I visit the Arden Hills Army Training Site

Pipe Curve DSC_7156, a photo by Mully410 * Images on Flickr.

Last week during my vacation, I was hanging out at the TCAAP Wildlife Viewing Area and ran across the environmental protection officer. She gave me a key, a tour and let me roam the Arden Hills Army Training Site all day.

Read about it and more at my other blog: Today at the TCAAP Wildlife Viewing Area.

If you feel so inclined, I could use more "likes" on the Facebook Page for the new blog.

How I Shot Hummingbirds at my Feeder

Hummingbird Female DSC_6609, a photo by Mully410 * Images on Flickr.

I spent this gloomy rainy day in my kitchen learning and practicing hummingbird photography. I rented an AF-S Nikkor 500mm VR G from lensrentals.com and set it up on a tripod. I took my small SB-400 speedlight, homemade snoot and SB-28 cable and mounted it on an old cheap tripod which I placed outside on the deck. Since the 500's minimum focus distance is about 12 feet, I had to set it up inside the kitchen and shot the birds through the open patio door.

This shot is a female ruby-throated hummingbird. She was the most frequent visitor today. This shot was at 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 450, EV -2/3.

Here is the male that I only got to shoot twice all afternoon.


1/250 sec, f/4, ISO400, -2/3 EV

Here is my fav:



No flash, 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000

Here is the setup. (I had a purple plastic bag over the speedlight.)







I learned a lot about hummingbird photography here.

Minnesota Skeptics' Blog

I've been invited to post my skeptics rants on the Minnesota Skeptics blog.  We have a number of smart and interesting writers. 

Including, but not limited to, the one and only Biodork and increasingly popular podcaster The Secular Buddhist.

We'll help you learn not to fear the skeptic.

Ducklings

I saw 17 ducklings in the pond outside of work this morning. Unfortunately, I had to work so I only clicked a few shots at that time. Fortunately, many of them were still there after work. I sat down on the edge of the pond for about an hour and clicked off another 100 shots. Here are the best ones:

**click on the square-ish marks on the lower right of the slideshow for a full screen view.