Maybe I should change this into a bird blog. Caught this guy out having a snack this morning. Looks like it might be an Oriole. Guess if I'm going to take pictures of birds, I should at least learn the different types. I've been pretty lucky so far in that Scott knows all this stuff and can usually point me to the correct Wikipedia entries.
I wandered around the backyard when I got home hoping inspiration would strike for photos, but there's just not a lot back there to photograph. I did get a couple of shots (actually, I got a lot of shots, these are just the only ones that are even marginally good enough to show). So I started looking online tonight for a new lens (shh, don't tell Ginger, I haven't mentioned this to her yet). But I've seen a Nikon lens online that's 70mm-300mm for around $200. That didn't seem too bad since the specs claim it's designed for a digital camera (and with the Nikon's 1.5 crop factor, that means it's actually like a 100mm-450mm lens, I'm drooling already just thinking about taking more moon shots). The F-stop range on the lens was complete crap if I remember (like 4-5.6). I need to do a bit more research and make sure that my camera can actually use it though.
I watched a ton of TV tonight since when I talked to Ginger they were watching CSI, so I figure I needed to watch that and Without A Trace since Ginger will already have seen them when she gets back. I also watched Smallville. Tonight's Smallville episode was complete crap. It was the directorial debut of Tom Welling. Ugh, it was just terrible. It probably didn't help that the story was complete crap. But then I have to sit through all these Tom Welling close ups as he tries to be all smarmy. The only good part of the show was the Lex and Lana subplot. But I digress.
Anyway, tonight's my final night of pseudo bachelorhood for the foreseeable future. To be honest, I've been missing Ginger and the kids, so it'll be good to have them back (if for no other reason than they keep me on a schedule). Google finally approved some videos that seemed to be in their verification limbo state. I was going to show these during the week while the kids were gone, but Google didn't like that idea (I'll bet they just wanted me to come up with the brick adventures). Anyway, here's the kids with their tripod microphones singing a little song they made up.
Kids Making Up A Song
3 comments:
Great post. The opening picture had me laughing unashamedly.
Ok, so, being the self-appointed Cliff Clavin of birds on your blog....
It's not a Baltimore Oriole (they have more orange and are larger, like a robin), but rather a Rufous-Sided Towhee. A pretty uncommon bird at the feeder. You should be pleased! (The wikipedia entries for these birds (1 and 2) were crap... no pictures. And I'm an Internet community slacker and won't add one myself.)
Jeez, Wikipedia really does have everything there... you'd never find Cliff Clavin in Britannica!
Spend some good cash on a good lens. You don't buy many lenses in your life and they stick with you from camera to camera. So suck it up :)
I hope that your photo musings don't stop when you return to your routine.
In retrospect my opening picture looks more like The Scream than Home Alone
Man, Wikipedia does have everything.
And John, any recommendataions on a lens? I actually thought a couple hundred was a fair amount. I don't want to be dropping thousands on a lens (I would rather be cheap and then complain about it endlessly afterwards). As for continuing the different photos, we'll have to see. Having extra time definately made it easier to go out and about looking for interesting stuff.
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