West Bay Marina, Light Gardening

Canon S3 IS, 1/1600 sec., F/5.0, focal length: 6.0mm, on Sept 25th, bright, sunny day. The West Bay Marina is home to the Victoria Harbor Ferries, to some fabulous house boats, as well as big yachts.

Blogger is very busy so I will load my other prepared photo later.

I cleaned up my light garden, fed and watered the plants. It took me 4 hours to do this. It looks better, for sure. I see that 3 of the dendrobiums have tiny buds, so they should appreciate the food.

A couple of days ago we drove to the Songees development and walked to the West Bay Marina to see the house boats. There was a big caravan meet in the camp site just above the Marina. Huge million dollar motorhomes. Its a different world down there in that little corner of town. We had lunch at the Fin and Gill (quite good) and walked back, past Spinnakers to our van, with waterfront all along the way. A lovely day.

I got a couple of okay photos. I am slowly getting more comfortable with my new camera. Love the long lens. On the same card I did a black and white and a sepia, also a vivid colors all in camera. The black and white is very nice. The sepia is not bad. I wonder if there is a way that I can make the sepia or black and white look like IR. Maybe in Photoshop. But that's for another day.

Model T tour, house painting

Model T - Camera: Canon S3 IS, 1/800 sec., F/4.0
Click photo to enlarge

Rust - Camera: Canon S3 IS, 1/1600 sec., F/7.1, exposure comp: -0.67, totally zoomed on the 12x lens from a distance of about 400 feet

We are having the outside of the house and the garage painted. I had to cut down all my plants that were around the garage - the evergreen clematis, the grape, a rhodo, and the jasmines. Hopefully they will all grow again. The jasmine and the clematis are both very fragrant. But these plants are high maintenance over the garage, since I don't do ladders. Perhaps if they regrow, I can make them go up over the roof. The guy who did the roof said the plants would not hurt it. I found someone to haul away the pile of twigs and clippings for $45.00 & gst.

Trevor the Painter, from Home Depot, is doing a very thorough job.

I got the lawn mowed yesterday. I shall get some hedging cedars and/or burning bush shrubs, as well as a couple more heathers. The front is going to become lower maintenance and less messy looking hopefully. I should get a big bag of bark mulch to cover the wretched violets that spread everywhere. Pam said she liked them, but I find them way too invasive. They are good in a confined area, like my Bishop's weed is contained. I must get rid of the daylilies on Parmar's sidewalk and move the montebretias to the front rectanglular beds.

Anacortes, Washington, USA

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A picturesque stump I found on our way to view more beautiful scenery in the Anacortes area. Used my Canon S3 IS.

Some scenery in the Anacortes area - S3 IS.


I am learning all the things my new camera (Canon Powershot S3 IS)can do. High ISO produces some pretty bad noise. I made a sound clip from within the 'play' mode. Still have lots to learn. When we get back from our trip I think I will order the extras - lens hood, converter, extra telephoto and maybe the wide and the macro. I still have much to learn about it.

This Can-Am Model T Ford tour had some excellent scenery to learn. The weather was sunny and bright. I have photos for my "rust" "hydrants" "landscapes" "sky" "boats" "bridges" "Travel - West Coast USA 2006" and some good ones for the "travel - Model Ts" albums on my page.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were given a room with a sitting area, huge bedroom and nice bath with jacuzzi tub, fireplace, kitchenette. Was grand. We are so lucky.

Barbed

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This is at the ferry terminal in Sidney on our way to the Can-Am Model T tour at Anacortes. One of the last photos I used my old Canon Powershot A50. The previous 2 photos were with the S3 IS.


This photo reminds me of the situation at Photo.net. Some of the people have left, joined Flickr and set up what they call a discussion group. They discuss their complaints about the new management at Photo.net. It reads like I imagine an AA meeting might read. These people really are addicts. Pretty incredible.

Ray Fraser the new moderator of the site feed back forum attended and rattled their chain a bit. Mary Ball, the moderator of the Wedding photography forum, attended to try her diplomacy to no avail. Brian Mottershead, the former editor in chief, attended to tell them all that he will be setting up another photography critique site of his own and inviting them to come on over. They pretty well peed in his pocket. Some have deleted their accounts on PN. I saw no appearance by one of the main perpetrators of this debacle, Sly Silvi. Its better than the Soaps on TV. Too bad its not video.

