Picture of the Week (POTW) #10

Picture of the week for the period 15 - 21 August 2010. I shot this female Banana Spider (Argiope aurantia) this past weekend while Donna and I were walking around in the Cypress Gardens Swamp. While I don't especially care for spiders what I really liked about this picture was the spider web. It's pretty amazing how spiders can create these webs. I shot this using my Canon 7D and 70-200 f/4 lens. Eposure was 1/250th at f/5.6, ISO 500. Lately I've been using Auto ISO more. Even though the camera seems to pick a higher ISO then I would have though the images are turning out well so I'm going to stick with it for a while.

Female Banana Spider
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Multiple Bluebird Images Merged

I've always liked those images where you see several shots merged into one. I've been taking multiple shots of the Bluebird that's nesting in our backyard and finally figured out how to merge them in Photoshop. If you had any idea how bad I suck at Photoshop this is a major accomplishment for me.

Three Shots Merged Into One

Two Shots Merged Into One

Three Shots Merged Into One

I need to work on my technique a bit. Instead of having the birdhouse centered in the frame I should move it over to the right so I can capture more of the Bluebird's approach to the birdhouse.

Picture of the Week (POTW) #1

Recently I wrote about my idea for a picture of the week Blog Post. Now that Donna and I are through with our Project 365 we've started our POTW project. Below is our first choice and I have to say it was tougher than I had expected selecting one image from a week's worth of images. This was taken at the Dungannon Heritage Preserve in Hollywood, SC, by Donna. It was taken using her Canon Rebel T2i which was mounted on a tripod. The lens was the Canon EF 70-200 f/4L with 1.4x extender. Focal lengh was 280mm, 1/350th of a second @ f/6.7, ISO 400.

Black Vulture

Black Vulture
Originally uploaded by zackojones

Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus). Donna took this photo as we were about to get onto I-95 North. We had spent the day Geocaching in and around the Savannah, GA area and were heading home. We had seen some Black Vultures on the side of the road earlier but there was too much traffic for us to try and stop and get a shot. Fortunately traffic was light and she was able to get the shot using her Rebel T2i and Canon 70-200 f/4L lens.