Howard Stanbury , Feb 09, 2012; 05:23 a.m.
Another month, more photos!
Oxford minarets at sunset - A100 and Sigma 18mm f/3.5
Jericho rooftop, Oxford - NEX-3 with Tamron Adaptall 2 35-135 zoom
Busker, London's Millennium Bridge - NEX-3 with Tamron Adaptall 2 35-135 zoom
Heading north - NEX-3 with Minolta MC Tele Rokkor 200mm f/4
Matthew Currie , Feb 11, 2012; 06:54 p.m.
From a classic forum gear giveaway, a shot by a spiffy old X700 with Rokkor MD 50/1.7
(edit to add: something wrong with the rendering here! the picture was sharp before it landed here. Sorry about that)
Cheerful bows
Paul De Ley 
, Feb 15, 2012; 01:34 a.m.
Looks like photo.net applied too much jpeg compression and/or sharpening when it uploaded Matthew, if you have a larger original of the scanned neg to go back to then maybe try resizing and save it again at 80-90% jpeg quality for re-uploading?
Here's my contribution to architectural photography this month:
Desert Condo
Paul De Ley , Feb 15, 2012; 01:40 a.m.
Bird-wise the year started famously with plenty of mellow raptors allowing me to sneak up closer than I dared to hope; here's a peregrine "karate kid" posing in one of those cottonwoods in the background of the above shot (which I forgot to mention was shot with a450 + 30 f2.8 macro)
Ready for the Crane Kick
Paul De Ley , Feb 15, 2012; 01:52 a.m.
My main goal (obsession?) was still to get good shots of the ever-elusive white-tailed kites, here's a shot taken about a week later of an unusually obliging kite taking off from one of those same cottonwoods as Peregrine-san above.
Winged Ignition
Paul De Ley , Feb 15, 2012; 02:10 a.m.
The bad news was that my mini mac suffered an electronic aneurysm so I was forced to improvise for several weeks with raw conversion (back to clunky Sony IDC) and post processing on a pc laptop with a decidedly unimpressive lcd screen. Fortunately I didn't lose any files but it means I'm well behind with processing, so there'll be plenty of crunching to catch up on with the replacement mini I just started installing software on.
Not all my photo trips were from dry & dusty fields or trails though. Here's a marbled godwit, one from a quick visit to Bolsa Chica wetlands, displaying its enthousiasm for keeping its feathers (and nose?) clean.
Do Not Try This at Home
Paul De Ley , Feb 15, 2012; 02:18 a.m.
Forgot to specify that the three previous shots were taken with a450 + Minolta 600 f4 apo hs. And last but not least: here's the shot that excited me most of all, after many endless hours & days trying to get in position for a well-lit and reasonably close shot of a hunting kite in mid-hover!
Kite Finale of the winter season
parv . , Feb 15, 2012; 04:51 a.m.
Magnificent beasts (kite & Paul)! (Curves and) Wing span of the kite is very impressive.
Oh, eyes have rather dark holes, Paul. You should use a flash for lighting those up. ...
... or not. ;-J
Paul De Ley , Feb 15, 2012; 11:29 a.m.
Oh, eyes have rather dark holes, Paul. You should use a flash for lighting those up. ...
... or not. ;-J
Yes I probably should parv - my main worry until now has been that I'll forget to get everything set right before those crucial moments... I'm usually button/settings challenged enough already, just remembering to double-check (& if necessary) adjust the camera's exposure basics in time before those wings start flapping ^o^
