One sharp, two blurred - it's a matter of focus and aperture..

I caught this Sharp-shinned hawk in my front yard a few minutes ago eating quail for breakfast. He stopped eating when I started taking photos (in a attempt to look innocent? as if to say, "what, me, I didn't do it. I found this dead quail." These birds are kind of hard on the California Quail population but they have to eat. This is an adult. I also saw him a couple of times yesterday after not seeing one for about a week. IMG_2477

Challenge_on_flickr. FIRE & SHARP. CoF144

April 9th_2019

Forgive me when I post too many photos of the grouse!

On April 9th 3 friends and I drove south of the city to a Sharp-tailed Grouse lek. I hadn't thought about the degree of difficulty that might challenge me in climbing over the stile with a knee replacement. I really struggled so I do not think I will be returning to see the grouse in future years.

Thanks for your visits, comments and faves! They are all appreciated!

Fellows Court, Hackney

Three Americans (I'm behind the camera) doing aviation photography in Britain this summer.

#Sharp

Theme du #macroMondays

Branche de sapin 4cm.

I thought this was a Sharp-shinned hawk when I first saw it and it may be. What do you think? It is smaller (maybe 12 inches in length) than the adult Cooper's Hawk that I have photographed several times, and may have slightly skinnier legs.

Yesterday (Feb. 5) I saw this bird on my apricot tree out the back window. I walked out my front door and looked around the corner and didn't see it until it hopped up on another branch. I got one photo, which is the 3rd photo in this series. Then it flew towards me and landed on a fence only 20 feet from where I was standing, which is the 2nd photo. A short time latter it flew down to where I took the last picture, which is the first in this series. There was a bird, probably a junco under the propped up plywood. The little bird flew under my car with the hawk in hot pursuit. IMG_5794

This peculiar, forty-five degree angle of a pasture corner casts a different shadow. The boulders inside the fence are evidence of hydraulic mining for gold in Tuolumne County, California.

Calidris acuminata, with Least Sandpiper in foreground.

Morro Bay salt marsh as a 6.2 ft. tide was receding,

Seen from marina boardwalk,

Morro Bay, California

The bird had been found the previous day at about high tide by Kilian Hampl and identified by Will Knowlton. This species breeds in northeast Asia and after a long migration, winters in southeast Asia and Australasia. A few birds migrate down the other side of the Pacific Ocean and it is considered a rare autumn migrant in North America.

My friendly garden hawk keeping a eye on the bird feeders

www.texastargetbirds.com

Yesterday I had an opportunity to spend the morning out at Smith Point for the hawk watch and it ended up being a great experience with plenty of raptors seen and photographed. This young Sharp-shinned Hawk flew right over us at close range and definitely checked us out.

_MG_0127-web

Accipiter striatus

At home

I wasn't going to upload more photos today but this hawk showed up and let me get a few photos. It moved around so I am posting 3 shots from different positions. This is in my backyard, Yakima County, Washington. This adult bird has now stopped by 3 consecutive days. IMG_6971

shot with an olympus om-d e-m10 mark ii—720nm infrared converted—and the 14-42mm electric zoom (ez) kit lens--with a raynox dcr-250 close-focusing diopter

Another small flock of sandpipers flew in.

Have a mouth as sharp as a dagger,

but a heart as soft as tofu.

(Chinese Proverb)

Weekly Theme Challenge - Something Fluffy

Looking close... on Friday! - Combination of Soft & Sharp

(photo by Freya, edit by me)

Thanks for views, faves and comments!

This looks like a sharp-shinned to me. Cannot say who it's victim was.

A group of 6 sharp-tails showed up in the yard today and feasted on sunflower seeds under the feeder.

Shot as a JPEG, as the camera was still in factory default settings!

Hepatica acutiloba

Thank you to everyone who visits, faves, and comments.

Cooper's Hawk

Accipiter cooperii

A visitor to my back yard early this past fall. I think it sees me, I am lucky to have not spooked it.

So, Sharpie or Coop? The top blocks of the retaining wall it landed on are about three inches thick, putting the bird at roughly 12-14 inches head to tail. The tail appears to be rather squared off, plus the streaking looks more like Sharp-shinned rather than Cooper's. All things considered I'm calling it a Sharpie. What do you think?

CORRECTION: A couple sharp-eyed Flickr friends provided evidence that this hawk is a Cooper's, not a Sharp-shinned. See the comments below. I stand corrected.

