Fall

After weeks and weeks of late season heat, it finally is fall - with all that comes with it. Cold nights - and a few cold days - and even a little rain. Not enough yet to help with the drought, but a good start.

As always, I am amazed at the quality of pictures an iPhone takes, all of the above are unedited. All scenes from the morning after the rain.
DH refinished the deck this year, so the water beads nicely and we hope it'll last quite a few more years.

Photo dump

While downloading and editing the pictures I took this morning (see this post), I found quite a few older pictures on my memory stick. Some good ones, some not so good ones.
I think by now we all know that I mostly use my phone to take pictures these days, but sometimes it takes a "real" camera to get the pictures I want. As much as I love my iPhone for taking pictures (I don't use it all that much for other things), I doubt I could have gotten these with my phone.

Same berries, different area of focus.

Unedited.

Same pictures as above, cropped.

Amgen Tour of California

I'm a big fan of the Tour de France. There's practically no chance that I'll ever get to see it in person, but living in California, I did have the opportunity to watch the Amgen Tour of California live today, the very last leg in Santa Rosa.
I took both iPhone and SLR camera along and, since the riders did two turns in downtown Santa Rosa, I shot pictures with the camera the first time and did a video with the camera the second time they rode by.
Here are the pictures, well quite a few of them (and many more didn't make it):

Tejay van Garderen, winner of the Tour

 As much as I love the camera on my iPhone, I know that there's no way I could have gotten anything near as good with that camera. For the first time in a long time I used automatic focus again and the sports setting and just clicked away. Just about all of the pictures turned out well, except for the ones at the end, the awards ceremony. I was too far back in the crowd to get decent shots, so there is just one of Tejay van Garderen (and not the one where we brought his newborn daughter on stage) who is the overall winner. No picture of Peter Sagan who won the sprint finish and apparently had a really good time on stage or any of the other individual winners.
And here is a link to the video:
Amgen Tour of California

Random photos - almost no words

There is a quail family that lives in our neighborhood. Fun to watch, a little skittish.
The other morning, Mr. Quail decided to hang out on our backporch rail. We have an agreement: he lets me take his picture, I stay behind the glass.

From a recent trip to the ocean, Rodeo Beach, one of our favorites:

Always surprised how versatile that camera on my phone is. It does good close-ups (see flowers and seaweed above) and decent distance shots. That tanker in the last picture was miles away. L didn't think it would work. It did.

Score

I've been looking for a dressform for quite a while and, finally, on Sunday on the flea market I got lucky. She (doesn't have a name yet) isn't very old, but she was reasonably priced, has a stain or two just like an old bust and she is perfect for photographing necklaces and scarves. Need to get busy now taking pictures for Ravelry.
The necklaces, too, were a flea market fine. Yes, I collect "H's".
And on Saturday we found these cool little lenses for the iPhone. They just slip over the lens and there are three of them: obviously a fisheye lens because I used that in one of the pictures, a macro and a wide angle lens. Need to read up a bit more on them but they are easy to use (I do need to take my cover off the phone but just temporarily).
I apologize for the wonky layout, blogger is giving me fits today. I'd rather have pictures in odd places than end up in the funny farm.