Category Archives: Photographs

The cardinal returns

Nikon lenses, Photographs

This time I was ready.

The bird is very shy, and wary of the rapacious quail and doves which dominate the feeder. If doves are the ornithological world’s idea of timidity then I fancy I would rather keep the company of vultures. An early attempt appears here.

The cardinal is impossible to miss. One’s peripheral vision immediately catches the flash of bright red, like an electric shock to the system.

This time I was better prepared, the 500mm Reflex Nikkor attached to the Panny GX7 set at ISO800 which delivered 1/320 second. This at the lens’s fixed f/8 aperture. While hand-held, that’s poor technique as a 1,000mm FFE optic really needs a solid support. I got lucky, aided by the critical focus option in the Panny which permits enlargement of a selected area for proper focus. Of the twenty snaps the first (go figure!) was the only one usable. I would guess that depth of field at 30 feet distant is no more than a couple of inches. The image is from the full frame. I passed the file through PS to remove the out-of-focus ‘donuts’ typical with catadioptric lenses, and often quite distracting. More on that technique appears in the link in this paragraph.

In lieu of the use of Mirror Lock Up which I advocate with a conventional DSLR to cut vibration, I use the GX7’s silent and vibration-free electronic shutter. A Panasonic MFT body is superior in every way to a conventional mirrored DSLR with this lens if you need 1,000mm FFE. You get a vibrationless electronic shutter, a very light rig which can be easily carried slung over the shoulder all day, Panny’s superior magnified focus aid and, best of all, a bright finder image as the electronics automatically adjust for the small f/8 aperture. And to get 1,000mm FFE with the full frame DSLR you have to cut out a large part of the image in processing, rendering your DSLR’s sensor effective pixel count the same as the lower spec of the MFT’s sensor.

Here are the ‘after’ and ‘before’ images:

The Reflex is a special lens, small, light with delightfully smooth focus action, but easy to use it is not. Add a small, nervous subject and you have your work cut out for you.

To learn more of the design history of Nikkor’s reflex optics under Teruyoshi Tsunashima click here.


GX7 with the adapted 500mm Reflex Nikkor. Arca-style QR plate fitted.

Easter visitor

Photographs

A flash of red.

It’s impossible for one’s peripheral vision not be attracted by the Cardinal, a bird of such exotic color that you simply cannot miss him.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology hosts a definitive bird site which shows the Northern Cardinal mostly inhabits the eastern half of the United States but with some migrating as far west as south eastern Arizona, and thank goodness for that.

Panny GX7, 200mm Nikkor with MFT adapter.

Garden panorama

Photographs

Colors in context.

The previous posting focused on close-ups of the many colorful flowers in my transformed garden.

Here’s a panoramic image, showing the garden set against the McDowell Mountains and with more wild flowers visible just past the fence.


Click the image for a zoomable big version.

Snapped with the Panny GX7 and the Rokinon 7.5mm MFT fisheye at f/11, de-fished in Fisheye Hemi. The lens is quite remarkable in controlling flare, here pointed directly into the sun. Only one flare spot had to be removed from the sky.

The garden now

Photographs

Coming along.

When I moved from the third world overcrowding of the Bay Area, CA to the halcyon open spaces of Scottsdale, AZ in the fall of 2016, I made a couple of pleasant discoveries.

Homes were selling at 80% off Bay Area prices and there were dozens to choose from which met my dictates. Best of all, they invariably came with large patios and gardens.

So choice was abundant and selection easy. I settled on a home some twenty years old where the seller had expanded significant sums in remodeling the most costly areas in any home – the kitchen and master bathroom. And throw in new walnut and travertine floors throughout. I’ll take it! That seller had more money than sense as he made no return on his expenditures, the home selling, as these things do in a perfect market, at market price. The home, however, had one glaring omission. After twenty years the two previous owners had done nothing to enhance the dreary ‘builder standard’ plants when it came to landscaping. The irrigation system had more holes than a Swiss cheese and the handful of sorry looking bushes dotted the yard like so many fallen soldiers.

So after my splendid gardener, Luis, dug the whole place up, running new irrigation lines and replacing the busted solenoids on the water valves, I set to deploying the check book and procured some 75 plants all told. The focus was not just on filling empty expanses of the gravel beloved of Arizona’s developers, it was as importantly to add color. Quite how the previous owners managed to enjoy the southerly view from the covered patio resplendent with dramatic daily sunsets, while gazing over an expanse of unrelieved white gravel, beats me.

Now, some eighteen months later, those missionary efforts are beginning to pay back, and the garden is resplendent with color. My new plant loss rate was 10% – not bad – and some of those were because I had incorrectly specified the heat ranges for the locations chosen. Easily fixed.



Cape Honeysuckle.


Purple Lantana.


Bougainvillea.


Little John – a gorgeous flower of spectacular complexity.


Arizona Lemon tree. This one went into serious transplant shock
but I managed to nurse it back to life and it’s on the growth path now.


Orange Tree blossom.


A Pink Oleander, as tough as they get. They come in white, pink and red.


Fishhook Barrel cactus, a cactus which leans strongly into the sun. You really want to avoid those hooks!


Creosote bush.


Yellow Lantana. One of the only plants left from the previous owners’ depredations,
this one started blooming nicely. It’s called regular watering.


Desert Ruellia.


The technique here is interesting. I used the fine 180mm f/2.8 Nikkor at full aperture with an MFT adapter on the Panny GX7, hand held. Because the depth of field is so shallow, I moved the focus collar on the lens while banging away on the shutter release, some eight snaps per final image. In each case one of these was critically sharp, as you can see. Mild vignette added in Lightroom – the Nikkor does not vignette!