Jeffrey E.F. Friedl's Blog, page 48

Finally Back in Kyoto, January 2014 Edition

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Right to the Gate

Home Sweet Home, arriving last night

at the Kansai International Airport (関西国際空港) near Osaka Japan
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I'm finally back in Kyoto.

My blog posts about my transpacific trips are normally simple affairs, such as (for example) this
Kyoto-to-Ohio post from 2007, but the
return trip from my trip to Ohio this year has been quite the ordeal, covered so far with:

Doh! Got to the Airport a Day Early to Find my Flight Delayed Four Days
Finally Got My Return Flight Rescheduled
Continuing Saga of My Return to Japan: Flight Canceled Again
To No One’s Surprise, United Blames My Non-Weather Cancellations on Weather
Halfway Home: Overnighting in San Francisco

The first four posts were of dread and gloom, though things looked decidedly better at the end. I'm very happy to report
that the flight from San Francisco to Japan was the Best · Flight · Ever.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 62mm — 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO 100 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Pulling From the Gate

a 747-400 just in from Sydney at the gate next door

from my seat on UA885, San Francisco International Airport

That's the plane from Easing In on the previous post.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/50 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Sitting with Crossed Legs!

not possible in economy class for someone 6'4"

The key to this flight being great was in how uncomfortable the flight
the previous evening had been from Cleveland to San Francisco, and before
that last month's flight
from Tokyo. I'm sort of tall, so seats on public transport are usually
uncomfortable, but my legs were particularly uncomfortable for the
five-hour flight the previous day from Cleveland... I kept wanting to cross my legs
to relieve the pressure where the edge of the seat hit the bottom of my legs,
but I couldn't.

So, the first thing I did when I got to my hotel in San Francisco was
upgrade my SFO→Osaka ticket to United's extra-legroom “Economy
Plus”. It cost $155 for the single segment, but for a 12-hour flight I
hoped that the extra three inches of legroom would be worth it.

As we'll see, combined with some luck, it turned out to be the best $155 I have ever spent.

(Mini rant: from what I can tell, “Economy Plus” is the recent name for what in
decades past was simply called “Economy”; what's now called “Economy”
should really be called “Economy Minus”.)

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 —
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Next In Line

behind UA893 on its way to Incheon, Korea

We spent a few seconds shy of 20 minutes taxiing the 2.3 miles from the gate to the base of Runway 28L...

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/2000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 —
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SFO's Runway 28L

moments before we turned and used it

with a plane still landing on it a couple of miles distant




Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 31mm — 1/40 sec, f/22, ISO 100 —
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And We're Away

above the airport at 210 mph

The length of the flight can vary greatly depending on the winds and,
perhaps even more importantly, whether the plane is routed directly to the
runway at Osaka or made to fly 100 miles out of the way to come in from the
other direction. I don't know why it's sometimes done that way, but for
whatever reason my
particular flight was, at 11h 50m, the longest it's been in a month, an
hour and fifteen minutes longer than the recent quickest one.

But I didn't mind, because I had all the space in the world:

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/50 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250 —
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Welcome to My Office

The “Economy Minus” section was jammed packed, but the “Economy Plus” section
I'd paid extra to be in was more than half empty; like me, most people got three
seats to themselves.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/50 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250 —
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Drink Service

Tonic and Lime

Alcohol stopped being free on domestic flights long ago, but remained
free on international flights until very recently; this time they were
charging $7 for a beer. It didn't bother me, though, because I stay away
from alcohol anywhere around long flights for fear it makes jetlag worse,
so I had my standard tonic and lime.

I watched a movie and ate dinner, after which I took a hefty dose of
Ambien and curled up into a ball on my expanse of three seats, and slept
about six or seven hours(!) This is exceedingly rare for me, so it was
wonderful.

In light of the frost patterns I've posted recently,
here's the frost pattern on the window an hour out of Osaka...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000 —
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Ice Crystals at 41,000 Feet

12½km up @ 564 km/h

( What on earth is that little hole for? )




Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/4, ISO 100 —
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Eastern Shikoku

from 3km up, 15 minutes before landing

I made great time once we landed... we pulled off the runway right into
the gate. (The lead photo above is from my seat while we were pulling off the runway,
and it really did look just that rich and orange.) There was literally no
line at immigration, so I was through in seconds, but sadly, it took 15
minutes for my bag to arrive. Then on to the Haruka express train to Kyoto, where I had
similarly nice seating...

map & image data — nearby photos

Train Ride Home

JR Haruka (京都行きのはるか)

Normally I'm a zombie at this stage in the trip, but I felt great, so I
decided to catch up a bit by finally going through my photos from the Seifuso Villa. Therein lies a dozen posts
if I can ever find the time to write them.

