Mikefoto Blog

Montreal Botanical Garden

2010-06-13T16:05:00.003-04:00

During our trip to Montreal this week we visited the Botanical Garden (le Jardin botanique de Montréal). This shot was taken in the Japanese Garden and Pavilion there with my old point and shoot camera. I blew out the sky because it was so cloudy, so I faked it with a gradient fill using Picasa. The result is a little cheesy, but not as awful looking as the picture I started with. I'll take a better camera if I go there again.

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

2010-06-07T17:35:00.002-04:00

More Ducklings

2010-06-06T07:26:00.002-04:00

I used a new program I downloaded called Noiseware Community Edition to remove some of the noise from this photo, which ate my exif data. I used it because I had a pretty wacky exposure choice because I started in shutter priority early in the morning but neglected to change to a faster shutter speed as the sun came up. So this one ended up at F/14, which is not a choice I make very often. It did give me better depth of field, but is not what I would have picked. I could have got a lot better result with a faster shutter. I have to learn to pay more attention to what the camera is telling me when I look through the viewfinder. I can even see the ISO setting now, which should (theoretically) prevent me from forgetting to change it back to 100 from the 3200 setting I put on it the night before (which I've done more than once).

Larger version can be found from the gallery here.

Ducklings

2010-06-05T13:41:00.004-04:00

I went out this morning looking for some cygnets that are in the neighborhood, but could not find them, howvever I did come across this large group of ducklings. The light was a lot better than the resulting photos.

Larger views with exif available here.

Sandhill Crane Checking Me Out

2010-06-04T16:13:00.008-04:00

Here's a 100% crop of a picture of one of our neighborhood residents taken earlier today. I had the camera set on shutter priority out of habit; aperture priority would have been a lot better choice to get better depth of field. Next time I'll try to focus on the eyes a little better too instead of between them. This guy did not like to stand still and got nervous when I got too close, so I was staying busy just getting a focus point on him at all. A larger version with exif is here.

Thunderstorm in Colorado

2009-07-12T09:48:00.000-04:00

Early Morning Deer

2009-07-07T21:20:00.000-04:00

Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom

2009-06-06T12:32:00.001-04:00

See more Magic Kingdom photos.

Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom

2009-06-03T06:11:00.000-04:00

More Magic Kingdom photos.

Main Street, U.S.A.

2009-06-01T17:08:00.001-04:00

See more Magic Kingdom photos.

Cinderella's Castle at Magic Kingdom

2009-05-31T15:01:00.001-04:00

More photos of Cinderella's Castle at Magic Kingdom.

Yellow-billed Hornbill at the Brevard Zoo

2009-05-28T06:18:00.000-04:00

See more Birds at the Brevard Zoo.

Mexico Pavilion at Night

2009-05-24T06:32:00.001-04:00

More of the Mexico Pavilion at Epcot

Early Morning Swan

2009-05-23T08:21:00.001-04:00

More Florida Birds.

Blue and Gold Macaw at the Brevard Zoo

2009-05-22T05:43:00.001-04:00

More Brevard Zoo Birds.

Nicobar Pigeon at the Brevard Zoo

2009-05-21T06:19:00.002-04:00

I look forward to getting a better shot of this guy, but for now this one will have to do:

Butterfly at Epcot

2009-05-18T20:44:00.005-04:00

Saturday we stopped by the butterfly garden at Epcot, which we don't usually visit. I wasn't expecting too much, but was pleasantly surprised. I didn't have my macro lens, but took a few shots with my 200/2.8 just for fun. This combination wasn't ideal for butterflies, but with a little cropping I got some acceptable images. Here's one I like:

Please visit my smugmug site to see more of my butterfly photos.

José Felicianoa at Epcot

2009-05-17T15:11:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we went to Magic Kingdom for the morning, and then we left for Epcot about 2:30 to hear José Feliciano. This time I took only one lens (my 200/F2.8) and carried my small bag so I didn't have to haul around my stuff all day. The weather cooperated marvelously and the crowds were small.

