"On the road again..."

"sporadic musing"

On The Big Bang Theory, Penny says to Howard, "...you know a lot of doctors".

You should see my address book. As I get older and with accumulating medical issues...
That said, I have several friends and relatives who are entitled to that honorific too. They can be distinguished by the fact that I call them by their first names (Dr. Ron or just Steve or Gary). I'm on first name terms with most of them but I refer to the medical ones by their full names or functions (my radiation oncologist...).

Gone are the days when the only doctors you knew were your GP and your dentist.

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Here's the same Loon I posted in the last blog. This time I shot it with the D800 instead of the Z7 — same lens, the 200-400 at roughly the same settings — to show the nesting box and to try to compare quality between the camera bodies. I can't see a ton of difference but the Z has the edge.

If I'm patient and the timing is right, I'm hoping to see some activity when the eggs hatch and the chicks are visible.

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So here we are a few days later and my hopes have been fulfilled!

Well, one chick anyway. These were really difficult shots to render due to the bright sunlight. It took a lot of post-processing work to produce some acceptable shots. 

Skip forward a few days: the second egg never hatched and — I'm told this is normal behaviour — the loons have abandoned the nest and the remaining egg and moved off to rear the chick in more open water.

Family portrait. This one isn't the best quality but I like the story that the pose tells! 

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Newfoundland trip update

It's less than a week before I leave and I really should be packing! I am, sort of: I've sorted my camera gear (major undertaking!), done my computer backup and prepared my travel hard drives, and I've updated the Excel file that details what I'm going to pack and how the containers will be organized. I always bring too much, only use half the stuff, but better to have it than not and there's room in the car, and I have the rooftop cargo carrier.

Last year I had some specific photographic goals. I achieved some of those, hence fewer specific goals for this year.  I do have some, though:

• Icebergs. I'll be up on the Western Peninsula, at "Iceberg Alley" between Newfoundland and Labrador. I did get some good 'bergs in 2017, this time I want to try to get more dramatic shots, whether by finding unusual lighting or composition, or both. I'm a little unfocused here, hopefully it will 'just happen' when I'm there.
• Whales! I still want to see a full breach. But they're addictive, these massive beasts are spectacular. I'm planning to take the family out whalewatching when we get together in the Bonavista area.
• Puffins, of course, in Elliston. My son and family will be with me and (weather permitting!) my granddaughters will love seeing these birds when we go there.
• Photo friends: Ron and Ricki will be in Twillingate at the same time as me for a few days, and I'll see Trudy and Jeff there too. I'd like to visit with Ray Mackey and Sheldon Hicks and maybe Darrell Heath and other local photographer and artist friends while I'm there.
• Some long exposure oceanscape shots. I'm not satisfied with most of what I have so far and want to try harder. As you'll see below, I've got some new equipment to try to make that happen
• Stars. Again, I have some new hardware and I'm hoping for some more dramatic images. Wouldn't it be great if there was an Aurora event? 
• People. I say this every year: I want to make more images with people in them, tell some stories. I have to force myself to do this, it's not one of my strengths!

I also just booked 3 nights in Westport, NS — actually, past Digby — on the far western tip of Nova Scotia on the way home, August 19-22. A friend recommended this place for outstanding whale watching and it's a major birding area, including bird banding and migration centres (prime time, apparently!). Lighthouses, etc. 

One challenge: "Digby Scallops" come from there. But I was told there are only two remaining eating establishments within a couple of hundred km — a restaurant and a café. Apparently there used to be a famous restaurant a ferry-ride away but they have closed! I'm sure I won't starve...

Should be great. Have a look at their website: https://www.novascotiawhalewatching.ca/

I'm writing this post over time. It's now Tuesday, June 25 and I'm leaving on Monday. Lots to do before I go... and some snags have come up. Let's just say that I have an appointment tomorrow for another probable root canal (I don't want ti be stuck out there in pain...) and yesterday, I had some car trouble where the "Check Engine Light" and others came on and I had no throttle. I got the car to Subaru but their diagnosis was, "we can't reproduce the problem". Great. It better not happen in the boonies in Newfoundland! The car's going back in on Thursday for brakes and another pass with the diagnostic computer. Initially they thought it was the catalytic converter, now they think something to do with the 'throttle body sensor'. Wish me luck! I renewed my CAA Plus membership...

