Camera Things (Part 1)

Man...It's be like forever - almost 2 years, really - since I've done a blog entry.  There's been a Sunshine Community Garden plant sale and everything (spoiler alert: I bought too many tomatoes and they only produced a handful).

Anyway, today's blog entry is brought to you by Roberta's Camera, El Presidente.

El Presidente got sick about a month ago so he was sent off for treatment.  Now he's back, but there's a new stud in town (Pincay) so he's been relegated to second fiddle.  Because I always talk about how I need a better camera than my trusty ol' Rebel XTi, Roberta offered to loan me El Presidente with one of her lenses so I could play around and determine if I really wanted a new camera. 

I haven't done a "camera" test yet, but I did do a "lens" test the other night.  I used El Presidente with different lenses to see what type of difference a lens makes.  The lens I borrowed is a 70-300 IS lens.  The IS stands for "Image stabilization." That means that it tries to account for you moving ever so slightly while taking a photo so that you get a clear photo instead of a blurry one.  I have a 70-300 lens, and Shawn has a 70-300 lens so I put them all to the test.

All three lenses have autofocus on them, though Shawn's is a pain in the ass and you really have to use manual to get it close, then switch it to auto so it actually will focus.  In any case, while I took a bunch of photos, the ones on the tripod looked about the same, and the ones where IS was turned off on Roberta's also looked about the same, so instead I'm only showing the three photos that demonstrate why you either a) want to use a tripod when taking photos at full extension (i.e. at 300 or b) why you want an IS lens.

As mentioned above, because Shawn's lens doesn't really autofocus, I decided I'd use Manual focus for these photos.  Aperature (how much light is let in) was set to 5.6 for all the photos (meaning that the background should be kinda fuzzy).  The shutter speed was set to automatic, but ended up being at 1/20 of a second for all three photos.  Usually, to cut down on motion blur (i.e. the camera moved), you want your speed to be 1/your distance - that is, I had these all set to 300, therefore I should have set my shutter speed to be 1/300 to cut down on motion blur.  Unfortunately, because it was dusk, I didn't really have the luxury of setting my shutter speed faster (unless I changed the ISO - i.e. film "speed" - it's why they always used to tell you "use 400 speed film when photographing sports, 100 if you're doing portraits")

The lens line up:  My lens (on camera), Roberta's lens, Shawn's lens

First up: My lens at full extension (300) attempting to take a photo of our formerly feral cat, Stripsie.  As you can see - terribly out of focus.  This is worse than normal - Shawn's lens is closer to what I expect, but you also will end up with a LOT of photos looking like this.  In this case, I probably didn't properly brace myself (bend the knees, engage your core, breathe in, breathe out, and as you breathe out, press the trigger - it's like shooting a gun, really)

300mm, 5.6, 1/20, ISO 320, lens= Canon 70-300 EF 4-5.6 III ($200)

As you can see, it looks a little washed out, but that's something that's easy enough to fix in GIMP (free photoshop)

a little better but still really bad.  The one thing to remember about photo editing - you can fix a lot of errors, but it's damn near impossible to fix 'blurry' so you really want to start with a crisp photo.


Shawn's lens

300mm, 5.6, 1/20, ISO 320, lens = Sigma 70-3004-5.6 APO Macro Super ($200)

Much clearer, but still a little on the fuzzy side.  That fuzz is from motion blur - I probably stabilized myself well, but you still have to depress that shutter button which moves the camera a little.  This is the type of stuff that can be fixed by using a tripod or monopod.

And with the level fixing: (btw, this is what happens when you click that little sun at the top of the screen on Instagram if you go into "edit" mode - and aren't using one of their pre-set filters - I believe they call it "lux")

Finally, we have the Image Stabilization lens.

300mm, 5.6, 1/20, ISO 320, lens = Canon EF 70-300 4-5.6 IS USM ($650)

As you can see immediately, the image is much clearer.  It's not actually 100% clear - there's still a little motion blur, but it's so much less than the other photos that it appears clear.  I also technically had this set to the wrong type of motion correction - I had it set to II, when I maybe should have had it set to I as II is to be used for when you're panning, vs when you're not panning to the side.

