Well my little duck friend has been visiting our pond again. Here is quite literally "water off a ducks back"!!

{{!gwi}}

Beautiful birds, you two.

Here's William Baffin, climbing on the ice house:

Monarda/Bee Balm

Hi everyone! I'm back and here's where I've gone to:

my older son just graduated, hooray for all of us

Acapulco, as seen from the Celebrity Infinity cruise ship.

Jodi-

Lily, Mona Lisa.

Ron

Olympiad

That's a rose and a half, Nicole!

Susan....:0) Your William Baffin is bigger than mine.....WOW!

All those photos look so good I feel almost ashamed to even offer mine, but perhaps if I layout the situation you may see some redeeming quality in it....LOL

It has been cold, overcast and raining every day for the last week so Jan & I could not go out on our Photo Walkabouts.

Today it was still gray and overcast but at least it warmed up a bit and the sun was peeking through occassionally so we decided to see what we might find.

We went to the Dr.Seause Memorial Park, but we could not get in because the road was closed for tornado cleanup so we decided to go to the botanical garden, but could not get there because the road was closed for construction, something about Obamas job project,,,

Went to the equestrian center to see them work the horses, but they were closed today to prepare for a function this coming weekend.

We finally just went to a small private pond where we planned to just leisurely sit, drink our coffee and quietly meditate on how crazy things have been going lately.

We each shot a few scenics of the pond, then sat back to basically veg out. Having nothing particular in mind I decided to drag out my old 500mm manual focus preset aperture lens and attach it to my Pentax K10d DSLR. Switched the camera to MANUAL mode and began playing reminising how we did photography back in the old days.

I hung the lens on a tripod and began scanning across the lilly pads in hopes of seeing a frog or a turtle. All of the sudden I saw some movement about 300ft away so I swung the lens over to get a closer look. To my suprise, there was a Green Herron standing on a small log in the lilly pads. His camoflage was so good that I could not make him out with the naked eye.

Now, I will be the first one to tell you that this is not what I would call a quality photo, but considering I only paid $15 for this 500mm lens, and probably got took at that price, I am not totally unhappy with the result, especially when one considers that I am 64 years old and have spent a lifetime fishing, boating and shooting photos outdoors and this is the first time I had ever seen a Green Herron.

For those not familiar with the Green Herron, they are a relatively small bird only standing about 14" high with their neck outstretched.

Sometimes the best gifts come when one least expects it! Thanks for the beautiful, beautiful photo. Nanny

lazypup......THAT is an excellent shot! $15? Are you kidding me? Here's a link to what a 500mm costs today.

Here is a link that might be useful: 500mm lens prices

Great shots everyone! Lazy that is amazing! really!

where has Lineman been?

Nicole,,I am fully aware of those prices, that is why I have continued to stay with Pentax cameras since I bought my first one in 1966. Over the years Pentax has remained on the fore front of state of the art, by example, they introduced the first Japanese SLR, first eye level viewfinder using a pentaprism, first camera to have a through the lens metering system, first fully automatic exposure control on an SLR, first autofocus camera and the list goes on and on, Yet with each innovation they have managed to just slightly enhance the existing lens mount so you can continue to use any Pentax lens ever made, and taking that to the extreme, with the exception of some Ricoh lenses that have a modified Pentax mount, I can use nearly all third party lenses that have the PK mount.

The particular 500mm that I used to take that shot was one of those el cheapo third party lenses that originally sold for about $89 in the mid 80's. I much prefer to use my vintage Pentax "Takumar" lenses, which have world class optics, but over the years I have acquired a sizeable collection of Yashica lenses, early Minolta lens with the old Pentax screw mount and a bunch of those super el cheapo lenses from Fotomat, Tou Five, vivatar and a dozen other after market brand names.

Quite often when I just go exploring out in the field I carry those el cheapos on the premise that if they get broken or lost I am not out much, but once I identify a specific target such as this bird, you can be sure when I return to that site I will be taking my "Takumar" 500 & 1000mm lenses.

Lazypup.......are you on Flickr? Come join us! :0)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42756235@N02/5827969465/