A taxi ride from Kyoto Station, and I was home at about 7pm to the wonderful cry of “Daddyyyyyyy”
from Anthony.

I felt great and energetic until about 9pm when I suddenly got very
tired; I mostly slept through the night, without Ambien(!). I've been sort
of in a mild haze all day and have gotten nothing done except this blog
post, but that's still better than my normal jetlag experience, which is
normally described as “crushing”. We'll see how it goes.

Halfway Home: Overnighting in San Francisco

iPad mini, f/2.4 at an effective 33mm — 1/730 sec, f/2.4, ISO 32 —
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Easing In

United 870 from Sydney arriving a few minutes early

at San Francisco International Airport, Gate 100B

My week of trying to return home to Kyoto, most recently covered in “To No One’s
Surprise, United Blames My Non-Weather Cancellations on Weather”, is
finally going well. I took a smooth, on-time flight on United from
Cleveland to San Francisco last night, and overnighted at The Dylan at SFO...

iPhone 4S — map & image data — nearby photos

The Dylan at SFO room 217

(The photo above is just a snap with WhatsApp on my cell phone that I sent
to Fumie to let her know that I'd arrived this far safely.)

I can highly recommend The Dylan with one caveat. It's close to the
airport, clean, nicely appointed for its ~$100 price, across the street
from a huge grocery store (Lucky) and multiple large general/drug stores
(CVS and Walgreens), with lots of dining within walking distance. The included breakfast is also pretty nice by free-breakfast standards. The staff was also friendly, and even loaned me an iPhone charging cable when I
realized that I'd left all that stuff at my folks' house.

The one caveat is that road/plane noise is pretty apparent, though it
didn't bother me because I leave a “white noise” mp3 on loop all night when
I stay at a hotel.

SFO Free Wifi Hint — if you try to use the “#SFO Free Wifi”
hotspot at the airport, if your device doesn't automatically send you to
http://flysfo.com/ so that you can click the “agree” button to get
access, you have to go there manually. My iPad and iPhone did it
automatically, but I had to do it by hand with my laptop.

iPad mini 3.3mm f/2.4 at an effective 33mm — 1/750 sec, f/2.4, ISO 32 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Finally Heading Home

( though not on this plane )

San Francisco International Airport

A Textured, Layered “What am I?” Quiz

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 —
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What am I?

Here's a simple(?) “What am I?” quiz.

This one has sort of the same color vibe as
A Bendy-Line “What am I?” Quiz from a year ago,
but it's definitely not the same.

So, what is the object above?

As usual, I'll keep submitted guesses hidden until I reveal the answer in a few days.

To No One’s Surprise, United Blames My Non-Weather Cancellations on Weather

Well, that was disagreeable.

This is a minor followup to:

Doh! Got to the Airport a Day Early to Find my Flight Delayed Four Days
Finally Got My Return Flight Rescheduled
Continuing Saga of My Return to Japan: Flight Canceled Again

Despite all the weather problems airlines have been a victim of late,
it's pretty obvious that my two canceled flights were not canceled because
they were directly affected by weather. Heck, the first flight saw the
whole route canceled for four days, as if one could magically know the
weather four days hence. No, I think it was a business decision to make
better use of the equipment they had on hand. Probably a smart business
decision, since Chicago (where that first canceled flight went instead of
Cleveland) is one of their major hubs, but nevertheless one that hurts
folks who had a perfectly good plane yanked from their route.

I didn't complain to them the first time. I have more than 450,000
actual flight miles on United Airlines (equivalent to 84 transpacific
flights) over the last 25 years, so I've got somewhat of a sweet spot for
them in my heart, and am probably more willing than the average person to let things slide.

But doing it — canceling my flight for their business convenience
— the second time yesterday was enough for me to contact them to at
least ask whether they'd consider some kind of class or luggage upgrade as
a token gesture.

Just contacting them to even try to talk about this was daunting. They
offer no customer-service phone numbers on their site, so you must go
through a web form.

Okay, so I filled in all the details, wrote my
max-2000-character description, and submitted it, only to be met with the
error: “Your email address does not match. Please reenter”. Uh,
doesn't match what?. Perhaps they used to have the kind of thing
where you have to enter your email twice, but currently there's only one
place to enter it (and anyway, I'm logged in to my Mileage Plus account, so
they know my email).

