Pelicans

I took some photos of pelicans from the neighbor's dock. The pelicans go there frequently, but a few days ago, there was an unusual number of them catching fish.

Most of these photos were taken in Sport Mode. This mode is nice because it constantly tries to keep the subject in focus. However, it doesn't let you mess with many settings. I'm going to see if I can make use of the good things about sport mode in one of the other settings, like Aperture Priority mode, because then I'll be able to mess around more while still using the AI servo that does focus tracking. 

The Spiny Orb-Weaver

I've always called these crab spiders, but apparently there is a different group of spiders that have been given that name. These spiders, called spiny orb-weavers, are common around here but they often don't photograph well for me. Their scientific name is Gasteracantha cancriformis. Appropriately, the specific epithet, cancriformis, means crab-shaped.

For this photo, I used my macro lens with manual focus and aperture priority. I turned up the F-stop to f/14 to get a good depth of field, so the whole spider would be in focus, and then I used ISO 1600, because at f/14 not much light gets into the camera so I needed it to be sensitive. The camera chose a shutter speed of 1/50 of a second, which is good because any slower and I risked a blurry photo because I wasn't using a tripod.

Dragonflies in Palm City

I took these photos in August in Palm City. There were dozens of these small dragonflies flying around, it must have been their mating season. I was using my macro lens with manual focus and no flash, as it was a very bright sunny day, and I used mostly automatic settings in P mode. I might have gotten better photos of dragonflies in flight if I had turned up the f number, and used a high ISO setting to compensate for the smaller aperture.

Sandpipers at the Indian River

Sandpipers are a common sight at beaches around Florida and elsewhere. These small birds congregate in flocks of a few dozen individuals and use their sensitive bills to feels around for small crustaceans underneath the sand's surface. If approached, they will walk away from you as a group, until they get scared and take off, at which point the entire flock will fly together to some nearby place, usually not more than a few dozen yards away.

I took these photos with my macro lens. A telephoto would have been a better choice, but I wasn't expecting to take any good photos of birds so I didn't have it with me. 

October Lightning

Last month we had some thunderstorms. I went out to the neighbor's dock and took some long exposure shots of the lightning, mostly around 30 seconds or so. This way, if lightning appeared, it would expose the sensor without me needing to try to press the shutter every time I saw lightning. You can tell it's a long exposure because the clouds blurred a bit as they moved.