Category Archives: Nature Photography

INVITATION TO HAVANA TIMES READERS AND PHOTOGRAPHY LOVERS

HAVANA TIMES – Gone are the dark months of travel restrictions due to the pandemic. It seems like a good time for you to go out and share with us your best pictures for our Photo of the Day section.

A cat, a bird, the shadow of a building, the perfect combination of colors, a smile, a beautiful landscape, your book or your favorite vase of flowers. All these photographs call our attention.

Cities, fields, seascapes; Havana, New York, Montreal, Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Berlin, Montevideo, Tokyo, Paris, Bogotá, Prague, Santo Domingo, Cairo, Athens, Jakarta or Rome, Beirut or Kathmandu, we are interested in all cities, all people from London or Warsaw, from Stockholm or Mogadishu, from Hanoi, Caracas or the Vatican. We welcome all your photos.

Just send us your name and country of residence, the place where you took the photo and with what camera or cell phone to [email protected]

Send us one of your favorite pictures to share.

Portraits, landscapes, street photography, press photography, whatever you prefer.

Express yourself in Havana Times.

To see the photos of the previous days select here.

Laowa now has a total of six lenses with an aperture of f/0.95, so how useful is it to have this aperture, and what are the results? As a landscape photographer mainly, this maximum aperture is something I had never really considered, although I do understand the usefulness of such an aperture for different types of photography, especially in low light and video. So, how does the lens perform throughout the apertures, and does it have the ability to provide results that are in line with or better than similar lenses in this price range? I tested it to find out. 

Build and Handling

The Laowa CF 25mm f/0.95 APO has a full metal construction, and the lens does look and feel beautifully made. The rectangular lens hood is also metal, with a plastic slide-on lens cap, which slides and locks into place with an audible click when seated on the lens. It has a filter thread of 62mm. There is no image stabilization on the lens, so you are relying on your camera’s IBIS if using it handheld.

Weighing in at 575 g, the lens is hefty, but considering the maximum aperture, it is still remarkably compact, with a length and diameter of 81 mm and 71 mm, respectively. With an aperture range of f/0.95 to f/11, the lens presents itself with a whole host of photographic subject opportunities, from dreamy shallow depth-of-field shots to wider vistas, which surprisingly, it performed really well at.

This APS-C lens is available for Fuji X, Canon RF, Nikon Z, and Sony E. For the purposes of this review, I tested the lens on the Fujifilm X-T5, which provides an equivalent focal range of around 35mm on a full frame sensor. The f-stops are clearly etched into the lens, and there is a switch that allows you to turn the aperture ring smoothly or enables a click at the aperture stops. This is not an audible click, merely haptic. Both the aperture and focusing rings turn smoothly, with the focusing ring noticeably having strong damping but smooth friction when turning. I found this really useful, as you have more control when doing fine adjustments.

This apochromatic lens (APO) helps correct chromatic and spherical aberrations, which is the fringing you often get. This fringing is due to lenses only focusing some colors at the same point, which is corrected here.

Performance

This lens is extremely sharp, but for extreme sharpness, I’d stop it down to between f/4 and f/11, where it really shines. At f/0.95, it is sharp but with a slight dreamy-like softness, which I think would be great for portraits and close-up nature photography. Video at this aperture would also be very interesting and provide some unique results. Once you begin to stop down, the quality of the glass and the sharpness it produces really start to show. I found myself quite surprised at the overall sharpness of the image, even at the edges.

The images above and below and were photographed at a distance of 35 cm from the subject, which is the minimum focusing distance. With a combination of the dampened focus ring and the focus peaking activated, it was a joy to use this lens. At every turn, you could see the peaking slowly move through the subject due to the heavy glide of the focus ring. Yes, you may say that is what it is supposed to do, but with this lens, you really notice the control given by the friction, which is a great thing for precision.

The sharpness and detail this lens achieves at f/11 are incredibly good, as you can see in the image below.

The lens does suffer from quite a lot of vignetting until you reach f/4, then it is barely noticeable. However, this didn’t bother me for the images I had taken at f/0.95, as it helps draw you into the image. In some of the images below photographed at f/0.95, you will be able to see the extent of the vignetting. 

I carried the lens around attached to the camera for a couple of weeks, and it is heavy, but I got used to it very quickly. When outside with the lens, I intentionally decided not to take a tripod with me so that I could see how quickly I could react with the manual focus should the need arise. I did miss a couple of shots because of this. That, of course, is merely down to practice. When taking my time, the focus was spot on and the resulting images sharp.

