Upde Designs

Angie, Ben, and Josh stopped over Sunday evening for dinner.  It had been about two weeks since I had seen them so it was fun to have them stop by.  Josh was not feeling well and so he was not his normal happy self.

I had earlier gone over to the 16th Street basin and didn’t find much of anything worth shooting. So I was a little bummed about my D3,  my defective lens, and the lack of wildlife.  So after my little pity party I came home and ran the vacuüm cleaner.  It’s a pretty good mood changer. 🙂

You can see from the image above that Josh is not feeling well.  He was having a snack when I took this image.  A little later he was on the floor and I said Joshua, come see Grandpa and he raised his arms and beat feet it over to me with a big grin on his face.

I love this image.  This is the little popper that Angie loved and played with when she was Josh’s age.  I looked through some of my favorite 35mm prints to find one of her with this popper but I couldn’t find one  Somewhere in the storeroom under boxes of stuff there is a pictures of her and that popper and she is wearing a little red flannel night-gown.

That was back in the good old days when you would take 3 or 4 pictures and then wait one week to six months to finish the roll and then finally remember to take the film to the processor.  Then remember to pick it up and pay the $5 -$7 for the prints only to find out that half of them were too dark or over exposed or blurry.  🙂

I love digital photography!!!!  Enjoy your Tuesday.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

Pretty lame post for you today.  The image above represents what I have left of my beloved D3.  The strap, two compact flash cards and the battery.  As of this morning it is sitting at the UPS dock in Davenport on its way to Nikon in EL SEGUNDO, California.  It is supposed to arrive there by the end of business on Thursday March 8th.

The weather was really crappy Saturday so I did not venture out at all with my camera.  I had wanted to go to Green Island but things just didn’t work out for that to happen.  Then Sunday sun was bright all morning and early afternoon.  Jeanne wanted to go with me so I waited for her and by the time we got around later in the afternoon the sun was gone and only gray skies were there.

So about 2:30 pm I drove out to the 16th street detention basin to see what if anything was going on there.  There were two eagles sitting at the West side of the pond in the trees well guarded from my lens.  A few geese and even fewer ducks.

One of the eagles flew around the pond a couple of times but of course I couldn’t get the Sigma to focus.  It would focus about a third of the time.  I finally got disgusted and headed for home.

The 4th replacement lens from Sigma will be here Wednesday.  I’m wondering if some of the problem may have been with the D3?  Well since I won’t have a choice I will shoot with the D700 exclusively next weekend and see what happens.

Enjoy your Monday.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

I was at an organizational retreat yesterday acting as the facilitator.  I found a neat event to do if you are trying to have an ice breaking event or do a little team building.  More on that later.

Anyway as exercise unfolded I was taking some occasional photos to preserve the event and then the unthinkable it happened.  I took a photograph and as is my habit I looked at the LCD screen and nothing but black.  I checked my settings to make sure everything was okay and took another one, still nothing.  I pushed the menu button to see if I had inadvertently done something wrong and no menu screen.  Oh NOoooooooo!!!!!

After 106 days the iconic Nikon D3 was kaput!!  Needless to say my day took a sharp turn the wrong way.  But I had an even to facilitate so no time for remorse.

Later that evening a call to Nikon and at least got the process started.  Now box it up and ship it out.  Wait for the e-mail telling me how much it’s going cost and then the gulp…. Pause…. Okay!?!?! Go ahead and fix it.  Then the long wait for it to be shipped back.

Okay enough pity.  Now about that team building event.  Each team gets 20 drinking straws, a paper plate and 30 inches of 1/2 inch masking tape.  They can build any type of structure they want using those materials only.  The structure they build has to catch a raw egg dropped from a height of 8 feet.  Out of all the teams only one didn’t have a broken egg.  Then to prove that it wasn’t just a fluke they repeated the drop and were successful the second time.

Note however this is one messy exercise.  Lots and lots of broken eggs.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Friday.  Fortunately I still have the D700 so I can shoot images this weekend.  Be careful. 🙂

Please indulge me today as I finish up my week-long photo essay on the wonderful retention basin on 16th Street in Dubuque.  I ask for your indulgence because I finally break my abstinence of posting eagle images.   I have to admit, however,  they are not my best eagle images.

