Monarch

Excellent day for shooting monarchs. I had the weather, the sky, the blooms, the time and most importantly, the monarchs! Not sure if I'll have the sky or the weather tomorrow though as it clouded up this evening. I'd hoped to shoot the full moon tonight.

tags: photo butterfly monarch

Monarch in Flight

A little blurry and almost out of frame. It's a surprising distance that a butterfly covers in a fluttery instant. I'm quick on the shutter but not as quick as a butterfly launching itself off a bloom. Still, the photo does confirm for me that butterflies really do fly around with their tongue hanging out.

tags: photo butterfly monarch

Feline Friday

Pickle was scanning for anole lizards the whole time I was trying to take his photo late this afternoon. I could not find a lizard inside the porch but I'm sure there was one. I only find their little heads if Pickle gets a hold of one when I'm not around to rescue the poor lizard. Pickle loves anoles!

Welcome to Feline Friday, time to share the felines in our lives!

Last week we saw Abby in a favorite perch. Cuidado shared a photo of Kenz, also known as Ms. MacKenzie. BooBoo Kitty was photographed cleaning Peanutchew's head! Phinney introduced us to cat Phoebe-Piper who has come out from the basement. D.K. posed for a close-up. Armand is back from Iraq and shares a photo of a Sumatran Tiger at Point Defiance Zoo. Great bunch of cats!

All you have to do to play along with Feline Friday is update your Journal/Blog with a feline update. Show off your cat in pictures or share a cat tale! You can post your cat story in comments if you'd like. Leave a link back to your Journal/Blog in comments. If you would like to guest host a Friday just post in comments!

tags: photo cat feline friday

Butterfly Time

The Fall butterfly season is in full swing. Monarchs are migrating and I'm seeing several monarchs at once. Back to trying, and missing, butterfly flying shots. All kinds of butterflies fluttering about now including my favorite, the Gulf Fritillary. Soon I'll be chysallis spotting as there are caterpillars on the milkweed.

tags: photo butterfly gulf fritillary

Creepy KeyChain

A creepy little, useless, keychain I got for my birthday. About about the only cool thing about it are the eyes which light up! It's useless as it's a pain to make the eyes light up and it's made of paper thin plastic. If I put my keys on it would not last a morning. I got other things for my birthday but this was by far the most photographic item.

tags: photo creepy keychain

Round Robin: "ABCs of Autumn"

For the ABC's of Autumn I went with "sky." Not just any sky but my lovely Houston sky goo composed of hazy, puffy clouds with hints of crisp blues. No sky photo would be complete without some dressing and that is provided by the blooms of the Yellow Cosmos. I'm still weeks away from any leaf color change so this is the best fall orange color going on right now for me.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Autumn Alphabet players!

• TJ
• Photo Inclusions: Every Picture Tells A Story - Posted!
• http://tjexpressions.blogspot.com

• Carly
• Ellipsis...Suddenly Carly - Posted!
• http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

• Karen
• Outpost Mâvarin - Posted!
• http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

• Janet
• Fond of Photography
• http://fondofphotography.blogspot.com

• Teena ***Welcome, New Member!***
• It's all about me! - Posted!
• http://purple4mee.blogspot.com

• Nancy
• Nancy Luvs Pix
• http://journals.aol.com/nhd106/Nancyluvspix

• boliyou
• Percolation
• http://boliyou.blogspot.com

• Danella ****Welcome New Member****
• Deep Red Style - Posted!
• http://www.deepredstyle.com

• Suzanne R
• New Suzanne R's Life - Posted!
• http://newsuzannerslife.blogspot.com

• Linda (Lou)
• Blah Blah Blog - Posted!
• http://blahblahblog.wordpress.com/

• Kerrin
• a new day, a new photo - Posted!
• http://kerrinsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/

• Gem
• Journally Yours
• http://journals.aol.com/libragem007/JournallyYours/

• Julie
• Julie's Web Journal - Posted!
• http://www.barrettmanor.com/julie/journal.aspx

• Gina
• Gina's Space - Posted!
  
• http://journals.aol.com/rbrown6172/Ginasspace/round-robin-abcs-of-autumn/637

• Derek
• Through my Eyes - Posted!
• http://throughvealeyes.blogspot.com/

• _rRose
• WAIT-NOTYET
• http://journals.aol.com/rrveh1/WAIT-NOTYET-/

Swing by the Round Robin Photo Challenge blog for details and updates on the next photo challenge. I'm posting the next challenge announcement tomorrow and it's another autumn related theme. You'll like it!

tags: photo sky round robin

Gulf Fritillary

My favorite butterfly and it's fitting that today of all days I should photograph a Gulf upside down. Today is my birthday. I'm forty, it's Tuesday and the next time my birthday will fall on a Friday I'll be forty-three. I wonder if I'll still care about a Friday night when I'm forty-three? Time will tell. It always does.

tags: photo butterfly gulf fritillary birthday

Light Meter Modes

No, you are not seeing double just the results of one of my many recent meter mode test shots. Above is using spot meter and below is evaluative. Both shots have minus 1/3 exposure compensation (-1/3EV). Took me a while to figure out that (EV) works best on evaluative meter setting and makes a mess of things on spot meter.

One curious point is the exposure between the two images. Spot metering went with 1000th at f4 while evaluative went at a 500th at f4! That certainly contributes to the darker top image. I metered with spot on the eye of the sculpted bird head. Evaluative metering averages the entire scene.

It's easy with spot meter to hit the wrong mark on a subject. Focus, metering and re-composing can make a spot metered image fall apart. Not always though. In terms of a speedy subject, like a butterfly, evaluative metering works best. Again, not always. Choice of meter setting depends on the light, the subject and the background. There is no silver bullet.


tags: photo dragonfly metering

Got Me a Monarch!

Conditions were not as good today as yesterday. Clouds kept building in then blowing off. I get so disappointed when it clouds up as I'm shooting. Ten minutes of cloud shadow is forever on butterfly time. I wanted this monarch something awful as I missed several monarch photos this week. Good closing photo for the end of the week.

I've got a few new things running on the computer tonight. First up is a new extension for Thunderbird that creates a sent e-mail status button for AOL/AIM e-mail in Thunderbird. AOL_Extended_IMAP is the extension. I previously blogged about using Thunderbird with AOL/AIM e-mail here. It's now even more nice to have Gmail and AOL/AIM mail in the same app.

There is a new version of AIM available and it's neat. I'm not that much of an IM'er but it's apps like this one that do perk my interest in firing up AIM more often. I use TinyResMeter and AIM Lite is truly a small load on system resources. It's small enough I know I can run AIM all the time. Got me thinking of adding an "IM Me" link to the blog when I do my sidebar/template update this month.

Have a great week ahead!

tags: photo butterfly monarch