A search on the web showed others with the same frustration.

So I left a note on their Facebook page reporting the problem, and asked
for a phone number I could use. They actually responded with it (877-624-2660) pretty quickly,
but by that time I'd tracked down the number via calling their Mileage Plus office.

So, I called United Airlines Customer Service and talked to Rose. Rose
conducted her job professionally, which means to say that she firmly (but
politely) told me that all these problems were weather related and that I
had no claim. She kept referring to the weather department as “a very
special department”, as if it were some kind of magical place where we
can't begin to understand what it does, but its decisions are the holy
grail of truth never to be questioned even in the back of our minds.

“But Rose, they canceled the flight four days in advance (and conveniently
then used the plane to service Chicago and its much worse weather instead of Cleveland). Are you suggesting
that they somehow knew the weather in Cleveland four days hence?”, I asked.

“Yes, of course, it's a very special department, and they take safety very seriously. We take safety very seriously at United.”, she replied.

(Imagine, if you can, all this said in the same quick no-nonsense voice
and cadence of Bernadette on Big Bang Theory, and you'll have a
complete picture of my experience.)

I don't like to be a complainer, but I got the short end of business
decisions made by United for their own convenience, twice, so I thought a
gesture of an upgrade or an extra bag or something wasn't too much to ask
for, but Rose, always polite but always firmly rooted in “it's a very
special department”, waved the word “weather” as a get-out-of-jail-free
card.

I asked how yesterday's flight from Akron to Chicago could possibly be
canceled for “weather” 10 hours before the flight, when both airports
were running normal operations throughout. "Its a
very special department who makes those decisions and we don't
question them. United takes safety very seriously."

Anyway, to make a long story just a bit less
long, I eventually got bumped to Caroline, a supervisor, who listened much more sympathetically,
but never allowed that any of it would seem even slightly fishy. And even if she believed that I was correct, it turns out that there's nothing she
could do... I'd have to submit my claim via the (not-working) web site.

Caroline said that she'd report the web-site problem and that I should
try it again later, but I didn't hold much hope that it would be fixed nor
that even if it were that it would make any difference, considering the
“weather” designation on my cancellations. But I did check the web site
later and it was fixed, so I did submit my note. Not holding my breath,
though.

So in summary, I just screwed myself out of a
couple of hours of my life, and into enhanced frustration and
exasperation with an airline that I've used for 25 years. It's not unexpected, of course, but still
disappointing.

Continued here...

More Frost Patterns from Arctic Ohio

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5, slightly cropped — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000 —
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Beauty in the Details

it's not much from afar, but pretty nifty when you view the full-resolution version
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Here are some more frost patterns from arctic Ohio, following up from
the one I posted the other day. It was -10°F
(-23°C) with strong biting wind when I took
these, by hand, outside in the wind, up hill both ways. According to the
image data, I lasted two minutes 10 seconds
before I couldn't stand the pain in my fingers
any more and gave up: considering that I had
heavy insulated gloves, it's a testament to
either just how very cold it was, or how very wimpy I
am. Probably both.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000 —
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All Roads Lead Home

( sappy, I know, but I wanted to have some label with which the photo can be referenced )

I tried a variety of processing on these to mix things up. They're all
essentially monochromatic, except something behind the window sometimes
showed up as a brown splotch in the background, so I turned those to black & white, and while I was at it I used
Lightroom's half-tone feature to make the “white” (of “black & white”) on some of them (such as the one
leading this post) slightly blue.

On the other hand, the next shot is shown in all its full-color glory...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5, heavily cropped — 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000 —
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Parallels
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I really need to figure out some kind of jig or brace so that I can use
my favorite macro lens
handheld in the field, but with more stability than just holding the lens
freehand.

I'm pretty steady
with the camera, but when these photo were taken — maximum aperture
at maximum magnification — the depth of field was thinner than the
ice crystals I was photographing. That made it extremely difficult to hit
focus in the first place, but even worse, any slight off-axis tip would
mean that only part of the image could possibly be in focus if at all.

That's why some of these shots are pretty aggressive crops; even if the frost pattern
is interesting, the photo is not interesting if half of it is out of focus, so in some cases I cropped out a lot. In the shot above, 60% of the original is cropped away. The photo below has 55% of its original cropped away.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5, heavily cropped — 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000 —
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Evergreens on a Slope





Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000 —
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Small Crop Circle

When my fingers couldn't take the cold any more, I did take the trouble
to step back and get a shot to show the context....

