Here’s a shot of a coral tree flower, from my first photo-walk with it.

Thanks to everyone who gave advice on mirrorless/DSLR cameras! I decided to go with the Sony a6000.

Here’s a shot of a coral tree flower, from my first photo-walk with it, at a local botanical garden. (It’s winter, but here that means we actually got rain recently.)

#photography #flower #CoralTree

On Photog.Social

Some recent sun halo displays I’ve seen in the last 2 weeks

Some recent sun #halo displays I’ve seen in the last 2 weeks: An upper tangent arc (my first!), the top edges of a circumscribed and 22° circular halo, and most of a 22° circular halo (with bonus contrail shadow on the cloud layer!)

All shot on my Pixel 2 with levels adjusted.

These are all formed by reflection and refraction of light in ice crystals. (A great reference: https://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/common.htm )

Also, all seen from Los Angeles, which isn’t freezing…at ground level.

#Photography #sky

On Photog.Social

I caught a glimpse of the trail from today’s Delta 4 launch out of Vandenberg …

I caught a glimpse of the trail from today’s Delta 4 launch out of Vandenberg while driving, and made a beeline for the coast for a better look. I did manage to catch a clear view of the trail, though winds had already started blowing it out of shape, and stayed briefly to look at the boats on the ocean and the scenery.

#Photography #ocean #RocketTrail #cliff

On Photog.Social

Polliwog Park doubles as a flood control basin, and after 5 days of rain, it’s filling up.

Polliwog Park doubles as a flood control basin, and after 5 days of rain, it’s filling up. Those two arcs out in the water? They’re benches like the one at the lower left.

It’s not the fullest I’ve seen it, though. A few years ago, it filled up to the top of the swing sets. Photos here:

Flood Comparison

On PixelFed.Social

Raindrops on sage, spotted while walking around in the rain today.There were two major …

Raindrops on sage, spotted while walking around in the rain today.

There were two major cloudbursts, one overnight and one mid-morning. At this point the second one had faded to a little more than a drizzle, something a bit more comfortable to walk in.

#Photography #leaves #rain

On Photog.Social

I went back to the same marsh I’d visited in early December, after a few …

I went back to the same marsh I’d visited in early December, after a few more rainstorms. The ponds had spread, covering trails I’d walked along just a few weeks earlier. Ducks and geese had arrived in force.

I could also swear I heard a frog, but I couldn’t see it, and even with the weird southern California seasons, I don’t think it’s the right time for frogs to be out. I should’ve asked at the visitor center.

#photography, #nature #geese #marsh #pond

More photos

On Photog.Social

I swear none of these turtles moved at all the entire time I was there….

I swear none of these turtles moved at all the entire time I was there.

Another one nearby pulled its head into its shell, but this is a stabilized animation using several photos of these three, and the pond ripples change, the turtles don’t move a pixel as far as I can tell!

#turtles #photography

On Photog.Social
Color version on Flickr
On iNaturalist

Last weekend I went for a hike at a local marsh. The lower areas are …

Last weekend I went for a hike at a local marsh. The lower areas are filling with water again now that we’ve had a few rainstorms.

I made a point of going late in the afternoon to catch some golden hour light, which didn’t work out quite as well as I was hoping, but I think this shot came out reasonably interesting.

Not sure, but I think I walked through this pond last time I was here and it was all dry ground.

#photography #marsh #woods #pond

On Photog.Social

Ducks feeding in a marsh pond. The last time I was here, the entire marsh …

Ducks feeding in a marsh pond. The last time I was here, the entire marsh had dried out for summer. After a couple of fall rainstorms (which, if they’d come sooner, night have at least cut down on the massive wildfires last month), parts of the marsh have flooded again for winter.

I was halfway there before I realized I hadn’t brought the film camera, but I at least had the Canon, which has a more powerful zoom anyway.

#ducks #pond #marsh #photography

On Photog.Social

Fiery sunset. One of those moments when you can’t stop and pull over to take …

Fiery #sunset. One of those moments when you can’t stop and pull over to take a photo, but you can pause at a red light.

#photography

On Photog.Social

The next day:

I saw photos of this same sunset from at least 3 other people in the LA/OC area that I know or follow – but because we were all in different places relative to the landscape and clouds, and took the photos at different times, they all ended up looking different.

Pink clouds and blue sky, coastal cliffs, trees, buildings, orange clouds…a real mix.

On Photog.Social

Finally got around to curating my photos from an August hike at Madrona Marsh in …

Finally got around to curating my photos from an August hike at Madrona Marsh in Torrance, California. This was the first time I’d ever been to the marsh that there was *no standing water left*. Usually the lowest part of the preserve still has some ponds even into fall, but this summer, it had all dried up.

Full album (12 items) on Flickr

#photography #marsh #summer #dry #nature #flowers #fungus #spiderwebs

On Photog.Social