Weather Today-In Your Vicinity 2013

[Greg Beetham]

Hi Yildiz,
I did get some green ones ok, it was only the blue I had problems with, I thought they were overexposed and burnt out because they were too bright for what I was doing at the time; that was my take on it anyway.
I guess I should explain a little more about the male Bower Bird, that elaborate bower with all the trinkets he builds is just for courting the female/s nothing more, once he woos one and is successful she goes off and makes a proper nest herself and lays the eggs and rears the young while he is busy re-arranging the bower and calling and displaying himself so he can perhaps attract another female, it’s a hard life but someone has to do it.
Greg

[aster]

Blue is a cooler colour than green is, slightly moving in the direction of violet and purple; those colours are hard to photograph correctly also. This might have something to do with the wavelengths of the colours too. Blue has a shorter wavelength than green light.

Have a look at this page, it looks worthwhile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum

Quoting from the page:
"Where Newton narrowed the beam of light to isolate the phenomenon, Goethe observed that a wider aperture produces not a spectrum, but rather reddish-yellow and blue-cyan edges with white between them. The spectrum appears only when these edges are close enough to overlap."

I'll read more on the subject before I develop my own approach at the blue light of fireworks. : ))


About the Bower Bird, what was I thinking? : ) But I still think the female Bower birds shouldn't be too desperate to settle for plastics... The exhibition looks more like a recycle dump or an exhibition to what the world might look like if we don't stop consuming so endlessly. Suits a modern art museum rather than a neat forest corner.

Thanks for the info. The bird species is most interesting. I always had the tendecy to think that crows were the birds attracted to bright and shiny items because they also are pretty crafty with tool-making and problem-solving. Maybe the Bower Bird has other talents too, which could compete with the crows'.

Yildiz

[Birma]

Wonderful collections of pictures Greg and Yildiz.

Bower birds and Fireworks - fabulous. It is firework season here in the Uk as we celebrate (?) the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot. I've never managed any shots of fireworks yet. May be this year. Definitely no bower birds here so great to see Greg's.

[Greg Beetham]

Yes I agree Yildiz, to us it looks like a bunch of rubbish, it looks like he has found some of it at a building site where the concreters, plumbers, electricians etc. have left a mess of plastic items laying around, I see there are kids toy plastic spanners and mums clothes pegs too, I have no idea about some items, what they are, or where he might have found them, the nearest actual rubbish tip is many Km’s away and there isn’t any chance he would be able to go back and forth to that, I guess he’s an opportunist and takes whatever is shiny/colorful/different that he can nab from the unsuspecting local neighbourhood.
Thanks Birma, yes the Bower Bird has an unusual system, the male builds a ‘nest’ that’s useless for nesting purposes and devotes so much time and energy into the upkeep of that and preventing other males from stealing his treasures he doesn’t appear to help the other half with the normal nesting and rearing.

And it’s funny about us celebrating an event where some politicians almost got blown up, it shows where our priorities are…ha ha.
But we don’t celebrate Guy Fawkes failed plot here anymore, they stopped the selling of fireworks to all and sundry a long time ago claiming there was too much unsupervised use of them, injuries and fires etc. I suspect the real reason was that pollies were suspicious maybe people were celebrating Guy Fawkes himself more than the failed plot.
Birma if you have a new year’s fireworks display within a reasonable distance of home why not take some photos indeed, the only problem with that is it happens at midnight, which is not convenient if you have young children, that’s the only drawback, well that and finding a parking spot and dealing with the traffic jam afterwards. (I rode my bike last time)
Greg
Townsville weather: it rained cats and dogs last night, best rain for months, yay!

[aster]

Weather In Istanbul: Mostly Cloudy
Temperature: 16 °C ; Feels Like 16 °C
Wind(km/h): 15
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Hi Birma, thank you. : ) Where have you been, we missed you and your photos. (if I may ask, of course)

Hi Greg, : )

Well if anything new is to happen around the Bower bird's headquarters of snaring female Bower birds, don't forget to let us know. : )) Maybe he gets to be more tasteful with what he presents...For now, it's more like he is rubbing all this trash in our faces, humanbeings, for having left them around, unattended or recyled properly. It's more the planet's men to blame than the male Bower Bird really, but I still think that he and the female parties should develop more visiual taste.

All theories and trials of shooting fireworks are welcome within convenient means, that is. : ) My chances are that I may not witness any fireworks' displays until the new year and then only maybe.
And no bird of my region provides such interesting displays of habit here. I saw a couple of crows picking on steel nails fallen on the ground of a nearby construction, though. Wonder what he will use them for..

