For CJ, Who Will Appreciate It

Part of the three-phase power distribution at a PEC substation.  It's a little noisy because the ISO was cranked on the camera . . . it was still dark out on my way to work when I stopped in exactly the right spot to see this.

What in the World?

First I thought, "what are you?" ...then I grabbed my camera with the sharp lens on it.

This was hanging out on the deck behind our house earlier today.  Some well-chosen Google keywords told me it was a Hypercompe scribonia, the Great Leopard Moth.  Pretty, for a bug.  I didn't notice it was iridescent until I hit it with the camera's flash.  Click to enlarge.


This has been an interesting couple of weeks when it comes to seeing huge moths I've never seen before.   Please excuse the muddy long-end of my telephoto lens:

Hyles Lineata, a White-Lined Sphynx moth, which tricked us into thinking we had a tiny hummingbird on the Jasmine for a moment.

I'll Just Be . . . RUNNING IN TERROR

"You came to the wrong neighborhood [deleted]"

Click to enlarge
 
or, to quote the ship's Cat, "I'll make myself look big, and scary!"

I Think It's Blown

What do you think, is this fuse any good?

The lights dimmed when I plugged in the device where this lived. Just for a moment.

Click to embiggen. The lines where the molten metal spun around the inside of the glass are kinda crazy.

8 Amps.

I've Started Painting

Here is my first still life painting! Please be honest with your criticism.
Well, maybe not so much. I was TRYING to get this tree photographed the other day as I left work second-to-last and the parking lot was empty. Turns out I left the camera on manual control and blew it all the way out. Overexposed FTL and then a little photomanipulation to erase the last car in the lot and the building, plus some surrounding vegetation. I like it, anyway.  Click the picture to see it larger, then right-click and View Image and hit the +magnifying glass to see it full-sized.

What's The Difference Between Snapshots and Photographs?

There is no difference*. Here is the difference.

A couple of days ago in my kitchen, this is what I saw when I went to go get breakfast at the crack of dawn. Notice: this looks pretty much exactly how it fell on my eyes, dim light and everything. I said to myself, "Oh, that's pretty..."

(click any photo to enlarge)

Automatic exposure, 50mm

Then I said, "But you know, if I just ..." and I started tweaking the setup and angles, and camera settings and such. Two minutes later, I came up with this:

Manual control, 50mm f/3.2 1/30sec handheld ISO400, white balance on "cloudy" 

*A snapshot is a photograph. But sometimes, when you take a little longer than is required for just a quick "snap," your photographs can come out much, much nicer.  These pictures came off the same camera with the same lens at the same time of day.  The only difference between them was operator activity.

For those so inclined (read: for me but I'll share if you want) here is a 1680x1050 pixel version, ready to be slapped up as a background image on your widescreen monitor. (click through to Photobucket to download)


(One of the guys asked what kind of orchid this is.  It's some kind of Columbine.)

You Were Expecting Someone Else, Perhaps?

A crescent moon that shines on the bottom half of the orb is referred to in our house as "The Cheshire Cat" after the character in Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

Well I was outside the other day and he showed up again.  He almost faded out completely before I could get a picture:

Click to enlarge 

The trees, telephone wires, and moon were left as they came off the camera.  The cat, you may guess, was a photomanipulation.  I particularly liked how his hand and feet lined up with local scenery just right.

Because It's Pretty

Click to enlarge
Right click, choose View Image
Click the image when the + magnifying glass shows up

Fast New Glass!

When I started selling stuff to pay for my "new" camera, I found out it's not too hard.  I said "the next extra hundred dollars I have, I'm going to get myself one of these!" 

That was a year and change, and lots of groceries, eating-outs, and various bills later.  I went through a few thousand dollars and didn't get my lens.  Then a couple of weeks ago, I found an eBay seller with a pile of these refurbished by Nikon for just under $100 each.  My Darling Wife said "You really want it. Just get it."

So...

...I did.  Thanks Jesus, I love it.  As BR said, "That's really, really fast!"  Indeed.  But the speed is only half the reason it's great.  The other half is that it meters exposure and autofocuses on my camera (unlike my red-headed stepchild lens).  The other, other half is that it's pretty sharp without trying hard at all.  Click the camera-shy dog to enlarge, then right-click and View Image, and hit the Plus magnifying glass.

The speed is a little hard to explain.  In conditions that well and truly NEED a flash with a kit lens, this thing just goes ahead and makes natural-color pictures without the flash.  It's magic.  If you have a Nikon and a hundred dollars, get one.

********

If you have a Nikon without a focusing motor in the body, or if you just gotta have instant manual focus override without turning a switch, get one of these instead, for an extra $100.

Nobody Can Paint A Sky Like God

These are 1680x1050 pixels, for use as desktop backgrounds on increasingly-common 20-24" wide LCD displays (like mine).  Click to embiggen, before deciding not to try them out!  Right-click the bigger image that comes up and tell it "view image" then click the magnifying glass to see the detail in the trees (which Blogger blurs).
.

I took these locally last night. "Then I think to my self . . . what a wonderfuuuul woooorld."  Credits to our Lord, who does a pastel wash like nobody.

Sweet Grille Bro

AusTex was working a wreck as I was on my morning commute.  This was taken from the sidewalk with no worry of a car spoiling the shot as all SIX lanes of Braker were shut down.  The perspective is great; it looks like you're about to be run over!  I love the way I got stars off both headlamps.  Click the picture to embiggen!

I guess I ought to list out the gory details from now on if I'm going to be posting pictures eh.
Nikon D70 18-70mm@25mm, f/6.3 1/160th sec. ISO200

VFD, First On The Scene!