But I have been spending far too much time there. So, today, I went and did some shopping for our upcoming Panama Canal cruise. While at the mall, I found some good deals on bedding and towels. Pat arrived at the mall just about the time I was finished. He did his shopping and we packed it all into the saddle bags on his West Coast Honda. Man, that bike holds a lot of cargo.

We have been having some gorgeous weather.

UPDATE: Nov. 1/06 I have taken out sly silvi's name on the post. It seems my blog is getting hits from porno seekers who have put her name into their engines. ewwwwwww! yach!

Can-Am Model T meet - Anacortes

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Some of the cars at L'Conner where we had time to shop and explore.

Sunrise at the ferry terminal on our way home on Sunday.

Last week end we took the ferry to Anacortes for the annual Can-Am Model T Ford meet. We took our BMW as we thought we would probably just get rained on again in our open Speedster. Wouldn't you know it, the weather was perfect all week-end. 6 or 7 other cars were on the ferry from Victoria. None of the Campbell River people made it this year, and that's very unusual. We had an excellent tour. Dan and Irene had to bring their Smart car, as their T broke the fan belt on the way out of the driveway. So, the four of us rode about together in the beemer. Was nice not to have to navigate in the wind and rain. The instructions were tough enough for Dan and they live in the area. There was some magnificent scenery. We stopped at Deception Pass, and other very interesting points. I forgot my trip book, so, might have to go back to the route instructions to find out where we were. Its a gorgeous place, much like our own town. Its growing like mad, also, just as we are.

Black and White Conversions

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Playing with some digital converstions to black and white. One of the pier at Sidney and the other of a sailing ship shot from the Anacortes ferry on our return trip to Sidney. The pier is with the Canon Powershot A50 and the Ship is with my new Canon S3 IS and its 12x lens. That ship was a looooooong way from the ferry. I love this long lens and all the rest of the stuff I am just starting to learn.
I did a sound byte with it after shooting photos. This is done in the playback mode. I can do audio in the shooting mode as well, of course, along with movies. The playback mode does 1 minute clips. The movie mode runs for an hour, I believe, or as long as the battery is alive, which ever comes first. The sound clip I did in playback mode was clear. I can set the volume for recording and for playback of any audio.

Island Challenge

This is about the only good photo I got from the Island Challenge tour (pre 1927 cars). We toured around Victoria to some interesting places I have never been to before. It was good to see everyone. No one from Campbell River will be at this week-end's Can Am. That leaves us to speak to holding the meet in Canada next year. I hope Finalys are there, and can volunteer to hold it somewhere on the mainland next year.

I have 3 jars (apx 1 cup) of blanched plums, frozen. Gave some to A & T. I picked the grapes also, and shared them. When we get back from this week end, I should pick more blackberries to freeze. We are eating tomatoes (few) and spinach from the garden.

Today, a most wonderful boquet arrived at our house. The Grants send their thanks for the B & B. The flowers are a very classy move. They are gorgeous and have a lovely vase with them too.

I am taking my 35mm Canon, my old digital, and my new S3 IS on this short trip. Hope I get an opportunity to get some good shots to finish off the Velvia on the 35mm. I am anxious to see how the time exposures turned out... or not -- probably or not.

I have been spending hours and hours on this beta blog stuff. Mainly due to my limited knowledge of how things work.

I have been spending quite a bit of time reading on photo.net too. Philip Greenspun has taken back the management of the site. He has run Brian M. off the site, it seems. Nasty stuff. Must wait and see how things shape up with all the revisions. It might be a totally new and interesting site. I would not doubt that Brian will surface again. Hopefully with a web page critique site. That would be fun.

The wars continue in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Not something I like to think about at all.

Blogger, Harvest, S3 IS, Boquet

The sky was on fire tonite. Red sky at nite, sailor's delight. We should have nice weather for tomorrow, then. Hopefully, no rain. We have our stuff packed to load onto the Model T. This should be a fun week end.

I have been spending quite a lot of time obsessing over my blog and the switch to the beta version. I wonder if this photo will load. All I see is the coding at the top, no picture. Well here goes... I guess I can always delete.

