New Lens!

An aspect of photography that I wasn't aware of until the last few years was the wide range of variation between lenses, not just in their general characteristics such as wide angle versus telephoto or prime versus zoom but in the kinds of images they produce. For example, two 50mm lenses by different manufacturers will likely produce quite different images when it comes to color, sharpness, contrast and bokeh. Amongst the cognoscenti certain lenses, such as the Takumar 50mm F1.4, have become almost legendary for their image quality. Flickr has a group photo pool devoted to this lens with over 500 members although this lens hasn't been in production for about 40 years and you need a special adapter to use it with modern digital cameras. Those of you who read this blog regularly will know that I often shoot with old Minolta or Takumar lenses. As well as the differences in specifications of lenses, each lens has its own characteristics which can only be learned by experience with that lens. Photographers talk, for instance of a lens' "sweet spot" referring the aperture setting for that particular lens that produces the best image in terms of color, contrast, sharpness and bokeh. Some lenses are best nearly wide open and others need to be stopped down to produce their best images. I always figure to take two or three months to get to know a lens and learn its virtues and limitations. Consequently, I offer the above photos as examples of my first outing with a new telephoto zoom lens. It's a Tamron AF 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 SP Di USD XLD and so far at least, I like it, but I expect to take a few months before I really know what it can do.

Extreme Victoria: The Running of the Goats

Those of you who think Victoria is a stuffy, staid provincial city should know that life here can be wild and wooly if you know where to go. Here's a glimpse of a perilous adventure I had recently, risking my person and equipment to bring you this rare footage of the dangerous traditional goat stampede in Victoria's notorious Beacon Hill Park. Fasten your seatbelts folks, this is EXTREME VICTORIA!

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The Running of the Goats takes place every day during the summer at the Beacon Hill Park Children's Zoo. Check their website for times and seasonal hours.

Good Morning!

I've mentioned before how I like to photograph ducks because they always seem to have a pleasant, friendly expression. Alpacas are another animal that looks happy and friendly most of the time. No matter how often I visit the Beacon Hill Children's Farm I always come away with lots of photos of the alpacas.

Beacon Hill Park Petting Zoo

The petting zoo is the place to be on a sunny day in spring. -Fern

More Crocuses

I'm hoping visitors will forgive me for posting more photos of crocuses but I have an excuse: I'm leaving tomorrow before sunrise for over 24 hours of airplanes and airports. I'll be gone for about a month so I am a little bit busy today. Besides, can there ever be too many crocuses? In case you missed my earlier post, I'll be in India while I'm away from here. Victoria Daily Photo will be in the capable hands of my daughter, Fern Long. Enjoy!

Daffodils

Crocuses mark the end of winter but the real onset of spring is signaled for me by Daffodils (Genus Narcissus). There are dozens of different varieties but when I think of daffodils it is the yellow ones that come to mind. Those above were photographed recently in Beacon Hill Park. They appear to be a miniature variety and are a bit ahead of their taller relatives.

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Today begins Year 4 of this blog and I promised some surprises. The first is that in a few days I will be away from the blog - totally offline - for about three and half weeks. I am taking a little holiday and traveling to India. During my absence my daughter will be blogging here and posting her photos of Victoria. I am sure you'll all enjoy a different perspective on Victoria through her lens. I'll be flying out to New Delhi on Sunday the 13th of March and will not return until April 7th.

Cherry Blossom

Back to Beacon Hill Park yesterday to see what else is blooming there besides crocuses. It was a nice sunny day and though winter's cold is still with us I found a surprising number of early flowers on the ground and, as in this photo, in the trees. This is a branch of the early-blooming cherry tree on the shore of Goodacre Lake.

Crocuses

Around this time of year Beacon Hill Park starts to erupt with flowers, a cascade that will carry on until autumn comes again. These crocuses in their brilliant purple, yellow and white always remind me of Easter. They are a sure sign that winter is coming to an end.

American Black Oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani)

I don't know whether it has just been bad luck for me or whether Black Oystercatchers are not around so much this year. In any case I haven't seen any on my daily walks this year along our shoreline in Vic West. This photo was taken last year in January near Spinnakers on the Westsong Walkway.

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When I posted the photo to the left last week I hoped someone would tell me the name of this little bay. Visitor Ngawangchodron sent me a link to a map of the area that identifies the bay as Horseshoe Bay. The point of land jutting out to the left is Finlayson Point. Thank you Ngawangchodron for that information. I will take this opportunity to recommend a visit to Ngawangchodron's Flickr photostream for a splendid collection of photographs in and around Victoria.

Below Beacon Hill 2

Messing around with multiple screw-on filters can cause vignetting - those black areas in the corners of the above photo. If I want to use the photo I will usually just crop it so these don't show. However, after looking at this photo a number of times I decided not to crop the vignetting because in this case I like the effect. It might just be nostalgia. When I was very young and had serious wanderlust, those far away places with the strange sounding names were always, in imagination, viewed through a ship's porthole. Imagine waking up in the morning and looking through that magic circle to see the pyramids of Giza in the hot desert sunlight or Chimborazo rising in the mist. That wonderful circular frame still seems to me like the mind's eye.