The images below were all captured at various apertures ranging from f/0.95 to f/11, with a minimum shutter speed on some of them at 1/30 second, and thanks to the IBIS of the camera, they still remained sharp.

What I Liked

• Extremely sharp 
• Nice size considering the maximum aperture
• Ability to enable or disable the click of the aperture ring
• The build quality
• The damped focusing ring

What I Didn’t Like

• No EXIF data
• The weight: not too heavy a lens, but you are aware it’s on the camera
• No autofocus: admittedly, I’m not a fan of manual lenses for everyday shooting as I like the ability to focus quickly if needed
• No weather-sealing

Conclusion

I did really enjoy using the Laowa CF 25mm f/0.95 APO. The sharpness of the images and the build quality of the lens are great, but after my time with it, I was left with a couple of thoughts. If it was able to autofocus, I think it would excel in terms of everyday usability. Without the autofocus, is it something that I personally would use for my photography? I’m not sure. Conversely, when shooting landscapes, I more often than not shoot fully manually, so with the sharp images achieved with the lens, it could be worth it. 

There are other lenses out there with a similar focal length, perhaps not this maximum aperture, and around a similar price range that have autofocus, and I’d tend to lean toward them. That is simply because of my own preference for autofocus in a lens. If this is not a factor for you when it comes to lenses, then it’s definitely worth considering, not only because of the maximum f/0.95 aperture but because of the sharpness when stopped down.

© Provided by People
Ant Anstead/instagram

Ant Anstead was feeling the love this Thanksgiving weekend! 

On Thursday, the Celebrity IOU Joyride host, 43, shared a series of nature photos from his getaway to Sedona, Arizona.

While his girlfriend Renée Zellweger, 53, doesn’t appear in the snaps of stunning red rocks and sprawling canyons, the British car expert hinted at her presence in the caption to his post: “What a beautiful few days for a romantic thanksgiving switch off adventure! We ended up in Sedona which is a magical place I cannot recommend enough! So much to be thankful for x”

He also responded to a fan in his comments who asked if there were any snaps of him and his “romantic partner” from the trip. Anstead wrote back that they took “so many” photos together.

RELATED: Renée Zellweger and Ant Anstead’s Relationship Timeline

In response to another comment, the TV host said the pair “laughed so hard” during a difficult hike when one user joked that the “the hike to the Devil’s Bridge nearly killed me last month.”

RELATED: Ant Anstead Thought Girlfriend Renée Zellweger Was British Until They Met: ‘A Dream Crusher’

The couple first met while filming an episode of Anstead’s show, Celebrity IOU: Joyride, in 2021, and PEOPLE confirmed that the two were dating just days after Anstead finalized his divorce with ex-wife Christina Hall. The exes share a 3-year-old son together, Hudson London. 

© Provided by People
Ant Anstead/instagram

In an interview with PEOPLE, Anstead opened up about how “grateful” he was that the show brought them together. 

“I’m really grateful to the show because these amazing things happen in your world and sometimes when things collide, they collide at the most obscure times when you least expect them,” he said. “And that’s what happened in this case.”

Zellweger was introduced to his two older kids at the start of 2022 and even “hit it off” with his older daughter, Amelie, he told PEOPLE. She also met his son Archie, who lives in England with Amelie and their mother, Louise Storey.

RELATED: Christina Hall Says She’s ‘Exhausted’ by Drama Around Posting Son Hudson’s Face

© Provided by People
Allen Berezovsky/Getty

The lovebirds’ romantic getaway comes in the midst of Anstead’s ongoing legal dispute with Hall over their son Hudson and the issue of the child’s online presence.

In October 2022, Anstead spoke out after receiving backlash for sharing a photo of Hudson days after Hall announced that she would no longer post photos of her son on social media. Users commented that it was “unfair” he can post photos of the toddler while Hall can’t, and that he deserves “all the shade” he gets.

Anstead responded to the comments, explaining that he wrote a “private letter” to Hall a week before he filed for full custody of their son. “He will read the private letter I wrote her on April 21st a week before I stepped up for him. She’s had 25 weeks to agree to not exploit him. She finally has x,” Anstead wrote.

Read the original article on People

The Simpsons’ house may be one of the most recognisable homes on TV. The famous animated family that never gets any older has been living in Springfield for an incredible three decades. Perhaps most incredibly, despite changing the house’s colour very slightly, the family doesn’t seem to have made any major structural modifications in that time.