I was familiar with some of José Feliciano's work (like Feliz Navidad), but really did not know much about him so I didn't know quite what to expect. Turns out he's an extremely exceptional guitarist (which you probably already know) and he's quite a funny guy too. I can say the concert greatly surpassed my expectations, and we both enjoyed it, as did the crowd.

Here's one of the photos I took during the concert:

Egyptian Goose at Epcot

2009-05-10T10:04:00.007-04:00

Yesterday we took what is starting to be our weekly pilgrimage to Epcot to spend the day and see the "Ricky Nelson Remembered" concert, featuring his sons Gunnar and Matthew Nelson. In the morning we were wandering around Future World, and I saw the animal below wandering in a garden. One of the attendants nearby said it was an Egyptian Goose that belongs at Animal Kingdom, but that they can't keep it there because it keeps flying away to Epcot. Evidently they've brought it back to Animal Kingdom several times, but it prefers to be at Epcot. This animal made a lot of interesting noises, including a metalic sounding honk and a sound that reminded me of steam being emitted from a pipe. I followed him for a while, and this is the only remotely decent photo I got.

The "Ricky Nelson Remembered" concert was very good. Gunnar and Matthew performed a number of their dad Ricky's hits, including "Travelin' Man", "Poor Little Fool", "Lonesome Town", "Hello Mary Lou," and "Garden Party." Below is a photo; Matthew Nelson is on the left, and Gunnar Nelson is on the right. Unfortunately I didn't catch the name of the lead guitarist in the center. He was very good too. You can see more of Gunnar and Matthew Nelson here.

Chubby Checker at Epcot

2009-05-03T11:10:00.004-04:00

Yesterday we spent another great day at Epcot. I got to try out the new circular polarizer in the morning with my wide angle lens, and I was really happy with some of the shots I got, like this photo of Victoria Gardens. It really helps cut down on the reflections and improves the color saturation and contrast.

But the highlight of the trip had to be the Flower Power Concert with Chubby Checker and The Wildcats. His show greatly exceeded our expectations, and we liked it so much we ran back and got in line to see it again after grabbing a quick snack for dinner. His show was really good, and I got way more pictures of him than I need (I take a lot of extras to make sure there is at least one good one). You can see the best of them at my Flower Power Concert Series photos. This one of him performing his #1 "The Twist" might be my favorite:

Crested Caracara

2009-05-01T05:52:00.007-04:00

Yesterday Sally and I went to the Viera Wetlands after dinner to take a walk and see what's new. As we were driving past the entrance, I noticed a bird sitting on a fence post near the tree line, and I decided to pull in to the parking lot and check it out, because I knew that area is where the Crested Caracara are seen, although I had never seen one. When I got out of the car, another fellow in the parking lot asked me if we ever saw Caracara there, and I said "I think there's one sitting on the fence post over there!"

So the two of us snuck up on him to check him out without scaring him off, and we soon spotted a second one, seen below, in a position where there was sky behind him to make a nice background. There were one or two more Caracara on the ground behind the fence. We managed to get a lot closer than I thought we would, so I got a number of pictures. I think these Caracara are juveniles, based on other photos I've seen.

Here are more Caracara pictures for you to enjoy!

Circular Polarizer!

2009-04-27T17:35:00.005-04:00

I finally got a circular polarizer! The following two pictures show the difference it makes. First is a picture without it, and second is an essentially similar picture taken with the polarizer. I'm looking forward to using it. Notice how blue it makes the sky, and how it cuts down on the glare and reflections from the grass and street.

Lorikeets

2009-04-26T20:25:00.006-04:00

This morning we took another trip to the Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, and I brought my EF85mm/F1.8 lens for the first time. Because the light at the zoo is not the best in a lot of areas due to the shade, I was curious to see how a faster lens would work out.

We spent a fair amount of time in the aviary, where I really like to take pictures of the lorikeets. This particular photo was shot at F/1.8, so the depth of field is very shallow, about a tenth of an inch or so at the distance I was at which makes it impossible to get all of the birds head in focus at the same time. It does make for a nice background, though.

