Chickadee Little The Kung Fu Master

I could not believe what I saw through my lens the other day. However, before I go on, have you ever watched martial arts movies where martial arts students had to practice catching a fly with chopsticks. I did many times, it looks easy but it is not. Speaking for myself only, because some of you out there might have this talent naturally. I am a big fan of Bruce Lee. Its not a secret that I did study martial arts in the past - Shaolin Kung Fu, Wing Chun and Tai Chi. The worst part is that I have not done it for few years now and I suck a big time. Oh well, may be one day I will be able to chop something like a brick, but for now I will stick with chopping vegetables.

Okay, let me tell you then what I saw. I was photographing this juvenile black capped chickadee who was singing away on the tree. Then suddenly I see him with the fly in his beak. Just like that. I don't know how he did, but he did it, and he is little too - so I named him Chickadee Little The Kung Fu Master. Check out the second image. By time time I took that photo the fly was on its way into his throat. And this also tells you how I would catch the fly with chopsticks, or not. As a matter of fact I have trouble grabbing rice with them too. I am just slow, and may be because I enjoyed the moment. Oh well, this little bird was nice to watch.

These little walks we have these days are always full of fun - and Matthew makes it all happen. I know that all of you are busy or enjoying summer, so to read another post may take up some time. However, if you want to just see Matthew's latest pictures you can check them out on my story blob blog.

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A Bit of Knowledge: What a Habit, a Forest and the ISO Setting Have in Common

Nothing really, just thought it will be interesting title for my post. However, this bit of knowledge tip has nothing to do with a digital camera technicalities, and probably some of you don't want to be bother with. This post has to do with our habits we need to work on, or let's just say I need to work on. So you are a nature person, and if you on the lookout for birds and animals you need to be sometimes fast, and if it is something rare, boy then you really need to be fast. One turn and your object of interest may run away or fly away. Therefore, if you are going into a deep forest and you have limited time because of the moving object, then do this - before entering increase your ISO accordingly. For the longest time I would come from hiking in the forest, and yet be very disappointed with my photos quality, especially nice action photos, yet blurred. This time I made a point to increase ISO to 400 or 800, and yet happy results - I think I can live with graininess, but not blurriness. Small tip if applicable - sometimes you can use flash if you wish, but it will not work with telephoto lenses.

I am actually happy with the above photo. It could have been better, but I couldn't do much about background. Its the bit of back light on the squirrel on this photo that I am not that happy about, but still, I am satisfied. Lastly, if you notice the photo has green tint. Interesting enough, in this area every time I take photos, I always get this green natural light shining on the object. It happened the same when I took photo of Matthew once too in the same spot - he looked a bit green to me when I processed the photo, wasn't sure why.

What is so nice about digital SLR or digital point and shoot cameras today? The ISO can be changed on the fly. The newer cameras now have also less graininess, and some have higher ISO than 1600. Do you remember the conventional SLR? Yes, ISO was function of the film we used to shoot with.

Lastly, speaking of habits. If comes to operating a digital camera I have few more bad habits. The list goes like that - sometimes I forget to take the cup of the lens, I forget to put back the flash card after download [I did it many times, and I did with film too], and many times I forget to change to default settings when I take moon photos the night before. This is because I don't change it right after, and I am fanatic if comes to shooting objects in action - I am fast, but not fast enough to think about changing my settings. So I thought this would be a nice exercise to work on my bad habits.

The above photo was taken at our local Shepard's Bush Conservation Area, Aurora, Ontario - so be on the lookout for that tint of green light and of course the squirrel.
'Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as are bad habits' ~ by Robert Puller quotes

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