About a week ago I talked about the juvenile eagle that took food away from three mature eagles.  Well this is that eagle.  After he had his battles and had eaten his food he flew over the pond several times much like a victory flight.

This is one tough bird.  I wish there was some way to track him because it would be fun to see him when he is fully developed and matured.

This is one of the worst shots I have.  He was really too far away to get a good image of him.  As my friend Andreas pointed out in his blog this morning.  There are a huge number of power lines and power line structures that encase the pond.   It is very difficult to capture a flying bird because of all the power lines and structures around it.   Often times the auto focus mechanism of the camera will pick up the lines or the towers instead of the wild life that you are following.

I just hope the city, county, and state understand what a wonderful thing they have here.  The wildlife have adopted this as their home, which means it has the opportunity to become a robust nature center.  It can become a wonderful place for bird watchers,  conservationist, photographers, and nature lovers to enjoy God’s gifts to us. If we take care of it.

I hope we are all smart enough to realize what we really have here and help nurture it, promote it, and take care of  it.   I am not a true nature photographer like my friend Andreas, who studies wild life and takes great pains to capture them in their best form.  But I do appreciate and enjoy wildlife and I hope we can fully develop this area so that generations to come my enjoy it.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Thursday and be careful.

Today belongs to the Goose.  I like to watch them and additionally I think they are a neat bird to photograph.  I enjoy the way they always fly in pairs.  Always have a wing man.  The sad thing about this image is all the debris and junk lying around.

I enjoy the 16th street pond but there are some serious junk issues there.  From plastic bags just below the surface of the water to the ever-present been can.  Lots and lots of junk all around the pond area.

Even a tennis ball or maybe it’s one of those stress balls.  But in many areas around the pond the junk is a serious problem.  Fortunately for the wildlife and the photographers there are also a lot of pristine areas around the pond.   I’ll admit I’m not the best at putting trash in the proper place.  My kids have tried to teach me their entire lives.  But it really is sad to see all this trash in this wonderful habitat area.

Like i said though there are places where the pond is just pristine.  The Saturday and Sunday I was there I saw Herons, Eagles, Gulls, Ducks, and Geese.   I think I said in one of my earlier posts that it is like watching a busy metropolitan airport.

The wildlife are constantly coming and going, interacting, and searching for something to eat.  Fun place to visit, to just sit and watch the goings on.  I might have to try somewhere else this weekend but I’m just as likely to end up back for a few hours too.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Hump Day experience.  Be careful.

If you’ve followed this blog for very long you know I enjoy capturing images of Ducks.  Any type of duck is fine but I really like the coloration of the green headed Mallard.

I sat for two hours Sunday just watching some of these guys play.  They are very quick and it’s like watching lemmings.  In the first image the ducks took turns climbing out of the water on to this rock and then back into the water.  They would go around the outer rock and come back and repeat the entire process again.  They did this for 20 minutes until one of the ducks didn’t get back into the water and then they did something else.

This couple walked up and down the shore line several times quacking all the way.  The female duck would waddle and quack and then the guy would respond.  I won’t say another word about any similarities to life.  🙂

Ducks are usually one of the smallest birds at the pond with the exception of the gulls from yesterday.  They are also plentiful.  The Geese, who are roughly twice as big get along with the ducks and pretty much pay no attention to them.

Finally I’ll leave you with a demonstration of assertive behavior.  There was a male Mallard paying a bit too much attention the the female duck of this airborne duck.  There were words exchanged and then a little nipping at the buttocks ending up in this chasing away the potential suitor.

Once the rival was out of the picture this little guy got back to his business with his lady friend.  I could sit and watch these guys for hours.  Wait a minute, that ‘s what I did this weekend.  🙂

Three days and no eagles.   Oh I have eagles, I’m just showing you all the wonderful wildlife that is just a couple of miles away.  It’s a great place to visit.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Tuesday.  Be careful.

I thought about going to Green Island on Sunday after my conversation with Andreas on Saturday.  But I didn’t want to drive all the way down there with a lens that I didn’t trust.  So I opted for the 16th street pond instead.

Busy as usual with the assorted ducks, geese, one lone Heron, some gulls and two eagles.  I really couldn’t get close enough to the eagle to shoot him today.  So I just tried different focusing opportunities with the gulls, ducks and geese.

