The Old Stray Cat

Most mornings when I get to work, I see this cat. Lawrence, the company's maintenance man, feeds her, as does at least one other person from another company in the building next door. Lawrence told me this morning that the cat was here when the company moved into the building 12 years ago.

That is an incredibly long time for a cat to live outside on its own. Most outdoor cats in the "wild" do not last five years.

She doesn't let me get close to her, but a 500mm lens helped me get some shots that appear relatively close.  The shot above I took Monday. Yesterday, she let me venture closer to her, and I caught some shafts of early morning sunlight as I took more shots. 

PhotoQuist on Instagram

A photo posted by @photoquist on Mar 3, 2014 at 9:19am PDT

I have returned to Instagram. Find me at "photoquist." I had deleted all my photos from the service after it had announced in 2012, I think, that it would let commercial advertisers use people's photos, presumably for a fee that it would not share with the user. It backed off that idea in the face of a massive backlash, but I had enough concerns to stop using it then.

With no new horror stories lately, I dip my toe back in the water, if only sharing web-sized photos for now.

A photo posted by @photoquist on Apr 4, 2014 at 9:41am PDT

Lowry Park Zoo

Sign of the times. Five-dollar day at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo costs $6 now. I have less luck each time I go shoot at the zoo.

Some of the exhibits aren't as good as they once were. Some of the animals stayed either out of sight or at least out of shooting range to avoid the sun. And, finally, I had trouble with my camera not liking the new SD card, and I was stupid enough not to have brought a backup (Yeah, lesson learned!).

So I got only a few decent shots. These are not cropped, thanks to the joy of a 500mm lens.

Eureka Springs Park - Again!

Yeah, I know. I keep shooting at this place, even though there's not a ton to shoot there. But it's fairly close to me, as opposed to the 55 minute ride to the much more expansive Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo. This day I found even less to shoot than usual, and only got seven shots worth sharing.

Tampa Bay Downs

Not my best shooting day. The problem with shooting horse races is that they run only one each 30 minutes. In a football or basketball game, the next play comes much sooner, and you have more chances to get shots. I shot these with my "Bigma" lens, the 50-500mm Sigma.

September Gardens

Photos from trips last week to the Florida Botanical Gardens, USF Botanical Gardens, and Eureka Springs Park. The first set is from Eureka Springs, a small Hillsborough County park near the Vandenberg Airport just north of I-4.

Thanks to insomnia, I woke up early enough one morning to make the roughly hour-long drive to the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo to get there before 7:30 a.m. It opens at 7 a.m. so you can get the early morning soft light, and dew on some of the flowers. It was worth the trip, though a breeze made it hard at times. Moving plants equal blurry pictures.

After that, I got greedy, took a detour on my way home, and went to the USF Botanical Gardens. I fought the wind again, but clouds helped soften the harsh midday sun.

Parrot Heads

With due respect to Jimmy Buffet fans, the title refers to actual birds.

I shoot too infrequently, which I realize is how I preface all my entries now, but I did pull the camera out last week to shoot some birds (as opposed to "flip some birds") at Sarasota Jungle Gardens. Most of these are not cropped much, if any. If you shoot wider, shots reveal that the birds are captives at some kind of attraction. I want you to see the birds, not their artificial setting.

Tampa Bay Downs

I went to Tampa Bay Downs, the thoroughbred horse racing track in Oldsmar with my dad. He makes $2 show bets and I take pictures. These are my favorites of more than 200 photos. Horses, as elegant as they look with our eyes, often look awkward and clumsy in photographs unless you catch them when all four of their hooves are off the ground.

Lido Key Sunset

One shot in the first slide show will look out of place. I shot that on a different day.

Still More Kitten Photos

Hannah, the newest one, loves people, playing, purring and sleeping.

Hayley, the veteran, will be enormous. Nearly six pounds already.

A few vertical oriented shots.