But how might 742 Evergreen Terrace look in a different style? Well someone’s tested that out, presenting the Simpsons family home in various styles of British homes, from a Tudor mansion to a 1990s new build. Suffice it to say, these are some extreme makeovers (if you’re looking to draw up plans for your own house, see our pick of the best laptops for architects).

The Simpsons were designed to be a typical American family with a typical American house. How accurate the portrayal is can be debated, but their Springfield home has become iconic, and it’s recognised all over the world.

APPLETON, Wis. (WBAY) – Nearly 20 years after two tours of duty in Iraq, a Marine veteran is finally finding healing through the lens of his camera.

And in the process, he’s become an exceptional wildlife photographer.

This week in Small Towns, we travel to the outskirts of Appleton to tag along on one of his outdoor adventures. At the Bubolz Nature Preserve, James Overesch gears up for what’s become an almost daily trek into nature.

Wildlife photography has become his passion.

“I just got hooked on it. Like, I think about it every day, it’s all I want to do now,” explains James.

In one regard, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

As a child, James loved the outdoors with dreams of becoming a marine biologist.

But that all changed on September 11, 2001, when James watched the twin towers fall on TV in his Xavier High School classroom. At that moment, he vowed to help fight to protect our country’s freedom.

“If it came to that, I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to see combat, if I’m being honest I was young and didn’t really expect it,” recalls James.

Within two months, James enlisted.

“My grandpa was a Marine, so the Marines were actually the last branch I looked at because my grandpa didn’t want me to be a Marine, and then I ended up joining and then I became a machine gunner,” says James.

After boot camp and extensive training, James deployed with his unit to Kuwait.

“Waiting for the invasion of Iraq, and that was in 2003,” remembers James.

He arrived in Baghdad on his 19th birthday.

“It still didn’t really seem real at the time, but got pretty real,” says James.

Over the next two years, James served two, nine-month tours of duty in Iraq, experiencing the horrors of war firsthand.

“I mean, if you didn’t hear some kind of small arms fire or some kind of explosion it was either raining or they were celebrating Ramadan, otherwise every day were explosions, we were getting mortared,” recalls James.

James saw friends die, with he himself escaping a number of close calls.

“Too many, yeah. I actually kneeled down on an IED that they didn’t detonate until I got up to walk around a corner,” says James.

After completing his active duty, James spent four years inactive, with plans to pursue a career in physical or occupational therapy.

But he soon realized he had paid a steep price serving this country, beyond PTSD.

“The big thing for me is more my chronic pain issues, G.I. issues, my health has just been kind of a rollercoaster. I’ve been in and out of the clinics and hospitals for years,” explains James.

In 2017, a friend invited James to attend a recreational therapy program for veterans in Idaho. At the end of their rafting excursion, each veteran received a small grant to purchase some kind of outdoor equipment.

“So I decided to put more of my money towards a semi-professional camera and then it just kind of took off from there,” says James.

James loves the challenge of capturing birds and animals in their environment.

“I’ve sat in front of a fox den for 12 hours at a time,” says James.

And taking a snapshot of their lives.

“Sitting right there on that branch, looks like a red squirrel, looks like he’s getting ready for the winter,” says James as he snaps photos.

He then adds, “Finding your subject, finding the animal, their behaviors and then getting that picture and then being able to bring it home, work on the computer and edit it to a way that you saw it but also putting your artistic spin on it.”

Looking at his photos, you can see that James hasn’t just found a hobby, he’s discovered a tremendous talent.

A gift that’s helped him heal.

“They always say that being out in nature has an effect on your health and for me it just takes away stress, depression, it just kind of makes you, for me at least, forget about everything else that’s going on in my life, everything else that’s going on in the world. These animals are all around us but a lot of people just don’t take the time or don’t have the time understandably, and so it’s nice to see these things and be able to share it with other people,” says James.

Moving forward James hopes to continue turning his passion into a career, and he’s launched a website showcasing his incredible photography.

To view James’ photos, visit https://jamesovereschphotos.com/

Have an idea for a Small Towns story? Email [email protected]

Watch all the Small Towns reports here: https://www.wbay.com/news/small-towns/

Copyright 2022 WBAY. All rights reserved.

2. River otter surprise

The comeback of river otters in the Bay Area is dramatic. In the mid-1900s, they nearly disappeared, due to fur trapping and polluted waterways. A trapping ban and the 1972 Clean Water Act set the stage for a potential comeback.

