mother’s day treat: critters!

We were visited by the raccoon family last night; mother and four little ones. Please excuse the ‘painterly’ blur; it’s kinda hard to handhold a 300mm lens for 1/3s exposure. Plus, wee raccoons are speedy little things.

mom and baby raccoon

wee raccoon

wee raccoons

wee raccoon

This one was taken a few days back (of the mother alone) in better light:

mom raccoon

Splodges Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

Guess I’ll have to work on my sensor cleaning game, ‘cos this is what I see (a blue sky, with contrast racked way up, and at 2x scale) on the bottom right of my D70 sensor:

post-cleaning splodges on the sensor of my D70

The other troublesome marks are gone, so I guess it kinda works. I used the American Recorder Digital Sensor Swab Kit from Henry’s, and the mirror lock up instructions from brams.dk.

Y’know, that pattern of splodges looks awfully like the indentations on the end of the swab …

It’s pouring at Erie Shores

Pouring a turbine foundation, Erie Shores Windfarm
I was at Erie Shores on Wednesday, and this is the first turbine base of this size I’ve seen poured. They’re pretty big, but then, they do have to support a 77m diameter turbine on an 80m tower.

The picture’s taken from here.

teh wide!

Big TrainThe Wrong End of a Field Gun
A couple of test images from my Sigma 10–20mm lens. You have to get really close to things; for example, the front element of the lens was about a hand’s breadth away from the muzzle of the field gun.

The lens handles flare pretty well (the Super Wide Heliar 15mm sometimes went to pieces), and the D70 meters the wide lens accurately. I’m happy.