Quickly moving sheep pass the hay wagon on May morning, early. A great start to this week.
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Ewe, Lambs with abandoned hay wagon.
This mountainside pasture is grazed by a flock of sheep alongside a long unused farm wagon. Slievenaglogh Townland, Cooley Peninsula, County Louth, Ireland.
This is the fifth of a series using the Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L USM lens.
Here is a recap of recent posts with the 200 and 24 mm lens. Can you tell the difference?
This breed may be a Balwen Welsh Mountain sheep, as it fits the description. When the ewe caught sight of me, she hightailed it for cover, the lambs followed.
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Ewe and Lambs
The Balwen is bred for meat and that is the rule in this area, the lambs are sold.
The description is of a black color with a white blaze on the face, four white “socks” and white on the tail. This individual is missing a white tale, so might be a Shetland and even more so as the others of the herd are white (Shetlands are a variety of colors), Shetland is common and the other rare.
These are on the hillside of Slievenaglogh Townland, County Louth, Ireland.
This is the fourth of a series using the Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L USM lens.
Sunrise for Florida, January, is roughly a quarter past 7 am. Most mornings this year I was on the beach for a morning, pre-dawn, walk camera in hand. This day, the 9th, the clouds were promising, no to heavy on the horizon and scattered, cumulus clouds otherwise. For the promise I brought the full frame Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon lens 24 mm f/1.4L II USM fitted with a graduated .6 ND filter sitting on top of a Manfrotto BeFree Carbon fiber tripod.
A graduated neutral density filter has a portion shaded with gray to produce a “2 stop” difference in exposure between the darkest shade and clear glass with, between, a gradual feathered reduction in shade. In this way, the dark foreground and bright sky are balanced.
A carbon fiber tripod folds into a compact shape. At about 2.5 pounds it fits into a suitcase with the least weight possible for a reasonably stable platform. Using it, I am able to take a sequence of frames of the identical scene, changing camera settings as I go along.
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Exposure: 1/6 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
Sunlight, low in the western sky, was perfect for mirror-like reflections in the retreating surf.
Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
In a few weeks, after the “Slievenaglogh View” series now underway, I will present a week of these images moving from pre-dawn to sunrise.
A slide show of these images. Use is to compare the effect of longer vs shorter exposure time and f-stop.
Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
Exposure: 1/6 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
On Tuesday, December 17, 2019 a caterpillar dropped from vegetation to crawl across the parking lot of Sonic Drive-In, 2140 N Courtenay Pkwy, Merritt Island, FL 32953, crawl up an order station, affix its tail to the kelly green semi-gloss enamel, to form a chrysalis.
The afternoon of New Years Eve, 14 days later, we spied the Retro theme of this fast food business, finding it appealing, stopped for a hi-fat lunch of hamburgers, onion rings (“highly recommended, very delicious”) and (ha, ha) diet sodas, choosing this same order station where the emerged Brush-foot butterfly, of the family Nymphalidae, clung, drying in anticipation of flight.
Captured here with the Apple IPhone 8. I cannot identify the exact butterfly species this is. Source: wikipedia article on Nymphalidae.
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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
The elements come into focus, revealing Ludlowville Falls, near Lansing, New York. On the eastern side of Cayuga Lake, Salmon Creek plunges 35 feet over this limestone shelf. Pioneers constructed a grist mill at this site.
Here we see The Fang hanging over the entrance to The Cave. There is falling water overall, but especially the center section (can you see it?). The weight of accumulated ice fractured a portion of the frozen cascade.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 