But it seems to have taken a few decades. In the early 2000s, people started seeing them more, especially around Marin County. Now river otters can be seen in watersheds across the Bay Area.

In summer 2020, I was hiking along a creek in the East Bay when I had a surprise encounter with an otter and her pup. They were swimming in the shallow creek, trying to catch crayfish. I quietly sat down, and the otters eventually emerged from the water. As mom groomed herself on a sandy bank, the curious pup perched atop a small rock and quizzically looked at me, allowing me to get the first picture.

The second picture is unusual— it’s quite rare to see otters in a tree. On a fall evening, I found the same mother and her pup swimming in a deep pool in the creek. Suddenly, the pup emerged from the water and climbed onto a sycamore tree branch arched over the creek. Soon, the mother joined him and pushed him off the tree back into the water, making a game out of it. They kept it up for a while that evening—it was a joy to see.

The last photo is the most special, though. For a long time, I really wanted a photo of the otters together. When I found the family again over two months later, they were catching crayfish in the creek. I quietly sat down at the edge and waited for them to emerge from the water. They eventually made their way onto a log just 20 feet away from me. I got to watch and photograph them as they groomed, relaxed and wrestled on that log for the next 15 minutes.

Due to their newfound abundance across the Bay Area, you may be lucky enough to spot a river otter yourself! If you are walking near any streams or rivers, make sure to keep a close eye for these silky swimmers. Often you’ll spot their ripples before you spot the otters themselves. Seeing them is a true joy, and I hope many of you get to experience it!

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3. A rainy hike’s payoff

On a wet winter evening, after a long day of classes at UC Berkeley, I headed out with my camera to the East Bay hills. My target was bobcats, which often hunt for gophers right after rains. The rain often damages gopher burrows, and gophers spend time in the open immediately afterward, repairing their burrows. Things that like eating gophers seem to know this.

I thought the rain was done. But as soon as I started hiking, it started up again, and hard—my gear barely survived the rain. At last, about a half-hour before the park gates would close, the rain let up. Drenched and miserable, I was getting ready to head back to my car when I saw this great horned owl hunting from a stump just a few feet above the ground. They normally wait till after sunset to hunt; this owl had come out earlier, thanks to the dark conditions and the rain. 

The dark, wet conditions made it very hard to photograph, but I managed to get a few shots as the owl looked my way with his bright, yellow eyes. Then I had to run out so the parking lot gates wouldn’t close on me! It was worth it to get such a close-up, detailed shot of this remarkable bird.

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4. A stroke of luck

On a summer morning in 2021, I was watching a great horned owl on the hunt. Perched upon an oak tree branch, he was fixated on something in the field behind me. I took a quick look—and was shocked to see this long-tailed weasel.

Long-tailed weasels are shy, fast, and mostly nocturnal. Hardly anyone ever sees them in the East Bay. Remarkably, I got to watch him for the next two hours as he climbed into sycamore tree cavities, scampered across trails, and even caught a rodent and cached it in a tree. 

I spend nearly a dozen hours a week in the field, and have been doing so for the past 5 years, and this remains the only weasel I have seen in the East Bay. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.

People often think elusive animals like weasels can only be found way off the beaten path, but I was just off a popular hiking trail. 

These animals are all around us all the time; we just need to be observant. I always try to read the landscape and behavior of other animals for clues as to where wildlife might be. In this case, the great horned owl showed me to the weasel. In many other cases, ground squirrel alarm calls have helped me find bobcats, foxes, and coyotes. And when I get familiar enough with hiking in an area, I can notice any subtle changes in the landscape that might indicate the presence of wildlife. Using these techniques, you can spot animals that a vast majority of hikers would miss. 

In this encounter like many others, other hikers often see me and ask me what I am watching. I was able to share this special encounter with quite a few hikers. Sharing encounters like these is what makes wildlife photography so gratifying for me. I can give people a glimpse of wildlife they may rarely or never see themselves.

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5. The boldness of youth

I see a lot of coyotes in my many hours out in the field, but I hardly ever get a chance to take pictures of them. They’re just very nervous around people. Usually, they’re far away, and running.

In spring of 2019, my luck changed when a friend found a den of five adorable coyote pups in some green shrubbery, just 30 feet off a popular hiking trail. We were able to get great looks as they boisterously played and frolicked in front of their den. Surprisingly, unlike the adults, these pups didn’t seem bothered by our presence. In fact, they were very curious, occasionally walking within 10 feet of us to check us out. My heart was pounding in excitement as they approached, but we made sure to stay completely still and silent until their curiosity was satisfied and they walked off.

