Key: R20091108-162446
Key: R20091108-162906
Key: R20091108-163121
Chickens with Hawaiian Peppers
Top two: Panasonic GH1 (Cloudy WB, Dynamic color)
Bottom: Ricoh GX100 (AWB, Standard color)
The Ricoh nails it for AWB, although I have to say I can see the quality in the GH1 image.
He told him he was going to be divorced twice…how much do I have to pay to get a good reading??
Key: R20091107-161024
I’m about 3 months into my return to carrying a larger camera in the form of the Panasonic GH1. None of my initial impressions have diminished much. I was really hoping that I would get used to carrying a larger camera again, but I’m afraid my hope was misplaced. As the photo illustrates, it much closer to a DSLR than a serious compact. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy photographing with it. But the size is just such that I’m just not that keen to lug it around. And this is one of the smallest DLSR type cameras mind you. Although the weight is not significant, the size dictates that a padded pouch becomes the size of a small messenger bag.
I’m still considering a smaller lens like the well regarded 20mm f1.7. That would change the profile quite a lot, actually. I should then be able to fit it in a much smaller bag. But I bet it will still feel bulky.
Then there is the subject reaction. Pointing the Ricoh around doesn’t raise too many enybrows, but pointing this lens around draws more attention to the camera that results in less candid people shots. It hasn’t been bad, because this is not a honking huge DSLR, but it’s big enough that it looks “serious”. I’m best off using the excellent articulated live view, which lets me hold the camera down near waist level where it’s less intimidating.
Key: R20091102-120506
Key: R20091102-120542
Key: R20091102-120625
Here is the second story addition to the chicken coop that I worked on all weekend. I’m afraid the carpentry is all very rough by even a moderate craftman’s standards, but I don’t have much time available and eggs are a-coming!
The 6×6x4 “security-enhanced” dog kennel is below. In this area they can hop around and feed in the morning while waiting for one of us to get up and let them out for the day. The top is a basic A-frame design. The 2/3rds on the right is a roosting area, while the left 3rd is divided into four good-sized nesting boxes (the roof line makes two boxes out of the empty spaces on the ends. I hear that chickens often will share nesting boxes, so I didn’t want to build too many. I can always add some more on the right if necessary.
The floor is mesh, to allow the droppings to simply fall through or be washed through into the grass with a hose. Access to the main area is through the double doors on the right, and a large lifting panel on the left that exposes the eggs. The mesh on the floor of the nest boxes slopes down from the interior to the egg access flap, and also from the sides to the middle. Hopefully the eggs will roll towards the back as intended. I plan to line the boxes with some closed cell foam, which is easy to spray clean and hopefully less messy and less work than moving straw in and out as I am doing now.
Chicken access is via a hole in the floor mesh near the double doors. I have to build a nice little ramp for them. The roofing will be done next weekend, time permitting. I’m planning to use plastic roofing to save weight, plus a roof cap. Right now the top can be lifted by two adults with moderate effort. Unless I put wheels on it, we still need to be able to move it from time to time as the chickens are hard on the grass. The grass recovers nicely due to all the droppings, but they are just constantly pecking and scratching the ground.
Key: R20091101-214542-levels
For those readers mildly interested in the chicken story whose genesis was documented in Chickens, Anyone? I have a couple of updates:
One of the chickens was killed (and eaten) by our dog, Lily. Lily and the chickens had been alone together in the back yard for months without incident. I really and truly believed that she was not going to harm them. I guess the temptation one day was too great. After that I put in some fencing to keep them apart during the day. I again (naively) thought that although I couldn’t trust her with them alone any more, at least she wouldn’t harm them while I was around. Well, we nearly lost another one while my back was turned. Fortunately my daughter was walking out into the yard, thought that she had killed another one and yelled out. I turned around and she had another one by the throat. I yelled at her and she backed off. The chicken, mercifully, was unhurt. The killing shake had not yet been administered, the one I’ve seen so often with her throw toys. Lily is now kept separated from the chickens until they are all safely in the coop for the night. She’s a good dog in all other respects, and I’ve accepted that she’s not really ever going to be able to be trained to resist that urge completely. For her size and heredity especially so, perhaps. So the brood is down to seven.
On a more positive note, I had been feeling like it was high time that I started getting some nesting boxes put together, because we were approaching the time when the chickens would be old enough to begin to lay eggs. I had been building an upper level addition on to the coop where they could roost for the night and also had nesting boxes. Well, they beat me to it, as evidenced from the photo above. So this weekend I put in a marathon effort to finish the upper story. I still have to get the roofing on (that’ll be next weekend’s project) but I strapped a tarp over the joists and it is functional now. I’ll be showing a couple of photos of that project tomorrow.
Key: ID1992_0054
Nothing much new happening here. Working too much, not enough time for photography. I’ve finished another round of scanning, though, a summer of backpacking in 1992. I cringe to look at some of the photos that I long thought were good. Check out that tilted horizon! Not that I have anything against tilted horizons, but they should be intentional. I suppose in another 15-20 years I’ll look at my current photography and cringe some more. Then again, maybe not. Such is the journey.
Well, it’s nice to get the photographs scanned decently in to digital format, where I can access them more readily. The slide projector was given away long ago. Now I just need to spend a few nights fixing up tilted horizons…or maybe not. We’ll see.
These photos bring back fond memories of the summer of fun 1992. My then girlfriend (now wife) and I went backpacking for most of the summer in Idaho, Montana and Alberta. This photo was taken only a couple of days into an 11-day backpacking trip in the River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho, the largest roadless area in the lower 48 states. It was a phenomenal trip and cemented a bond between us. How cool to have a girlfriend that loves backpacking! I can only dream now of doing an 11 day trip. Our packs were so heavy with 11 days worth of food and enough water to get us between streams in that somewhat arid land. This high country was early in the trip and things got hotter as we descended from the alpine lakes to the rivers. That was some wild country, and we scarcely saw anyone except a few rafting parties on the river. I remember when we got out there was a little camping supplies shop where we bought a couple of big ice cream cones. Any other time they would have been great, but after 11 days of backpacking and light eating in the hot sun it seemed so heavy and unnatural inside once I’d finished it. I couldn’t keep it down.
|
