Bird in a tree

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It was the coldest night of the season last night with temperatures going down to -5F/-20C. It was also windy so it felt more like -25F/-31C. I came down a little before 8:00am and the sun was just rising. This large bird of prey was sitting in one of our trees. I was not quite fully awake, but decided to try for a picture. I didn’t think I could go outside without scaring it off (and in any case it was really cold!) so I took the picture through the window. The result wasn’t terrific, but I thought it might make a half way decent silhouette.

Croton Dam

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I’ve posted pictures of the Croton Dam before (see Croton Dam and Croton Dam Revisited) but earlier pictures have been taken from the dam plaza looking up. This one is taken from the top of the dam looking across the New Croton Reservoir. I like the contrast between the water rushing down the spillways and the mirror-like smoothness of the reservoir. I well remember the first time I saw the dam. I’d walked up the Old Croton Aqueduct trail from our house in Briarcliff Manor. As I approached the dam I heard the roar of the water long before I could see the dam. When I finally did see it I was astonished. It’s really quite spectacular.

House in New Hamburg, NY

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Taken with a RainbowImaging 35MM F1.7 TV Lens + Lens Adapter for Sony NEX (cost about $28). This lens was designed for a much smaller CCTV sensor and so vignettes quite a bit. Also only the very center of the lens is in focus and it doesn’t really get any better as you stop down. Smaller apertures merely cause the central, sharp(ish) area to get a bit sharper. Because of pronounced field curvature the rest remain soft. Still the out of focus areas are nice and the lens has a kind of “creamy” look to it. It’s very small and extremely inexpensive and I’m glad I bought it. I haven’t used it for a while, but it’s a fun lens so maybe I’ll give it another try.

Harley in the snow

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Taken the other day after a recent snow storm. Although I did remember to change the focus to continuous autofocus I was so excited to see him running in the snow that I forgot to change the shutter speed to something higher. So I got quite a lot of blur in most of the shots. This is one of the less blurry ones. Taken with a Sony alpha 500 and Tamron 18-250mm.