You can see more lorikeet pictures here.

Violet Plantain Eater

2009-04-25T18:23:00.003-04:00

We went to the Brevard Zoo for a few hours this morning, and we spotted the bird below in the aviary. I don't think I'd photographed this bird before. I thought it was a Purple Gallinule like the one we saw at the Viera Wetlands last week. Then I came home and discovered I was completely wrong; this guy is a Violet Plantain Eater. Really.

Big Gator

2009-04-19T21:15:00.002-04:00

Tonight after we went out to dinner we decided to stop by the Viera Wetlands and take a walk before sunset. We saw a lot more wildlife than we expected, a few bird species that we hadn't seen before, and the big guy seen below. Fortunately we were not walking when we came across him! I was more than happy to stay in the car and take his photo with the window rolled down. Sally did get out and walk around the car to take a peak; she didn't see him until she got out of the car, and she didn't waste much time getting back in. Fortunately he was more interested in napping than eating tourists.

This is the first gator we have seen out of the water on the same side of the lake we were on, and he is the biggest gator we've seen there so far too. I think this one was about 8 foot or so, which is not real big by gator standards but is big enough to be 10 feet away and not in the zoo for me. This photo is full frame, I didn't have to crop it because he was so close.

Still no sign of the baby swans

2009-04-16T20:44:00.003-04:00

Below is one of my favorite shots from last week, the last time we saw the baby swans before they moved to a different spot. The next time we went looking for them, we couldn't find them. Then a day or so ago we saw a bunch of cars parked by the side of the road on Murrell again, but didn't have a chance to go look and see if they were back. Hopefully, we'll see them again, and I can get some more shots as they get bigger.

Great Easter Weekend

2009-04-13T16:53:00.004-04:00

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! Saturday we went to DisneyWorld again (surprise). We spent the morning at Magic Kingdom, had a good time, and then went to Epcot for the rest of the day at about 2:00.

The highlight of the day was the concert with Herman's Hermits with Peter Noone (actually we saw it twice). This concert was possibly the best one yet. The audience was real enthusiastic, and there was a whole group of people down front who brought all kinds of props and signs etc. that went with the different songs, which made it a lot of fun. I think Peter was familiar with the family; he called them his "stalkers" and they even got on stage for the second show.

Here is a picture taken during the concert, in case you haven't seen it yet, with one of the "stalkers" in the foreground. Peter was holding up an old record album they brought to show everyone what he looked like 40 years ago when he was a teen heart-throb:

Another Neighborhood Swan

2009-04-10T15:50:00.002-04:00

Yesterday after work I went to the park for a few minutes and got another picture of the female swan that lives there, shown below. This swan and her mate are almost always there, and generally can be found in more or less the same place. Most but not all of the swan pictures I have posted previously have been of this pair. She is not the same momma swan that hatched the babies I photographed the other day; we still don't know where that swan family disappeared to (maybe the vet picked them up for their swan shots etc?).

I like the way this picture turned out, with all the small drops of water on her head and the nice blurry background. The photo looks even better enlarged.

More Cygnets

2009-04-09T16:59:00.004-04:00

Yesterday we took a walk hoping to see the cygnets again, but there was no sign of them, although there were a number of people there looking for them. Maybe they got tired of all their admirers and went somewhere else? I talked to a guy there who said that they usually only stay in the nest for a day or two after they're born, so they might have just moved on.

Here's another photo from the other day for those who haven't seen it yet.

Baby Swans

2009-04-05T12:49:00.002-04:00

Russ called this morning and said he saw a Swan on a nest not too far away. So Sally and I drove over to check it out. As a bonus we saw a Roseate Spoonbill too, which we don't see often except at the zoo. You can see more on my Smugmug site.

Another Epcot Weekend

2009-04-01T06:07:00.003-04:00

This past weekend we spent another enjoyable day at Epcot, and once again I took way more pictures than I needed to while Sally patiently followed me around. Below is one of my favorites.