We came back the next week, and the pups had already moved out of this den—presumably to another one farther from the trail. They move dens regularly this time of year, so we weren’t surprised. 

The first three photos are from that special encounter with the pups. The last photo, though, is of an adult, just so you can see how his face and body differ from those of the pups. This photo from 2021 was one of the few times I’ve been able to photograph an adult coyote in the East Bay. He seemed more tolerant than most other adult coyotes, so when I saw him walking down the trail, I quietly moved off trail a bit and laid down on the ground to lower my profile. He then proceeded to walk right past me, allowing me to take this picture. I was thrilled to see him so up close and finally get some photos of an adult coyote.

Coyotes often get a bad rap in the media, but I hope these photos will show they are intelligent, magnificent animals that play an important role in the ecosystem.

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6. Night prowlers

These final images are from my recent experiments with camera trapping. 

A DSLR camera trap is just a DSLR camera left out in the field (gulp!), protected by a weatherproof box. A motion sensor triggers the camera, and a transmitter on the camera triggers two off-camera flashes. In the Bay Area, I’ve been working with this method at UC Berkeley’s Blue Oak Ranch Reserve with special permission—it’s a biological field station meant for scientific research and education.

I started camera trapping originally to capture images of mountain lions. But I quickly became addicted to the technique when I saw how it allowed me to capture more elusive animals and incorporate more habitat into images (in daytime images, I normally use a very long lens to avoid spooking my subjects—and that long lens has a super narrow depth of field, so it blurs the background). I also love the technical challenge.  A DSLR camera trap has many working parts. Learning each one in turn has forced me to level up my mastery of composition and light.

This style of photography has also helped me deepen my understanding of animal movements. To find the right spot, I have to think about it from the animal’s perspective. If I were a mountain lion, where would I want to be? I think about how a place’s topography, the direction of the dominant wind, edge habitats, prey sources, and water sources can all play roles in how wildlife move across the landscape.

My nighttime camera traps have captured bobcats and coyotes in the San Jose hills as pictured above. I’ve also photographed mountain lions with this technique in other parts of the state. There are few things as exciting as going to open up a camera trap, and seeing what it captured while I wasn’t around.

This is, I hope, the kind of work I’ll be doing for a long time as a conservation photojournalist. I believe visual storytelling has the power to create meaningful change for wildlife, by sharing their struggles and inspiring people to help protect them.

Follow Vishal Subramanyan on Twitter @vishalfoto, Instagram @vishalsubramanyan, and Facebook at Vishal Subramanyan Photography.

Princess Peach’s Mushroom Kingdom is a mysterious place. It’s topography has changed over the years, the main means of travel is through warp pipes, oh, and it’s inhabited by Toad, Yoshis, Goombas and Koopas. All the same, that hasn’t stopped fans from trying to subject the Super Mario to a little scientific rigour. 

One of the most recurrent debates involves the height of the games’ heroes. Just how tall is Super Mario and his companions? Many cite Mario’s height as 5ft 1in based on a statue in Japan, but that was never intended to be a life-size representation. Now size charts have been revealed for the upcoming Super Mario Bros movie, but we’re not sure they clear things up (want to try to work it out yourself? See our roundup of the best Nintendo Switch deals).

© Provided by Santa Cruz Sentinel
Cliffs rise from the Pacific Ocean as visitors to Wilder Ranch State Park access Santa Cruz County’s natural splendor along the Ohlone Bluff Trail. According to UC Santa Cruz Distinguished Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Gary Griggs, “All of the coastal bluffs along Wilder Ranch consist of Santa Cruz mudstone, a roughly 5- to 8-million-year-old sedimentary rock. The mudstone makes up the lowermost 20 to 40 feet or so, which is capped by a much younger (approximately 100,000 year old) sequence of marine terrace deposits of sands, silts and clays.” (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Cliffs rise from the Pacific Ocean as visitors to Wilder Ranch State Park access Santa Cruz County’s natural splendor along the Ohlone Bluff Trail. According to UC Santa Cruz Distinguished Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Gary Griggs, “All of the coastal bluffs along Wilder Ranch consist of Santa Cruz mudstone, a roughly 5- to 8-million-year-old sedimentary rock. The mudstone makes up the lowermost 20 to 40 feet or so, which is capped by a much younger (approximately 100,000 year old) sequence of marine terrace deposits of sands, silts and clays.” (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)