There were a lot of Ring Billed Gulls around the pond today.  Kind of unusual for them to be there in any numbers.  I like shooting gulls because they are always  busy and exploring.  It is also very good practice for shooting flying birds because they are small and hard to focus on.

This little guy was all over the place looking for something to eat.  He didn’t seem to mind me as he came pretty close from time to time.  He was the only gull that actually got close enough to me to make an image of.

I had pretty good luck with the lens today.  Unfortunately it would fail about 30% of the time.  It wouldn’t focus at times and other times it would just lock up and I would have to shut the camera off.  Problem is I never knew when it was going to fail.  There were times when I had a shot I wanted and nothing just a blurry view finder.

I’ll call the camera company in the morning and probably go back to a Tamron.  At least it worked all the time.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Monday and be careful.

I had a lot of fun yesterday.  I was anxious to test the latest lens replacement so I loaded up and went to my new favorite place over on 16th street by the river.  As usual there were some eagles sitting on the ice (which had receded a lot) and a number of other wildlife coming and going.  It’s like a busy airport with arrivals and departures happening all the time.

The first image is of a group of Blue Herons.  I didn’t see them when I first arrived at the pond.  It was not until I moved to the South side of the pond that they became evident to me.

The guy above was sitting in the shadows of a large group of trees that protect the West side of the pond.  I had to bump the ISO up a bit to get an image of him.  I had never seen a Blue Heron scrunched down like this before.  In fact when I first saw him I was sure what he was.  🙂

I had some issues with the lens but I have some ideas about what the problem may be.  I’ll test it again today and see if my theory is correct.  With all the activity at the pond it was just a delight to sit and watch the interaction.

Andreas stopped by for a few moments as he was on his way to Green Island.  He is such a nice guy and has a real passion for photography.  There were a few other photographers who came and went much like the birds.

Then to top off the evening Angie called to see if I would like to join them for dinner.  Jeanne was in Ames  visiting her Mother and Angie knew I was batching it.  So we had a good time with Ben, Josh, Nick (Ben’s brother) and Angie.  Missed my shooting partner though.  Glad she could spend some time with her Mother.

Enjoy your Sunday and thanks for stopping by.  Be careful.

I don’t like snow much, especially when I have to drive in, on, and through it.  But yesterday’s snow was one of those wet fluffy snows that sticks to everything and makes for some beautiful scenic images of an otherwise pretty drab environment.

So I braved the falling snow, stuck the camera out the back patio door and captured this image of our neighbor’s back yard.  The neat thing about their back yard is that it is just beautiful to look at and I don’t have to do all the work. 🙂

I knew that I wouldn’t have time to take any landscape images on the way to work because I was already running on the edge.  I also figured that when my lunch hour came most of the snow would be off the trees.  So the above image was all I was able to get.

The new replacement lens came in Thursday so I’m off today to put it through its paces.  Hopefully this one will not fail.  The only other alternative that I know of is to buy a Nikon 500 mm lens.  They start at about $6,000.  Even if I had that type of resources to invest in a lens I’m not sure I could make myself spend that much money on one lens.  I like so many different types of photography so a long lens while a wonderful tool is not the center point of my photographic interests.

Anyway as long as Adorama continues to offer me replacement lenses I’ll keep hoping for one that works.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Saturday and be careful.

I promised no eagles on today’s post and so I will show you some random images that I took during last weekend with the exception of the one above.  This is actually one I shot Tuesday evening after work.  I like the image for two reasons.  One it was light enough at 5:15 pm to make this image at ISO 200.  And I like the sky and sunset that center around the tree.

Saturday at the pond in Dubuque I was sitting on the down hill-side of the bank and pretty close to the water (well actually the ice) when these three ducks came walking by.  They didn’t seem to mind me being there and were undeterred in their search for bits of food.

I like the way the sun shown on their feet and made them a really bright orange.  The male Mallard’s head looked royal blue sometimes depending on how the light struck his head.

Finally this pair of swans were there for an hour or so.  I had never seen a banded swan before.  It looks rather uncomfortable on his neck.  I couldn’t get close enough to him to see any markings on the band.

Pretty close to the time the sun was going down the swans started water walking and then took off.  They flew a sweeping circle over the pond and then headed towards the river.

I tried to capture their flight but the low light caused my shutter speed to be slow so I got nothing but white blobs.

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your Thursday.  Hope we don’t get too much snow.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.