New things and timeless ideas

I admit, I've been kind of slacking off on pictures. I finally woke up and decided it's time to look that special woman to share my life with. I call this shot "Power spot" it's not a Photoshop
construction this is a real scene I caught here near where I live in The Dalles Oregon.

Sometime long before light and after midnight, I took a bunch of long exposures in the light of the full moon. This is one of my favorite places to take pictures from. I believe the exposure time here was about 20sec. It did not take a really long exposure. 60sec will turn most situations with any light whatsoever into almost a daytime scene. Click these pics for 1080 view!

I got this... This as you will see is a very fragile web of watter drops was not disturbed in photographing despite the fact that it was less then an inch wide.


....and this...


....and this...

From this! I try to find things that people don't think of. Details, out of the box type stuff. I hit mine of interest when I found this one. A tiny spider web collected dew drops on it. I viewed it like a lecture I watched on quantum mechanics.

shot details: DSLR=Canon (400D) RebXTI, extension tube and teli-converter complex
Since I had a teli-converter once that was so bad it actually had bubbles in the glass! I'm not kidding. I figured they were all junk. Then I thought about optics and figured out that the optical process of a teli-converter is often the same used in very high-end lenses. So if you want an 800mm lens on you DSLR and don't have an extra $2500+ to get one.. then try and find a new, good, teli-converter. The digital high-end one I got turned my 30-300mm into over 800mm (35mm equiv.) it also can enhance macro setups. Factored in with the Canon 400Ds digital frame size. It also works well on my 10D. An older camera, but with great controls and built tough, it's worth 6.3mp. I am happy not to always run out of space so fast and 30x40' is as big as I usually ever want to try to print. Don't be ashamed of 6mp in a digital SLR. Shoot RAW and you will still get awesome shots. Used pro-gear or high-end cameras can be really good deals.

Catching animals in flight is easy with a good SLR. But be sure and use the auto focus!

My dad's dog, Mombo, one of the first shots I took with the teli-converter. I can shoot detailed insect and spider shots from incredible distances, as well as get closeups of animals without alarming them. This is a bit blurry but that's only because I was not trying. This was one of those "test shots" and turned out to be worth keeping.


Ghosts? Now before you get mad at me for telling everyone what "orbs" are. I have not made up my mind on the whole issue. One thing I do know, tiny dust particles kicked up by movement or in this case.....snow, will cause the same effects reported to be ghosts in spirit-form photographs. In the digital age belief in these became quick and popular since most people don't know enough about optics to know why they are there. A small particle reflecting light form a flash or even sunlight will be at a different focal length then what you are focused on. As you can see, the size of the "orbs" here are larger as the get closer to the camera because they are more and more out of focus. Today's fast digital cameras do everything and do it fast so I can well imagine why someone would see some reflection like these moving in a draft and think it is a larger object with features. I am not closed minded on the issue, I only know that there's tons of dust in old insulation and our cloths..plenty to produce allot of optical illusions that are seen in supposed ghost "spirit orb" photos. Be scientific about your paranormal ideas. The
old rule called "Akim's razor". The simplest answer tends to be the correct one so explore it first. I think that evidence for spirits in a particular place is far more convincing when it comes from someone who knows nothing of the place and can tell you the story about who lived there and what happened before they even do. Or police cases that seem imposable cracked by some inocent lady who does not even watch TV. Dust (or in this case snow) out of focus is far more simple in concept then a spirit of a human being floating inside an old dusty Attic.


I like showing people worlds that they ordinarily don't look like. The more powerful my macro abilities get, the more I am able to explore. The infinite beauty of nature never ceases to amaze
me.

This is a creek that goes to a lake that we are at. It was very overexposed. Sometimes with my Canon 10D, I find incredibly that if you shoot at iso100-200 and see almost nothing in an underexposure, USE RAW and what you will find will amaze you. A great picture. The 10D
is able to do this better then my 400D. So sometimes I deliberately just work with the 10D when I need a higher speed and don't have it. Bringing a shot up from near total nothing in RAW. IN this case, it was so badly overexposed that I nearly did not make it. I used the RAW controls to bring it back.


More Ghostly photos? No, it's not a double exposure. I went out walking about 3 in the morning and decided to put my camera on someones garbage can and try this shot. I took a 30sec exposure and ran out into the shot, falling as if hit by a car. Then I had enough time to get out of the picture and come back. The best way to do this is to use your camera's timer to
open the shutter. That way, the effect you see here, a bit of a blur from movement, won't happen. It was cold but I pulled it off. A double exposure or a photo shop merge would have taken allot longer and been more complicated. This SLR has a double exposure feature with
in camera editing that works as well. The D40, D80 Nikon series has it I know for sure.

This is the future of fossil fuels. Period.
On the migration or whatever, I'm not sure, a huge flock of small birds flew up near me while before I got on a bus to Portland a while back.

I brought this back without knowing it. I forget what camera I took it with, but it is the wing of an airpline where the white ballence was off. Chances are, it was from my Nikon EM 35mm and the film happened to create nice colors due to low light.
This is in Honor of my Grandpa, Harry Wold. A decorated war veteran, and a great man. We will always remember the good times that we had and the things that you taught us. He's not going to be barred, but by chance I got this picture ready after a train trip I took it on. It's a distant old graveyard flanked by trees. Most of these pictures are 1080 so click on it to see more. My Grandpa has been in the Veteran's home after a stroke 8 years ago made life nearly impossible for him. We are glad that he can finally rest. I don't have any pictures of him on hand or I would put it here. He was a truly good man and I know he went home with honor.