And with levels fixing:

So yeah if you plan to be using a telephoto lens, it really does make sense to pay the extra cash for an image stabilization lens unless you're going to use a tripod/monopod for everything.  As I said, the photo above is STILL blurry from motion blur, and the only way to fix that would have been to have either a faster shutter speed or use a tripod.

Next up: the different camera bodies: 
- Canon D30 (Shawn's. It may not even work any more - it's been probably about 10 years since it's been used if not longer)
- Canon Rebel XTi (Katina's)
- Canon 6D (El Presidente)
** Also, sometime in the last 20 years, Canon changed their lens mount so I may not be able to do my camera test like I want to anyway.

Timmy and Coco Adventures: Lexington Edition

Roberta and I try to get together about once a month to go on an adventure - they really are of the "grab your coat, we're going on an adventure" style.  So far we've gone to the Lonestar Round Up, lunch and walk around old-town Bastrop, photo trip at the New Sweden Church, McKinney Falls State Park, went on a geo-cacheing adventure but got sidetracked at the cemetery, and went together when Roberta got her most recent tattoo.

Roberta's husband, Michael, started calling our trips "The Timmy and Coco Adventures" because I name all the opossums I see "Timmy" and Roberta calls all the cockroaches "Coco."


Based on a recommendation from Michael, we went to Lexington to get Snow's BBQ.

Roberta talking to Tootsie

Snow's BBQ pitmaster, Tootsie, is, I believe, the only female pitmaster in Texas, and boy does she make some freaking delicious barbeque.  Snow's is only open on Saturdays, opens at 8 in the morning and stays open until they run out of meat (around noon). I remember hearing about Snow's years ago, probably7 or 8 years ago when they were named best BBQ in Texas (beating out Kreuz's, Black's, Smitty's, Mueller's, and City Market), when some friends decided to get up at 6 in the morning to go wait in line at Snow's in Lexington.  I couldn't understand why anyone would want to go wait in line for hours for food (and I still don't get it - the lines at Franklin's confuse me).  We only waited for about an hour before we were at the front of the line and able to order our meat, and let me tell you - it was freaking delicious.  I fell in love with the chicken, and I liked the brisket better than Smitty's (the only other BBQ joint on the list that I've had the brisket at; at Luling's City Market, I had the sausage).  A list of the 50 best BBQ joints in Texas can be found here

After eating food, we went and looked at the store across the street - it's run by a gentleman named Buddy who also makes rings out of coins. All the girls at Snow's wear his rings.

Buddy explaining the story of the carousel horse to Michael and Roberta (Roberta's standing behind Michael).  The picture at the top is also from Buddy's.

After Buddy's we took a quick stroll around the town - stroll implies that we meandered, and we did, but Lexington isn't big so it was still a quick walk.  At the end of the street there's a livestock auction house.  The guys there were so helpful - I mean we're obviously City folk and we're walking around with SLR cameras at an Auction house, we didn't know if they were going to chase us off with pitchforks or if they'd allow us in as long as we agreed to not take photos or who knows what.  In the end, the onsite veterinarian had seen us taking photos of some of the cows up for auction outside, and Roberta asked if we could go in the Auction house.  He said he didn't see why not and we just needed to stop at the front desk to explain that we wanted to watch the auction, but didn't want to participate.

Auction.  The auctioneer sits in the area between the two lighted signs and talks very fast just like you would expect.

The auction is a well-oiled machine.  The auctioneer was talking constantly and so fast that I couldn't understand a word he said. The guy on the left would open the door, a cow would run in, would basically run the half circle to the other door where the guy on the right would close the gate and open the door which led the cow back out to one of the holding pens.  After we got in and watched for a little while, we noticed there was a cattle dog in attendance and moved over to sit next to him, because of course we would do that.

Blue

Blue's owner was happy to explain the auctioning process to us (he had brought his steers in to be auctioned).  The cattle are sold individually by the pound - not by the lot as we had assumed based on how quickly the process was going.  The number in red on the right hand side in the auction photo is the weight of the steer in the auction pen.  $0.85/pound is pretty standard, $1/pound is good but a few years ago the prices were much higher.  Most of the cattle being sold at this auction were to be raised for meat, with a few very young bulls being sold to be breeders in a few years.  Earlier in the day there was a goat auction, and if we had waited around another hour or so, there was to be a cow (as in female cattle) auction.