Hayley Cat

Been Too Long

Wow. More than two months since I last posted. Full-time work has put a crimp in my photography. But I dragged myself out of bed early last Saturday to shoot some youth football. I had to bail out at halftime of the second game to get ready for work. So I didn't take nearly as many shots as I did last time we shot at this venue.

I got there around 9 and the first game didn't start until at least 9:30 so I squeezed off a few shots of kids practicing catching as someone tossed a ball up in the air to them.

Lettuce Lake Park and USF Botanical Gardens

The photo club I shoot with had an outing at Lettuce Lake Park in Tampa Sunday. I was late so I missed some of the best light, as well as the company of my fellow shooters.

I didn't see a lot at the park so I ventured over to the USF Botanical Gardens where I had a little better luck, though by then I was battling the midday sun. The second of the caterpillar shots I took with flash — yes, even in bright sunlight! — to get rid of shadows.

Lowry Park Zoo Photos

Sunday I braved the throngs that converge on Lowry Park Zoo every time it has a $5 admission day. Regular price is $20.95. I shot 785 photos and it took until now to find enough to make a slide show.

I'm not blaming the new camera, a Sony A550, for this. I need to read the directions to see if I'm doing something to cause too many of the images to appear washed out. I do like that whenever you press a button on the camera, the LCD screen shows a description of its function.

One thing I stumbled across was something called the smart teleconverter. A teleconverter is an attachment that increases how far your lens can zoom. Most come in magnifications of 1.4 or 2X. The A550 has an electronic one built in. I thought it might work like a digital zoom you find on many point-and-shoot cameras. Instead, it simply crops the image in the camera and you end up with a smaller image.

I took the shots of the eagle with the in-camera teleconverter.

New Camera - Sony A550

My new Sony A550 arrived today. Pulling it out of the box, I was disappointed that at how flimsy it felt and I wonder how sturdy it will be. It also lacked a cover for the flash hotshoe like the one my A100 has.

The controls are in completely different places on the A550 and A100 and the control wheel for the aperture is right next to the on off switch and I've already accidentally turned the camera off when I meant to adjust the aperture.

The switch to turn the steady shot function on or off has disappeared. With the A550, I have to go into the menu to turn it off. This is a significant inconvenience.

I like that the A550's shutter is much quieter than that of my A100. The A100's shutter could actually shake the tripod sometimes. This camera has a CMOS sensor rather than a CCD and it is supposed to be much more sensitive.

I didn't take it out to take a test shot until after 7:30 p.m. It was already dusk but a large grasshopper perched on a leaf near my front door served as the new camera's first subject. The aperture is f/5 with the ISO 200 and an exposure of 1.6 seconds. The steady shot function is on, which on a tripod actually reduces sharpness, but I hadn't had a chance to learn how to turn it off yet.

Youth Football Photography

The photo club I shoot with took a stab at shooting sports with a trip to a youth football field. Games start at 9 a.m. and last until almost 3:30 in the afternoon. We couldn't get right up to the field and my 200mm lens lacked the reach to get close-ups so most of these shots required a lot of cropping to look presentable.

My camera struggled to focus quickly enough to catch the action and maybe as many as half the shots I took came back blurry. I spare you those.

I do have a new camera (Sony A550) on order that should improve my action sports shooting, as well as to give me a larger image to work from when I have to crop. (14.2 megapixel vs. my current A100's 10.2 MP)

If I shoot something like this again, I will devote more attention to things off the field. Players on the sideline, coaches yelling, more of the cheerleaders and maybe even fans. But today I wanted to practice following action.

Eureka Springs Park Photos

This is a park near Vandenburg Airport in Tampa that has reopened after renovations. It's not a large place and there is no play area so it's not a great place to bring kids, unlike Lettuce Lake Park not far from there, which has an abundance of both space and playground equipment for children.

It's tucked away an a road less traveled so it's not a place people will stumble across. For now, that means it's mostly empty and a good place to shoot photos in relative peace, either for a hobbyist shooting plants or someone shooting outdoor portraits.