About

Welcome to my Blog, and thanks for stopping by.
This is where you will find a few extra details of my shoots, excursions and everyday fun. This is where you will get to know me a little better, and follow with me through life's adventures and challenges. This is where I will share me.
So have a look around, and I hope you enjoy your stay.
Sincerely,
Mandi Miles

Looking for the website? Miles Away Photography Website
And don't forget to check out the Galleries on Flickr.


Friday, December 31, 2010

New Year's Resolutions

Well it's that time of year again.  Time to re-evaluate you life and break it down into little pieces, analyze them all, and decide what's important to you.  This is resolution time.  I don't normally partake in the resolutions, but this year I am embracing the idea of it.  Taking a few minutes to brush off the disappointments of last year, revisiting all of the fun times, and taking a look forward to see how we can improve ourselves, is a great thing.  I have made some resolutions for myself in all areas of my life, personal to professional - and everything in between.

One of my resolutions is to write a blog.  I want this to be somewhere I can go to discuss what went right and what went wrong with some of my photos or photo shoots.  A place to give a little more detail about behind the scenes, and some of the challenges faced and overcome or complete failures lol!

No photo shoot is a complete failure, as long as you learn something from it.  Having said that, I consider the next photos to be failures, although I did learn an awful lot on the shoot.

I decided this summer to try my hand at star photography.  I believe the word I used was "try" lol!  It did not turn out as I hoped or expected.
I did a little research online, and put some heavy thought into my shoot.
Where would I go, what did I need to take with me, what did I need to know of astronomy  and constellations, when was the best time of night and what was the best night.

I know a little about the constellations, which turned out to be handy.  Knowing how to find the north star turned out to be pretty important, since all of the stars in the northern hemisphere rotate counter clockwise around the north star.  I felt this an important piece of information, and thought that it could be a help in the composition of a  few shots.
I wondered about dew and condensation, and read that if you take a hot-pocket with you and tie it to the lens of the camera it will stop that from happening.  I took it with me, but did not end up needing it since it was a dry warn night.
I knew that the perseids meteor shower was in August, and had a look on-line to see when would be the best night, and I was in luck since it was a new moon as well, so no distracting moonlight to interfere with my shots.
I grabbed some drinks, a lawn chair, my lantern, some snacks, all of the camera gear, and set off at 1:00 am.  Yup AM!!!
I originally headed to the Eugenia Causeway thinking that getting a reflection off the lake would be pretty neat.  Once I arrived, I realized that all of the outdoor lights on the lake would make it impossible to be able to get a proper exposure, so I continued on.
I found a dark place in the middle of the country on a little hill top, and pulled over to set up camp.

What I didn't look up was what settings to use for this.  I played all over the map with my ISO and length of time.  Everything looks great on a  2 inch screen on the back of the camera.  It's not until I got home, uploaded and eagerly started scrolling through the pictures that I realized I had made really big boo boo.  I was running exposure times at anywhere from 30 seconds to up to 2 minutes.  I should have left the ISO at 100 and left it alone.  Instead I had, for the most part, chosen to go with ISO 400.  I thought this would give a little break on length of exposure and I have worked with it before, the amount of noise from 400 in the past has been workable.
I was not taking in to account the length of exposure.  At ISO 400, anything over, say 10 -20 seconds of exposure, turned into a noise party. I didn't even know that noise came is so many colours before this lol!  To top it off, I never did catch any of the shooting stars/meteors on camera.  I captured more then one airplane, and though they were neat, they were not what I was after.  I saw many meteors, but with the camera pointed in another direction.  That's the fun of working with lengthy exposures, no reaction time lol!

So I will post a few of these photos.  These have been re-worked.  I will shout that right off the bat.  I put these shots through a heavy heavy round of noise reduction, to the point of compromising the entire photos, then sharpened them again to help make up for it.  This made them mildly presentable for the web, but they would not stand up under any close scrutiny.  They will be posted here to, but I doubt that they will make it into any of my other galleries as the quality was so poor.



This was just over 1 minute, and the lights of Barrie (over an hour's drive away) lit up the dark horizon to make it look like twilight instead of the middle of the night.  The same for the photo below.  

After looking closely at this photo, I may have actually captured one meteor in the very top left hand side of the screen lol.



This next one is of the north star.  This was around 1 minute as well.  Towards the outside of the shot, around the right side you can see the blur, or drag of the stars as they are moving around the north star.  It's an interesting fact and it makes you think harder about what you are looking for in your shot.  This shot originally had some very heavy red noise all across it.  I was able to remove it, but it was a hard lesson to learn.


So I spent an hour and a half in the middle of the night shooting stars, and not one photo was a real keeper, or usable for sale.

I learned quite a bit from this excursion, and will have better care with my settings the next time I try this.  And there will be a next time.  I look forward to seeing if I can produce some usable shots the next time.

