Tag: Grey

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CatBird Doing CatBird Things

CatBird Doing CatBird Things
CatBird Doing CatBird Things

CatBird Doing CatBird Things

When a CatBird Decides your too close to it’s nesting area, it will fuss at you. Bold as can be, it came just outside this 1200mm telephoto which in this case is acting as a macro at about 15 feet. Most telephotos have a pretty good macro use at their closest focal distance. If you haven’t tried the absolute minimum focal distance each lens has, I suggest it’s a good thing to know. These guys have very long eyelashes but it’s impossible to see in this shot.

They really take offense to cats even if they are sleeping and generally abusively bug them. I suspect the cats will figure out it’s easier to sleep elsewhere with this brusk ‘mew” call the mimic thrush generates. Often too, maybe every 3 or 4 seconds. Constant and it will move around obviously not afraid of the cats. It is essentially harassing the expert bird hunters trying to sleep. I wouldn’t want one of these grumpy ranch cats coming at me lolol.

I don’t know how long it will be nesting here ( the sexes are impossible to tell by shape or plumage). I’ll keep working the little 8 inch tall fellow right around my front deck/main entrance to my homestead. Usually when I’m coming back from working photographically the sunrise. Parked only to find it there, trying to annoy me to leave I’m thinking.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: CatBird Doing CatBird Things

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Corriente’ Longhorn Family Portrait

Corriente' Longhorn Family Portrait
Corriente' Longhorn Family Portrait

Corriente’ Longhorn Family Portrait (Sport Cattle….sort of like sport cars)😜

This is a mother and her last two children. Mom who is 6 is center, son at 6 months is left, daugher at a 1.6 years just right. The two gals are still on ranch with the little steer going off to be roped.

Roping Cattle is a big local “sport” activity in this region. These young Corriente’ (spanish breed) are really good for practice on a cowboy/girl skill from horseback. These cattle are fast and have shorter horns. They are ALL athletes versus an Angus bred for bulk. Many ranches have some if they are active cattle operations with real cowboys. The “Sport ” of roping is part of most rodeos and is an actual skill used in cattle ranching. Practice makes perfect.

The Corriente” Breed was brought into the America’s as early as 1493. These are a breed of Criollo cattle all descended from that old lineage. They are all to an animal tough, fast, self sufficient, and will paw at the snow and find grass in the winter. These are relatively tiny cattle compared to the modern beef cow. They almost went extinct with the introduction of bigger breeds. American Ropers and Doggers Know all about them. You know who you are 👀

Big Bulls are 1000 pounds, big cows weigh in at 800 pounds. Yearlings are around 400 pounds in both sexes. Qualities: Corriente” are Great Sports Cattle, These guys are supposedly easy to tame. They are lean beef and good eating. Small Herds are easy to keep. Hardy as heck, they actually require less food and water than other beef brands. Good cows to have a small herd of. They don’t take much diesel fuel to keep alive.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title Corriente’ Longhorn Family Portrait

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Meadowlark Fence Line Morning Meeting

Meadowlark Fence Line Morning Meeting
Meadowlark Fence Line Morning Meeting

Game Trail Camera Capture, Meadowlark Fence Line Morning Meeting

I didn’t do anything to this image to “Clean up” the .jpg that a 20 megapixel game trail camera gave me. This will teach you what the problems with the equipment is. “Meadowlark Fence line Morning Meeting”

Set up:

So from my perspective as a professional photographic artist…. First step is to properly position cameras to catch things. This ended up a WONDERFUL capture with all sorts of quality issues due to equipment. It’s rare to catch 2 Meadowlarks in the same frame this close….😲It is a unique captures for sure. I set up this camera all summer on this fence line brace near a gate with a salt lick nearby. Where you have cows hang out, you get birds . Meadowlarks are my main target but I’ll take an eagle landing if such was meant to be lolol… Anyway, I got this “useable” image. A good catch so to speak…

Problems

The problem in Game Trail Camera images (depending on the model of course) is that they tend to not handle delineations between areas of differing contrast very well. Look at the piece of barbed wire off to the right of the post as it goes up to the grey sky. It has a 2-3 pixel white line surrounding the whole thing. The landscape has the same issue between the ridge top and the sky above. A several pixel White line which is tedious and tricky to remove from grass..

