Desert piranha, and getting focused

I've been meaning to do something for a few weeks now and I finally remembered to yesterday. I had read once that some people prefer to manually focus their SLR because that's the only way they can get it focused correctly. I wondered what they were smoking. I had tried manually focusing my camera and the results were always bad. I just couldn't tell when it was focused. Then one of those people let the secret slip. You put the camera in live view mode and then magnify the display all the way (read your manual if you don't know how to do that). It's a piece of cake to focus manually when you do that. Oh, you will need to have the camera on a tripod. Go ahead and try it without one. Then put the camera on a tripod. If you notice the image drifting around when you try to focus, that will be your reminder to turn image stabilization off.

Cholla flower.

I am often disappointed with the focus of my flower pictures, so I tried this with some flowers yesterday. The only ones I could find were cholla flowers, and they were plain looking cholla flowers at that. Also, it was late and hazy. Also, it was breezy, so the camera and flowers were moving. Oh, that reminds me, you will probably need to use the timer to trip the shutter so your pictures don't get blurred by your shaky hands. Anyway, I'm not crazy about my results, but I can see that this will work great under better circumstances.

Cholla flower.

As I was wandering around the desert looking for a flower to photograph, I came across a strange fish. It reminds me of a piranha, mostly because of the teeth. I don't think the person that made it had any specific kind of fish in mind, though.

This just seems out of place. I think it's a piranha. What do you think?

At first I couldn't imagine why anybody would leave such a fine fish out in the desert. As I walked by I looked at the back and realized why it was there. There was a small canister attached to the back. It's a geocache.

I didn't sign the log. Believe it or not, I don't carry a pen in my huge 15 pound backpack.

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2012_04_05

At last! High res pictures of the Superstition Wilderness in Google Earth

For years I've felt frustrated every time I looked at the Superstition Wilderness in Google Earth. I kept asking myself, "Why don't they make the interesting areas high resolution? Who wants to see a bunch of houses? I could tell that my brother's truck was parked in my driveway (we carpool) when the picture that included my house was taken. But so what? I wanted to be able to follow the Massacre Grounds trail. I wanted to be able to tell where I was standing when I took pictures of agave stalks against the sunset. I wanted to be able to find cool new places to hike. I wanted to be able to tell where the Canyon Lake Vista pullout was. Finally, I can. Well, I've got a lot of that stuff geotagged now, anyway. For the past week I've been looking at trails I've been on and trails I'm going to be on. Check it out.

OK, moving on. It's the time of year for watching goatsuckers. No, not chupacabras. Maybe you know them as nighthawks. Also, they are mildly interesting to watch, but the really cool thing is the sounds they make. Sometimes they sound like monkeys in a jungle. I'll have to try to get a recording of them. Suzanne and I went out to listen to them tonight. Bulldog Canyon was full of people. We didn't see (or hear) a lot of nighthawks, either. We'll have to go again. I tried to take a few pictures, but it was dark and landscape pictures just don't work with a flash ;) Anyway, click below to see the pictures.

BC_2009_04_17