Apparently I *barely* missed being tied up in traffic stopped for a mile this morning . . . so I went back and spent several minutes looking at the mess and taking pictures.

This was the scene at Braker and Parkfield in Austin earlier today.  Trust me when I tell you that by the time I had arrived (maybe 5 minutes after I decided to turn around) the line of cars was at least over the hill, probably all the way back to Lamar.

A tanker truck driver missed his turn by a foot or two, and damaged his trailer as well as a utility pole.

The pole was well and truly embedded in the side of the tanker trailer

The trailer took heavy damage and appears to have only stopped when it hit the tank-supporting structure near the rear wheels of the trailer.  A hose on the side of the trailer was ripped in pieces, and the ladder was destroyed.  The dank obviously was badly dented/crushed where it touched the pole

This is usually a nice suburban neighborhood street.  Nothing much happens, till all traffic on a the busy thoroughfare is stopped by a random crazy situation.

Braker is full of cars in the morning.  This morning it was full of stopped cars as the Austin Police Department stopped traffic in both directions so AusTex Towing & Recovery could safely get this tanker disentagled from the pole.

The wrecker lifted the rear wheels of the trailer, and pulled the trailer away from the pole as a driver in the blue tractor slowly drove backwards onto Braker

Blue police lights are reflected in the waves of crumpled steel in the side of the trailer. 

Austin Energy was out in force.  Here their linemen are examining the pole struck by the truck.  It had a significant amount of wood rubbed off by the truck, here seen as long strips of wood laying around the base of the pole.  The pole was shivered all the way through, and will have to be replaced as soon as practicable.

My favorite shot of the morning is the beautiful front-end of the AusTex rig.  I like the way both headlights got stars, and the perspective is really great.  For this shot, I knelt down low on the sidewalk as the truck was stationary.  Don't forget: you can see these images bigger by clicking on them.

Hiring divers?  Looks like maybe one needed a little more training, unfortunately.

Something you don't see every day: The Austin Fire/Rescue Special Operations truck rolled out.

Cleaning this whole mess off of Braker took about 15 minutes after AusTex arrived and pulled out into the street.  Not too shabby, actually.  The driver of the truck

Frosty the Photo Bomber

A little known fact about Frosty the Snowman (and snowmen in general) is that he is starved for attention. Think about it: you build them and forget about 'em. Well, he somehow made it into my photography studio last week and we had a blast. He's a real cut-up, this one. The first I saw of him was a well-played photobomb.

He seemed friendly enough so the cameras and I let him hang out with us for a while. He even managed to get in a pretty convincing duckface once or twice.

Oh frosty, you silly goose!

...then, of course, he melted under the hot studio lighting. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I just wish he'd had the courtesy to melt onto a paper towel at least....

Here There Be Dragons

It looks like you don't want to be here.  I thought "dragon tail"

In reality . . . close enough.  You still don't want to be here.  My guess is these two were at least 8, maybe 10 feet long.

As I was saying...

A Few Shots From the Zoo

We went to the zoo a couple of days ago, and a few of the pictures came out extra-well.  Click any of them to see them larger; I think it's worth the effort.

This is my good side:

BLACKbird?  Who you calling BLACK?

If you must know, I am hunting.  Now shut up, you're scaring the prey!

Security: It's for the birds!  I bet you didn't know they establish a perimeter before setting up camp.

For Steve, Two Hondas

Steve, he loves him some Hondas.  Here are a couple of local cars from a night drive a while back.

An S2000 from a frequently-seen angle:


And an RSX just barely-visible in the darkness.  Almost like a drawing but let me tell you it's a gen-u-wine photo.

New Wallpaper

Fall has finally fallen in Central Texas.  This file was left at 1680x1050 pixels for those of you on the same screen resolution as I am using at home.  Click through, seriously - it's huge.  Right-click, view image, zoom in by clicking again.

Magic Under The Lights

Imagine walking at night in near-total darkness on an abandoned city side-street
Straight into a forest
Where trees are a hundred feet tall
The grass is trimmed neatly
And each tree is covered in points of light right up to the top of the canopy 

That was the perspective from the eyes of #4 last week-end.  If this does not qualify as a magical experience for a child, I don't know what would.

Click the image to see it supersized, hit escape to close the image window.  Better yet, right-click the image and "view image" then click it again to see it full-size (I left it at 1600 pixels wide so it should cover your entire screen)

PEC at Night

The Pedernales Electric Co-op has put up a few lights again this year.  Wandering around under the trees is magical, especially for little children.  For adults, it's pretty sweet too.

Walking up the street to the PEC building: (click the image to see a larger version, hit escape to close the picture)

One Final, Really Final This Time, Final Traipse. Maybe.

A year and a half ago, the city (my The City) started clearing a local woods as old as the neighborhood. Trouble is, it is actually a clogged and overgrown drainage culvert. The residents raised a stink and the city stopped clearing the ditch. They promised to study the drainage and see if mature trees needed to be removed. My prediction at the time was: all those trees are going.

Well, the other day I drove by on my way home and I noticed a small change. Click the picture to see it full size and look closely . . . they all have orange X's on them.



I had mostly forgotten, but the woods in this scene (and in the link, above) are weeds. The soil is washed down from the houses on either side. These weed trees are growing in what used to be people's back lawn dirt. It SHOULD look like this:



Well today it looks like this:



There is a trail back in there calling my name. I want to walk it again before they slice the trees all out. We'll see. Maybe this time I'll stop long enough to get all the pictures in focus!

Next year it will probably be barren and in a few years it will likely be covered in a grass carpet like all the other culverts around here.

For now, they have left the stuff growing in the dirt near the edges of the concrete, including this: