Group Flight

A few minutes later, all of the birds near me took flight and started flying in a group. It was very interesting to see them fly. They had a formation that was similar to an oval shape and they stayed in that formation even if they turned directions. It was very hard to take this picture because the birds were flying away from me. I had to continuously change the focus to adjust for the distance they flew while keeping the camera pointed at the birds.

Rest or Fly

During the time while I was taking pictures of the birds, many were resting on the branches for a moment then flying away. This picture is very similar to the last two pictures that there is a bird flying which is out of focus and a bird resting. In this picture there are two birds not one. One is resting and the other is flying, it's like a combination of the previous two pictures.

Takeoff

A few seconds after I took the 'Perched' picture, the bird took flight and flew away. I enjoy how the bird is out of focus and the branches are in focus. It makes the bird seem very quick and too fast for the camera to capture it. Luckily, the bird isn't so far out of focus that the viewer can't see the individual feathers and the shape of the bird.

Perched

This bird was the only bird perched in this section of the tree when I took this picture. I like the picture because the branches and most of the bird is black. If you look closely enough you can see some details on the bird, but other than that the branches and bird are black. This contrasts it with the grey background which I think is very nice. It is a simple black and grey picture.

High in the Sky

Away from macro shots of flowers, I turned to the skies. It was a very nice day when I took these pictures. Temperatures around 70 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy. It might have been the weather or some other reason but when I took these pictures all of the birds seemed to be awake and moving. Maybe they were just happy it wasn't cold and rainy. I was able to take pictures of at least two different types of birds and at least four different types of ducks.

Blues and Reds

In this picture of the sunset, I adjusted the settings so that my camera would capture all of the parts to the sunset. All of the blues, reds, and every color in between. Luckily it wasn't windy that night. When I was taking the long exposure pictures of the sunset, the trees didn't move too much making the picture better in quality and focus.

Wide Angle

For this picture, I had similar settings for the exposure but I changed how narrow the picture was. I put on my wide angle lens to take this picture. I wanted to get the entirety of the sunset. From the night sky to the still bright sunset. The hardest part about taking pictures of sunsets or anything at night is making sure there isn't too much grain/noise in the picture. Grain is caused by a high ISO to make the picture appear lighter. For this picture, I kept my ISO at 100 and lengthened the exposure. This resulted in a crisp and ungrainy picture.

Night Sky

I took this picture, late into the sunset when the dark blue sky began to take over the red sunset. I set my camera so that the sunset looked very full and bright. I didn't want to have the sky take over too much of the sunset, but I also didn't just want a sunset as the picture. I settled with this picture and two others. I also like how crisp the rest of the silhoutetted objects are.

Light in the Night Sky

This is my last picture of the lunar eclipse. The Earth had just begun to move up from between the Sun and moon. As more and more light was able to reach the moon, it became harder to take pictures of it. The contrast between the light and dark parts was so vast that either one part of overexposed or one was underexposed. I chose to make the dark part of the moon the star (haha, star and the moon is a star) of the picture and have it be exposed correctly. 

Flower

Happy Sunday! Because I wanted to post this picture but also wanted to make space for the Lunar Eclipse pictures, you get a special Sunday post. On this flower, I was able to get a multitude of information from the focus. The viewer can see the inside, petals, and the dark spots on the petals. This is what a macro lens is made to do. It is built to get close to the object being photographed while retaining a sharp and crisp focus. It helps to show the world small objects that might not be able to be seen by the naked human eye.

Stars at Night

When I was taking pictures of the moon, my camera also captured some tiny stars. In the top left of this picture, there is a little bright spot which is a star. There is also another one on the bottom right. To capture all of the stars, you would want to set your camera to the darkest possible settings. Have the highest aperture, lowest ISO, and slowest shutter speed. This would allow the most amount of light to enter your camera and allowing you to see the stars.

Blood Moon

I used to not be able to take pictures of the moon but now I am, how, might you ask. Here's how, to take pictures of the moon, you must have a camera that has a detachable lens. Any point and shoot camera (lens doesn't detach) won't be able to capture a very quality picture of the moon. If you have a camera with a detachable lens, you want to use the light meter but instead of having it in the center, you want it to be completely over-exposed. This will allow you to get definition on the moon instead of taking a picture of a bright white light.

Aligned

This lunar eclipse won't occur again in the United States until 2021. A lunar eclipse is when the sun, Earth, and moon are aligned in a straight line and in that order. On all other days, the sun shines on the moon and the moon reflects the light onto the Earth. In a lunar eclipse, the Earth blocks the moon from getting any of the sun's light and makes it appear red. A solar eclipse is opposite. The order of the three planets goes sun, moon, Earth. The moon blocks the sun from reaching the Earth.

Tree Branches

Just after the sunset, when the moon had just risen, it became blocked by tree branches. I found it annoying at first but the utilized them to help manipulate an interesting picture. I positioned my tripod and camera to capture the branches in front of the moon. This worsened the definition of the craters on the moon but instead made an interesting design on the moon.

Lunar Eclipse

The night of January 20th into the early morning of January 21st there was a lunar eclipse. It began at around 9:30pm and continued into the early morning hours but I went to sleep at 12:30am, just as the white started to return to the moon. I took this picture at 11:48 pm, as the sun merely started to cast its light back on the moon. I believe it is my best but I still have many others from the first time the moon was blocked from sunlight by the Earth to the sun returning to the moon.

Miniture

I've taken macro pictures of flowers before but these flowers are different because of how small they are. I was able to get multiple bunches of flowers in the frame and have them fill the entire picture. I set the focus on the front of the flowers to capture the flowers and water in focus. I think this might be one of my best macro pictures yet.

Pattern

On this leaf, it had a very intricate pattern on it. The veins appeared to look almost like a stained glass window. The glass pieces making up the window crooked but arranged to make a rectangular window. For the leaf, the pieces are the veins and they are arranged so that they create a leaf. Maybe this is where the idea of stained glass came from.

Up Close 

Moving away from raindrops, I focussed on other objects I can photography with my macro lens. One of the orange leaves from yesterday's picture was this redder than orange-colored leaf. With a macro lens, I am able to get extremely close to objects. I set the leaf behind another leaf and photographed the design on the leaf. There are the sharp edges, veins on the leaf, the tip, and the dark spots on the colored leaf.

Orange

The next raindrops I took pictures of with my macro lens were these two. I angled my camera so that they were in front of a tree still full of orange leaves. I admire how the background of leaves is deeply blurred but if you look in the raindrop you can see a vague outline of the leaves. I also admire the crisp distinction between the left raindrop and branch. You can easily tell where the raindrop ends and the branch begins.

Mirror 

This picture is of the same raindrops as the last picture. In this picture, I changed the focus and exposure. I set the focus to the trees mirrored from inside the rain and I darkened the exposure. I like how the viewer can see inside the raindrop. It is something that I didn't see with my bare eyes until I adjusted the focus.