Uebelhart . Net

Zoo visit 2

Posted on January 30th, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: Photography.

This week we bought a houston zoo sponsorship. This basically let’s Dawn & I go to the zoo as much as we want for a year (plus a few other fringe benefits).

Well, I found something to do on Sundays now. This morning I dropped Dawn off at church/work at 7:30, went and had b-fast at Buffaloe Grill (biscuits & gravy & sausage) and was at the zoo for gate opening at 9am (I was the first one in the parking lot). For the first two hours there were less than 2 dozen people inside (and less than a dozen the first hour). When I left at noon it was starting to fill up.

I took about 350 shots and after I got home and whittled them down I was left with about 200. Here’s a sampling. Click on them for larger images (still only about 12-25% of actual size).

Colorful bird:

The duck pond:

The lions were out in force, unfortunatly I ruined a lot of shots by forgetting to change my camera out of ISO 1600 back to 200-400:

The primates only start showing up around 10-11. I think this is because the keepers are cleaning up their cages and it was too dang cold out. This guy seems to be doing karaoke:

Spent a while in the reptile house, I need a macro lens though:

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Picture redone

Posted on January 28th, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: Photography.

Played a little with one of the images from the Zoo 2 weeks ago.

Here’s the original:

It was taken of course with my Canon 20D, using a 70-300mmIS lens at 265mm, Iso 400, f5.6, at 1/200 sec.

I played with levels, unsharpmask, and some color balance and got this version which I like much better:

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Old Photos

Posted on January 24th, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: Photography.

Here’s a variety of Photos we have taken in the last year or so. Just because. (maybe I’ll make this a regular thing)

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More Photos

Posted on January 22nd, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: Photography.

Here’s some more photos taken with the Canon 20D, either at the zoo or elsewhere.

All these images are as they come straight out of the camera, no post processing, except they were resized to 800 pixels in width. The one of Ben was also cropped first for a rule of thirds and atmosphere view.

These should be clickable to get a larger view.

Statue of Jesus outside St Pauls. Taken at night.
28mm, Iso 800, 1/6 sec, f 4.0

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Few Quickies

Posted on January 22nd, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: Photography.

First off, trying a new image hosting services for quick and easy use in blogs and message forums: imageshack.us.
Here’s an image (shrunk) from the zoo trip last week as a test:

Next: Dawn & I decided to take a short day trip out to the Hockley Rice Fields to see Geese, etc. It’s weird: no geese to be seen. Saw lots of egrets, ducks, and a few hawks though. But where did the geese go. I decided that I really need a 300mm lens for this stuff though, as the 135 did not get close enough.
Images to follow.

0 comments.

Photo Equipment on a Budget

Posted on January 21st, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: Photography.

I just posted this on a photography board, and thought I’d post it here also:

Ever watch the TV show on FoodTV called “Good Eats” with Alton Brown? He shows you ways to use common items you can find in Walmart or HomeDepot in your kitchen instead of high priced “specialty” stuff, and get great results too.

The same can happen for Photography.
Just because an item is labelled for photography and sold through photographic outlets the prices often double or triple. And you can often find the same items (or similarly designed) at discount and hardware stores. Here are some examples from me:

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1 comment.

Houston Zoo

Posted on January 16th, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: General, Personal Junk, Photography.

Today’s weather was perfect for a zoo trip: mid 50’s and clear. So Dawn & I met up with Chris & Lynda (with Ben & Nick) and ran around the zoo for about 5 hours. It was nice. Since the weather was so nice, many of the animals were out and active, something you rarely see in the heat of the summer.

Chris & I had fun playing with our cameras, and Chris even let me use the 75-300IS lens he had borrowed from J for most of the day. (Gotta say I like it!). Over all I took 1.1 GB worth of pictures. That’s right, almost 2 CDs worth.

I’m too tired today to sort them out and get them prepped for upload, so I’ll start that tomorrow at work (where I am sure it will be a slow day).

Dawn also took tons of photos with the Olympus C4000 (about 2 memory cards worth), and some of the compositions she showed me were amazing. We’ll get those arranged and uploaded too.

Our experience has just about convinced us to buy a Zoo support membership. Basically it’s a 12 month pass for the zoo. I think we’ll end up doing it.

4 comments.

Who Would Have Thought.

Posted on January 9th, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: General.

What one drink does every restaurant in Texas (or the south for that matter) have?

Dr. Pepper? Well, no, but good try.
Coke? Nope, some serve Pepsi for some strange reason.
Water? Yeah, but often it’s city swill that is unfit for human consumption.
Ice Tea? Yep, or at least so I thought!