Watching the Auction

You can see Roberta's photos from the day here: http://www.mercyphotoblog.com/images/

Goodbye

Goodbye my Ivsie-Wybes. Rest in Peace, travel quickly to the other side. Do not dally, for the other side is where the sun always shines and there are plenty of places to explore.

We'll miss you.

Jiffy

Blue Steel.  Looking a little angry.

Every Garden needs a cat...or 3.

Jiffy and Blackjack having breakfast together

Jiffy has found a new friend. 

Blackjack high tails it over the fence whenever I go outside to put food out, but he's caught on to when the food is going to go out, so he sits on the fence about 20' away from our property until I've gone back inside then comes over to get food.  I'm happy that he's getting used to the schedule because it means it will be easier to trap him to get him fixed. (Jiffy is already fixed per the notch in his ear)  Also, I can't say no to Blackjack - he's the spitting image of Quazi who disappeared a year ago.  I'm taking it as some type of sign and have essentially adopted him as a secondary feral.

Jiffy is what I'd call "semi feral" - he doesn't let me near him, but he also won't run that far away from me.  I think it's funny that he gets so caught up in making sure he's RIGHT THERE when I put the food out that he's prone to running into the legs on the table.  Shawn thinks it's funny that the cat insists on keeping a 6' distance from me - as if feeding him twice a day for a year is just my means to lure him into a false sense of security so that we can catch him and eat him.  I also think I could probably get him to be less feral by feeding him wet food via spoon (it's the easiest way to domesticate kittens), but I don't have the time for it - especially when I know he's always going to be somewhat feral and would never appreciate being petted.

Jiffy telling me that I'm late with dinner.

Ivy has been putting up quite nicely with the boys.  She will stalk them and follow them until they're out of the yard, but both of them are so scared of her that they haven't even tried to stand their ground. I think it helps that they know she's not going to follow them over the fence.

The only reason why I started feeding feral cats was because we would inevitably end up with food that our owned cats would refuse to eat and I'd rather feed the wildlife instead of throwing it away.  I just figured the wildlife I would end up feeding would have been opossums and raccoons. 

Sadly, I haven't ever had to buy food specifically for the ferals because Quazi would occasionally decide that whatever wet food we had for him wasn't the right flavor. After he disappeared, we had the stash of Quazi food which took about a month to get through and then Ivy decided she didn't like the prescription dry food she was supposed to eat shortly after I opened the bag. Of course I then bought a few different small bags of food in a quest to find something she did like and we're STILL working through them.  I just finished the prescription food earlier in the week, and we're almost done with the Blue Buffalo food; then we'll move on to the Royal Canin food (another food she used to eat and has recently decided is unacceptable - again just after opening the bag).  All this while the only food Ivy will eat right now is Meow Mix. 

That's right, my feral cats eat better than my actual owned cat.

December Wide Angles

As per usual - I took the photos, I just didn't post them in a timely manner.  Thanks to Heather at Xericstyle for hosting the monthly wide-angle post.

The front yard:

Featuring all the leaves.  And Princess, the neighbor's cat.

The Hell Strip:

The Rose Bed:

Closer view of the front:

Seriously - this area needs help.  It gets too much shade for the sun-loving plants (artemisia, pale pavonia, and butterfly iris)

Around the side:

Panoramic from the edge of the deck:

From essentially the back door:

From the other side of the deck:

Fall Tomatoes

The Fall Tomato season is upon us.

Chico III

I mentioned previously that I took a few cuttings of the Blueberries tomato plant  - I ended up with 3 (which makes it sound like I tried to start more than 3 - I didn't, I only ever had 3, so rooting hormone for the win, YAY!), I gave 2 of the rooted cuttings to coworkers who were so in love with the copious amounts of tomatoes I brought in from the plant that they begged me to do cuttings (they're actually the main reason why I decided to get the rooting hormone) (the coworkers, not the tomatoes).

I pulled out the original Blueberries tomato plant because is was leggy as all get out and planted the Blueberries cutting in its place.  I severely cut back the Purple Cherokee, I removed the Dwarf Arctic Rose (since it died), and trimmed back the Chico III and Japanese Black Trifele.  I did all this in late August, I think (I'll confirm with my garden journal).

