PLUNDERING BIRDS

I'm not much of a bird photographer. But when a whole flock of allied Bohemian waxwing and fieldfares ransakes our rowan tree right outside our kitchen window I just had to bring the SMC Pentax-DA 55-300mm and try it out on these brave birds. Some images are not top sharp, which may partly be ibecause I was shooting in the upper end of the 300mm range, but may also be blamed on inpurities in the window glass (if I had tried to open the window they would all have gone in a flash). 

It took them less than an hour to plunder the tree. When they left there were not more than a handfull of rowan berries on this pretty large tree. The winter have been hard and long and 60cm snow depth does not leave much for them to eat besides what are still on the trees. We have put out some old apples for them now when the tree is empty, and some of the field fares have been there, but I haven't seen a single waxwing since they emptied the tree. Hopefully they found some other trees to harvest.

 

THE EARTH AIN'T FLAT AND I HAVE THE EVIDENCE

K20D with the SMC Pentax-DA10-17 fisheye, stitched with PTGui from 7 originals.

This is Stockholm (capital of Sweden) shot from ~115m above sea level (you can hint the baltic sea in the inner archipelageo on the upper right, north-east). I'm standing on a ~12m metal frame tower on top of the elevator machine room (dark grey square) on top of the concrete tower. The elevator goes to the 20th floor, after which we have to climb three steep stairs indoor, a fourth outdoor up in the machine room roof, and then 12 m vertical ladder to reach the platform. The tower is used for radio communication and mobile phone networking.

From the platform my research group at Stockholm University samples the concentration of carbondioxide and aerosol particles and turbulent motions which enables us to derive the emissions of both carbondioxide and aerosol particles from traffic combustion to the north and west of the tower. In the south to south-east we instead see how the forest area takes up carbondioxide through the photosynthesis of the plants and how particles are deposited.

The purpose of this photo is to show the surroundings and the different source or sink regions for carbondioxide and particles around the measurement site. It will probaby be included in some posters on scientific conferences and some publication in scientific journals together with measured data.

I'm not completely happy with the result because after having taken some shot inside the machine room where we have our computer and data logging I forgot to decrease the ISO when I got up onto the platform, so I need to go there again with the camera. Then I will probably also try to use the SMC Pentax-DA15mm ltd. After this shot I changed the settings on my K20D so that the top display show the ISO instead of remaining pictures on the memory card. Hopefully it will help avoiding such misstakes even when I'm in a cold and windy place like this.

Some land marks: to the north to north-west are the central Stockholm including Södermalm and the old town. If you zoom in there are many familiar land marks for those who are familiar with Stockholm. Just north of the tower is what used to be a worn down harbour area, Hammarby-hamn, but is since a few years a fancy living, office and shopping area (large emissions from cars here). Just north-east of the tower surfaces one of the exits from the long traffic tunnel that goes south of Stockholm. The green area to the east and south-east are the northern end of the Tyresö park, a large protected green area, but as you can see, the living areas just south of the tower are also rather green with low emissions. To the south-west you can see the indoor arena "Globen" (the white globe), a well known land mark of modern Stockholm (no it was not where Hamlet put up his original plays).

I must say that I'm really impressed by the PTGui software. Powerfull, easy to learn, inexpensive. The demo version let you try most functions.

HOWER FLOWER

Despite an amazingly long summer, the garden life goes towards autumn, but we still have hower flies and sun flowers. A while ago I played around with the SMC Pentax-DFA 100mm f2.8 macro with converter (for reach), flash with diffuser on the K20D, and I was pleased with the result. Hope you like them too.

BUMBLE BEE IN BOKEH (BIB)

I've noticed that bird photographers call pictures with a bird in flight for BIF, and that sometimes people use the same abbreviation (for fun) for a flying bee or bumble bee. But this one is BIB, Bumble bee in Bokeh.

Is this just terrible to look like, or does it look like the garden does without your eye glasses? Or is it actually a bit of beauty? You see the bumble bee, right? I didn't until in post processing, so that is pure luck, but the play with bokeh is on purpose, although this is a crop where I've ditched the sharp flower to the left.

The lens is a ~40 years old German m42 mount Meyer-Optik Görlitz Lydith 30mm f3.5 full open. It is one of those zebra striped lenses. Luckily there are enough m42 versions around for you to get one rather inexpensive, unless you want to adapt a Topcon, Exakta or Pentina mount to your camera. I would say it is worth it. The bokeh is smooth like butter. It lets you paint like an expressionist with your camera.

Now, where is that flickr group where you can only post pictures where at least 20% of the surface is bokeh...I think this picture will qualify.

By the way, if this blog looks strange, some pictures are missing. It appears that flickr have currently got itself invisible photos...let's hope it will resolve soon.

MEDUSA UFO?

Looking at these images one could wonder if this is a picture of a UFO or an alien from another planet, so different is this life from what I see around me every other day.

These photo's where taken at the medusa/jellyfish aquarium at Universeum (a sort of hands-on science museum) in Gothenburg, Swedish west coast. The low light conditions made me use the SMC Pentax-FA 50mm 1:1.4, which is very suited for this sort of conditions.

Yet another reminder that there is always good to have a really fast lens in the bag. This implies a prime lens, zooms are rarely faster than f2.8 and often slower. But even with only one focal length you can usually adapt to that (zoom with your legs), but if the lens is just too slow, you cannot do anything (except turning up the iso to 6400, but that rarely leads to a happy ending).