Grainy:

Then there is the “Grain” from the automatic camera upping the ISO (camera sensitivity) I could “Smooth” the grain in the uniform sky easily but not on the bird up close which is grainy as heck partially out of focus so close to the camera.

Candid

To an image, these game trail camera captures are candid. Natural behavior without a human behind the lens preventing this Meadowlark Fence line morning meeting from even occurring.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Meadowlark Fence Line Morning Meeting

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Bet You Don’t See Me

Bet You Don't See Me
Bet You Don't See Me

“Bet You Don’t See Me”: This deer heard something from the 360 degree game trail camera spinning (internally of a camo’d shell) and it made her look that way for a nice portrait view of her in that moment of time and space. This Automatic camera was planted on a short t-post in the middle of a natural traffic funnel and joining of trails here on ranch.

Located down in a deep gully and several fences funneling trails down to the spot are angled inwards to here. Anything that is going this general direction is channeled to this point where I keep 2 of my best Game Trail Cameras. There is a game/fence crossing about 20 feet behind the camera so anybody wanting from Montana/Wyoming across the border and back have to go this way or jump a fence somewhere else. Mostly Pronghorn and Deer choose the easy path and don’t like jumping. Deer Jump Way more than Pronghorn do fences. So they walk right by my cameras. You’ve seen several images over the last few months from these cameras.

Game Trail Camera Thoughts


Proper placement of Game Trail Camera is about the only control you have over those contraptions. Some do very fine quality images during the day (like this one). Others are better at night. Seems no one builds the ideal Game Trail Camera for me yet lolol. I run a network numbering 26 of them currently. They cover a lot of choke points (water holes, gates to feeding grounds, etc).

You can usually set three different exposure levels and sensitivity levels for the movement IR sensor but that’s about it. Set it and walk away for weeks or months. See what wanders by and what the cameras built in auto software does 😊 . It’s be nice if they would do a 3 shot exposure bracket. Maybe someone makes one but I don’t know of the device.

This would make a tough 1000 piece puzzle lolol.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Bet You Don’t See Me

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Frozen in Time and Space

Frozen in Time and Space
Frozen in Time and Space

To freeze a Dragonfly in Time and Space, you need to be patient and persistent. You also need to understand that dreaded M for Manual on the top of your camera. A cell phone isn’t going to do this, a DSLR on anything but manual has no chance either. Sooooo, here’s the trick… (catching a fly in between 2 chops sticks is easier) 😂

Photographers notes: This is an 800mm telephoto in direct bright sun (requirement) with your f stop on that long telephoto being f22 ish for a longer depth of focus field. He had to fly into a little zone about an inch thick at 15 feet away (minimum focal distance for my 800). That lens acts like a macro at 15 feet. IT is on a Sony Alpha 7RII giving me 70meg raw files or 40 meg .jpgs depending on what I tell it to do.

So I’m following a moving dragon fly and trying to catch him in an inch wide zone, and almost fill the frame at the same time. (this is a full sized image not a crop except for the sides of the formerly landscape aspect). I’ve never used autofocus, I don’t think it would work on this anyway. I set up a zone and let the dragon fly…fly into it. Machine gun clicks at 10 frames per second.

I digress, the faster shutter speed (which sucks up light) has to be fast fast fast at least 1/2000th of a second or more to freeze wings.. I was about 1/1500th here… Just a TAD too slow and a compromise to get more light… . Faster shutter = less light and your already loosing light from the f22 adjustment). You give up light for focal depth and fast shutter…. You have to compensate somehow….. (only three things you really can adjust on a camera , ISO, fstop/aperture size and shutter speed)

So that leaves ISO (camera sensitivity) to balance your image and gain that light back…. Less is better when it comes to ISO since too much will make your image grainy. Note how fine the grain is on this image. IT’s the last priority though because it lets you get the shot which is an important thing lolol..

18×18 inch square aspect at full resolution.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

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Twin Lightning Bolts Over the Red Hills

Twin Lightning Bolts Over the Red Hills
Twin Lightning Bolts Over the Red Hills

This telephoto shot of Twin Lightning Bolts hitting the “Red Hills” which run across the Montana/Wyoming border lands between the Powder River and the the Little Powder RIver Drainages.

Location: From Ridge one, Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.