So the first 3 pics are of Wahkeena Falls, out in the Gorge. I suppose these are fine so far as they go, but I was out there because I just bought a new toy and wanted to try it out. My "new" toy is an old film SLR camera from the late 1960s, all-manual, all-mechanical, no handholding of any kind. I need to track down a battery for its light meter (which I understand is a bit rudimentary anyway) so I was using my lil' digital camera to make exposure guesstimates: Set the ISO to match the film you're using, and zoom a little so the field of view is more or less the same as the camera's 50mm lens. Then tinker with aperture & shutter speed until you get a photo that looks ok, and transfer those settings to the old SLR and take the same shot with it. Lather, rinse, repeat. It sounds kind of tedious, but I'm just trying to learn how to use this new toy right now. I don't expect miraculous results, and I don't expect any results quickly.
That last bit is something I've been telling myself a lot lately, because it turns out I hadn't threaded the film properly the first time around. I was doing all that work and not actually taking useful photos. Dammit. I think I've got it figured out now, so I ought to have something to share here sooner or later. I'd intended to post these waterfall pics along with their film versions, and that's obviously not going to happen. Oh, well.
One recent morning I made a trip up to Smith Lake in North Portland. The lake is part of the Smith & Bybee Lakes wildlife area, a large wetland preserve right in the middle of a heavy industrial part of town, and next door to the former St. Johns Landfill. With neighbors like those, the lakes don't get a lot of public attention, even though they're huge and right on the city's doorstep. So I thought I'd do a post about the place, but I'm convinced you can't properly do that without at least one nice photo of a bird or two, being a wetland area and all.
So as soon as I showed up, all the birds relocated to the far side of the lake. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating.
At least the moon was out. That's something, I guess.
So the photo below is the best bird I came away with, and I'm sure you'll agree it ain't much. This was taken at maximum zoom + max "digital zoom", and then a heavy-duty bit of unsharp mask to make the thing halfway presentable.
Obviously I just didn't show up with the right gear for the job.
Ok, there were a few things here and there I could take closeups of, at least. Nothing too spectacular, just the usual flowers and Raindrops On Stuff, but my little camera does a creditable job of it, at least when the flower isn't whipping back and forth in the wind, which it was.
The path to the lake had this sign up, which might explain why nobody else was there. Jeepers! West Nile virus! I haven't had any flulike symptoms lately, so I'm probably ok, but still. Freakin' West Nile virus! Yow!
Ok, here's the gross part, which I barely managed to avoid stepping on/in. I'm not a zoological CSI type (if such a thing exists) but I'd bet a heron did this. Every time I visit Smith Lake, I run across something like this, something that indicates this place is the real deal. Sometimes it's just various animal prints in the mud. A few years ago I ran across a tree freshly felled by beavers.
I thought about posting these frog pics separately, and titling it something like "'What's Grosser Than Gross?' Edition", but that seemed a little crass and juvenile. Ok, so I still posted the photos, but I didn't make them the main event. That counts for something, right?
Ok, returning within the bounds of good taste, here are a couple of fall foliage photos from downtown Portland. These are taken from the same spot, one through a pair of cheap sunglasses, and the other with the homemade infrared filter I put together a while back.
I've gone too long without any Tanner Springs photos. So here's one.
And I believe the moon requires no introduction. Had to do a bit of cleanup on this one, but I think it turned out pretty well for a handheld shot at night. In other words, it's due to luck, not skill. Story of my life, or so it seems sometimes.
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