First Post to New Beta Blogger

Here goes the first post on my blog after trying to figure out how to get my site feed settings right so that the photos show up on VFXY properly.

This is a problem for me as I am not very knowledgeable about HTML and have *nada* CSS knowledge. I shall have to learn to make my own blog on my own domain. Not today, though.

Here goes anyway. VFXY may have to rethink including my present blog in their site. SIGH. I really like the place, but if I am going to be a nuisance they might as well send me to Conventry.

This problem is about as prickly as that plant. This is one of the photos I will be adding to my walk - Fall on my web site page.

Hope this works, for now.

More Malta and more harvest

Some of the ancient houses on Gozo Island. These are well worth the short ferry ride and visit to Gozo Island. There is a museum with many of the artifacts taken from this area, including mother goddess figures. I have about 2/3 of the photos for this album resized and ready to load to my travel page.

We have harvested about 8 lbs. of these plums today. Very sweet and good when ripe.

Last nite we all went to the Stonehouse pub for dinner. Pat piled us all into the Bentley. Good
food. No pictures.

I spent hours yesterday loading the software (zoom browser) that came with my S3 IS, and playing with it. I think I need to hook the camera direct to the computer for some of the actual features of the software to work. It would not process my RAW that were loaded directly to the computer. Blah. I can use my Adobe Raw Converter. Its really very good. I will need to update it when I get my newer dslr, though.

Philip Greenspun has taken over photo.net and is in the process of re-working the site. Lot of changes going to happen. Looks like we might be able to sell anything that is of a decent print size from our portfolios.

Travel - Sicily

I have a few more photos tweaked and resized for the Malta trip in 2003 on the Travel page of my web page.

S3 IS

This is about one tenth of the total frame of 1.94 mb, cut out of the middle of the photo, saturated slightly and USM in Paintshop Pro. Its part of a huge dried flowers arrangement that I have made over the years, using dried flowers from my garden. They are all contained in a lovely big mossy green vase. This one was not zoomed on the lens. When I zoom it I can get very very close from where I was sitting 6 feet away from the subject. It has a super macro setting too. Does short movies, and sound bytes. Man, this little camera is fun. The 4 AA alkaline batteries have been running through all this time. The NiMH AA batteries are charged and ready to go though. And the 1 GB SD card is formatted and ready to go also. I am using the little card that came with, for practise though.

I just got my Canon Powershot S3 IS. It has a 12X lens, which was the main attraction. I am familiar with most of the shooting modes from my 35mm Canon Elan 7e. But that long lens is great, so far. I still have much more to learn in using this little camera. I find the buttons are rather small and hard to manage. They seem to be less than half the size of the Elan's. And I have small hands. I cannot imagine how anyone with bigger fingers would be able to turn it off, without using a pen or stylus of some kind. Turning it on would be even more difficult.

Last night I had the Elan set out to try capture star trails again. I wiped the mist a couple of times, through the night. The camera was up from about 9 pm to 5 am. That is the last I am going to try with this fujichrome Velvia 50. It is not really a fast enough film to use for this. It probably is all fogged out anyway. Its a 36 exposure roll, so I have about 8 shots left to find something good to shoot, in good bright light.

Harvest

We have been having tomatoe sandwiches with tomatoes from the garden for lunch. There are not very many out there though. The cumcumber has 2 cukes, is all. The grapes are looking good. I think they will be ready to eat before the guys come to paint the garage and house trim. I will have to get my plants away from the garage, so they can do a good job of the painting. I might have to cut the grape, evergreen clematis, jasmines, all down. I will see how if any of them can just be pulled away, without breaking or cutting them off. There are a few purple plums out front. I am waiting for them to get completely ripe.

I took a few photos of the bear in the car for my 'bears' album on my page. I think the first one, the academic is still the best.

We had the barbeque last nite. About 15 people. On Saturday, I had picked about 2 1/2 pounds of blackberries in about an hour, across the street from our house. Then made 2 pies for dessert for the barbeque. The Grants did all the meats and veggies. Mmmmmm, some good cookin'.

Filled the pond this morning. I have 2 goldfish left. Guess the racoons got the rest. They got Gertie's corn from next door. I have yet to get a picture of the little bandits.