Cliff's Photography Blog

One of the nicest spots for birdwatching this time of the year on Gabriola Island has to be the Lock Bay Salt Marsh adjacent to Sandwell Provincial Park.  This brackish tidal marsh is home to a number of bird species of waterfowl, wading birds, and songbirds, and vultures and bald eagles are often seen soaring overhead.  There are also a few resident river otters and beavers, should you be lucky enough to spot them. I believe most of the marsh is private property, but there is a well-used public pathway that leads past the marsh just above the beach at Lock Bay.  Please use respect when visiting the park or the marsh. Here are a few photos of birds I managed to capture on my last visit to the marsh - you can click on any of the images to see a larger version. Lock Bay Salt Marsh, Gabriola Island Great Blue Heron, Lock Bay Salt Marsh Spotted Sandpiper ( Actitis macularius ) Red-Winged Blackbird ( Agelaius phoeniceus ) Red-Winged Blackbird ( Agelaius phoeniceus ) Canada Geese ( Branta ca

Hummingbird season is in full swing now on Gabriola Island, with both the over-wintering Anna's and the migratory Rufous showing up in numbers.  These little avian wonders always make for great photography.   Please click on the images to see a larger version.  Male Rufous Hummingbird  ( Selasphorus rufus ) Rufous Hummingbird  ( Selasphorus rufus ) Rufous Hummingbird  ( Selasphorus rufus ) Male Anna's Hummingbird ( Calypte anna ) Female Rufous Hummingbird  ( Selasphorus rufus ) Male Anna's Hummingbird ( Calypte anna ) Male Rufous Hummingbird  ( Selasphorus rufus )   Male Rufous Hummingbird  ( Selasphorus rufus )

Much of the bedrock of Gabriola Island is sandstone, and along many areas of the shoreline the rock has weathered into honeycomb or lace patterns called tafoni . The intricate texture of the sandstone tafoni can often add interesting details to landscape images. Malaspina Galleries Orlebar Point Sunset Orlebar Point Sunrise Drumbeg Provincial Park Entrance Island Berry Point Tafoni Tafoni Alligator, Drumbeg Provincial Park Berry Point Dream Time  Berry Point Tafoni Descanso Bay Tafoni Detail Definition from  www.tafoni.com : " Tafoni are ellipsoidal, pan- to bowl-shaped, natural rock cavities. These cavernous weathering features include tiny pits, softball-sized cavities, truck-sized caves, and nested and cellular honeycomb forms. Tafoni typically develop on inclined or vertical surfaces and occur in groups."

During a break in the never-ending chain of atmospheric river events, I managed to get out for a couple of hours and do some tests with my new Lumix GH6 camera.   One of the interesting features of this camera is its hand-held high resolution mode, which creates a 100-megapixel file by combining a series of hand-held photos.  An image with so many pixels allows for considerable cropping without losing too much detail; the following image is slightly less than half of the original capture when cropped to a panoramic format that better suits the subject, and should print nicely at 48 x 18 inches. Entrance Island

There seems to be a lot of misinformation on the web regarding the cause (and cure) for the fractal artifacts that affect some images captured with Fujifilm's X-Trans sensor cameras.  The problem stems from the inability of some image processing software, notably products from Adobe such as Lightroom and Photoshop, to correctly interpolate the RAW data due to Fujifilm's use of a non-Bayer colour filter array over the image sensor. This is an image captured with a Fujifilm X-T3 camera and processed in Lightroom: Fujifilm X-T3, XF 10-24mm f4 @ 24mm, 1/210 sec @ f5.6, ISO 160 At first glance, the image looks quite nice; sharp, and with lots of rich colour the Fujifilm cameras are noted for.  However, on closer inspection, the fine details in the image, such as the pebbles on the beach, look strange and distorted: 100% crop of above image At the limited upload size, it may be difficult to discern the artifacts, so here is a 200% crop of the same image: Now the fractal artifacts are

Here are a few photos of our backyard hummingbirds from Firday, April 29.  We have several pairs of both the Anna's and the Rufous hummingbirds coming in to the feeders, and it's becoming a challenge to keep the feeders full; it's been a relatively cold spring, and very few native flowers have blossomed yet, so food is a bit scarce for these little guys. Female Rufous Hummingbird ( Selasphorus rufus ), Gabriola, BC Female Rufous Hummingbird ( Selasphorus rufus ), Gabriola, BC Male Anna's Hummingbird ( Calypte anna ), Gabriola, BC Male Anna's Hummingbird ( Calypte anna ), Gabriola, BC Male Anna's Hummingbird ( Calypte anna ), Gabriola, BC Female Anna's Hummingbird ( Calypte anna ), Gabriola, BC