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000 —
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The Window

There were other windows, each with completely different kinds of frost patterns. After warming up my hands, I went out again with the camera for a short while, and repeated the cycle (so probably this is a “to-be-continued” kind of post).

Continuing Saga of My Return to Japan: Flight Canceled Again

For those hanging on the edge of their seat as to my travel schedule, here's a short
followup to
“Got to the Airport a Day Early to Find my Flight Delayed Four Days”
and
“Finally Got My Return Flight Rescheduled”....

TL;DR version: Canceled again.

I was supposed to leave Akron Ohio this evening, but United Airlines
canceled my flight (again), and not due to weather (again). Both times now
it's been canceled well in advance of the actual flight. My educated guess
is that they decide they need the plane more importantly elsewhere.

Anyway, the current schedule now is to go out on Sunday night, stay in
San Francisco on Sunday night, leave from San Francisco on Monday morning,
and arrive in Osaka on Tuesday night.

We'll see.

Update: big thanks to the hotel I'd booked for my overnight in
San Francisco, The Dylan at SFO, for
allowing me to move my reservation to the new day even though it was past
their cancellation-cutoff time.

Update: on a whim I took a look at the how the Chicago→SFO flight I was supposed to be on is doing,
and see: “Estimated Departure 1 Hour 38 Minutes Late (Delayed - Cargo loading)”. Ugh, glad I missed it, I guess.

Update: now it's “2 Hours 13 Minutes Late (Delayed - Aircraft
servicing)”. I guess I shouldn't be
surprised... looking at that flight's
history on FlightAware.com, it seems to rarely be less than an hour
late getting out, often much more. It looks to have gotten away on time only
two or three times in the last month. Ugh.

"Statistically, when taking into consideration sample size, standard
deviation, and mean, this flight is on-time more often than 0% of other
flights." — flightstats.com giving it the worst
possible score in on-time performance.

Watching the connecting flight I'm supposed to take on Sunday get more
and more delayed (now almost three hours), and considering that it has
almost a 0% on-time rating, I just changed my reservation to a direct
flight out of Cleveland. It's less convenient, but less chance of stranding
me.

Half an hour ago it said "Departed Gate 2 Hours 35 Minutes Late, taxiing to runway (Delayed - Aircraft servicing)", but it still hasn't taken off. Glad I switched.

Final? update: it took 45 minutes after it took off (and after FlightAware.com started showing realtime data) for United to update the status to “in flight”.

Continued here...

Frozen Lake Play from Last Year

Panasonic DMC-TS3 — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 100 —
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Frozen Lake

one year ago

Sort of a followup to “Catching Air on a Snow Sled”, this is another post of
pictures from a year ago.

Playing on the lake behind my folks' place in Ohio, Anthony used an old
spade as a hockey stick, and a chunk of ice as the puck....

Panasonic DMC-TS3 — 1/1000 sec, f/4.3, ISO 100 —
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Ice Hockey

sort of




Panasonic DMC-TS3 — 1/400 sec, f/10, ISO 100 —
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I liked the shadow and asked Anthony to hold the pose for a few shots...

Panasonic DMC-TS3 — 1/400 sec, f/10, ISO 100 —
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Panasonic DMC-TS3 — 1/320 sec, f/10, ISO 100 —
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This last one has had the saturation turned up to exaggerate the blue from the sky showing in his shadow.
(The blue is not seen except in the shadows because the direct sun overpowers it elsewhere.)

Panasonic DMC-TS3 — 1/400 sec, f/10, ISO 100 —
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“Throwing Rocks”

winter version of this

Back to this year's trip and the present, today started warm (10°F /
-12°C) and by the evening was almost up to freezing (30°F /
-1°C). After my
return-flight woes earlier in the week, I'm hoping tomorrow's flight
back to Japan (via overnight in San Francisco) is smooth....

Pretty Frost Pattern on a Window

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000 —
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Frosty Window

(now we know where Dubai's layout came from)
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Despite having heavy insulated waterproof gloves, I could handle the camera for
only three minutes outside in the -10°F (-23°C) deep freeze that Ohio
and much of the US had yesterday. It was just too painful for my fingers.
The heavy, gusty, biting wind certainly didn't help.

(Today was different; 20°F (-7°C) never felt so warm.)

To be continued...

Finally Got My Return Flight Rescheduled

A short followup to my travel woes that I wrote about the other day....

