Sunset

Playing with sunsets.  I guess I am in a dark mood right now.  Or you can say I like the Crepuscular Rays.  There was a heavy marine layer this day.

Or the angry look.

The face is revealed.

Panoramic

Found another toy.  I've always wanted to do panoramic shots.  I have even toyed with getting a panoramic camera but this would be a specialty camera for me, I have put that decision off.

I've known about software to do this and even attempted to use them.  This weekend we took a short trip to Bodega Bay and I tried shooting a few scenes that could later combine into a panorama.  That night I took another look to see what was out there and came across Nugin.

To my surprise I loaded the individual pictures in, clicked align and voila it created a panoramic picture that was surprisingly good.


This is a picture generated from 6 pictures of 'A Hole in the Head' pit.

A little history of the Hole.

Next I wanted to see if it could patch together a 2D map.  Here are the group of pictures stitched together.  This is a small cove out on Bodega head.


Resulted in this:

The next day we went to Fort Ross.  Here I tried an indoor shot.  This is one of the workshops with all the lathes lined up.  This was 3 indoor shots.

Lastly, this is one of the small coves behind Fort Ross.  It just so happened that my daughter spotted a Grey Whale in this cove.  From the picture, it would be on the left side about half way down.  This was not a full grown whale and we did not see the adult.  Hopefully this calf was temporarily separated and makes it.

Overall, it does a nice job of blending the images together and creating a single image but I have noticed that it can over process some parts of the picture, thus it can save as a tiff and I may be able to fix things after the image is created.  Not as nice as working from the RAW but this seems to be a good alternative to an expensive camera.

Strudel works

One of my other things that I like to do is bake.  I like to keep things simple but yet try to do things more traditional.  Thus I have tried not to take too many shortcuts.  So when our German friend mentioned he missed real apple strudel, I figured I could find a recipe on the web (If I couldn't my Google-fu would need some real help.) and try to make it.  The real daunting part of the recipe is the pastry shell.

Now most recipes that I found say basically to use phyllo dough and I knew how thin that was.  Fear not, I tried it and found that making dough this thin was actually pretty easy.  The hard part became getting the thing onto the pan.

So here is the base recipe that I followed.  I like their recipe and instructions and so did our German friend.

http://www.kitchenproject.com/german/strudel/index.htm

I only took photos of the build.  I forgot to take a picture of it finished and when the night was over there was only a small 6 inch piece left.

Here is after the big stretch.  They say to use a dark cloth so you can see how thin it gets.  I might have been able to get it a bit thinner in sections but I ran out of table.  This actually surprised me, I did not think I would be able to get it this big.  Also note that the table is about 40 inches wide.

Here I am getting ready to add the filler.  A couple of notes about what I changed.  I added a bit of nutmeg along with the cinnamon and allspice in the recipe.  I also did not have breadcrumbs, so my wife suggested oatmeal.  I toasted the oatmeal just like I would have the breadcrumbs and everyone thinks that turned out just fine.  I also doubled the amount of apples, you can never have too many apples.  Lastly, I added a bit of almond extract to the vanilla that the apples marinated in.

Here also I made a small change.  I did use the walnuts, my mom would be very surprised.  I also used crasins instead of the rasins.  I just used about double the amount since the recipe called for both rasins and currents.

Here is the big roll.  The cloth really does help in rolling it.  I also did a little flipping action on the sides to get them curled up.  One thing to remember is to flour the cloth all the way to the far edge.  This is where you are going to roll it onto the pan and if you forget to flour that section, you will get a bit of sticking.  (I forgot and had to gently pull away the cloth.)  Also make sure to spray the baking pan with non-stick if you want to move this thing some after it hits the pan.  And yes you can bend it into the horseshoe shape without tearing.

And this is what was left.  I did bake it for almost the full 45 minutes since I had so many apples.  Actually, I could have taken it out about the 35 minute mark for a bit firmer apple texture.

