The Roving Sea Turtle

Exactly a month ago I watched another Sea Turtle being released into the Adriatic Sea.

Atlante, that’s her name, had been caught into a crawl net and hurt in the process but luckily the fishing boat brought her to a specialized center, the Cetacean Foundation in Riccione, where she was nursed back to health. Fast forward 10 months and she was on the beach of my hometown, surrounded by hundreds of very excited and very loud school kids – not to mention a few dozens of equally animated adults -- for her “release party”.

After enduring with turtle poise her role as the star of that particular show, she was let go a few meters from the shore and finally dived into the sea with all the gusto one can imagine a prisoner (if by quite benevolent and well-intentioned captors) finding her freedom at last.

Since then, Atlante has, as they say, been around: the GPS receiver mounted on her back is enabling a group of marine biologists to track her whereabouts. They’ll be mapping her roaming across the Adriatic (which explains her male name even though she’s a female: Atlante is Italian for Atlas) for at least a year and the results are readily available on the web.

Godspeed, Atlante!

Back into the blue…

Or, rather, the green with a mild yellowish tint… but I don’t think the eleven sea turtles that were freed today really minded the color of the sea. These young animals (the oldest is just 8 years old) were all found dying and were nursed back to health in Riccione, Italy by the local Cetacean Foundation. This morning, at lunch time, they finally went home 200 km south in the Adriatic Sea and 2 miles offshore after a short trip on board a Coast Guard patrol boat (and, btw, thank you for the ride!). It was fun and actually moving seeing them excitedly shaking their flippers in the anticipation of going back in the water.

This one, above and below, is Orange, the “elder” of the group.

There’ll be a general wind theme

We’re getting warmer and nicer weather by the day now in my corner of the world and beach activities are picking up. One such involved one I would hardly had interest in if I didn’t like taking pictures: a Flying Kites Competition/Festival. My relationship to kites is pretty much akin to Charlie Brown’s, with a pivotal difference: he, at least, usually gets to fly his though it always ends badly. Mines stubbornly refused to.

But I’m all grown up now so I picked up my camera and went to watch people who are really good at building flying kites that actually fly (or possibly they’re good at flying kites in addition to building them). Anyway, I mostly used my standard zoom but brought along the Tammy 70-300, for two reasons: it’s my longest lens and, in a situation where sand and wind are involved, I’d rather have a € 130 lens than a € 600 one. In retrospect, I regret not using the Tammy a lot more. On site it felt like shorter and wider was the way to go but watching the pictures I miss not having a few more close ups. And my two favorite shots came from the Tammy. This guy making his kite soar:

 

And this close up:

In addition to slapping a polarizing filter on the 18-55 (I don’t have one that fits the Tammy) I used the Landscape picture styles in DPP on all the pictures: this picture style enhances the blues and the greens so I think I reached really unhealthy levels of too-blue-to-be-true skies and general oversaturation. I look forward to browse these pictures in a few months and recoil in horror.

    

Sunday, cars and a kit lens

The so called “standard zoom” is the lens I used the least. Point of fact, I still have the original kit lens (Canon) even though, as every Internet-indoctrinated newbie photog can tell you, I’ve been thoroughly enlightened on its awfulness (we’re talking the 18-55 non-IS version here: the newer model is supposed to be better optically, aside from having image stabilization on its plus column. It doesn’t get the hate the old model does, anyway). I just don’t use it enough to make it a priority upgrade: even now, after a couple of years, a better standard zoom is probably 3 or four on my shopping list, far behind a ultra wide-angle and a couple of fast primes.

This strikes me as odd: this focal range is called “standard” for a reason, after all. And yet. Anyway, this preamble takes me to my Sunday activities, namely shooting a vintage cars showcase with my not-so-standard-for-my-habits zoom, equipped with a polarizer since it was outdoor, a very bright, very sunny outdoor. Polarizers are a wonderful thing as far as I am concerned, I use mine too much (skies too blue to be true? Yep, I’ve got plenty of those). Well, it was fun, though in retrospect I kick myself for shooting just the cars mostly. The people ogling them were interesting, too. Next year or next car show, I suppose.

