I'm still amazed at the amount of detail I can achieve with my Nikon 5100, even with my mediocre photography skills, from 20 to 30 feet with a zoom lens. If I thought I could have set up my tripod without scaring the ducks, I could have achieved sharper focus for better results.

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Despite the fact that I had snow on the ground - again! - this morning, spring is almost upon us. A sure sign in our neighborhood is the appearance of Donald and Daisy Duck.

We've lived in this neighborhood since November of 2003 and each spring has seen the arrival of Donald and Daisy. They fly in, stay a few weeks and then move on to who-knows-where. Today I snapped a few pics. They let me approach to within about 20 feet and I used my 55-300mm lens zoomed in all the way. I'm going to try to make it down to DeYoung's this week for some feed. If they have reason to expect a handout, they'll come right up to me.

While it's true that I live on a very quiet street, I still wonder why Daisy thinks this particular spot at edge of the road is a good place for a nap.

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I'm working on perfecting my green (or in this case yellow) eye correction on Shasta's photos, and I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.

I made this edit in GIMP. I used a brush size just slightly larger than Shasta's actual iris set to 35% opacity and a very dark brown-black.

I set the opacity low because I like to be able to control how dark I make the correction. With opacity set to a low number, I can click repeatedly until I get the effect I like for the particular photo I'm editing. Also, since I'm not completely obscuring the underlying photo, I can see exactly where to place the highlights. I chose a dark brown-black because, for this photo, using pure black looked "obviously edited."

To add the highlights, I selected a brush approximately the size of the original highlights, set to white and also with 35% opacity. Again, I clicked until I had the right effect.

Here's a side-by-side of the before and after.

I'm just glad I don't have a cat.

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Shasta was quite possibly the cutest puppy who's ever lived. I know...every dog owner says that, but I have evidence!


This is the photo that appeared in Shasta's newspaper ad. We agreed to meet the breeder, merely, as my husband said, "to look" at the puppy. Yeah, as if.

A couple from a day trip to Mt. Rainier National Park. It was the first week of July, but there was still plenty of snow. Sadly, dogs aren't allowed on the trails in our National Parks. I understand the reasoning, but it sucks all the fun out of visiting the parks.

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As surprising as this may seem, Shasta can sometimes be naughty, as shown in this photo where she has brazenly staked out a spot on Mommy and Daddy's bed.

This was my first attempt at fixing green eye. I chose a photo where the green was obvious, but not glowing like a Goa'uld.

Original on top, my edit below.

Original

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I went back to the drawing board in GIMP to try to improve my results on the moon photo I wrote about here and here is the result.

I used the same layers as in the previous post but this time, instead of adjusting the transparency of the entire top layer, I added an alpha channel, selected the black sky and made just the sky transparent.

If you look closely, there are still a few issues I need to work through, the main one being I need practice making accurate selections. I'm sure there's some kind of easy way to do this but I don't know what it is yet. As a result, the outer edge of my moon is kind of funky looking, but it's good to know I'm moving in the right direction. I think.

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Shasta is not what you would call a bold and independent dog. She loves to go to the dog park and play with the other dogs, but she likes to stay close to Mom and Dad at the same time. These two shots are typical...she runs ahead, then stops to check that we're still coming and waits for us to catch up. When I'm lagging behind, she'll even run part way back to check on me, before sprinting ahead of my husband again.

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