Posts Made By: Fred Lusk

I had a little time to kill yesterday while driving from Fresno to a meeting in Sacramento. Just south of the Stockton Airport there is a park that right now is ringed with mustard. I spent about half an hour shooting flowers and bees with my Olympus E-1 and 50-200 mm lens. Shooting bees is not easy, but I got some good ones. Here are two of the best.

My latest toy is an Olympus OM 500 mm f/8 mirror lens. I wanted one years ago, but couldn't afford it, then my priorities changed and funds for toys went elsewhere. Recently the KEH website listed a used one in nearly pristine condition, so I jumped on it. I plan to use the lens for piggybacked astrophotography with my OM cameras, and as a wildlife lens on my E-1 DSLR during an upcoming trip to Yellowstone. On the E-1, the field of view is equivalent to a 1000 mm lens on a 35 mm camera.

Tonight I had a few minutes in the midst of the church youth group I run so I grabbed a few moon shots with the lens mounted to my E-1. Considering I balanced the camera on the back of an SUV for support, I think this turned out OK. All I did to the original jpeg is convert it to B&W and crop the frame.

Fred

I had a meeting in Sacramento Friday morning, and rather than drive straight back to Fresno I took a detour through Yosemite (I did the same thing last month). Here is a deer I saw near Curry Village.

Friday I took yet another detour through my favorite national park after a morning meeting in Sacramento. This is an unnamed waterfall on Cascade Creek.

Thanks to the wonderful images posted by Rick and Christine, I added Mattheissen SP to the itinerary of our trip to Chicago. My wife has a conference, and I get to play tourist.

#1 = Along the trail to Lake Falls

Fred

My wife and I are in Chicago for a week. She had a conference, and I am playing tourist. Thursday evening we attended a rain delay that was periodically interrupted by a White Sox / Yankees baseball game . Here are a few shots from the early innings. We left at the end of the 5th inning because we had an hour drive back to our hotel. BTW, our seats were in foul territory 21 rows up from the right field foul pole.

The first shot was taken with a 500 mm f/8 mirror lens on my Olympus E-1 (the FOV equals that of a 1000 mm lens on a 35 mm camera). I don't follow the American League because their pitchers don't bat . Thus, I'm not sure which Yankee is up to bat.

BTW, none of these photos are cropped.

Fred

Hello…

I finally got around to posting my Moon Over Yosemite time lapse sequence to our club website. I had previously posted (April 20) three frames from the sequence.

Here is the link http://cvafresno.org/?page_id=10

Fred

Jim…

I am nearing 50. Politically, I am fiscally conservative and socially conservative to moderate depending on the issue. I have usually voted for Republicans based on common viewpoints, but have voted for others a few times when I thought the Republican was no good (funny thing though, each time I didn't vote for the Republican, he won).

This election really annoys me. I am no fan of McCain, but am even less fond of Obama. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, I rate McCain a 2 and Obama a 1. I would also rate Hillary a 1 if she were the Democrat's candidate, but for different reasons.

McCain is currently talking a better game than he plays, but sooner or later the real McCain will come through. He claims to be a conservative, but he is one on only certain issues. Mostly I think he's a bit crazy. His age bothers me a little, but I think he's in good enough health for one term (which is what I think Hillary secretly desires).

Obama is currently blowing smoke. His public utterances are mostly devoid of substance, and what substance he does provide is generally contrary to my way of thinking. I am race neutral, so his ancestry doesn't concern me at all. Also, Obama's inexperience doesn't worry as much as it does most other people. After all, Abraham Lincoln was very inexperienced when he won the White House. The difference is that Lincoln was very obviously a man of great depth and substance (see the Lincoln-Douglas debates), while Obama comes across as an empty suit. He may be bright and have a top-notch law degree, but if he sticks to what he has said so far, I and a lot of other retired high school debaters could crush him. BTW, I'm for "change" too....I happen to have $0.75 worth of it in my pocket.

I may end up voting for myself for President

Greetings everyone. I haven't posted anything in a while, mainly because I haven't had anything to post until recently. On the 1st and 2nd of this month our club had a star party / campout at Courtright Reservoir, which is located east of Fresno at 8200' elevation in the Sierra Nevada. Cameras used were Olympus OM-1N with Fuji Provia 400 and Olympus OM-4T with Kodak Elitechrome 200. Lenses included 24 mm f/2.8 Zuiko and 50 mm f/1.4 Zuiko.

Here is a 4 hour 40 minute star trail with what appears to be an early Perseid meteor. Taken with the OM-4T and 24 mm lens.

Fred

My wife and I spent yesterday in Yosemite. Our first trip since December. While wandering the two islands at Happy Isles (they really are happy ), we spotted this squirrel. He took about a 3 second break, then went back to chasing his friend. This isn't a great photo, but offers a nice counterpoint to the next one.