This is my favorite shot of the day:

This one is a cheat: it’s twice a cheat, actually. It’s a cheat once because in the pre-processed photo the car was in focus and it’s a cheat twice because the fake bokeh effect (and the b&w with just one spot of color) were done using Picasa’s presets and not slaving hard (assuming it requires hard slaving, I didn’t try) in Photoshop or similar “serious” photo editing software. I think it looks nice, though:

This is, I think the word is curious, not the picture though, just the subject. All I have to say is, this old Jaguar came very well equipped. And I’d love to have such a cool tool box in my car (which is not a Jaguar, either old or new. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t have one):

I also shot cars in their entirety: but for some reason I always like the details better than the whole picture (pun mostly intended). Maybe that’s why the standard zoom doesn’t work as a standard for me.

Black, red and notes

So, I’m on the jury for this rock contest (I’m the not.musician person on it) and last night I brought my camera too and had a little fun with. I basically had little to no idea about what I was doing because it was the first time shooting this kind of event: I took a couple of pics using the built-in flash, then I cranked up the ISO up to 1600 (sadly the max my aging 350D goes), fixed the aperture at 2.8 and went for it. As a lens I used the 60mm macro, which is the fastest one in my kit and of course I kept wishing I had something faster. And a bit shorter too, especially when the local bands where performing and there was no way to take the full stage in with all the people pressing toward it. Anyway, these are some of the results of the night. White balance was kinda of a pain, I went through adjusting it in DPP but then I realized that stuff actually glowed with the colors of the lights (lots of reds and yellows). Why should I adjust it, if that’s what they looked like? So, I did and didn’t. It’s a thing.

First, equipment:

Then, those who use it:

Finally an…experiment:

Fun in the country

So I spent most of Easter day in the countryside, hunting for bugs and exploring the advantages of using a tripod. I think my favorite and I guess also the best result of the day was this butterfly, incidentally the first butterfly ever I've managed to shoot. This was handheld, with the 70-200 at 200mm, 1/1000 f5:

Then there was this tiny, tiny and frankly adorable snail, I’m guessing a very young one rather than a small kind. Not that it matters. I pp this a bit to bring out the greenness. Shot with the 60mm on the tripod, 1/25, f13:

By this point I was experiencing first hand some of the basics how-tos and books usually cover about macro photography. First of all: bugs are twitchy. They don’t especially like to have their picture taken. This is where a longer macro lens (or longer lens anyway) would be a better choice. But the only other (sort of) macro lens I own is my old Tamron 70-300 that can double as a 180-300 macro lens. It’s not really true macro and can’t compete in any way, shape or alternate reality with the sharpness and the optical quality of the Canon 60mm. So for the time being, I’ll settle to upset bugs and lose some pictures in the process. A longer macro lens to hunt insects is quite far down of my shopping list at the moment. Speaking of bugs, I have no idea what this one is, but it’s not of the twitchy variety and calmly sat on this daisy (if it’s a daisy, I’m not too clear on that), allowing me to try out different settings. First, a relative small aperture (f11 1/125):
Next, the same picture but wide open (f2.8 1/2000):

I’m not sure which one I like best. Maybe the third one I didn’t shoot, with an aperture in between these two (f5 maybe?).

Moving on: for the first time in a long time I missed the vari-angle lcd of my beloved Powershot S1. Live view surely would have helped while the cam was on the tripod but I really, really hope Canon (and the other makers too, but I shoot Canon, so that’s what I care more about) will add a vari-angle screen to its future DSLRs as well.

 

Among the reasons to use a tripod for this kind of photography that I’ve found spot-on: the ability to use the lowest ISO setting without worrying too much about blurred pictures due to slow shutter speed. Well, unless it’s really dark and/or really windy. Manual focus can really make a difference: too bad I suck at it. I blame the small viewfinder of the 350D. And my less than 20/20 eyesight. And my glasses. Plenty of scapegoats, I like it!

