In your face

GRAY SQUIRREL, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 14, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF)
1/125 sec. at f4.5
ISO 400

The combination of a 20-year-old lens -- one of the sharpest Pentax ever made -- and a six-year-old 6-megapixel digital camera can still yield satisfactory shots. This one was taken through a glass window onto our backyard deck with the animal only about 6 feet away. The photo was cropped about 25 per cent to strengthen its impact.

Dark-eyed Junco

DARK-EYED JUNCO, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF)
1/350 sec. f4.5
ISO 400

House sparrows are so common on my backyard deck in winter that I was delighted to see this visiting slate-colored variant of the Dark-Eyed Junco yesterday. Okay, so it's just a species of sparrow, no big deal, but still . . .

Mug shot

GRAY SQUIRREL, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 13, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF) with Kenko 1.5x teleconverter (450mm total)
1/180 sec. f8
ISO 400

This latest squirrel shot is a two-pronged experiment. First, I took the photo with a new teleconverter that multiplies the focal length of a lens by 1.5 times. Second, I processed the image with the free photo software Paint.NET on a new Toshiba netbook I'll be taking on the road. The experiment seems to have been successful.

Los Angeles Union Station

LOS ANGELES UNION STATION ENTRANCE AND CAMPANILE, JANUARY 27, 2010

Pentax K20D
Sigma 10-20 EX DC at 20mm
1/1500 sec. f5.6
ISO 400

Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, opened in 1939, is one of that city's Mission Revival architectural gems and is considered the last great railway depot to be built in the United States. Several Amtrak long-distance trains use it, and so do scores of daily commuter trains, light rail cars, subways and buses. With a super-wide-angle lens I was able to get in a little of the colorful plaza in the foreground.

Mare's tails

HIGH CIRRUS IN THE CHIHUAHUAN DESERT EAST OF EL PASO, TEXAS, JANUARY 26, 2010

Pentax K20D
Sigma 17-70 DC at 17mm
1/250 sec. f11
ISO 400

I took this shot from my sleeper window on the westbound Texas Eagle/Sunset Limited. The train's windows were dirty, but holding the camera to the glass until the lens hood almost touched it helped keep specks of grime from showing up in the photograph. A little post processing deepened the blue of the sky and outlined the fine tendrils of the clouds.

Chinatown with a Vietnamese flavor

VIETNAMESE JEWELRY SHOP IN CHINATOWN, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, JANUARY 27, 2010

Pentax K20D
Sigma 10-20 EX DC at 10mm
1/1500 sec. f8
ISO 400

In recent years Vietnamese (and Japanese and Cambodian) shops have been scattered throughout Los Angeles' Chinatown district, and this corner of Broadway, the district's main drag, was a good spot to try out some deliberate distortion of perspective with a new super-wide-angle Sigma zoom lens. Click on the image for a desktop-sized version.