Cool Nature Photos

[snymat68]

A few of the shots I got Saturday at a local park.
(I took 2500 shots and processed 38 keepers. Here's my 14 favorites.)
First time shooting an owl. Even though it never moved it was still cool. :cool2:


Eastern Screech Owl (Adult Red Morph)
Eastern Phoebe (I think)


Squirrels


Female Yellow Bellied Sapsucker
Springbeauty


A Robin and His Lunch
Flowering Pear Tree (I think)


Male Pileated Woodpecker
Crabapple Tree (I think)


Male Eastern Downy Woodpecker (w/ a leg band)
Virginia Bluebells


Bug on a Dandelion
Sunset In the Tall Grass

 

[MossRoad]

Nice!

Boy, I remember our first child doing photography in 4H on film. We gave her 10 rolls at $3.50 each. Then developing was $5 a roll. So you're looking at $85 just to get 240 pics that we had to pick the 10 best from. Salon prints were very expensive. 2nd kid was the digital age. Have at it kid. Take as many as you want! :laughing:

 

[snymat68]

Nice!

Boy, I remember our first child doing photography in 4H on film. We gave her 10 rolls at $3.50 each. Then developing was $5 a roll. So you're looking at $85 just to get 240 pics that we had to pick the 10 best from. Salon prints were very expensive. 2nd kid was the digital age. Have at it kid. Take as many as you want! :laughing:

Shooting film, darkrooms, enlargers, etc. was all fun, but I'd never want to go back!

 

[MossRoad]

Shooting film, darkrooms, enlargers, etc. was all fun, but I'd never want to go back!

I did 30 years at a newspaper. Part of my many jobs was maintaining the film processors and giant cameras in the camera & platemaking department and the photo lab. The film in the platemaking department was wider and longer than a full sheet of newspaper. Take a 35MM camera and open the back and put in a roll of film. Now imagine that 35mm camera back being large enough to open and stick in 16" wide film rolls that weighed 15 pounds, stick it on a spool, thread the camera, and close it all back up in 100% darkness. The camera was 6' high with a lens the size of a dinner plate. Shot 1:1 full size negatives.

Photo lab was a lot easier. Smaller machines.

My favorite part of the whole full-page negative process was several times a year, we'd pull the silver reclaimers out from under the 6 processors, pull the 18" long anode out, set it over a trash bag on the floor, and pound the almost pure silver off the anode with a hammer. We'd get about 20 pounds per anode. Had to be done in front of the accountant. Put in buckets, sealed, and sent to a smelter. He'd pour ingots, bring it back, and it would get stored in the family's safe. When times were tough, they'd cash in the silver.

 

[oosik]

Your Downy Woodpecker = our sap sucker. They will ruin/kill a young tree. Looks like birdshot holes around the trunk. They lick up the sap. I have one young tree - Hawthorne. Saved it using burlap wrap - from the ground up and 6" out each branch. Let the @#$% sap sucker find some other tree.

 

[snymat68]

I did 30 years at a newspaper. Part of my many jobs was maintaining the film processors and giant cameras in the camera & platemaking department and the photo lab. The film in the platemaking department was wider and longer than a full sheet of newspaper. Take a 35MM camera and open the back and put in a roll of film. Now imagine that 35mm camera back being large enough to open and stick in 16" wide film rolls that weighed 15 pounds, stick it on a spool, thread the camera, and close it all back up in 100% darkness. The camera was 6' high with a lens the size of a dinner plate. Shot 1:1 full size negatives.

Photo lab was a lot easier. Smaller machines.

My favorite part of the whole full-page negative process was several times a year, we'd pull the silver reclaimers out from under the 6 processors, pull the 18" long anode out, set it over a trash bag on the floor, and pound the almost pure silver off the anode with a hammer. We'd get about 20 pounds per anode. Had to be done in front of the accountant. Put in buckets, sealed, and sent to a smelter. He'd pour ingots, bring it back, and it would get stored in the family's safe. When times were tough, they'd cash in the silver.

That's a cool story. When I shoot macro photography (1:1 or greater reproduction ratio of the subject on the sensor), such as the bug on the dandelion, I'm in the mindset of TINY things. But when you have huge film, you can do huge macro. Neat to think about!

 

[MossRoad]

I'm trying to find a picture of the cameras (ironic). The size was mind boggling.

 

[dalola]

Love the owl (keeping an eye on you...) & pileated WP shots. Still a thrill whenever I hear one (PWP) in our woods...like someone with an AK target shooting! Amazing how powerfully they can hammer at a tree, and such beautiful birds.

Thanks for your continual sharing of your talented work!

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I though the squirrels were an unusual color, at least what I've seen in this part of the country; they seem to be a mix of grey and red. Grey squirrels are unusual around here, and stick to themselves. Lots of red squirrels, but never seen a mixed color like that. I have seen...and even shot one...a few nearly black squirrels, which are pretty rare. FWIW, growing up, me and my little .22 Target Master very unashamedly put a lot of meat on the table in those lean days before TV.

 

[MossRoad]

I'm trying to find a picture of the cameras (ironic). The size was mind boggling.

Can't find a good one. It was made by Chemco.

Here's a photo of some people standing in front of one, blocking the lens behind them. But you can see the huge lights that shine on the plate they are looking towards. That plate tips from vertical to horizontal. You open a glass door, place a full-page of a composed newspaper onto the table, close the glass door, turn on a vacuum, then tip the plate up to vertical. When you take the picture of the page, the huge lights come on on both sides. We usually ran around a 15 second exposure. Then you run inside the darkroom behind the camera, turn off the vacuum, cut the film and listen for it to fall, advance the film, and turn on the vacuum again. Grab the full page negative, turn around and place it into the film processor. All in the dark. The film runs through the processor and comes out the other side as a positive. You lay it on a printing plate and expose it to light under a vacuum, and that creates a negative letterpress plate for printing. If you run an offset press, you'd make negative films. Anyhow, this is the only one I could find.