Yesterday Dawn & I were driving to Satyr’s for a little relaxing evening (dinner, games & movie). On the way we both wanted something with caffeine so we pulled into a fast food restaurant on BW 8 to get some. Since the drive through was 5 cars deep, we walked inside. I immediatly noticed no Ice Tea cannister at the side drink station where you fill/refill yourself. Nor was a cannister noticable on the prep-line behind the cashier drones. Dawn looked at me and said, “surely they have some in the back or drive through”. She ordered a large Diet Coke, and I, being anti-aspertane and a non-syrup drinker ordered their largest Iced Tea.

“We don’t have Iced Tea?”
“Ahhh, are you just out of it?”
“No, we don’t sell it here.”

What kind of fast food place does not have Iced Tea? Even that pre-mix fountain swill by Nestea or Lipton?
What kind of place in the south, and Texas for that matter, does not have Iced Tea?
Am I in some strange alternate reality?

What Kind of Restaurant Was This?
A McDonalds!

Talk about a surprise!
For those that are interested, this freak of food service is located at the corner of W Airport and BW 8.

I guess it can’t be too odd though, considering that two years ago we tried to get a Diet Coke at a McD’s that’s fairly close to that one (W Bellfort just west of Fondren) and were told that they don’t serve Diet Coke there.

1 comment.

SafeRoads = $afeRoad$

Posted on January 4th, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: General.

Well, in case you have not heard, Mayor “Boss Hogg” White (thanks for the name bloghouston.com and Chris Baker on 740) (and I am becoming ashamed I voted for him, although the other choices were worse) and some of city council managed to get a new law/rule/profit-generating-scheme passed (Put it to a vote folks!) which awards lucrative contracts to wreckers on Houston Highways that allows them to IMMEDIATLY tow ANY car they find on the side of a Houston area Freeway. No if ands or buts (or butts if you are looking at plumber/wrecker-driver cracks). $75, no choice. And if you are not at your car, it’ll be stowed and that’s gonna be another $100 a day minimum. They are aiming at a 6 minute response time. Radio news stated over 360 have been towed so far (since Monday morning).

Did you run out of gas and just walked accross the feeder to get a gallon?
Too bad, car’s gone.

Changing your own flat tire?
Nope, can’t do it, the wrecker has to tow you.

Don’t have the $75 bucks?
Impounded for a fortune.

Did you call AAA or some other auto/cardealer program?
Forget it, unless they have the new special permit they are committing a crime now to tow it. And they would have to be the first on the scene.

How do we fight this?
Forget city council and the Mayor/Boss! They awarded these contracts for alot of money (some reports are saying $50K and more for some road stretches), and probably have had alot of re-election/PAC contributions from the wrecker/storage lot industries.

One thing is to write your state reps (both State houses and Federal Houses) and complain.
Contact DPS. Aren’t they the ones that are supposed to regulate state highways?

And finally, my solution:

Everyone can afford an extra 5-10 minutes a day, right?
Pull over to the shoulder of the highway, put on your hazard signals, and wait.
Once a wrecker pulls up, turn off your signals and get back on the freeway.
Repeat as often as you can.

If just a few hundred do this a day (doubt I reach this many people in Houston though - so spread the word) we can cause an impact.

Can you tell I am P-O’d about this new rule?
BTW: I drive a new car (1 year old) with a great safety/non-breakdown record, so this would probably not impact me, but I find it an unnecessary impact on our lives.
Also, it’s supposed to improve traffic conditions. Bah, if they want to fix traffic, fix the highways. The construction lags have gotten out of hand!

1 comment.

Holidays are Passed, More to come.

Posted on January 4th, 2005 by Brian.
Categories: General.

This part of the year is a holiday/special day smorgasborg around our house.
Turkey Day, Xmas, and New Years have all passes in a little over a one month period. Now the next half: Dawn’s B-Day (2-1), Valentines Day (2-14), our Anniversery (2-29, give or take a day), and my B-Day (3-5) all mean more fun. And then we also have other family related dates in the same area (my Brother on 1-28, Mother on 2-13, Niece on 3-23). I guess Easter is the beginning of the break period for us.

About the holidays just passed. Dawn & I drove Xmas day (after the record makingly odd xmas eve snowfall in Houston) to San Angelo (her parents place), then left Monday for Albuquerque (my brother and mother’s places), then left Thursday back to San Angelo, then departed there Sunday for home sweet home. About 2000 miles on the ole vehicle for this trip.

We did enjoy it, even tried skiing a little (and falling alot). At least I can say I tried it and it’s not my bag of tea. Maybe I’ll try snowboarding instead next time (at least when you get tired or sore, you can use the snowboard as a sled down the mountain).

We are still getting the hang of the new camera. It takes a bit to get used to. Due to the overcast conditions much of the trip, we did not get any real fabulous shots, but managed to squeek out a few. I’ll have the first of the simple photo albums posted here in a few days and some will be available then for view.

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