Below Beacon Hill

Lying directly below the hill that gives Beacon Hill Park its name is this lovely little cove. I don't know what it is called and I hope someone will tell me. Whatever its name it provides a lovely view at any time of year. Above is what it looked like late in the afternoon on Sunday.

Beacon Hill Bouquet

I notice that I am much more interested in flowers in the spring, especially wild flowers. I suspect this is because they are so refreshing after winter's duller colors and gray days. A recent trip to Beacon Hill Park however reminded me that summer's blooms are just as beautiful.

Pre-Tick-Tock

I found this lovely old sun dial yesterday afternoon in Beacon Hill Park. Who can tell me what time it was when I took this photo? (No prize but I will put a gold star beside your name in my private records if you give me a correct answer. Wrong answers will get a silver star. Non-participants all get bronze.) Bonne chance!

Beauty and Beast?

I went to the Beacon Hill Park Children's Zoo yesterday to photograph the Running of the Goats, a daily event patterned after the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. I got sidetracked, however, by these two birds, both so strikingly shaped and colored yet calling forth such different human reactions. So far as I know there is no useful purpose to the decorative aspects of these birds beyond attracting mates and I am sure the turkey cock attracts female turkeys as ably as the peacock attracts peahens. Yet for most of us, the turkey is repulsive and the peacock is beautiful. Hmmm. As for the goats, they ran admirably but I misjudged the shutter speed/aperture combination required to capture the savage splendor of their morning stampede, so I'll be going back soon. It's no hardship since the Children's Zoo is one of my favorite places.

Ducks, Ducks, Ducks....

The roads are clear enough now so that I was able to get out on my bike yesterday and take a quick spin down to Beacon Hill Park. Though most of the snow is gone the duck ponds are still frozen and the ducks are hanging out on the lawns. As soon as they saw me pull up they all came charging over and, while a duck or two is not very threatening, several hundred are a bit daunting. However, when they realized I was not a bread bearer they dispersed with querulous quacks.

Viruses, Trojans, Browser Hijackers, Rogues

I mentioned I had a touch of the flu the other day. I recovered but my computer seems to have caught it: a kind of malware called "go.google" that redirected any search result I clicked on to a spam site. Then I found that my anti-virus software was unable to connect to its own website for updates. And all my attempts to connect to other anti-virus or antispyware websites were equally thwarted. The browser simply reporting that it was unable to contact those websites though it allowed me to look at other websites. Now this is a pretty cunning program - it not only takes over your browser but it prevents you from obtaining any assistance. I gave up on Firefox and tried Safari, Internet Explorer and even the new Google browser called Chrome with the same results on all.

Well, after fussing around all day I think I have it beat, but my post for today will have to be archival. However, I'm sure you'll agree it's a nice donkey, photographed in the Beacon Hill Children's Zoo earlier this year.

Autumn's First Blush

After a really delightful summer (and it's still hot today with a prediction of an even hotter tomorrow), I saw this first hint of autumn today in the chestnut trees below Beacon Hill. I went there this afternoon because I realized that although I often have featured Beacon Hill Park on this blog, I have never discussed its name. It's called Beacon Hill Park because of this hill above the ocean, where there used to be a beacon to guide ships. I took this photo from near the top of the hill. Behind me, over the crest of the hill are the Children's Zoo, the giant watering can, the cricket oval, the heronry and all the other delights of the park. I hope your summer's been as pleasant as mine.

Kids and Kids - Beacon Hill Park Children's Zoo 2

Most of the animals in the Children's Zoo are in the "look but don't touch" category, but children can have some first hand experience with the goats, who are endlessly patient and patronizing and allow themselves to be petted, stroked and combed with delightful placidity. No slavish fawning here, they simply tolerate little humans good naturedly. There are lots of brushes around for children who want to do a little goat grooming.And, when you get a little older, if you're really lucky and volunteer at the zoo, the goats will even climb on you. These young girls were so cool and blasé while the kids perched on their backs....If you're in Victoria, don't miss "The Running of the Goats" when the goats are released from the barn every morning (10 am) and stampede through the pathways at the children's zoo to reach their daytime paddock. Look out Pamplona!

Beacon Hill Park Children's Zoo

The Muscovy DuckAnother visit to the Beacon Hill Park Children's Zoo, which I visited previously to photograph the alpaca. We went to see the new litter of Vietnamese Potbellied Pigs, just about the cutest little critters ever. However I failed to get a good picture of them so you'll have to be satisfied with this Muscovy Duck which, despite its name, has nothing to do with Moscow. It was domesticated by Native Americans before Columbus arrived on these shores and, while it swims and feeds like other ducks, it also often chooses to roost in trees like a chicken. Stay tuned, I want to introduce you to the goats tomorrow.

Do you ever feel like this in the morning?

Well, it looks like it hurts but it's really just a burp or a cough from this friendly alpaca I photographed today at the Children's Zoo in Beacon Hill Park.These delightful creatures are recent additions to the zoo. It's not really a zoo in the sense of having a wide range of wild animals. It has some goats who put up with endless petting from many children, a Vietnamese potbellied pig, some chickens and ducks, peacocks, a few sheep and some miniature horses. While we were there this morning one of the goats was giving birth before an admiring and awestruck bunch of children and their parents.Alpacas are usually very wooly. The zoo alpacas have been shorn so they don't get too hot in our summer weather.