Anyway my packing list is complete, I just have to get the stuff into travel bins and loaded in the car. I have to call Bell today to suspend services for the summer (why pay if I'm not here?) and finish up some house arrangements. Basically ready to go, though!

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Raptors yeah!

Look at me. As I said last time, you KNOW I love basketball. I'm 4'20", I outweigh most NBA players and when I jump, I sometimes can ALMOST get my toes off the ground! What's not to love about that game! 

 Kawhi, if you're reading this, you know we want you to stay! Marc, Kyle, Pascal and everyone else, "Good Job", guys! And Nick: "Kudo's, man"! 

 Congratulations, NBA Champions, Toronto Raptors!

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House still for sale

It hasn't sold yet, despite being an exceptional value for an very attractive property. People buy houses for various reasons, but in my mind, the ideal buyer would be a senior couple looking to get out of the GTA to a year-round or recreational home within a two hour or so driving distance from the city. The quiet and meticulously maintained Inn across the road makes it not-so-isolated location and it's steps away from the dock on the lake. It's a one-storey bungalow which could become wheelchair friendly if needed, it's high and dry, the road is the first one cleared after a snow, and there's a huge 3-car garage for vehicles and toys! Because it's not directly on the water, taxes are less than half, as is the asking price.

If you know someone who might be interested, please have them contact Anthony at Royal Lepage, 705-457 2414 or info@trilliumteam.ca. Here's the link to the actual listing.

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Pictures

It's been a while, so I have a number of shots you haven't seen before. Here are some, and I'll be working on my portfolio site in the next little while as well. The main portfolio page is here, with a myriad of navigational options. For what it's worth, since I work under "Creative Commons", feel free to screen grab a shot if you want, but just for personal use, no modifying anything and be sure to credit me. Pretty well anything on the portfolio site is available as a high resolution large scale print at very reasonable cost, just ask!

I plan to post weekly or at least bi-weekly from Newfoundland, so be sure to subscribe by clicking the "Newsletter" button (or here) to get a heads-up.

Without further ado...

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Prairie Smoke at Carden Plain. Before the flowers opened, and after a rain shower. The last shot is a focus stack done in the Z7

Here's another 20-image focus stack done in the Z7 and post-processed with Helicon Focus. I'm working my way through the learning curve on this technique. 

Some Carden Plain birds. A bluebird, a hard-to-find and very shy Sora, the pretty little yellow warbler and a song sparrow in the rain. 

This tree-swallow favoured us with his song!

Upland Sandpoper. The D800 and 200-400 Nikkor combination autofocuses on Birds-in-flight like a dream, The fourth picture is actually a different bird, shot at a different spot about half and hour later.

Wilson't Snipe and a Virginia Rail (the Rail was on Prospect Road)

Experimenting with the iOptron Sky Tracker. I'm anxious to try it again in Newfoundland in a dark sky spot. There's a bit of aurora borealis in this shot of the Northern end of the Milky Way. 

A 10-stop ND filter combined with the Nikkor-S 14-30mm f/4 and then some post-processing with Topaz Studio yielded this shot on 12-Mile Lake. The same combination was used for this slo-mo shot of the White Water.

All right! See you from Newfoundland. Don't forget to drop in or subscribe and I'll remind you. I dare you!

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Hi. My name is Glenn...

Seek, and ye shall find...

My name is Glenn and I'm a coffee-o-holic. It's been 2 hours since I had a cuppa...

Seriously, I'm addicted. In fact if I don't have a cup of coffee before bed (my wife and I used to lie in bed and watch the Johnny Carson show with a cup of coffee!), I wake up with a low grade headache, cured only by a cup of Joe.

