Little Tiny Stuff

Yesterday morning there was enough humidity to have a small hoar frost. I saw the sun glinting through the trees and realized that shiny silvery glow I saw was frost!
I think the mules were a bit surprised as to how fast I tossed out hay into their feeder and trotted up to the shed to stash my hay 'sled'.
I grabbed the little red camera and took off.

The burdock sported little frosty crystals.

See the little hooks? And the crystals?

Pretty cool right?

Barbed wire fence:

Multi flora rose thorn in the woods above the creek:

I guess I am always pleasantly surprised every time I take a little walk through the woods and down around the creek.

I sat on a rock and listened to the sounds. There was a mossy rock at my feet. See that arrow?

Now look at the crystal!

As a side note:

Just so you know, this isn't always an easy feature to use but it sure beats trying to set up a DSLR camera. It took me about 4 or 5 shots to get one that I wanted.
When in Microscopic mode the camera takes fairly small photos. Something like 5MB. I wanted a larger print of one of the crystals and finally did work out a way to make it clear AND large enough.

Had I just tried to make an 8 by 10 print it would have turned out noisy and spotty.
I found a work around to that and printed out a nice photo of a snowflake.

The RAW files are much larger but I think Microscopic Mode defaults to a jpeg file.

All right, geek stuff aside, I did find it just perfect for FB, blogs, and other places on the internet.

My favorite of the day was the one below.

This was the middle portion of a twig that was laying across a small rock.

Here is how the twig looked when I pulled back a bit:

I was pretty amazed at how this turned out as I used the 'In focus stack' feature and this was hand held.

Yep, that is a tiny twig with frost growing on it.

The Tiny World is delightful and I am having a great time finding little things on some of these short winter days.



If you suddenly and unexpectdly feel joy, don't hesitate.
Give in to it.
~Mary Oliver

Some photography 'stuff'

So, what are my thoughts on the Olympus Tough TG 6?

Here is a sample of the slow motion video capture I took.
I took one of Sven running through the woods and posted it to FB. It came out really quite nice.

I'm still working on some of the features. But I adore the macro features it has.

Samples of just the macro:

Sample of in camera focus stack:

I need to get a bean bag or bag of rice to carry with so I can experiment ... this were taken hand held...

Still, pretty impressive and it would work much better on an insect or tiny mushroom.

I just got another plug in that I was never impressed with 10 years ago. It is called Topaz DeNoise AI. Now I AM impressed.
Here is a sample.

The above is a screen shot from an unedited Infrared shot from this summer with the Canon ELPH. That little camera had a lot of 'color' noise but is so handy to have in one's pocket.

Then here is one I just took the other day shown in Topaz DeNoise AI.

This is shown at 100%. We call it Pixel Peeping. Yes, there was noise but the light was poor.  It was shot at ISO 800 which creates noise but allows you to get the shot without it being blurry.

And yes, this was crazy red!

So, I am loving the Oly TG6 for many reasons. Easy to carry, easy to get the little things.
I understand the crazy menu that Olympus has since I've had some kind of Olympus camera since 2004. I love being able to take it out in poor weather and I love that it is waterproof.

While out yesterday afternoon, I took out my Infrared camera and used a 550nm filter. I've never been able to get any look that I've ever wanted with the 550, so I was frustrated to no end.

Well, I think I figured it out.

Really interesting. And of course there was no real good sun reflection for the IR which is best in very strong light. But still I enjoyed getting the IR Chrome effect with the 550nm filter.

I really like the white foliage a bit better. Not sure about this red/purply color.

I will have to do some more experimenting.

I ordered this photo on a faux canvas from this summer:

This is my favorite spot in the creek in any season.

I've thought of a fun new little project to work on. Telling a story with a tiny Teddy Bear I found....
Say Hi...

I'm not sure what to call him. Lil Bear?
Hmmm.

Stay tuned.