Yildiz

[Birma]

Hi Yildiz It has just been one of those busy periods that occasionally comes along and interrupts the important things, like photography! I often find late summer and early autumn a difficult time to get motivated for pictures as well - too much flat light and plain green. I have been trying to keep up with the forum, but have not had much time to post. New camera equipment is always exciting, but I'm not sure I'll be making any new purchases just yet. Always looking though . Great to see new people joining and posting too.

There is some colour coming in the trees now, and I did manage to make a quick foray in to the woods this morning. I have posted my favourite shot in the challenge, but here is a nether to show the sunny autumn weather we had all day.


2013 Piper's Hill - Veterans by Birm, on Flickr

This is taken in one of my favourite beech woods which has lots of tall and very old 'veteran' trees.

A99 with KM 17-35 f/2.8-4 (D).

[CharlieWebster]

28 summicron + nex5n
Weather today
A7r preordered

[Greg Beetham]

I thought I’d post this to demonstrate the huge difference there can be in the point on the horizon where the moon rises.
I posted a previous photo of a moonrise some time ago with much more magnification that showed the moon rising in the small space near the palm tree at bottom right. Last night it rose a long way to the left (north) of that mark, the photo was taken at a wider angle so the difference between the two could be more easily seen.
Greg
Ps Those trees look like they are losing their leaves in the photo Birma, (the time of the year?) it’s a nice looking place.
Townsville weather: 26.6⁰C, cloudy and occasional showers.

I adjusted the brightness in PP to make it similar to how it looked in real life, I selected the moon and then selected the inverse (to exclude the moon) in order to adjust the overall brightness up by about 3 stops…(I originally underexposed by 1 stop to try to not burn the moon out but it wasn’t enough), I then reselected the moon and adjusted the brightness of it down by 95% and discovered there was a faint touch of detail there, (I was amazed, I didn’t think I’d recover anything, it looked hopelessly overexposed).
KM5D KM18-200

PICT2395.jpg (190.47 KiB) Viewed 3639 times

[Birma]

Looks like you'll be in deep snow soon enough Charlie . I hope that A7r gets through before you are cut off!

Interesting moon shot Greg. Wonderful what you can drag out of these sensors. The size (or apparent size?) of the moon does seem to vary a great deal. Had the sun gone down in your shot? Fabulous control of noise etc. if it had done.

Yes - we are definitely in to autumn here. About the height of the colour I'd say now. Some nice bright and frosty mornings would help. It is still a bit grey and damp. Here is one from the weekend walk (so not strictly today's weather!). The church in the background is the all that remains of a ruined grand house (I've posted pictures of the big house before) and it is still used for services. It has the most amazing painted ceilings - but those will have to wait for another day!


2013 Witley Court - Lake Reflections by Birm, on Flickr

Nex 6 with SEL 16-50.

[Dr. Harout]

...A7r preordered

Aha, with all those magnificent lenses in your arsenal, I think you made a wise decision (I would've done the same). Waiting for your shots with it.

[Greg Beetham]

Wow Birma that is some pretty scene of the autumn trees, lake and chapel, you’ll have to show us the ceiling at some point, (now that you’ve mentioned it).

And yes the sun had gone and it was getting gloomy at the time but the trees and houses etc. were still visible to the eye, pretty much like in the first edited photo, thing is, the eye can see much more latitude than a sensor can, I could see the moon detail just as well as the trees and houses at the same time whereas the camera couldn’t encompass that much range. (the moon requires a daylight exposure)
But anyway it wasn’t so much about the capabilities of the camera or exposure (and I forgot too de-noise the edited photo), what impressed me was how much difference there can be in the moons position at different times due to the combined effect of the earth’s tilt and the tilt of the moon’s orbital plane around the earth. The earth is tilted over at 23⁰ and the moon’s orbit is inclined by 5⁰ to the solar plane as well.
Greg
Unedited JPEG with indicators showing the amount of difference between a moonrise on this occasion and a previous one.

PICT2395-1.jpg (81.63 KiB) Viewed 3622 times

[Ken M]

[aster]

Sorry to be so late to respond to the exceptionally beautiful captures in this thread. I hope I'm forgiven.

Birma, great to see you in the forum after a reasonable time of absence. The photos you got for Autumn are just lovely. : )
CharlieWebster certainly already moved on intoWinter zone and time ahead of us all. : )) Nice one Charlie.

Greg, Southern Hemisphere is certaily doing tricky things to the sky-watchers! Must be exciting to see it happen day to day... : )

Ken, what an extraordinary look in that frame. I think I like how pink actually overpowered the urbanscape... : )

Thanks for sharig,

Yildiz

[Ken M]

Cold and snow

[Birma]

Wow - That is a striking shot Ken. I like the plane in the sky. Looks like you made it to Winter. The weather has not made up its mind in the UK. 1 degree C yesterday morning and scrapping the car of ice. 10 degrees this morning and almost felt warm