Monday, September 24, 2012

Uneventful? Maybe Not

I'm back! I'm back! Hooray, hooray! I'm back!

So, what am I so excited and happy about? I was just thinking about how good it is to be here. Where else would I rather want to be than to be writing about my favorite thing, nature. I also had a fun, but rather uneventful day out taking pictures. And I actually made a little bit of progress on a few things.

I went out with the full intention of taking pictures of plants. I also wanted to use the focus on my camera in only manual mode, which I did. I thought this would help me learn how to always get good pictures of my more closeup subjects.

You can see that better focus in my picture of the bug-eaten leaf above. The leaf is nothing special, but I wanted to share a really good look at the plants I'm studying. I've learned absolutely nothing about the plants, but I'm learning to study their details a bit more.

The second picture shows the fluffy seedpods at the top of another plant of the first one's kind. I find it interesting that it was hard to focus on the seedpods. I think I did a good job in the end, but it lost a lot of the sharpness and detail when I resized the image.

I was able to put some of the sharpness back, but most of the detail seems to be lost. I'm not sure there's anything I can do to keep that when I resize something like this. It's a shame I have to do it.

I have to resize the images to 800x600 for two related reasons. The first one is to reduce the image size so you don't have to wait forever for my images to load. The second reason is because if we reduce our images down to 800 pixels or below then Blogger doesn't count the image size against our storage space. We could theoretically upload unlimited images that way.

This last picture is what I consider a bit of a failure. You can see by the stems of these little flowers that the picture is plenty sharp enough, but the flowers came out way too bright, and all the detail of them was lost. That's a shame. That's something I think I need to figure out how to more easily correct.

So that's all the little stuff I'm excited about right at the moment. It's not much, but I'm making progress on my photography and learning plants. I'll make bigger leaps as I begin to put the smaller pieces together. It won't take long at all for someone like me who can become obsessed with things like this. It's gonna be fun!

One more thing I want to let you know about is a guest article we have over at Nature Center Magazine today. The article explains which plants can help attract hummingbirds. Take a look if you want some of those little wonders to come around.

I'll be back soon!

22 comments:

  1. I love the way the yellow really jumps out of the last picture Ratty...reminds that although I am slowly coming up to winter there is still some colour around the world!!

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    1. Those yellow flowers are some3 of the few flowers I've seen all year.

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  2. The interesting post and beautiful illustrations. I am greeting

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  3. We both are always excited by vital things.

    We are just simple-minded.

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  4. Lovely pics. The seedpods are my favorite.

    Hi! I would like to continue visits with many of my friends from Entrecard. I'll return all visits to my blog. Please leave a quick comment, so I know that you have visited and I'll return the favor.

    Grandma's Goulash

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    1. I like those seedpods too.

      I'm always glad to give a visit.

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  5. Where did you hear that about Blogger not counting smaller images towards your storage space? That's not true. Blogger gives you a Picasa Web Album via Google with 1GB storage space. Sure, you can upload about 5000 smaller images but it is not unlimited.

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    1. Actually it is true. Not many people know about this information. I read it at the official Google Photos blog. You can see for yourself here: More storage, more photos, more fun

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  6. Your pictures look great and you had fun practicing on focus. Doesn't get much better than that :)

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  7. I haven't been able to make the manual focus work well for me on my camera. Good job!

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    1. I've always had trouble with the manual focus too. I figure it's time for me to change that. :)

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  8. Photography is great because it is never "perfect". You can change and fix and alter 'til the cows come home.

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  9. Ratty, those yellow flowers always throw me off too. Somehow the color blocks out all detail. Haven't figure out why or what to do about it. Thanks for the re-sizing tip. I just bought more storage minutes before visiting your blog!!! Still it comes in handy to know.

    Nanina

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  10. wow, thanks for the tip, i will do it next time, i am 100 pixels more :) so glad to know of your tip :)

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  11. I've also found that yellow is a difficult flower color to photograph. I get my best results by slightly underexposing them.

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  12. Yes, the photos are a bit sharp, but I still like them. It is so good to see yellow flowers still blooming..

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  13. My human often has to play with exposures to capture bright flower colors.

    I am still trying to organize the blogs I was following on EC, so if my visiting is a little spotty, that is why.

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  14. Lovely pic. I always like only natural things. I got your site.

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  15. I like what you choose for subject material. It is unusual and somehow striking.

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