View large

Grand Traverse County, Michigan

shot with a fujifilm x-s10 and a 7artisans 35mm f1.2 mark i lens

IMG_0511 2023 07 09 file

after the rain......

Sharp pocket computers, PC1350 and PC1360. These were the only two PC13XX models released by Sharp in 1984 and 1987. Both had 4 lines of 24 characters and were very capable in their day for BASIC programming, graphing, etc.

The key differences between the two were increased memory, an additional RAM port, as well as improved BASIC and faster CPU in the PC1360.

shot with an olympus om-d e-m10 mark ii—720nm infrared converted—and the 14-42mm electric zoom (ez) kit lens--with a raynox dcr-250 close-focusing diopter

Taken @ 30mm with a cheap 2x TC and the canon 1.4x to make 840mm LOL

On this day I had been invited to visit my friend Barb who lives in the Millarville area. She has many feeders and quite a bit of garden as well as a greenhouse. There was lots to see! The evening before had been quite chilly providing lots of dew on the flowers.

This Sharp-shinned Hawk was chasing after the Blue Jays. There was constant commotion as the Jays chased it around and around.

Thanks for your visits, and comments! They are all appreciated!

Sharpness

Watched this Sharpie as it consumed a robin it had just caught. You can see the tail, wing, and a little of the orange breast feathers of the robin. Spotted it from my home office window. Made a nice break from work.

Shared with Frame Bangladesh and got Explore on 25 Jan 2015 by Iqbal Kabir.

www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153010211361250&set...

Sharp Shinned Hawk had an unsuccessful hunt in the yard. Maybe next time.

Day four of our hike was from Lago di Braies to Durrenstein Hutte, partly along Alta Via 3, a distance of about 18km south east through spectacular country with assents of 1206m and descents of 674m. Another big day. We were very happy to arrive at our destination.

I process my photos with Lightroom as well as Skylum's Luminar and find it easy to use with great results. Here is a link if anyone is interested in trying it out and with a $US10 discount: skylum.grsm.io/janetteasche8660

Coyote teeth, very sharp also. Taxidermy.

This hawk is a frequent visitor to the yard and at times spends hours waiting for the birds to come in to feed

Sharp-tailed Grouse are frequent visitors to my bird feeder. They nibble on the sunflower seeds that fall on the ground under a big evergreen tree. Unfortunately there is a very domineering little red squirrel who seems to think that he is the czar of the bird feeder and he comes flying out of nowhere to chase them away.

(taken from a window)

Manitoba - Canada

for the Macro Mondays challenge “Sweet Spot Squared” (September 19th 2016)

I like a little sharp and tangy taste with my sugar, so I chose raspberries ;o)

Finding and shooting the sweet spot!

I've got 3 macro 1:1 lenses now - but when I started out there was only one to fit my new Sony NEX-6, and it was Sony's eMount 30mm/3.5. That was March 2013, and I learned macro work through that lens for the next 2 years. So that was the lens I chose for this challenge.

I shoot macro in Manual, and have never explored the 'sweet spot' before - so I followed Janet's directions and used Aperture mode and shot all 17 F stop settings the lens has on two 2cm raspberries. I scattered sugar granules of various sizes both in front and behind the raspberries, to give me an idea of just how the overall image sharpness changes with the F/stop change.

Comparing the shots I used Janet's direction again: "You will be looking for the shot that has the sharpest details with as little blurring as possible". I thought it would be simple - F22 is the inevitable choice to offer minimal blurring, while keeping the subject in focus.

But I found a puzzling oddity. From F16 through to F22 the sharpness of the background elements increased, but the sharpness of the 'in focus' elements fell off. I repeated the experiment with a strawberry (a much larger subject) and the same result emerged - past F16 the 'in focus' elements of the shot suffered!

I went online to see if I could find an explanation. And the trusty B&H website came through with an article:

www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/content/rules-thumb-finding-...

I needed to compromise and take 2 or 3 stops back from F22 to find the best balance. There was little to choose between F16 and F18. This shot uses F16. And yes - I did then crop the original shot I used, to highlight the main raspberry, and leaving out most of the background sugar 'scatter'.

I hope it hits the sweet spot with you too :o)

Following on from the discussion Where do you draw the line? I've taken an old credit card as my guide, which is 3"x2" and added measures in cm too. I do SO hope that this will become the standard for Macro Mondays! My 2 raspberries are set on this 'new' format for my regular establishing shot in the first comment field

My 2016 Macro Mondays set: 2016 Macro Mondays

My Food and drink set: Food and Drink

Werribee

Victoria, Australia