Tuesday, January 11, 2011

11/365 - On Thin Ice

Snow day! That means a picture outing. I got all bundled up like a little kid and headed out.

Days like today remind me of my Grandpa. So I went to the cemetery where he is buried. This may sound weird, but I really like this cemetery. It is peaceful and beautiful. They have a pond with lots of ducks, geese, swans, and fish. It makes me happy knowing Grandpa has so much nature around him that he would have enjoyed.

I pulled up to the pond, a goose honked, and they came waddling up to me and the car. After I convinced the birds that I didn't have any bread, they went back to the pond and I started snapping away.

Only a small part of the pond wasn't frozen so the birds would walk out to it. I liked the idea of "walking on thin ice" (and it's not something round *he he*) so I took this shot. I think this little guy looks really cute with its one feather sticking up.

I have some trouble with getting the exposure and white balance correct in the snow. I've read a few articles about it and have tried the tips, but they still don't turn out quite right in camera. I had to do some editing and exposure adjustments on this shot. Oh well, guess I'll hope for more snow days so I can go practice. :)

Exposure 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture f/5.0
Focal Length 75.7 mm
ISO Speed 64
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

2 comments:

  1. Cool- I didn't know there would be any ducks/geese/whatever that thing is still around. Don't they go south for the winter? I wish I was south!!!
    Anyway, I think that your high shutter speed helped keep the picture from over exposing, so that's good. It also makes the picture nice and sharp.
    Getting the snow to be white is really hard without blowing it out. I actually just read two differing opinions on how to correctly shoot snow today. One said to over expose and one said to under expose. Frustrating.
    You have a nice composition going. I believe you've hit the golden ratio. Look that up on youtube for a weird video...

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  2. It reminds me of that kid's song..."and the one little duck with the feather on his back, he led the others with a quack, quack, quack." We'd change it to goose and honk for this pick.

    It's a nice place for Grandpa.

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