(last of the) Fall Fungi

This will, I think, be the last of the shots from the great fungi field trip; this view is actually just a foot or two to the left of the previous post. I'm not actually sure if they're the same kind of mushroom or not - I don't know enough about mushroom be able to identify the different varieties.

While I think the previous post is probably my own favourite, each has something a little different that appeals to me. You're of course welcome to leave your thoughts/comments on which you like best (or least).

[For those who might be wondering... no word yet on whether my lens is repairable, or what it will cost, but then I'm not expecting to hear anything until sometime next week at the earliest.]

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(more) Fall Fungi

This is another shot from last weekends' trek through the trail at UBC - a.k.a. the fungi field trip. There's still maybe a shot or two from that afternoon that might find it's way here. Hopefully this won't bore anyone too much. There won't be any new bird shots for a while though, because...

Although late in the day, I did get out to shoot a bit on Saturday. Unfortunately, when I was packing up my equipment at the end of the day my wonderful long lens (100-400mm) fell from about 5½ feet and now doesn't work - it won't focus (auto or manual). I can adjust the 'focus' near or far, but it won't focus even remotely sharply.

I've always known that sooner or later some piece of my equipment would get damaged. I've fallen with it a couple of times (broke my own ribs once as a result, but saved the camera from harm), and once had my camera with lens attached fall out of my backpack onto asphalt, all without any significant damage to any of it. I guess my luck had run out though... Of course it had to be the most expensive lens in my bag! It's now at the camera shop waiting to be shipped out to the wizards at Canon to take a look at and see if it's fixable or not - for a hefty fee, of course. In the meantime, I suppose I'll just have to get reacquainted with my other lenses for a while (they say 4-6 weeks).

[Oh, forgot to mention - this shot has been sized/cropped a little differently than normal. It has been properly sized to fit a 1024x768 screen, making it more suitable for a desktop background, for those so-inclined. Click on it first to bring up the full-size image though.]

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Two Worlds, Apart

Sorry, once again, for the long delay between posts. Last weekend I was busy doing a little shoot for the Friends of the VPL; some of the pictures might end up on their website - if I ever get finished processing them. The woman who runs their store doesn't seem to have discussed the matter with their web master so what I shot doesn't seem to be quite what they both want, though I think I can pull enough together from what I shot. Regular visitors here will recognize that I like big pictures, so one of their late specifications came as a bit of a surprise: none of the images is to be larger than 350 pixels on a side. That's a tiny image, given that my raw images are 4300+ pixels wide!

Anyway, I did get out twice this weekend to shoot something for myself. This shot was taken on Sunday afternoon on the Salish trail in Pacific Spirit Park (UBC Endowment Lands). It's an HDR image, created from a single RAW image - this is possible with RAW files as they store more exposure data than a .jpg though it's not as effective as shooting multiple exposures and combining them.

Technical aspects aside, it struck me as a fitting image to post as we're about to go to the polls in just a few hours. Why? Maybe because of the strong Us/Them symbolism. Personally I'll find it hard to vote tomorrow; once again it will be a matter of selecting the lesser of the evils, the party which I think will do the least harm. A minority government isn't what this country needs right now, but with the current crop of politicians so totally out of touch with reality it's what we're likely to end up with.

Vote well!

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