There were two big snows in February.  It was very common to see Backyard Birds like Cardinals, Nuthatches, Black-capped Chickadees, Starlings, and Goldfinches.  And of course whenever you put out bird food, it’s only a matter of time before the neighborhood squirrel comes over and wolfs down the bird food.

The images in this posting are all taken with my 500mm f/4 lens.  The birdfeeder is on our patio and I setup a tripod in the kitchen.  The photos are taken through our new bay window.

I did have a few challenges.  It was windy outside, so the branches were wiggling back and forth.  The birds were not sitting still.  And, the sky was over cast so it was a challenge get the right mix of shutter speed and aperature. Most of my images had some blur. I am fairly new to bird watching but I’ve been really getting into it as a hobby. There is something incredible about connecting with nature. I’ve also been reading a lot about birding on https://learnbirdwatching.com/ and I’ve been able to a learn a lot of information on birds and this has helped me with my photography as well.

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My usual photo work flow is to take the track file from my GPS device and  apply geotags to the jpg’s from my camera.  I have done this with my old phones, point and shoot, and fancy DSLR camera.  I love geotagging photos. Geotags remind me where the picture taken so that I can do a better job of putting captions on photos.

There are several opensource or commercial programs that can do the tagging function.  My favorite is the tool is Geosetter.  You load a track file (*.gpx) into Geosetter, you point the program at a directory of photos, and it matches the photo’s time stamp to the closest timestamp in the track file — that’s where it finds the lat/long coordinates.  Those are then inserted into the EXIF text of the image.

Just one problem:

the Droid Razr’s jpg files don’t have the DateTimeoriginal timestamp field populated.  Geosetter depends on that timestamp to be there.  “All” other camera use this timestamp to record the time the picture was taken (vs record that time the file was created).    Geosetter won’t work with these jpgs.

But, I found a geotag fix!!

You need to run a magic tool called exiftool.  The tool runs from a command prompt.  I know it is kinda of a hassle to run, but it will save you a bunch of hassle.  You need to change to the folder that is holding the jpgs that need to be fixed and you need to run the following command:

exiftool "-DateTimeoriginal<ModifyDate" *.jpg

After the tool is run, and you refresh the Geosetter (F5), then you see the Date Taken column filled-in.  (and the tool is now happy).

When this column is filled in, then you can run the “Sync with GPS” command and get the geotag information written into the jpg files.

It seems like a picky thing, but when you take 30 or more pictures on a trip, it is much easier to run a Geosetter tool than setting the geotags manually.

Just so you know, the installation of the exiftool is tricky.  Since I run Geosetter, exiftool is already installed, but hidden in the Geosetter Profile FIles directory.  To make exiftool work, you need to find the path it sitting in and update the system path environment varilable.  Kinda of a hassle.  Also, you will notice that before I ran exiftool, I created a backup directory and copied all the original jpgs, there, just in case exiftool hoses things up.

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 Naperville Election 2012.

Here’s the sticker I got after I voted today. The polling place, 5th Ave Station in Naperville Election 2012 , was crowded, but not too bad. About a 20 minute wait.. Even though it’s a train station, there was a big block of parking spots.

The ballots was a large legal sized page of paper.  I was given a black felt tip marker.  When done, a slid the ballot into a xerox machine sized vote reader.  I was delighted to get the “I voted today” sticker.

The post #IVotedToday About 20 minutes at 5th Ave Station in #Naperville. #Election2012 #Vote appeared first on JackKozik.com.

Birds from Redfish Pass with my Nikon 500mm f4 Lens

These pictures were all taken from the balcony of our condo over looking Redfish Pass.  This small gap between the North most point of Captiva Island and North Captiva connects the Gulf of Mexico with the shallow Pine Island Sound.  This stretch of water has lots of fish, and thus lots of big beautiful birds.  Of course it helped alot that I took the pictures right after sunrise, with near perfect lighting!

Nikon 500mm f4 Lens used for Pictures from Ding Darling

A favorite activity for all visitors to Sanibel-Captiva is to visit the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. It’s a home for a wide range of Florida wildlife.  A visitor drives slowly along Wildlife Drive and stops to look at the wide variety of birds.  For this trip we saw: Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Iris, Black Crowned Night Heron, Roseate Spoonbills, Hawks, Osprey, etc.

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This entry of the Purdue Bell Tower was made from the “share” button inside of flickr.  I will probably delete this post.

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Cristo Redentor. The statue is at the base of the Corcovado Mountain. Our driver took us there; we then transfered to a van service that goes up the mountain. The van stops at a scenic lookout called Mirante Dona Marta Hill; we stop for pictures, then continue our ride up the mountain. But then (surprise?), right below the summit, we switch to a park service van, and ride the rest of the way to the top.

Of course, we aren’t really at the summit, we then needed to walk more than 130 steps (in hind site, I should have taken the elevator). Once at the top, we see the beautiful view of Rio de Janeiro. On our visit, the priest of the chapel, named after the Brazil patron saint Nossa Senhora Aparecida / Our Lady of the Apparition, was giving a blessing. There were lots of people, and if you were patient enough you can get your picture taken infront of the statue.

Sugarloaf. After we wound our way down the mountain, our original driver took us to the cable car station to ride up the Sugarload Mountain. The ride is in two steps, first up to Urca Hill / Morro da Urca. We stopped for awhile to take pictures — a really nice view. Then we got on a second cable car and road the rest of the way up Sugarloaf. Again, a beatiful view, but even more breathtaking because we arrived right a sunset. The sun set right behind Corcovado Mountain, with the Christ statue nicely outlined in the orange sky.

Tickets for Cristo Redentor: R$23, for Sugarloaf: R$50 plus taxi rides.

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