Geared Heads

These are 'geared heads', an adjusting via gears that i only learned about about 18 months ago.

Made by Manfrotto, a company i've never thought made very good products, these turn out to be quite good. When shooting macro items having to adjust the camera's placement by moving the tripod causes all kinds of necessary adjustments. I bought the smaller, on the right, geared head without doing much research to discovered the camera and rails i was using was too heavy for the head and when tilted downwards tended to literally fall forward, ie the gears didn't hold the tilt. Then i discovered they made different models for different weights and today i received the model that will, i hope, handle the weight of the camera, rails, lights, etc.. I was lucky and located a used one that was about 25% less then a new one. Over the next weeks i'll learn if i have finally bought the one that will work.

New Lens

Recently i purchased a new lens for the new Sony A7lll; 24-105mm ... sometimes called a 'walk around lens' as it covers the conventional usually shooting sizes. And its seems, at least initially, much sharper then the Canon lens of the same ilk - and that's what i was hoping. I used it for the first time today and here are a few of the images:

Carolina Titmouse and Wren

Probably the sign was put there to keep the mail person from 

overstuffing the mailbox

There were dozens of geese flying overhead as we went for a walk

Yum!

Back of House

Blue Jay

and sometimes the big birds use it

I'm pretty pleased with the first use of the lens ... what do you think?

Wisteria

Love 'em:

HDR, fence in Albany, CA

Same fence, different view

and a few blocks away

This area had a lot of wisteria growing everywhere - never could get enough of them, either their sight or their aroma.

Orchids

I have been photographing Susan's orchards as they are about to go away for this season. I've always been enthralled by the intensity of their purple and bought a, mostly white, velvet cloth for the backdrop. It didn't work out as it wasn't really white but off-white or cream-white - so these have been cut out of the background and plain white substituted ... they came out pretty well.

I like the color of the bottom photograph but prefer the layout of the top photograph. The color difference is the lighting used. Its a good start to getting the depth of the color my eyes see ... learning to reproduce what the eyes sees is the challenge of photographing.

Apples

This is apple season in the mountains and just outside of Hendersonville are dozens of apple orchards ... and as we visited Stepp's last year - we returned to the same place AND they have fresh backed Apple Cider Donuts! Yum!

Although i take my camera with me i've found i'm not so interested in taking photographs of apple trees, etc. This is about all there is.

Mt Pisgah Trail hike

We have been trying to make a hike on one of the mountain trails in the general area: within 40 miles or so. Yesterday we hike up the Mt Pisgah Trail.

We found the trail 'demanding' as one hiker that was on the way down said; "the last half mile is pretty demanding, but you have your sticks so you should be fine." We were fine and the last half was challenging for us older hikers. It started off looking like this and was equally beautiful all the way to the top.

And not only was it steep— 

it was. almost, all rocks:

I had the idea that at the top there would be a cleared space (and a porta potty) but nothing was cleared and only a 20' octantal was standing up in the brush. 

The view was specular and we sat for a bit, and a bite, and headed back down. I didn't take any photos from the top because, well, the ones i've taken from the top of other peaks never pleased me ... there is usually too much haze (yes i know LR can handle haze) and the view so vast, my little sensor just laughs at me trying to put that much territory onto an inch size piece of technology. So, no photographs of the top!

To add excitement to the journey back down, it began raining about half way down and we increased our pace. Thankfully, it stopped and waited until we were a few hundred yards from the car and then the skies opened up raining as hard as it often does in the mountains.

It was a good hike and about the outer limits of our abilities although we are noticing those abilities are increasing with the more we hike such trails.

More from the Porch

We are having an unusual amount of rain this August, or so i think as this is only my second August here ... still, its rained almost everyday for the past 10 days (i love it!) but its causing problems for those living along rivers' edges. Its raining as i write.

Season's end, for the Sunflower

And these were growing in the flower pot yesterday but are already gone.