Roseate Spoonbill at the Brevard Zoo

2009-03-27T15:38:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite spots at the Brevard Zoo is the small pond across from the Flamingo Cafe, which is a good spot to get close to Flamingos, Scarlet Ibis, and other interesting birds such as the Roseate Spoonbill shown below. We spotted a Spoonbill similar to this one in the park near our house some time back, but I wasn't able to get nearly as close to it as I did to this one after running home to get my camera.

Lorikeet

2009-03-24T17:10:00.006-04:00

Below is one of my favorite photos, a Lorikeet that I photographed at the Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida a few years ago. Lorikeets are arboreal parrots which comprise the subfamily Loriinae, and are found in south-eastern Asia, Polynesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia.

The Brevard zoo is very close to my home, so it is one of my favorite places to chase animals with my camera. The Lorikeets are featured in the Austral/Asia exhibit inside the aviary there. Taking pictures inside the aviary is interesting, because you are surround by birds and you can get very close to some of them. The Lorikeets there are very colorful and are extremely friendly because the zoo sells nectar cups that people can feed to the birds; if you're not careful you'll end up with a Lorikeet sitting on your head.

I took this photo with my Tokina AT-X 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens, and I think it turned out well. I particularly like the background and the nice circular bokeh in the image, though I could have framed the bird better. This is one of the images featured at my most popular images. If you look close, you can see me reflected in the birds pupil.

Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot

2009-03-22T13:52:00.006-04:00

Yesterday Sally and I left early to spend the day at Epcot. About 5 minutes from the house I realized I forgot to put the memory card back in my camera after I downloaded pictures the last time, so we went back for it. We debated not worrying about it since I have two smaller cards in my camera bag; it's a good thing we went back because I took over 400 pictures, so I definitely needed it.

We went into the World Showcase as soon as they opened, because I've been wanting to get a good photo of Spaceship Earth through the torii arch at Japan with nobody in it (easier said than done). I finally got it:

We had a great day, and spent a lot of time looking at the topiary arrangements and flowers and listening to different musical groups. The highlight of the day was the Davy Jones concert, which was the first performance in the Epcot "Flower Power Concert Series." If you don't remember, Davy was one of the Monkees back in the 60's. There was a good crowd, but we got in without any problem and had pretty good seats. The concert was much better than I anticipated, and Davy gave a very energetic and lively performance, poking fun at his age a number of times and singing a lot of favorite songs that we remembered. He came into the crowd several times, and I got a lot of good pictures of his performance. This one is one of my favorites of Davy working the crowd:

We also saw The British Invasion twice and I took a lot of photos of them too, which you can see here. If you know the password, check out the photo of Sally posing with them too. They're good sports and like to mug for the camera. There's always a good sized crowd to hear them.

Finally, we saw Off Kilter in the Canada Pavilion twice and I took a lot of photos of them too. We enjoy hearing them and always seen them at least once when we go.

Sandhill Crane Babies

2009-03-20T18:18:00.004-04:00

Wednesday I was driving home from work when I spotted a family of sandhill cranes with two little ones by the side of the road. I think that is only the second or third time I have seen the little ones, and the first time near home.

As soon as I got home I grabbed my camera and Sally and I went back to see if they were still there. She let me out while she found a place to park, and I spent about 10 minutes taking pictures and seeing how close they would let me get. Which turned out to be pretty close. I put the best of the photos here.

Here is one of my efforts:

Gators

2009-03-15T11:04:00.007-04:00

Last night we went out to dinner with Bradys and stopped by the Viera Wetlands on the way home. We stopped by the Great Blue Heron nest hoping to see some little ones, but didn't really see anything. The Anhinga babies were right next to them and were easy to see, so I spent some time trying to get good shots of them. On the way out Russ spotted a gator swimming along, which was the first one we had seen swimming around. Russ has pretty good eyes.

This morning Sally and I went back early, and we stopped by the heron nest again to discover that there are babies there now, just recently born. They are very small and difficult to see so I don't have any shots of them yet. She spotted them through the binoculars, but I couldn't really get a good shot. Probably in a few weeks our luck will be better.

