Marilyn and I visited the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area on Sunday. We saw two burros in the parking lot. They’re obviously very well fed; we suspect they wandered over from a nearby ranch.
Category: Animals (page 11 of 13)
Okay, maybe she’s not tremendously sleepy in this photo, but she was prior to me getting out my camera and crawling towards her on the floor. Her brother, Tiger, is creeping up on her from behind.
Now we know that he saves up his energy!!
Marilyn got out a ladder for changing a light bulb late this afternoon. Tiger climbed the ladder while she was disposing of the old bulb…
The exposure I used for this photo was shot at f/8, 1/15 sec, ISO 1600.
I processed the RAW file from the camera three times, once with a very low exposure compensation setting for the lightbulb, another time with a somewhat higher setting for the bright areas of the ceiling and the walls, and a third time for everything else. I created a tone map layer, but ended up not using it as it had too much noise due to the image being shot at ISO 1600. I could have processed created the image with noise reduction on the RAW file conversion, but it didn’t look to me like it’d add enough interesting detail to bother.
I blended the two brightest layers by making a copy of the very brighest one and running curves on it. I used this curve:
With that curve in place, the (copy of the) bright layer looked like this:
This is an interesting image in its own right, but I wanted to use it to create a layer mask for the second brightest layer. To do that, I created a layer mask using a grayscale copy of the layer. This is one of the options when creating a layer mask. I then converted that mask to a selection and used that selection for creating a layer mask on the second brightest layer. This removed most of the blown out areas of the image and gave it a more even tone. It’s still bright on the ceilings and walls, but the texture is now evident.
For the light bulb layer, I adjusted the exposure compensation so that the right end of the histogram was entirely contained in the graph. According to ufraw, there were no overexposed areas.
This is what the layers window looked like when I was finished:
The fourth layer down, a Curves layer, was used to eliminate an empty spot at the left edge of the histogram. This improved the overall contrast somewhat.
I duplicated the Curves Layer and ran the unsharp mask filter to sharpen the image.
I usually stop after sharpening, but I thought that the cats face was too washed out, especially on the left side (his right side) due to the light. So I created the Multiply layer to darken that area and then a Grain Merge layer to add even more contrast to certain parts of his face and body. I simply painted white into a transparent layer mask where I wanted extra darkening or contrast. I used a fuzzy brush with the opacity set at only 10% so that each brush stroke would only have a small effect. If I didn’t like the result, it was easy to undo that stroke or even several strokes preceding. (If I really hated it, I could have deleted the layer mask and started over with a fresh mask.)
The only layers that directly contribute to the final image are the top three layers. The other, lower, layers were important as intermediate steps, but I could disable the visibility of these layers without affecting the displayed result. I keep them enabled when I save the XCF file, however, so I know which layers are important when I open the file back up again. I will sometimes tweak some of those lower layers and then recreate the upper layers with the new settings.
A similar shot, but taken from slightly higher up:
Cats do not heed ladder safety warnings:
I got this photo today of all three kittens lazing by the water dispensers.
Neither Minstrel or her kittens came by yesterday. We think they were frightened off by the Javelina that had visited the night before. But, for a time this morning, both the mamma and daddy cat were here along with three kittens.
The daddy cat is quite tolerant of the kittens. He doesn’t like it when Callisto – who is probably his offspring too – comes outside. She used to try to go up and greet him, but he growls and she backs off.
The gray kitten with white markings has very big ears!
The one remaining ginger kitten. We had seen a second one when Minstrel starting bringing them by, but it disappeared soon thereafter.
Here are the two grays playing with each other:
Bob took these photos at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum during the Bye – Bye Buzzards event.
These are Turkey Vultures…
Amy Burnett has identified the birds below as follows…
Harris Hawk:
Peregrine Falcon:
American Kestrels. The male, on the left, has more blue than the female on the right.
Red-Tailed Hawk, both photos, below. (Amy says she is not certain about the last one, but I think it’s just another shot of the same bird in the photo immediately below.)
Minstrel and her kittens came by last night somewhat before it started to rain. They played vigorously for a while and then three of them climbed one of the pillars on the patio to get up out of the wet and away from predators too.
It’s amazing that three of them fit on that pillar. Tiger and Callisto take up pretty much the entire space by themselves.
This shot was taken from inside, through the glass of the patio door, manually focused, using only the patio lights. I ended up setting my NEX-7 at ISO 6400 and had the lens all the way out at 200mm. The aperture was f/6.3 and the shutter speed was 1/20s. It took me several tries at processing the RAW file to get an acceptable result. The out-of-camera JPEG file was actually pretty good. For a while, I was considering using it, but persevered until I found some RAW file processing settings that looked somewhat better.
Minstrel came by for food a short while ago. I got a photo of her as she was leaving. One of her ginger kittens came with her, but ran off as soon as I unbolted the door.
When I went back inside, Marie held Minstrel’s daughter Molly for a photo. Molly didn’t want to sit still for the photo. Even so, you can see the resemblance between mother and daughter.
Minstrel’s latest litter of kittens are starting to visit. They’re very skittish – it’s difficult to even catch a glimpse of them. I managed to get this photo from my balcony earlier today with the lens at 200mm (maximum zoom). Even though I was a good ways off, it was still suspicious of me.
Marie tells me that she’s seen four kittens. Two are ginger colored, one is grey, and I think she said the other was black and white or perhaps dark grey and white.
Minstrel is also Molly‘s mom and Callisto‘s aunt.