It took almost three days, but I was finally
able to get through to United Airlines today, to reschedule my trip back
home to Japan. I'd originally been scheduled to
visit a
dear friend with a two-day stopover in
Milwaukee, but that had to be canceled when United decided it would rather
use the plane that was supposed to service Cleveland to instead service its
hub in Chicago. (Probably a smart business move that benefits the most
people, but the short end of the stick is the short end of the stick, and
that's what I got in this case.) The best they
could come up with is a flight to San Francisco
on Friday, and then from there to Japan on Saturday.

I asked what I'm supposed to do in San Francisco between the 11pm
arrival and the 11am departure; the lady said sheepishly that I could just stay at the airport. Sigh. I went and booked my own hotel. My flight was not
canceled due to weather, but because United felt like using the plane
elsewhere, so they should have covered the hotel, I'd think.

At least I'm “stuck” in a comfortable place
at my folks' place here in frozen Ohio, helping out around the house
between trying to call the airlines and taking pictures of frozen
birds. So many thousands stuck at airports
had it so very much worse. I'm only out two hotel
nights, and I missed meeting friends I'd not seen
in a decade, but I can
remedy that with another trip when it gets warmer.

Continued here...

Freezing Bird Movement with a Fast Shutter (and Arctic Temperatures)

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/1250 sec, f/4, ISO 2000 —
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Target Acquisition

I was supposed to be visiting a dear friend in Milwaukee
today, but the cold snap hitting most of The States created havoc with the air system
and so I'm still at my folks' place in Ohio (where at the moment it's
-12°F / -24°C with strong gusty wind). So today between trying to
(and failing to) contact the airline to figure out my schedule, I tried shooting the birds out on the back deck again, as I did the other day. It was cold.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/4000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 4000 —
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Peanut

targeted and locked on

I was in all-manual mode today, with both focus and exposure. The Voigtländer 125mm has no
autofocus, and I can't trust the automatic exposure with it because the
copy I'm using has had a CPU added with limited success (similar to the problems I had when I
tried adding a CPU myself), so today I went all manual.

I explicitly wanted a fast shutter speed to mostly (but not completely)
freeze wing movement.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/5000 sec × 3, f/2.5, ISO 2500 —
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Absconding With The Loot

three-frame composite, 1/10-second separation

I tried something different for some of the shots today: instead of
focusing on where the birds were, I tried to focus on where they would be, then
hoped to get the double luck of them actually going there, and of me actually
snapping the shot at the precise moment they were there.

Smashing the 10 frames-per-second shutter helped with the “preciseness”. In the shot above, notice that the focus is not on the peanut, but a bit
beyond, and so it's the second “frame” that's in focus.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/5000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2500 —
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Peanut Ballet

Did I mention that it was cold today? The first time I went out in the
morning it was a relatively toasty 15°F (-9°C) with a light snow and no wind, but still plenty
chilly for the birds...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 —
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Fluffy




Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 —
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Monochromatic

except for the finches: goldfinches and house finches

オウゴンヒワとメキシコマシコ




Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 —
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As before, the finch feeder was crowded and offered a lot of birds coming and going...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 —
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Goldfinches
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Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 —
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Sorta' Successful

My new focus idea (focusing where I thought they'd fly) needs some
work... it rarely worked, and when it did I'm not sure it was worth it. The shot above seems to suffer from bad focus and motion blur even at 1/1250 of
a sec.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1250 —
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Another Successful Failure

Part of the problem was that the lens is manual-focus only, and is only
125mm. I would have liked the 70-200mm for this. Another part of the
problem is that my fingers were freezing; the temperature was dropping like
a rock all day (dropping 25°F so far today).

I couldn't be out there on such an inhospitable day and not feed the birds
(as we're apt to do, as seen earlier
with Anthony,
on my laptop,
and in close up), so I threw snacks
to the woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches, and bluebirds.

If I didn't throw the snacks to them, they'd come looking, and I could use this to my advantage
by leaving a worm on my knee and trying the “focus a bit beyond” technique and hope to get lucky.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/4, ISO 2000 —
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Not Lucky

focus is an inch or so behind the worm




Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/4, ISO 2000 —
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Not Lucky

especially for the worm; focus is an inch or so behind the worm




Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/4, ISO 2000 —
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Lucky

focus is an inch or so behind the worm

It was cold. Did I mention that? By this time it was about 6°F
(-14°C). My fingers were painfully cold within minutes of going out,
despite wearing gloves.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400 —
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Bluebird




Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 —
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Downy Woodpeckers




Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 800 —
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Skittish

This bluebird hovered (as best a non-hummingbird can) for a short time checking me out.

I suppose I'll try again tomorrow... both photographing the birds, and contacting United Airlines.