ISS with a Dragon on its Tail.

 

Have you ever stepped outside and watched the ISS or International

Space Station fly over?  If you haven't you should and if you have, tune

in tomorrow night and watch the Dragon chase the ISS across the sky.

I shot this sequence of shots tonight as the ISS passed overhead, I looked

 for the Dragon but it was too far down on the horizon.  Tomorrow night

they should be close enough together to see them both in the same orbit.

The photos were shot with a Canon T4i iso400 30 second exposure 

at 4.5 using a Canon EFS10-22..

Check out this NASA website to see when the ISS will fly over your house. 

After Years, Hummingbirds!

 

After years of trying, it happened in an instant.

Mrs. Getawaymoments spotted a hummingbird in our garden.

We watched for a minute and then it zipped away.

For years we had grown hummingbird friendly plants with no luck.

Our house sits in the middle of a huge housing development, a desert

of sorts.  About two miles from our house is a street called Hummingbird Lane,

so I figured there must be some hummingbirds in the area.  For ten plus

years we have waited to see a visitor, success at last.

It appears to be a male Ruby Throated, if you know send me a message.

After our first spotting, we both sat in the garden waiting for a chance

to photograph our new visitor.  My first morning shots are above, with

a sample of the shots we have gotten since. It is quite a challenge

getting photos of a hummingbird eating, especially one NOT at a feeder.

Firebush seems to be the plant that finally worked in enticing them

to come for a visit.

Stay tuned as we document these little guys in the future.

Harvesting Sweet Potatoes

This summer I decided to give sweet potatoes a bigger piece of real estate in

my garden.  I like the flowers, my wife likes the potatoes.  I grew them last year

as an experiment, we had a store bought sweet potato that started to bolt. So, like

any good gardener geek, I planted it.  We got a few potatoes but the best surprise

were the flowers.  See video click here.  This year I planted two full beds and a

corner bed with the little seed potatoes from last year.  I trained the vines up

the fence to maximize growing space. As you can see below, we got quite a

few sweet potatoes and plenty of seed potatoes for next summer.

So one left over store bought sweet potato has now become several meals

and I still have two beds to dig.

Back yard gardening is no joke, it's good eats. 

GoPro Hero2 Macro Test Shots

A couple weeks ago, I shot a video of crazy ants carrying away a dead lizard.

The video is very funny but technically it was crap...... out of focus.

It got me thinking, GoPro cameras are very good POV sports cameras but

they have no macro capability.  So I went digging in my camera heap and

came up with this GoPro Frankenstein below.  Funny thing, it works.

See the test video here.

It's a very simple temporary set-up, I used two rubber bands to hold

a small macro lens in-front of the GoPro housing.  You could use tape as well.

The little macro lens is part of a Bower Super Wide angle lens I got for

my Sony camcorders.  The macro lens unscrews from the wide angle element.

There is a permentent way to put a macro lens on a GoPro but it requires

taking the GoPro apart and screwing in a new lens.  So?  Do you have an

old macro lens in your pile of photo gear?  You may just have a way to get

 cool macro shots with your GoPro.

Crazy Ants

My garden has been under a frenetic assault by Crazy Ants.

Crazy Ants you say? Oh yeah they are crazy!  I have no idea what specific

kind of ants these are, if you know please leave a comment below.

I posted a video today, click on this link to watch.  

The video speaks for itself, there is nothing these ants won't try to conquer.

I have watched as they have taken anything dead for a walk.

These ants forage in mass and take no prisoners.  All very good

until they broke the first rule of my science project/ victory garden.

They tried to take my house.

Saturday morning we had to call in an airstrike and nuke the invading army.

Did it work?  We will see.  

The question now is who will clean up the dead lizards?

GoPro Hero3 Wish List

Update 2: I have a new post about speculation surrounding a new Hero 4
Check it out, click here.
and a new video check it out, click here.

 

Update: I purchased a Hero3 Black Edition and have now done

a review and first look.

Check out my new blog post here.

And my new YouTube video here.

 

Ah, the inevitable product cycle. If you are a regular reader of this blog, or

viewer of my Youtube Channel you know that I am a big user and fan of

GoPro Cameras.  Not quite as fanatical as an Apple fan.

It has been almost a year since the last GoPro Camera came out and I figured

I would make a video and post of my wish list for the next Hero.

I own most of the product line and make everything else I need from scratch.

Above and below are my three Heros, the Original Wide Hero the HD Hero

and the newest Hero2.

So what is on my wish list for the next Hero?

1.  The camera needs a 1/4 20 tripod mount

2. It needs to be black. The fact is the Hero

is being used for professional tv

 production and it needs to blend in,

 not stick out. 

3.  It needs exposure lock or some form of

manual settings for exposure and

color balance.

 That is the quick wish list, I am not one of these folks that expects DSLR

features out of a three hundred dollar POV camera.  However, there are

new competitors coming into the market and some features can be

tweaked easily.  I was going to post a review of the Hero2, but I never

got around to it.  I did want to mention, I like the new lens and sharper

sensor, I like the half second interval in time-lapse mode. I like the LED

light on the top and bottom of the camera, see below.  And last but not

least, I like that you can choose to put the LCD screen on the camera.

I like POV cameras to be small and cheap, I hope GoPro continues

to make their cameras and accessories expandable so I don't have

 to go buy new accessories with every new model. HUM HUM

Are you listening Canon and Sony? 

Feeding Frenzy

After a thorough soaking last night, I stepped out into the back yard this morning

to find a feeding frenzy.  I haven't see this much activity all summer.

Green bees, Miner bees everywhere. The Green bees jump on each other,

I don't know if they are mating or fighting, but check out the two shots below.

If you want to see more Miner Bees, above, check out this video.

Gulf Fritillarys, below, made their return after being absent most of the summer.

Mrs. Getawaymoments, captured an excellent shot of a Mud Dauber below.

The sight of these guys give me chills, creepy.

Today's big surprise, the arrival of our first documented visit by Florida's

own state butterfly, the Zebra Longwing.

I found them hard to photograph, they are not fast but they are constantly

on the move.  If you don't have some butterfly/bee friendly plants in your

yard, you should pant some you will not be disappointed.