Now I'm not a gourmet. I'm an equal opportunity coffee-o-holic. I don't like weak watery stuff and it should be fresh, but (don't think less of me, now), I even like Tim Horton's. I generally buy darker blends for brewing at home. The MacDonald's stuff is pretty good too.

I like Latté's and cappucino's but, like, they have milk in them. Coffee should be drunk black. Espresso is good from time to time, and Starbuck's occasionally has a good blend but you can't get the same thing there two days in a row, so I don't go there.  I buy beans and grind them just before brewing.

I know there are many ways to brew coffee. I prefer a drip machine but it has to have a conical filter. Or a single brew.

So what's this story about? I have a Tassimo machine. I like it. It's quick, the coffee is always fresh, it's super convenient. But it's big and bulky and has a water reservoir. When I was in a hotel in Montreal last December, they had a coffee machine in the room that took the Keurig K-cup pods. It was small, had no reservoir, one-button easy. I managed to find it online, but believe it or not, it was $140!

As you may know, I'm planning a month-long trip to Newfoundland and I want something to take with me. The Tassimo is too big and one-cup drip things make lousy coffee...

I asked my sister to look for me in the US. And she found one: made by Proctor-Silex, around $25! I found it on Amazon and bought one. It's coming with me to Newfoundland. So is my cast iron frying pan. How can you live without these things?

That said, it's not as good as the Tassimo. I find the coffee comes out a bit muddy. But it's better than a generic hotel coffee maker or {the horror} instant. 

PS: after writing this, guess what I need? I'll be back in a moment...

PPS: it's Sunday now and I'm re-editing the blog. Guess what I need? Right back...

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The RAW vs JPEG argument popped up again, as it often does. FWIW, here's what I wrote:

So when you're looking at a JPEG, you're looking at a baked cake, one that you bought in the supermarket for $2 because it's the cheapest one they make . It was made by a machine. Once the cake is baked, there's not much you can do to change it. 

When you're looking at a RAW file, you're looking at a bunch of ingredients: eggs, flour, all that good stuff but before the cake was baked. You can custom make that cake any way you want, or you could bake cookies or muffins, or... whatever your heart desires.

How can you make your RAW file look like a store-bought cake? With a lot of work and practice. But why would you want to? If you want ordinary pictures, take JPEGs. If you want images made with love and care, shoot RAW. 

Make sense?

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May I ask a favour?

I entered the Vistek "Capture Canada" competition. It's hard to choose a picture that says "Canada" but I think I did. Here it is:

A warm sanctuary on a quiet lake in the wilderness shows the peace and serenity that defines Canada

The way it works is they choose the 10 most popular images and select the winners from amongst that bunch. But to be popular, I need votes. Please go to this link and vote for my image.  I need your help.

I'm given to understand that you can vote once per day: I know it's asking a lot, but if you could bookmark it and click the link and vote from time to time? Thanks! 

Oh, and tell your friends. Give them the link to this blog and let them read it for themselves. They might enjoy the blog...

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Speaking of things coming with me to Newfoundland...

The car's going to be pretty full! How do people travel by air? Just my camera gear would exceed my luggage allowance. Then there's my clothes, kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff, computer stuff, rain gear, hiking boots, knee pads, oil paints and easel and canvasses and sketchbook and charcoals and of course, my wallet.

Do the math. Driving 8000 to 10,000 km (gas!), the ferries, staying in cottage/efficiency accommodations for 30 days... 

Why Newfoundland? Three main reasons: (1) I love the place. I've been there two or three times before and I'd really like to go again, (2) I might even be convinced to buy a place there to spend my summers there in future. Not winters. Gawd. and (3) I can't really travel outside of Canada. I've been turned down for travel insurance by all of the carriers I contacted, including CAA who initially said yes but who now say "no" (the killer question: "have you been treated for metastatic cancer"). I especially can't go to the US, and I doubt I could even safely go to Iceland or other foreign destinations. So Newfoundland it is!

I've booked the first three weeks plus, I've booked the ferry, all good. Can't wait!