On the drive out Sally spotted another small gator real close to shore, stalking some coots. I guess it's easier to spot the gators swimming once you know what they look like with just their snouts sticking out! I was able to get within about 20 feet of him and took a lot of shots, one of which you see below.

Smugmug Tricks

2009-03-02T07:00:00.002-05:00

Smugmug is a lot snazzier than you might suspect, so I've going to describe some features you may be unaware of.

First, you may have noticed in the navbar at the top of the page there is a link called "Most Popular." If you go to that link, you'll see that there is not much there. Why is that? And how do photos end up on that page?

When you view one of my galleries, you'll see (unless you changed the style as described below) that the left side is a bunch of thumbnails, and the right side (shown below) is an enlarged version of the currently selected thumbnail. When you click on a thumbnail on the left, the image on the right changes. You can also browse forward and backward using the "prev" and "next" buttons above the photo on the right, circled in blue on the picture below. Or you can choose to watch a slideshow by choosing the "slideshow" button at the upper right, also circled in blue below. The slideshow requires that you have flash enabled so it might not work for you.

Next to the "slideshow" button, you'll also see a "style" button, shown below. If you select that, you can change the entire layout of the page your looking at (unless I've locked it). There are a number to choose from, and you may find one that you like better than the default. The style should stick until you change it.

You may not have discovered yet that if you click on the image on the right, you will see a larger version of that photo, sized to best fit whatever screen resolution you are using. You can also choose to view an even larger version, up to whatever limit I have set for that page.

Hold the mouse over the photo on the right, and you'll see a little fly-out magically appear. At the top of the flyout is a thing called "photo rank" with two thumbs on it, also circled in blue above. If you particularly like a photo, click on the green "thumbs up" and it's rating will increase. If you think that a photo is really ick, then click on the red thumb and it's rating will go down. Here's where the "most popular" page comes in: all the photos that have been given a "thumbs up" will appear on the "most popular" page.

Finally, if you want to make a print of a picture, choose the "buy" button and you can order prints which are made from the highest resolution photo available. Most of my photos were uploaded at full resolution, so they shoult print well. Smugmug also offers a lot of neat printing options and merchandise, like t-shirts, mugs, and calendars and more. You can read all about them here.

In case you're wondering, I don't make any money off of them, although I could if I had a "pro" account which I'm too cheap to pay for.

Mikefoto Blog is off the Ground

2009-03-01T10:00:00.003-05:00

Welcome to my new photo blog, which was inspired by the posts in this thread at dgrin.com. My goal here was to make this blog appear to be a seamless part of my smugmug site. It turned out to be a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. Although it's not perfect yet, it's about as close as I think I can get it. I spent most of my time figuring out how to get the OnMouseOver and OnMouseOut functions to work in the header, because Blogger munged up the html code that worked over at smugmug.

Yesterday we spent the day at Epcot, although I did not bring my camera this time so I can't add to my Epcot galleries. We had a very good day, and managed to hear the British Invasion (a Beatles tribute band) twice and the Canadian group Off Kilter once. I'm inspired to try and get some photos of both groups someday. We also saw the Chinese Acrobats (shown below from a previous visit with different performers). It was a little windy yesterday, but the acrobat doing this stunt only missed one bowl during the entire performance. I could tell the wind was bothering him because he took a lot longer than usual when he flipped the bowls up.

I had hoped to go out to the Viera Wetlands this morning to add to my Viera Wetlands gallery, but woke up with a headache and it was a little too windy to promise good pictures. Maybe I can get out there this afternoon.

My latest purchase is a remote wireless trigger for my shutter; it was not very expensive so I hope it holds up OK, but it works well. I'm hopeful it will lead to better results by reducing camera shake when using my tripod, since even pressing the shutter button makes the camera move a teeny bit. I tried the release out by taking a "self portrait" using my 300 mm lens, which required me to stand a long way from the tripod and guess where to stand. The result is humorous, and was so funny I put it on my guestbook page. But the picture did turn out very sharp, so I have high hopes for the remote shutter release.