Day 15/16

Not much happened on day 15.

Day 16 was a bit different. For the past couple of days I've been hearing the screech of several raptors. Today I finally spotted them in some Eucalyptus. So I ran inside and grabbed a cheap lens to see if I could capture one of them.

Well, I did.



While identifiable, the cheap ass lens sure shows how bad it is. No detail. Soft focus. It is so true that you get what you pay for.

The lens is a Quantaray 70-300mm macro. I got it for $130. It was advertised as a Sigma. So I took the chance. I guess a Quantaray is a Sigma. But it sure is the cheap end. Later I learned that Sigma sells rejects as Quantaray. Live and learn. This lesson is well learned ;)

And I do hope that someone can tell me what the bird is. I'm pretty bad at bird identification.

Note: this is the last photo in July

Day 14

2 weeks in. So far only 2 days missed. Not too bad. I suspect that I'll miss maybe 5% of the days deadlines for various reasons. So once I catch up it should run better.

On to the next photo.

For this one I broke out the 60mm micro. I've been seeing a lot of suckers on the local trees. I like the bright green against the gray bark. So far this is the best I've captured.



I like the green/gray color. But I don't feel I caught the brightness I was looking for. That would be a factor of either white balance tweaking or (more likely) a slightly darker exposure. I also don't really like the composition. I think that a more vertical format would give a feeling of height. Maybe a single/double leaf in vertical.

Maybe I'll retry this one in the near future.

Day 13

Today I tried to take a portrait of my dog. Well, I got a couple of ok shots. But not what I was looking for. While I was able to get an adequate exposure and focus. The background left something to be desired. To make a sorta short story shorter...this is what happens when your dog finally gets bored :)