Thursday, January 12, 2006

Say cheese!



Another spike buck. My first reaction was admiration - he's so sleek, so handsome... On the other hand, he probably ate my fancy lettuce and half the trilliums in the woods.

That camera trigger has to be making a slight noise, because that's the second time a deer was looking directly at it.

This picture shows the capability of the camera much better than the first photos. In fact the scouting camera has more megapixels (3) than my regular camera (a measly 2.1).


The deer took a little tour of the mineral lick,


Then headed off into the sunrise. (The photos were taken at 6:39, 6:40, and 6:41 am respectively.)


Magnification of his spikes. I think that's definitely the devil who ate my tomatoes.

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Every time I try to type "scouting" it comes out "scounting" instead. Every time.

10 comments:

robin andrea said...

He is sleek and handsome, and obviously well-fed on your fancy lettuce. The camera is doing a great job.

BTW-- You do a great job with such low megapixels, I can't imagine the shots you'd get with more. There are cameras with 8 megapixels on the market now, so a 5 or 6 is really coming down in price. I'd still like to get the Nikon even though I'm totally satisfied with the Panasonic. The big pull for a Nikon is that it takes different lenses.

Ericka said...

Hiay. I've lurked for a while, but this camera thing is so cool!

My brother got my dad one of those game cameras for christmas this year, but it takes film, not digital.

He got the idea from a friend of his that has one sent up at his lake cabin, and from the last set of pictures he got, the click must be audible.

The first picture is a deer wandering by. The second - same deer, looking toward the camera. Third - deer head-on, closer to camera. Fourth - deer nose.

Turtleheart said...

He's a beauty! Very kewl new camera.

R.Powers said...

This is why you never find deer in acting class, they always look at the camera.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like that deer is doing almost as much damage to the wildflowers as your brother-in-law!

Happy and Blue 2 said...

That camera is great. The pictures are so clear.
Deer are known for loving to be photographed. That's why it hangs around and looks at the camera so much. Or maybe I'm thinking of movie stars. It's been a long day, tee,hee..

Rurality said...

Thanks y'all!

RD I both love my old camera and am increasingly aggravated by it. But it seems like the things I love can't be found on most newer cameras, and the aggravating things are found in all of them! So I guess I'll stick with it for a while.

Ericka, LOL! I've seen those deer-nose pics on the Cuddeback site too. Who knew deer were so curious?!

TH we've been wanting one since we got here. Now I'm thinking every critter on the place should be walking by every night but of course they don't.

FC - that one needs a spew alert! :)

Susan, so glad you remembered that LOL.

Happy you are just as silly as FC!

Anonymous said...

A couple of thoughts:
First, some cameras fire a preliminary, very brief burst of flash before taking the photo; this is either to help the autofocus or calculate flash exposure. The deer might be reacting to that, although with an automatic setup like yours, things might happen too fast for the deer to look before the photo's taken. If the photos where the deer's looking at the camera are the first photos in the sequence, then the likely explanation is either this preliminary flash or the trigger noise (? I don't know how this trigger works, so can't comment about it). If they're later in the sequence, then it's probably just the noise of the shutter.

Second, I'd be inclined to stay away from the high megapixel cameras (7–8 Mp) (other than SLRs) because they're cramming more individual sensors into the same size (small) image sensor, which means more noise in your images. This isn't a problem if there's plenty of light, but for these sorts of photos, the darker areas of the image are likely to be quite noisy. About 4–6 Mp is good. Of course, this will be argued endlessly, and the important point is that you're getting cool photos; you're seeing things you wouldn't otherwise see. (Hmmm... if you don't like the alien heatray look, is there a redeye reduction option on the camera? It won't be perfect, but might tone down the effect)

Dana said...

Love the deer pictures! How's the weather in Alabama right now?

We are having such a mild winter here. Some snow, but mostly 40's. Love it! Reminds me of home.

Rurality said...

Thanks for all the info Pete. It's always the first pic. There's no prelim flash so there must be a slight noise. This camera is 3MP. I have noticed some noise but the pics are still tons better than the older 1MP versions. No redeye reduction alas! Or greeneye reduction either. :)

Dana we've had waaaay too many days in the 60s and 70s! Some freezes, but not really enough for good bug-killing. When you see gnats in January, you know you'll be in trouble come July!