Macro Monday time again! Food and trees with super wicked thorns make an interesting mix, but what the heck?
This is the common Hawthorn tree. Their berries turn the most beautiful shades of red and black as they get ripe. A little history: the fruit, called a haw is used to make jelly, jam, wine, syrups, and add flavor to brandy.
The plum/peach pie that Mom made yesterday.
f 4.8
ISO: 64
Shutter: 1/30
You know the digital photography class that I’m taking as an elective this year in school? Well, I just discovered yesterday on my first day of school, that it’s only a one semester class, and it starts in the spring, not fall. As you can imagine, I was upset. I already waited almost three months, and now I have to wait another four months!
I’m a little later than usual getting my post up, but anyway. We haven’t really went anywhere recently, but I did get this on the way down to a friend’s to pick some fruit.
(click to enlarge). The Portland Women’s Forum Viewpoint, aka Chanticleer Point is a little over three and a half miles down the mountain from us, and on the main drag through town. Usually hazy, this is the clearest the Gorge has been for quite some time. The river is so low that if you look closely, you can see how far the sand reaches out into the river.
The rest of the pictures are from the archives. We took the scenic way up the Gorge to Hood River get some ice cream cones. It was a fun trip, the view was amazing.
Heading out.
Coming home along the freeway.
The Crown Point Vista House from below, along the freeway.
And finally, the Columbia river, right before it forks.
When I checked the Sunday Stills blog early Monday morning and saw the challange was clouds, the sky was as blue as the ocean with not a single cloud in sight. I was thinking, when the challange is supposed to be clouds, we don’t have any, of course.
As it turns out, there was an onshore flow later that day, so clouds showed up around three or four in the afternoon. Finally something to shoot! Over the next couple of days, there were some pretty cool and amazing cloud displays.
This week I’m doing something a little different. I took so many pictures of the clouds, to put the ones I narrowed down to would make the post about fifteen miles long, so I’m putting them in a gallery. Click to enlarge.
I’ve taken my first shot of the moon that hasn’t been a misshapen blur with absolutely no detail at all!! *cue high-pitched squealing* Okay, I’m done now.
Anyway. It was the day before the full moon (August 4th) and while creeping home through Corbett at the grand speed of 25mph with a full load of hay on the old truck, the nearly-full moon looked huge as it peeked over the tops of the trees on a bluff behind the grade/highschool. Until just a couple of days ago, the moon had been the bane of my photographing life. I sighed, knowing that there was absolutely no way a picture from the truck would turn out.
When we got home I grabbed the camera and prepared for another disappointing batch of pictures. I finally decided to try some of the “custom” settings. I didn’t know how the pictures would turn out because I didn’t know that much about the manual settings and had never had good luck with them.
I set the camera on M (Manual) and played with the settings a little bit. The aperture was set to 6.3 and the ISO 800. I used the available dog food bag for a tripod and hoped for the best. Dog food bag tripods would fit into the category of “You Know You’re A Redneck When…“, don’t you think? Anyway, I was astounded by the results. The moon was actually in focus! Dropping the ISO down to 400 turned the moon a lovely orangey-red color.
Computer research this morning revealed that instead of using the highest ISO on my camera, I should use 800 or 400 ISO and then there wouldn’t be so much blue and purple noise in my shots.
Aperture: 6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1000. With the fast shutter speed you don’t have to have a tripod to insure that you get a clear picture, just a semi-steady hand should work just fine. You’ll get a few out-of-focus ones but the majority will be in focus.
ISO: 1600. I probably should have set it on 800, but that was before I found out that that smaller ISO makes a better quality picture.
This is by far my favorite shot. It also helps to set the camera on Landscape as well. It keeps it from focusing on whatever is in front of the moon and instead brings them both into focus.
Isn’t this picture just love?
I took this one before the big breakthrough, but I still think it’s cool.
I chose digital photography as one of my electives for my sophomore year of highschool this year. I can’t wait to see what I learn with it!
This Sunday’s challenge is fencing. I must confess that a couple of these will be from the archives. I got some really great shots last summer of some our fencing that would be kind of hard to duplicate.
This one and the picture below are from the archives. I love the stripes on his/her wings; don’t know what kind it is, though.
Experimenting with Aperture and ISO…
![Strawberry field forewer [Explore 2023-05-30 #1]](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52938290739_54fc88d448_s.jpg "Strawberry field forewer [Explore 2023-05-30 #1]")
Trapper Creek Daughter 