterus galbula) feeding on the nectar in some tree blossoms (unfortunately I never got a good shot of the male).

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/2000th sec at f/8. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Finally, we had seen a couple of these Common Yellow-throats (Geothlypis trichas) at the beginning of the day, but this one we managed to get in pretty close to and get some nicer shots of. He liked to sing to mark the boundaries of his territory, so I tried to wait until just the right moment to catch him mid-song.

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

At this point, I have a nice back-log of stuff to process and share, so stay tuned... hopefully I can post more frequently than once a week!

- 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

I decided I've been spending too much time with my Sigma 150-500mm lens, and decided to instead of shooting distant subjects, to return to my trusty 100mm macro, and get in close to something. This crocus popped up in the middle of our yard this weekend, and the bright sunshine when I got home from work just came together for a nice reminder that spring is actually here!

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/1250 sec at f/2.8. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to keep your eyes open for these nice little signs of spring all around you!

- Bill

Just a quick post today, I'll provide more background on this later...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM with Yellow 12 Filter and unknown extension tubes, 1/120 sec at f/5. Image Stabilization on. ISO 800. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and special fluorescence excitation filter. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

Just stopping by with a couple tulip shots from the spring flower show...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/50 sec at f/5. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and wireless control. Image Stabilization on. ISO 400. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw,

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/40 sec at f/5. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and wireless control. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw,

Enjoy!

- Bill

We took a day off this week and went to the spring flower show at Phipps. I captured this abstract shot of some pollen stamens and processed it a couple different ways... First the straight exposure, then I pushed the exposure up a bit for a bit of a high-key look, and then I thought they might look nice with a B&W conversion.

Original	Slight High-key	B&W

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/250 sec at f/16. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and wireless control. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W processing done with Nik Software's Silver Efex.

- Bill

Alright, today's trip into the archive doesn't go very deep as both of these are from my most recent visit to Phipps, but I've overlooked them for posting, and figured it was worth sharing them now.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/160 sec at f/4.5. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in eTTL mode and bounced through an ExpoImaging Rogue Flashbender. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/500 sec at f/3.5. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Tune in tomorrow... we'll go a little deeper into the archives.

- Bill

Ok - we'll towel off again for a bit of non-dive photography. Enjoy the orchids!

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/40 sec at f/5 (left), 1/30 sec at f/5 (middle), 1/120 sec at f/5.6 (right). Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in eTTL mode and bounced through an ExpoImaging Rogue Flashbender (right image only). RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Thanks for stopping by.

- Bill

Ok - a quick break from the dive photos to share an abstract taken on a recent trip to Phipps Conservatory.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/100 sec at f/8. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in eTTL mode and bounced through an ExpoImaging Rogue Flashbender. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill