Posts Made By: ken blankenship

Thanks DK so much for PS Elements 2.0! I have been doing very minor experiments with it... can't wait for a little tutoring from my buddy who's really good at it (in fact, he may loan me PS 7.0 if he can find the disks).

I played with this one a bit - contrast/brightness, color sat., and took the sharpening tool to some stuff at 5%, 5 pixel brush width. Hopefully this thing will come to me with time (Ommmmm)

Ken

This species is at its extreme southern range in the Georgia Appalachians. Normally they are seen a couple times a year in late winter. This group of birds visiting someone's feeder in July is a family (or two), and indicates what may be the first probable breeding in the state taking place near the home.

The lighting was simply terrible - as in non-existent. Taken with an Olympus C2100UZ + 1.7 teleconverter, 1/50 sec, f/5, -1.3 exposure compensation. Can you see where I cloned out a metal label on the feeder?

Ken

So as I continue to play with PS Elements 2.0, I offer this original...

I went on my first pelagic birding trip last weekend and we found this bird - unfortunately it was ill and thus afforded us the photo opp. For unknown reasons large numbers of these and other seabirds will wash up dead from time to time. We also saw Audubon's and Cory's Shearwaters, a Magnificent Frigatebird, and a few other neat seabirds.

Taken with an Olympus C2100UZ, 1.7X teleconverter, f/5, 1/500, exposure compensation +.03

Ken

My fiancee, Rachel Cass, took this nice shot today in the backyard.

Olympus C2100UZ with 1.7x teleconverter, f3.5, 1/250.

Ken

Hello all,

I am an amateur at best, and I have a much older 4.5" f8 reflector. It does fine with Jupiter, Saturn, and star clusters seem sharp when I can get on them (the finder scope is a joke).

My problem is, whenever I try to observe Mars or Venus, I just get this awful "double image" thing a lot of the time. I have only had the collimation done once 2 years ago (by someone else who knew how) and I don't even have the tools for doing it or know how. I also wear glasses for being near-sighted (I have astigmatism) and I wonder if that could be the issue?

Here's what I saw last night, in above average seeing, transparency, etc. Mars was a nice orange disk... but seemingly too glaringly bright. Then the image would "wobble" and I would kind of see an overlapping, brighter image over the crisp one. Then for a fleeting moment I would see just the crisp disk again, and even thought I may have detected some contrast on it, then it would "sparkle" again and wobble around, and I just couldn't focus on it (the focuser was fine, I mean I couldn't stabilize the image in my eye).

What do you folks think is going on? I was trying to observe using a 41mm plossl and 2X barlow. Using a few color filters helped some but not enough.

Ken

Just saw these Tuesday at the Altamaha WMA in coastal Georgia - a lifer for me!

Ken

Recent duck pictures brought this one to mind - I finally got the compensation right (-1 step), but the lack of megapixels (only 2.1 in my old camera) still limits the resolution. Still, I love these birds when their crest is way up like this. This was taken in mid-February on Skidaway Island, Georgia.

Ken

Couldn't upload picture last time...? Anyway, I like the picture OK but I'm happier that the bird just came out long enough to get anything at all!

Ken

Hello, everyone. I haven't been here or posted for a while, but I'm glad I did. Always nice to see such great photography of feathered friends.

I am a birder first and a photographer second, but my wife and I both enjoy getting whatever shots we can while out birding. Tyler's posting of his website reminded me that I recently launched my own, if you want to check it out. I have a bird quiz on there that is a little out of date (not getting the participation I once had, so I'm re-evaluating this - feel free to enter!). There is a cool Photo Gallery with some photos of birds we've seen. The main push right now is to work on the Places to Bird page as a resource for birding in Georgia.

http://www.wingsoverga.com

Ken Blankenship