The birthday girl

I think the background daylily is from her Mom's yard.

Derek sneaking up on me

We had a family birthday party a week ago and 2-year-old Derek told me not to take his picture -- but a little while later he came sneaking up to me -- pretending not to notice me -- but I'm sure he changed his mind about having his picture taken.

Adorable kid!

New banner

I haven't taken any special photographs lately, but put together a new banner with a bit of Autumn leaves...

Twins

These fawns wander through my yard and eat everything down to the ground!  but they sure are cute.

I haven't done much blogging this year, and probably won't even try to do another group blog next year -- but I'll set up something a little less structured for next year.  Probably more words and fewer photographs.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring...

Content aware fill in Photoshop

Content aware fill really amazes me!  I wanted to get rid of the hangar in front of this impatiens.  Taken with my favorite 28-135 mm lens on the Canon XSi.

before:

after:

And tulips really do grow on trees!

Another shot with the 60 mm lens on the Canon Xsi.

It was windy today so I was holding the branch with one hand and shooting the picture with the other hand.

Afternoon sun is so striking!

60 mm lens

Here's a clematis -- straight out of camera -- using the 60 mm lens on the Xsi.
I've been playing with point and shoot and forgetting how much I love the DSLR.

pollen

I put my 60 mm lens on the Canon Xsi to get down close to the buttercups.  Now I know why my car was covered with yellow pollen this morning.

Depth of field

Back to the Canon XSi with the 70-200 mm lens and a 2x extender.

I see that I need to dig out the monopod.

This was taken on a cloudy after-the-rain day from about 50 feet away fully zoomed.

Processed in LightRoom 3 to brighten it up a bit.

Gregory's birthday and 1st Communion

A few shots from the party -- with the Canon and ISO 800 to eliminate the flash.  I did have some noise that I had to deal with.

Here's Gregory playing with the balloons --
he said "Watch this!" as he punched a balloon.

 

Something about the half-hidden face that I like.

 Opening presents

 Oh, how he loves his hot wheels!

 And a toothy little kiss-kiss for me.

 

Singing "Happy birthday, dear Gregory"

Kayla

Kayla's growing up!  This was at her brother's 1st Communion and birthday party.

Derek loves his Grandma

Actually, this is 2 photographs combined in photoshop.

One was a better shot of Derek and the other was a better shot of Grandma.

apple blossoms

Another shot with the P100 -- and although it looked pretty good out of the camera I played in Photoshop a bit -- cropped a little and played with adjustments trying to cut the glare from this rare sunny day.

I find that the P100 is iffy on focus.  I throw out more than I keep because they are blurry, and I haven't figured out why I can't get them all in focus.

magnolia

This was taken with my P100 -- carried in my bag when I'm driving around.

Another CS5 attempt -- turning a layer into a smart filter layer so you can go back and adjust the filters if you decide to do so.

tulips

It really is Spring!

It's been awfully wet here in NE Ohio, but it's good for the plants, I guess.
This was taken with my Canon and processed in CS5.

I've been plowing through some CS5 tutorials on http://www.lynda.com

and I discovered how little I know about Photoshop!

For starters I didn't appreciate how powerful Bridge is.
or what a cool browser mini-Bridge is!
And Camera Raw has more to offer than I realized.

impressionist filter

My old computer stopped "talking" to me and went to computer heaven.  Technology has sure changed since I bought that one!  I got an all-in-one HP Touchsmart.

My photos were all on an external hard drive and somewhere along the way I realized it would be a good idea to keep folders for things I added on to photoshop, but I still had/have a lot of stuff to move onto the new one.  I installed the extra fonts that I like, and just started looking at the filters.  I installed Tri-moon's impressionist filter.  It works with CS5, but not with CS5 64-bit.  That's OK because I have them both installed on the new computer.

So here's that same daffodil pic done with the impressionist filter.

Now I have to figure out how to add the rest of the stuff I've bought -- like the Topaz filters.

Springtime

Well, Spring is really here!

I wasn't particularly happy with this shot, so I spent some time in photoshop "enhancing" it.

Relationship

You'll get tired of seeing these birds pretty soon,
but here's a few I shot today with the Nikon P100.
The herons are developing relationships!

If it stays warm tomorrow and if I can find a time when the rain stays away, 

I'll take the Canon down there and see what I can capture with the 70-200 lens..

First -- renovation of the old abandoned nest.

Next -- bill and coo -- hey! the neighbors are watching!

And finally, just a couple of shots to show what the P100 can and can't do.

First with no zoom.

Then, zoomed in all the way -- isn't that amazing!

But the chromatic aberration is distracting to say the least,

so I converted this to black and white.

H is for heron

Spring is definitely trying to make an entrance!

There's still snow and ice on the ground, but the first of the

great blue herons have migrated back to their nesting ground.

 

Music

I would never have spent the extra money for a radio this fancy, 

but it's how the FIT Sport is configured.

It has a USB plug in the upper glove compartment 
(there are 2 glove compartments)

and the radio will play music files ripped from cd's to a thumb drive!

Saves wear and tear on the cd's 
and I can put lots of my favorite cd's on one thumb drive.  :=)

Frosted

It was REALLY cold last night and this back window was frosted.

I couldn't resist cropping a bit of the center.

Taken with the Nikon Coolpix P100 in Aperture priority mode with manual focus.

Two

Two deer in the back yard.

I'm gonna love thiis camera!

Nikon Coolpix P100

Using an automatic setting at full optical zoom -- taken outside this time.

It's so lightweight that I'll probably use a tripod to hold it still.

This time I held the camera out holding the camera strap tight and leaning on a wall for stability.

No cropping necessary!

The letter "N" - New camera

I finally gave in to temptation and bought a Nikon Coolpix P100.  It arrived Thursday and I'm just learning how to use it.  This is a macro shot of a small cookie -- out of the camera but reduced in size.  I guess I should use a tripod to reduce the shakiness.

And I tried the zoom to see if it really is as great as they say.  This is looking into the back yard from my back porch -- about 200 feet away I'd guess -- through a closed (and dirty and slightly steamed up) window.  Again basically resized for the blog.  I think I'm impressed with the zoom, but I'll have to try it outside when it isn't so horribly cold!

And I found how to do manual focus.
First icicle shot is in automatic mode with auto focus.
Second shot is in Aperture priority mode with manual focus.

Not ready to give up the Canon yet, but the zoom and the light weight make the P100 a winner so far.
We'll see how it works with burst mode and birds in flight.

Faceless portrait

I tried taking some photographs of myself with arm outstretched --

trying to catch the snow on my coat, not my face.

This is the best I could do and I cropped it, too.

And looking down...

The snow wasn't up to my knees in the driveway because my snowplow guy had been out early in the morning.  But it covered my boots.
Walking out to fill the birdfeeder was like wading through 8-10 inches of white mud!

Cold

It sure is cold outside -- and the snow is piling up pretty fast!

My snowplow guy shoveled the walk before 7 this morning,

then I shoveled a light fluffy heap at around 10,

and when my neighbor knocked on my door at about 11 there was another 2 inches out there!

I suppose I could have changed this to black and white,
but I like the hint of dark green in the evergreens.

The letter "I"

This block of Ice fell off my roof and didn't quite finish melting in the recent thaw.

It looks like a transparent critter oozing its way across my deck...

Taken with my Panasonic DMC-FZ18

Vehicle

Well, I leased a new car -- a Honda Fit Sport.  My old Toyota served me well for 16 years but it was costing me too much money to keep it running.

And I've already heard all the smart remarks "where's wind-up key" and "do we have to pull it back to get it to start running forward".  My son-in-law is a smart aleck!