Now maybe I will try a 'Napoleon Torte'.  The Lithuanian Bakery in Omaha makes a really good one but there are so far away.  Maybe I could make something that could come close.  This is another thin pastry desserts.

So if I can do it, you can to.  Just give it a try.

Moon

Tonights moon

C90 test

Well since I have been posting picture from this spotting scope, I figure I should say something about it.

First off it is a Celestron C90.  Which I picked up from Optics Planet.  I happen to get it on sale.

http://www.opticsplanet.net/celestron-90mm-maksutov-spotting-scope-package-52268-op-90mm-spotting-scope-with-trip.html

Also from this link you will see all the pieces that come with it.  I also purchased a T-ring 2x Barlow tube and a T-ring to Nikon adaptor for my Nikon D7000.  What I learned later is that the C90 actually has a built-in T-ring and I did not have to purchase the Barlow tube.

T-ring Barlow  Nikon T-ring adaptor

So some general comments about these pictures.  I really just wanted to see what the C90 was capable of.  I was in the Berkeley marina shooting across the SF bay to the Golden Gate Bridge.  This is about 8 to 9 miles away.  It also was a hazy day which did not really clear up.  And lastly, there is a lot of vignette in the images, it became more pronounced when I enhanced the images.  (The enhancements made the picture a bit more visible, thus at this time it is a tradeoff that I can live with.)  Also all pictures except the 300mm one was taken with a tripod.  (The tripod provide with the C90 is not very sturdy, thus I used my old Bogen.)

This first picture the D7000 is attached directly to the C90.  This is a very secure connection since this makes the spotting scope seem almost like a camera lens.  This is nice because of the built-in T-ring adaptor that the C90 has.

Camera directly attached the the C90

This picture was taken with the camera attached to the Barlow tube and the Barlow tube was placed directly in-line in the C90.  The tube in this case is held into the C90 by 2 friction thumb screws.  These screws normally hold the eye-pieces in place.  In general if you are careful, this should be enough to hold things together.  You would not want to carry this around in this configuration.  This is very much a setup that you would leave on your tripod.

Camera attached to the T-ring Barlow tube

 Here I have placed the 2X lens in-line with the Barlow tube.  This was a little screw in lens at the end of the tube.  First thing that was real noticeable is the bright center.  I am pretty sure this is the center mirror of the lens.

Same as above except the 2X lens is attached to the Barlow tube

Here I just enhanced the photo with Aperture.  Now the center is very noticeable and you can also see chroma rainbows in the shot.  Simply too much magnification.  This would also explain why I could see the circular mirror patterns through the viewfinder.

This is the same shot except with my 300mm Nikon lens.  Yes a very hazy day.

This image actually came out nice.  It has that old time postcard look to it.  The vignette is desirable.

Overall the C90 is turning out to be a nice find.  Sure it is a manual focus lens.  It has no VR functions. I have to play with exposures and work on focusing.  Actually this lens may force me to because more technical in my picture taking.

Other interesting facts is that viewing through the 144X eyepiece looked about the same as the direct attached camera (if my memory serves me right), except that the eyepiece had a much wider field of view and was much brighter.  Because of this, I looked up eyepiece photograph.  This is basically mounting the camera on the back of a telescope/scope and projecting the image through the eyepiece into the camera.  This setup has the advantage that one can change magnification just by changing the eyepiece.  The major downside is the mount the camera sits on.  This looks like it could be the source of a lot of issues; but from the net, a lot of people are using it very successfully.  The type of camera is also an issue.  Most do not use a DSLR.

So enjoy and try something new.

La Jolla Beach

More pictures.  Learning about the camera better and the new spotting scope.

The following where taken with the spotting scope.  Getting better at focusing and exposure.

Actually just some fun pictures of Pelicans.  There certainly where a lot of them.

Also at the beach was a mom and pub seal.

And other animals.

Lastly, just playing with light.  Taking pictures into the sun with surf.