wine on the keyboard

snow

are the birds…

birds in ice storm

Sigh. So. Over. Winter.

Columbia is supposed to get like 20″ and St. Louis? Well, they can’t decide because we’re right on the dividing line of sleet/ice/snow. Highway 70 across the state is closed. Mizzou canceled classes for the second day in a row. Unheard of.

So. Over. Winter.

Really.

The. End.

I’m starting to feel the love

by Kay~Kacey on 1/13/2011

…of this Kenko teleconverter with my 70-200 2.8 lens. Just sayin’

Black Capped Chickadee in the snow

These little guys were holding on for dear life in the strong winds we had.

bird in snow storm

These little black capped chickadees were just holding on to the thistle bird feeder and waiting their turn at the big feeder. You know, when the cardinals will ever give them an chance. I’m always routing for the little guys. :believe:

Purple Fringe – Chromatic Aberration

by Kay~Kacey on 1/12/2011

Okay, good news, bad news on the new Kenko teleconverter. Yes, I get closer to the birds. I have to really REALLY nail exposure to get a crisp picture though. But the most annoying thing? It produces horrible chromatic aberation. (That purple fringe you sometimes see at the edge of something really dark against something really light.)

Here is an example:

chromatic abberation on bird in the snow

See the purple around the bird? Annoying. It did that with branches against the snow too. I do have this photoshop action called Purple Fringe Killer that I can run that takes most of the purple out. I wish I could give credit to the original author of this action, but I haven’t been able to find it. The action is floating around the internet. There is a write up about chromatic aberation here,  (in regards to HDR photography, but I get the purple fringe with this teleconverter and also my 85 1.8mm.) Anyway, at that site there is a link to download the action at the bottom of her post. Try it out if you’re having a problem.

Here is the photo after using the Purple Fringe Killer Action:

purple fringe killer action

See how almost all of the purple edge of the bird is gone?  I’ll upload some more photos I took in tomorrow’s blog post. Right now the jury is still out on whether I like this teleconverter or not…

As an aside…it started snowing yesterday at 4:30…yes, too dark to get decent photos…then stopped today at 7:00 am. Yes, too dark to get a good photo.  REALLY? Don’t they know I’ve been waiting to take the perfect bird in the snow photo?