I bought a backup camera body. A D5500, got a good deal on a used one. The main feature I was looking for was the articulating screen to make it easier on my knees.  I had this picture in my mind of my D800 failing and me there for a whole month without a camera. It also has a crop sensor so it'll be interesting to compare using it with the big telephoto lens vs the D800.

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File this under, "I'll believe it when I see it".

I was on the phone with Bell tech support today because my DSL modem goes down 3 or 4 times a week and it's annoying. They're sending me a new one (update: "you should have it by Monday or Tuesday". It's now Sunday, a week later. No sign of it, so back to the phone tomorrow. Grrr.)

Sickening. Especially the Upload speed. But then again, I look out the window at the lake...

But in the conversation, when I deplored the awful speeds available here (I was asking if anything changed or do I still have the max available to me) he said "Bell is working on your area and EVERY CUSTOMER will get FIBE services in a few months". 

Sure.

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Documenting my day.

I thought my readers might like to know what to expect and to do if they go down to Carden. I wandered down again yesterday. It was a nice day, and the weather forecast said "rainy and cold" for the next three months (OK, not three months. But it sure feels like it).  

This is what Wylie Road looks like in early spring. What you don't see in this picture are the huge water-filled potholes. Some of them are the full width of the road, maybe 15 or 20 feet long and as much as a foot deep. Except for a section in the woods down the road, they're hard-bottomed (it's an Alvar. Look it up). But you want to have all-wheel drive and substantial road clearance, and take it slow. Don't bring your Ferrari. 

I've learned a lot of patience while birding down there.  I got there a little after 9 am and the first real picture I took was just before 11 am. I had already walked a couple of km on the road, and decided to hike down the Sedge Wren hiking trail before I saw anything worth shooting, and it wasn't even a bird! 

People wonder why I wear camo's at Carden*. This guy paid me no attention as he sedately munched away on some kind of stick for lunch. I watched him for about 10 minutes until he finished it and calmly swam away. 

* I wear them for other reasons too. They snap at the ankle and fit under my boots, so ticks and other nasty insects can't get at me, they're Goretex lined so they're completely waterproof and breathable and they're windproof so worn with suitable undergarments (wool blend) they're comfortable over a wide temperature range. And they fit! Cabela's is a great place to shop.

I met an interesting guy who worked with the Conservancy. We chatted for a while, I learned that one of the things he did was to arrange a port-a-potty at the blind on Wylie Road (thank you, David!), he maintains the hiking trails,  he's fully aware of the condition of the road (he's working on the township to get them to run a grader down the road. We both think that may be a mixed blessing since it would allow people to access the area in their Ferraris and the place could turn into another Algonquin Park weekend zoo). He could see things I couldn't see (two bluebirds mating, a Loggerhead Shrike in a bush far away). Of course Stevie Wonder can see better than me...

I ran into David again on the Sedge Wren trail, after shooting the beaver pictures.  He flushed an American Bittern but of course it flew away from me, so I never got a shot. Then a Northern Harrier flew over, hunting the marsh, and all the birds went into hiding! I didn't get a good picture of her either, but for what it's worth...

From there I went to the Cameron Ranch because I heard that the Shrikes have been known to hang out in the Hawthornes there. None I could find, of course, but I did find this field sparrow playing hide-and-seek

That's a Hawthorne, by the way. Emphasis on the word "thorn". You don't want to go in there... 

After Cameron (I walked a total of about 6000 steps — that's over 6km. Dr. Jeff made me get a fitbit thing and although it doesn't DO anything, it makes me more aware and I try to walk more. Only hit his magic 10,000 steps once, though!), I drove down to Prospect Road where there's a designated marsh. Now I was there for at least a couple of hours and I didn't actually SEE anything (other than red-winged Blackbirds, Geese and some more hunting Harriers), I heard a ton of things.