 

Other random observations: using a tripod can be really slow work, though it’s possible the 3way head isn’t the best for macros. The iPod Touch can be really useful to take notes. And something must really be seriously wrong with the environment because there were much fewer bugs around than I thought there would be. Maybe it’s still too early in the spring. Or maybe it’s because this time I went actively looking for them instead of trying to avoid and running from them.

Docking Adventures

One advice you always get about photography is to never underestimate the photo opportunities' potential of anything. Look around you! self-help handbooks would say, even everyday subjects can become the most wonderful picture. It's all in the eye - and the ability - of the photographer. No, I didn't quote any actual passage of any real book but that's the general drift. And, you know, they're probably right. I've seen amazing stuff with the most trivial things for a subject.

But there's one thing even better and that's going to a location that's interesting on its own, and start shooting. And anywhere on Earth has a place like that, and I don't mean weird places hidden in the woods right behind the schoolyard (yeah, yeah, I'm watching Buffy, alright?), but just regular, everyday places that are intrinsically interesting. Like the Docks.

My town has a fairly sized port, that used to be very important before the fishing industry got in trouble. It's still pretty active and has a growing touristic section, for leisure boating and the like. So on one arm you have fishing boats and ships, on the other sailing and motor yatchs. There's plenty of interesting stuff, for all kinds of photography, from macro work to wildlife (seagulls ;)

I went on a shooting spree a few weeks ago and this one on the left is probably my favorite shot of the lot. It's the tangle of ropes that keep the boats tied to the quay. Mostly I'm happy with me identifying this as a suitable subject. Could I be developing an 'eye' of some sort? Well, let's not get carried away here. Anyway, I made a gallery just for my "Docks" pictures and I plan to keep adding material.

On a cautionary note, photographing a port may slightly be against the law, just like with train stations and such. Details are fuzzy. But this last picture I think is comforting: the sign says "No Entry" but the place - it's the south pier of the harbour - is a tourist landmark and a regular destination for anyone going for a walk - the real kind I mean, not the "walks" people take when they run away and disappear.

There's a tacit understanding about this "no-entry" thing: the sign is there because it has to be but nobody is ever going to stop you. It's difficult to explain, it's one of those Italian things where the law is more of a guideline. So I think I should be able to keep shooting fish boxes, seagulls and people walking ;)

Powerboat P1

This past weekend my town hosted a leg, the first leg of the 2008 calendar actually, of the Powerboat P1 World Championship. For those who don't know - and believe me up until last Friday most of the people here didn't have clue about it, and that includes me - the Powerboat P1 is supposed to be to off-shore racing what Formula 1 is to car racing. I won't get into details but their website has a lot of over the top descriptions of the whole thing for those interested.

Suffice to say people here went nuts, the harbour and the beaches were packed to watch the races and I dutifully took the opportunity for some shooting. It was fun although my results were overall disappointing, especially regarding the pictures of the actual races. Single boats make for boring images, my reach (300mm on a crop-body) wasn't quite enough to capture interesting details and being completely inexperienced with the sport didn't help. I did have the opportunity to practice panning, though, and I managed to get the hang of it, though it will take time to approach the kind of astounding pictures I've seen done with this technique. But it's not just a theoretical notion for me anymore, so... progress!

My favorite shot of the lot turned out to be the one posted here. I shot it from a slightly elevated position - I was on the external arm of the south pier - and had a CPL filter on my kit lens (the much maligned ef-s 18-55), which explains the very blue sky and overall saturated colors. This is almost straight from camera, minimal pp including the RAW conversion. I really like it. I've uploaded more favorites to the gallery.

Photographic woes aside, it was a lot fun, the atmosphere was fantastic and I really hope they'll be back next year, although I don't see how this event may ever be compatible with the sea-life sanctuary that's about to be established in our waters. Oh well, maybe we'll get a sailing competition instead.