The Purple Cherokee ended up with a huge ol' Tomato Horn Worm on it, and it plant looked so devastated that I figured it wasn't worth keeping, so I ended up removing it in late September or so.  The other plants were doing fine and started flowering.  And then they started fruiting.  I've noticed some tomatoes disappearing from the Blueberries and the Japanese Black Trifele (the low-hanging fruit if you will).  I think the Timmies are taking them (aka opossums).  The blueberries tomatoes I don't care so much about because there are a bunch of them and they're nowhere close to ripe - but I do care a little that they've made off with the 2 almost ripe Japanese black trifele tomatoes.  Oh well, c'est la vie...and I can always hope that the Timmies are eating the cockroaches which live in the Asiatic jasmine.

[aside: I call all opossums "Timmy."  I don't remember why I started doing that, but I think it had to do with the momma opossum that used to live in the yard, and after she disappeared, one of her babies stayed around so I started calling it Timmy.  And then I just started referring to all the other opossums as Timmy as well.  It's kinda like every black and white springer spaniel dog is a Zip-dog, or every black and white long-haired tuxedo cat is Figa-cat.  In any case, I've noticed a few different opossums around and my cat gets along with them so I'm claiming she's started a band called Ivy and the Timmies.]

As if I didn't already have enough to do

I apparently decided that I had a bunch of extra time on my hands, so I decided to start fostering kittens.

The shelter, as of this morning, had 71 kittens that required foster in their nursery (there are countless kittens already in foster).  We have two of them - Butter and Sugar.  Sugar already has someone who has decided to adopt her, but Butter is still looking for a home.

Kitten season, has finally started so if you want to do something good without the lifetime commitment of adoption, seriously think about kitten fostering.  The shelter has everything from mom cats with kittens, to single kittens who require a week or two of fostering before they can get fixed so they can be adopted.

Mulish & Co

On the day of the Sunshine Community Garden Sale, I hung out at Roberta's house for a little while afterwards in order to get some photos of her chickens for my sister who bailed on us at the last minute (and I had been so excited about her meeting Roberta and seeing all the chickens).

The morning of the sale, Roberta had some delicious mushroom and asparagus quiche as well as some cranberry scones.  Jiminny Crickets, I'm going to be having dreams of that food - Roberta is an AMAZING cook.

Arrow and Lily were the welcoming crew (as they always are), Baby came by later, but opted not to follow us outside for the photo op.  Michael had gone for a run so he wasn't around for the photo op, either.

Lily - aka Beagle

Arrow - aka the dog most likely to be able to convince my husband we need a dog.

Chicken

Roberta with Chicken

Chicken

Guinea - La Bete

Chicken.  Rooster, actually - Agnew

January 23, 2014 - SNOW-ISH!

So on January 23, we had, what some would call, snow.  Here, in the good ol' ATX.  It didn't amount to much (maybe a quarter to half an inch).  But it was enough to make everything a giant cluster fuck and there were like over 200 fender benders in Austin.  As such, my work was cancelled and Shawn was able to work from home so we got to stay off of the roads.  Of course, we still will go for a run on those roads (speaking of which, I should probably get that out of the way before everything re-freezes).

The hose is detached from the spigot, we just apparently don't like taking good care of our stuff - it's why we can't have nice things.

Apparently, the snow has made Quazi relive his trip to Colorado a few years ago and thus he has spent half the day holed up under blankets.  It could also be that his bed has been taken by Ivy, his mom, and under the blankets is just the next best place.

Well, there goes the plan of trying to keep the chair cat-hair and dander free.

A Year in Review

So, Pam at Digging got me thinking about my favorite photos from the past year.  And hardly any of them actually made it to the blog!  HA!  No, it's actually because my favorite passionvine photo was taken with my phone, so I never uploaded it to the blog, and I never did get around to posting photos from the Florida vacation (it's still on my list of things to do).

Anyhow, I decided I'd share my favorites from those that actually DID make it to the blog. Naturally, you can click to embiggen.

Mah Cat - Ivy

The Japanese Garden bridge at Zilker Botanical Gardens

One of the many squirrels in the yard

Beetle in a coreopsis bloom

Bloom Day Pink Cosmos

North by Northwest Austin Garden Tour:  Millington Garden

North by Northwest Austin Garden Tour:  Rancho Chaotic

North by Northwest Austin Garden Tour:  Clark Garden

My "Mull-Shay" Bed

Wasp and fly on Cosmo bloom