I was stopped in one spot when I heard an odd sounding call and figured out that it was a Virginia Rail. A woman stopped by (Theresa from Bobcaygeon? You know I'm bad with names!) and she hung out for a while. We definitely heard the Rail again, and also at least three different Sora (I played the call on my iPhone and they called back!) It's rare to actually see one. Another guy stopped by who really knew his stuff. He said he was going back to Carden, so I decided the day was shot anyway, I would too!

On the way up Prospect Road, I heard a Sandhill Crane. I stopped, got out the camera but they were so far away I couldn't get a usable shot. With apologies...

This will give you an idea how far away they were. There's a meadowlark in this picture. Can you find it?  600mm, uncropped. Hint. It's in the middle... 

Back at Carden, we were hanging out near the blind when I said, "a bird just landed on that fencepost over there". The guy from Prospect Road said, "that's a bluebird". I hate people who can see.

Digitally painted 

He also said there was a Meadowlark in a tree near the road. Not when I got there.

Time to leave. It's 6:30pm, time to go home. As I'm driving up Wylie Road, near the end, I see this:

A gaggle of Greater Yellowlegs! There were three of them, hopping around but behind the wire fence so it was hard to get a clean shot.  I couldn't get closer to the fence (giant foot-deep puddle) so I had to wait until they moved away, then shot through the holes.  

It was worth waiting. I saw one of these the week before on Prospect Road in the distance, but otherwise, this is the first time I managed a picture of them. 

So this was a great day. Listening to birds, talking to nice people, putting miles on my feet. It would have been better if I had noticed that it was a police cruiser I was driving behind on Highway 35 and had slowed down a bit... but this should tide me over until the rain stops next year!

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Carden Plain, Algonquin Park... which one should I go to next? It's bird season. It's moose season. What to do, what to do...

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Birds and more birds...

This post is all about birds. Well, almost. So if you're not into birding, you can either scroll through and enjoy the pictures, or skip it and wait for next time when I'll put up some more of the off-the-wall stuff you're used to! I wanted to document my two visits to Carden this week so I made this into more of a photo essay than usual.

Carden Plain — a productive morning

I stopped by for an early season visit to the Carden Alvar last Thursday (April 21) expecting that I wouldn't see much. I was passing by, had a couple of hours to spare so I thought I'd see what's what. Besides, I had that new-to-me Tamron 150-600mm f/5.6-6.3 lens and wanted to give it a preliminary workout. Pretty well all of the shots below were handheld at 600mm.

First step, make sure everything is working. So I focused in on a pair of distant Canada Geese on the wing, and here's what I got:

Not bad, given how far away they were.
(you can click any picture to see it full sized)

First up were a couple of horses. Carden is a working farming area, there are horses and cattle there too.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this little lady was just a wee bit pregnant.Or this is the roundest horse I ever saw!  

This little guy can't be more than a couple of days old. Already running around. Imagine a human newborn...

Here he is doing what mom is doing. Then he gives up and goes for her teat... mom is still very distended so as I said, he's a newborn. By the way, I waited patiently for them to get in this mirrored position. 

OK, off in search of avian targets! A few of the bird species are back and the first I encountered was the "woo-woo-woo-woo" of the Wilson's Snipe, the sound it makes in flight. Their behavior was different from later season, when they like to pose for the camera on a fence post. They swooped around, then landed virtually hidden in the grass. They're hard to see until they move!

It may look a bit darker than the dry grass but so do any number of rocks and clods of dirt! 

I stopped at this stand of deciduous trees because there were birds calling all around me! They were hiding, though. 

Here's one! It's a brown Thrasher hiding in the aspens. 

A little further down the road is the blind, built by the Couchiching Conservancy to accommodate birders. It was still padlocked, due to be opened any day now. By the way, if you want to know more about the Carden Plain, visit their website at http://www.cardenplainimportantbirdarea.com/, it's a very good read, although it's a few years out of date. The most commonly seen bird there is the Eastern Phoebe, as well as the tree sparrow, who often nest right in the blind. There was a mating pair of Phoebes there.

Posing on a stick out behind the blind. A pair were building a nest.