On a separate note, I almost stayed out longer.  Sitting on the side of the road in the night, alone, in the middle of the country, tends to spook one out a little.  After about an hour I heard the distant howling of coyotes.  I thought it was quite nice at first.  A lovely midnight serenade just for me.  About 10 minutes later when another chorus of yips and howls rent the night air, I realized how much closer they were.  The pack was on the move and coming closer.  Another round of throat song that sounded like it was directly over the hill had me packing my camera and tripod in a hurry.  As much as I love animals, I did not want to be surrounded by curious coyotes in the night.  As I turned my headlights on, and turned the car around on the narrow gravel road I saw my headlights bounce off of several pair of gleaming red eyes, out across the field.  Yup definitely time to hit the sack on that one.

Happy New Year to all.

See you again next week,
Mandi

Monday, August 30, 2010

Meet the Raptors

Ever wonder how some of us are getting these amazing shots or wildlife?  Well not everything is in the wild.  Recently I attended a bird photography course held at Wye Marsh in Midland, by David Hemmings of Nature's Photo Adventures.  This is a different type of learning curve.  Yes there are photographers of all skill levels there, but I jumped at the chance to talk to a world renowned and amazing bird photographer.  David's images are truly stunning, and I was there to learn his tips and tricks.  As an added bonus, this was being held at the Wye Marsh where Falconer Matt was going to line up some birds for us.  To have these 6 birds on display for us, to be able to walk around and have all the time in the world to get close was an amazing experience that I will never forget.
Can't afford some of these trips or classes?  That's alright.  Wye Marsh has a Birds of Prey show every Sunday, rain or shine, indoors for rain.  Call before you head out, sometimes illness can cause a cancellation, and check out all the trails while you are there for a chance at practicing your other photography skills.
So now it's time to meet the birds.  I'm sure if you follow my on Flickr or Facebook, you will be sick of seeing these guys in the future as I work my way through the amazing shots. I will also be returning for a "Birds in Flight"  course, so I am really looking forward to what birds Matt will bring out this time.  BTW Matt has 85 birds, that cost $1.25/day each to feed.  What a job!

You can see the jess's on these birds as they were perched on this log in the field just for us.  First up is Axle! He is a Eurasian Eagle Owl, largest of the owls.  I have the fortunate experience of being able to hold him last year when I first went to the Wye Mash.

The above photo was taken on my camera by my sister-in-law Danielle.  Without her we would not have had that experience, since she is the one that asked if we could hold them.  Didn't occur to me to ask, but you can be sure I do now.  Thanks Danielle!

This is Jimmer the Barn Owl, very cool bird, and really something to see in flight.  These birds are becoming threatened in the wild because we are destroying their original habitat, and they are slowly losing their second habitat on the farms.

I don't recall his name but he is a very young Tawny Owl, another eurasian bird.  He still has his down feathers, so adorable.


This is a young Peregrine Falcon.  The blue coloration on his beak and legs will change soon to the orange/yellow that we are used to seeing on these birds.


A young Lanner Falcon, very new just off the block, and she did very well for having all of us moving around her.  She stayed very calm and even surprised the Falconer on how well she did.


Saved the best for last.  This is Einstein, also known as Eini!  This is the coolest bird I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  Personally I think he looks like a Jim Henson muppet lol.  He is a Spectacled Owl.  This guy hails from Costa Rica.  He also makes the coolest noises of all the birds.  If I ever take up Falconry, this is the first bird on my list.  Only a cool $3000.00 or so to purchase plus the $1.25 a day to feed, not to mention the facilities needed to keep him.  I thought photography was expensive.  Still, he was just soooo cool! lol!

If you are thinking about doing one of these courses I highly recommend them, even if you are only into photography for fun, or hobby.  This was still an amazing experience. Thank-you to David and Matt for making it happen.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Ahhhhh, the very first Blog post!

What do you write for your very first blog post?  The possibilities are endless.......mwuuuuhahahaha!  

I have chosen one of my recent favorite days, hunting down the Bobolinks.


These birds really like open field and grasslands.  It just so happens that there are at least 3 pair I pass on my walks.  This was the day that I put my stealthy skills to the test.  I realized in a hurry, that I am not stealthy at ALL!  It will definitely take much more practice to be able to move quietly, and smoothly while trying not to catch my tripod on everything along the way.  Still, even with my clunking around, I was able to get quite close to these pretty and vocal birds.  After watching and listening the them all afternoon, I have added them to my favorite birds list, which pretty much includes any bird I have ever photographed lol.


I passed these birds everyday before I really had a look at them to see their beauty.  I can't wait until next year, I will return to this field and see if I can catch some fledglings.



I love how well hidden a black and white bird is in this photo.  Just goes to show that camouflage comes in lot's of different varieties.