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Congratulations, originally uploaded by psilver [silverph.com].
Woohoo! Congratulations to my wife on her first car! She really worked hard for it and all efforts are paying off. Please drive carefully, babes. Love you!
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I went to Hobart Beach early today in search of the Snowy Owl. Unfortunately, luck is not on my side. I am still struggling with the D300. 
I saw mergansers, mallards, long-tailed ducks, buntings, gull but NO snowy owl. Birders came in pairs, asks me the same question all the time…. "Have you seen the owl?" My answer always is… "No snowy owl. I saw a dead gull though. Interested?" and for some reason they start walking fast the other way. Sigh…
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Special thanks to J. Osterlund for giving me a ton of information about the beach and the owl.
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These long-tailed ducks are way out in the ocean, too far for my cheap 500mm lens. They came out blurry all the time. I wonder why? Was I pushing the lens to its limits, or is it due to a wrong setting on the camera? Still learning, tiring but I sleep with a smile on my face. 
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I ordered the Nikon D300 in Ritz Camera tonight. I’ve heard good and extremely bad stories about them but they are my only choice for now. If the camera doesn’t get shipped tomorrow, I’ll probably cancel by Friday. 
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Well, I’m back to birding! My frustration with my equipment went away when there was finally enough light to get a proper exposure! I still wish I had a camera body with higher pixel count like the Nikon D300 but the D50 is still capable if the conditions are right.
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Today was a hectic day for me. It was very cold and I thought I would stay inside the house all day but I did brave the weather and got some interesting shots. I first went to Sunken Meadow to shoot some birds in the morning. I didn’t see any mergansers but I was rewarded with about 11 different species of birds, ranging from house sparrows to cedar waxwings. According to libirding.com, a black-headed gull was spotted and shot (with a camera of course!) in Sunken Meadow. I met some ladies with binoculars trying to search for the gull. I usually disregard sea gulls. I think it is time to learn more about them and possibly spot something new!
In the afternoon, before sunset, I met with Dee. It was a spontaneous decision that was very rewarding! She showed me the sunset (and moonrise!) at the marina. It was beautiful! It was cold and windy. The tripod was vibrating and my hands were trembling from the cold yet I managed to shoot the sunset as it went down. I used a Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 VR so that I can compose the sun and bridge (Robert Moses) better. After that, I was set to doing some experimental slow shutter photography of the ocean since the waves are bigger here than in our place in the north. I used a Tokina 12-24 f/4 lens set at a low angle on a tripod. I had to trash most of the shots because I did not notice that the front of the lens was getting wet so it has spots on them.
This is really just a trial shot. I wanted to know what the effects of slow shutter in moving water. I used a polarizer at times as a neutral density filter just to prolong the exposure even more.
Thank you Dee for showing me the place!
It’s good to be alive, enjoy every moment, folks!
Filed Under Photography Articles
The Woods 1, originally uploaded by psilver [silverph.com].
I finally found the right settings for my duotones! I wonder if it will work on people as well?
Nikon D50
Sigma 50-500mm (Bigma)
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Trying out a new Adobe Lightroom preset with this dog shot but I’ll be doing my own version later so I’ll have more control.
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