An interesting sidebar about this picture if you're a photographer... I'm new to the world of 600mm lenses. The few times I've tried one in the past (even Dr. Ron's world class Nikon 600/f4) I've had little success capturing sharp images. Practice, of course, but in the meantime I've erred on the side of faster shutter speeds. This image is no exception, it was shot at 1/1600 sec at f/7.1 (why not f/8? I dunno...), matrix metering with +2/3 stop exposure compensation, and that exposure combination bumped the ISO up to 5000.

Other than normal sharpening and a bit of cropping, the only thing I did to this image was to run it through Topaz DeNoise 6 and then I masked the effect on the bird itself, so what you see is what I got. I'm very pleased with the tonality of the image and you will be seeing it in competitions!

Why did I write this detail? Because what I didn't say was I had dragged out the tripod and gimbal mount and there was absolutely no reason to shoot at such a high speed! I probably could have shot this at 1/250 sec, ISO 1000 and pulled more detail out of the feathers.

Unfortunately, the spot they chose was on the sill in front of one of the shutters. So either it's going to get knocked down when the shutter opens, or the conservancy will latch this shutter closed for the season.  

Across the road, at the top of a cedar tree, this Brown Thrasher was singing his heart out!  

I drove down to the Sedge Wren trail and walked in just to the corner. Nothing happening. Because I had to get going, I headed back down the road. On the way out, I passed through a flock of at least four-and-twenty (red winged) blackbirds

Near the entrance to Wyllie Road, on the west side, I saw two Pileated Woodpeckers

Then finally, I saw a pair of tree swallows building a nest in a bluebird box:

Probably the male, standing guard while wifey did all the work! 

All in all, a productive couple of hours on an early season day. I'll be baaaack...

Hi, I'm Baaaack...

An early morning Facebook post from Rico Forlini saying he was at Carden Plain got me into the car and enroute there on Sunday. I did run into him and Tim — they were just leaving as I arrived. We did get a quick look at an Eastern Meadowlark but out of photo range.

Carden is interesting because you never know what you'll find. When Rico told me he saw an Eastern Loggerhead Shrike at the blind, that's where I headed! So without further ado...

This guy was quite far away, so this is a 100% crop – 1:1 – at 600mm. I tried a series of different exposures and chose what I thought was the sharpest one: 1/2000 sec at f/8, ISO 3200, a lot of sharpening and noise reduction! It's perched on top of a Hawthorne bush, it's favoured nesting tree since the thorns protect the nest from predators. 

The Eastern Loggerhead Shrike was listed as a critically endangered species in Canada back in 1991 and the population has shrunked even more since then. According to Wildlife biologist Don Sutherland (who happened to be standing beside me when we (ok, when "he"!) spotted this bird), there are fewer than a dozen mating pairs in the Alvar. He remarked that this one was not banded, so it isn't one that was re-introduced, it's native.

Don had an outstanding piece of optics with him. This is similar to the model he had...

It was astoundingly clear when you looked through it. I'll make the Swarovski shop one of my very first stops after leaving the lottery office the day I cash my winning ticket. With camera adapter, you're looking at about $5K. If you've never looked through one of these and you do, have your chequebook handy! 

OK, back to the planet Earth! The usual culprits were on hand to be photographed. Although I already have a picture of a Phoebe, I like this one for the sharpness and tonality

Eastern Phoebe with nest-building material 

You don't only see exotic and rare birds. This American Robin posed precisely so that he could be framed by the tree

Carden Plain is well known for its bluebird population. This early visitor was basking in the momentary sun as the clouds split for a minute. 

This is a female yellow-shafted Northern Flicker who popped by for a look-see but never came out far enough to give me a shot of the whole bird.  

And finally, here's another Brown Thrasher in mid-song. I thought the composition and framing of this shot was worth posting here, even though I have another couple of Thrasher shots up above. 

I'm reasonably happy with the Tamron lens, for birds at a middle-distance but not with long distance stuff. Maybe it's me, I need more practice. I seem to get less sharp results when I'm on the tripod than I do handheld, there are some techniques I need to work on, I imagine. 

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