Thursday, December 30, 2010

Continuing Hawk- Photo Experiments

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In the further pursuit of better photographs of my friend the Red Tailed Hawk.


I spotted my friend in the Tulip Popular Tree down the road about a 1/4 mile away and decided to again try to get some better photo's of him.


I grabbed the camera with the 70-300VR lens with the 2X adapter and headed down the road to a church parking lot just across the road from the tree..I pulled in there in my truck and parked parallel to the tree and rolled down the window and stuck the camera out the partly open window..resting the log lens on the window edge and started to photograph my elusive friend.


I was still at some distance from the tree across the road...I would say maybe about 1500 ft. away ...so the long lens was a big help in capturing some of the awesome beauty of my friend.



Click on the photographs to enlarge and get a life sized view of my friend.




There He is ..what a tease He is.


Turned his head looking for lunch..feathers blowing in the wind.


A bit of a closer look



He decided to fly off for a new hunting place.flying directly towards me




Zooming in for a closer shot.





Turning South West just before again turning back towards me.





I hope you enjoyed watching my friend along with me in my endeavours to better capture his awesome beauty with my camera..I hope he forgives me for disturbing his hunting..but I don't think he really minded.









Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Hawk Experiments/Photography

After being closed up in the cabin for 3 days due to snow, when the Sun came out today, I decided it was time to get out and do some photography.

I have been trying to get closer pictures of the Red Tailed Hawk that sits in a Tulip Popular Tree just about 1/4 mile down the road so I decided to try an experiment.

I grabbed a 2x adapter and attached it to my camera and then put on the 70-300VR lens , now you can't use Auto Focus with the 2x adapter that I have, so I set the VR to be ON and clicked it to Manual Focus.

Next I grabbed the Tripod and mounted the camera on it and set the camera to Manual Settings and played with settings till I got what I felt would make for good shots.

It was a very bright sunny day so I had to be careful when shooting not to let the Sun hit directly in the lens while shooting.

Click on any photo to enlarge for a better view.

This shot taken from our front porch

Zooming in to 300 with the 2x adapter



Cropping and editing


Moved down the driveway a bit for a closer look



After putting in Photo Shop, cropping and zooming in.


I hope you enjoyed my experiments and efforts to get better and closer Photographs of my Friend ..The Red Tailed Hawk.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Sky Watch Friday

Thank you Sky Watch Team for your efforts to bring us Great skies from around the World.

To view skies or to participate...just click on the Logo above.

I am going to again try to post on Sky Watch as I did last week..but alas I could not post there as the page just came up blank when trying several times, and I see only one person came and looked at my post on my blog..thank you Sylvia.

Here we go again..trying again this week...as usual just click on any photo to get a life sized view.

Sky Watch is all about sky and clouds..so this week I am concentrating on clouds mostly...there is always an awesome array of clouds here in Western NC.


Sunrise in the East

Sunrise in the North


Sunrise in the SW


Sunrise in the NE





Now I want to take you along on a journey that I recently took down East of here and on the way back approaching the mountains again saw some awesome cloud formations that I would like to share with you as seem from my truck window.

I took all the following photo's with a point and shoot camera through the windshield of my truck.


Approaching the mountains

What a view and awesome cloud formations


Great clouds seen from the truck window

More cloud formations


Churning,Swiriling clouds

We hope you enjoyed our tour of the skies this week...please come again for a visit.











Thursday, December 16, 2010

Sky Watch Friday


Thank you once again Sky Watch Sponsors for bringing us great skies from all over the world each week for our viewing pleasure.

To view skies or to participate...just click on the pretty Logo above.

Once again it is time for us to post our best of skies that we observed this week and share with all our participants the beauty of the of a sky in our area.

See below my contribution for this week...I will start with a Sunrise and end with the Sunset.

The Sunrise isn't as colorful as some I have posted, but I just love the cloud patterns we got this week, and want to share them with you.

Click on any image to enlarge and get a life sized view.



Sunrise in the East

Sunrise in the NE


Sunrise in the North


Sunrise in the NW

Sunrise in the South with valley fog.


Now I want to show you just a bit of the Sunset we had that same evening, we started with a great setting sun in the West, then I noticed Two Sun Dogs ( count them ) I was totally surprised...for this doesn't happen very often...I grabbed the camera once again and captured them in all their awesome beauty...one was at about 45 degrees to the South West of the setting sun , the other was about 45 degrees to the North West of the setting sun.



Sunset in the West


An Awesome Sun Dog in the South West


The other Sun Dog in the North West









Thursday, December 2, 2010

Sky Watch Friday

Thank you to our sponsors for their tireless efforts to bring us skies from all over the world for our viewing pleasure.

To view these skies or to participate..just click on the Logo above.

My post today is of Sunrise and Sunset on the same day,after a very rainy previous day.

I will start with the great Sunrise and follow it with the awesome Sunset at the end of the day.


Sunrise over Bald Rock Mt. (East)

Just a bit more SE..wish i could have spliced the two together for a panoramic view,
something I will have to explore.


Sunrise over the Garden in the East



Sunrise in the West


Sunrise NW

Sunrise North

Sunrise NE..now who put that pole in my way?


We now move to the end of the day and the glorious Sunset photo's


Sunset in the West


Sunset NW


Sunset NE..I know it is grainy, but didn't have my camera setting quite right, but this is straight out of the camera, wanted you to see it just as I saw it.



Sunset South


Sunset SW












Thursday, November 18, 2010

Sky Watch Friday

Thanks to our Sponsors for their efforts to bring us great skies to see each week.

To View these skies or to participate, just click on the Logo above.

My post today is a bit different than last week, in that we had two days of mostly bland skies and rain, at times torrential rain, especially the day I took these photos.

The particular evening( Wednesday ) as the sun was setting I noticed some awesome clouds stacking up in the West and South West, like big stacks of cotton, highlighted by the setting Sun.

I grabbed the camera and put on the 55-200mm lens and went outside to see if I could capture some of Creators awesome creations.

Following are some of the results of that endeavor...click on any image to enlarge and view at your leisure.



Starting Sunset in the West

Awesome Beauty in the South West


A Sun Dog appears in the far South West



Just as I was coming back in the house..I noticed this great " Promise of new things to come."




Thursday, November 11, 2010

Sky Watch Friday

Once again, Thank you Sponsors for your efforts to bring us Great skies from all over the world.

To View these skies or to participate, Just click on the pretty Logo above.

I know I have been a bit lax in my posting here, but I have been very busy cutting new gemstones and creating an Ebay Store front to display and sell them on and also put some up for auction..this store will give me a place to display more of my Art and creations..and hopefully even sell some.

Well on with the show...today's post is of a great Sunset we had last evening here in the Western Mountains of North Carolina.

Please feel free to click on any phot to enlarge for a better view.



Sunset in the West

Awesome..a Sun Dog in the South West


Sunset over Sugar Loaf Mountain SW


Sunset SSW


Sunset South- Gilliam Mountain


Sunset Cloud


Sunset NW

Sunset North