Photography

Kentucky Camping

Camping near Paducah, KY:

Paducah / I-24 / Kentucky Lake KOA Journey offers a variety of camping options, including RV sites, tent sites, and cabins. The campground is located near the highways and byways of North America, offering convenience to traveling campers. According to the reviews, the campground has a quiet country setting, with beautiful views of the water from some RV sites.

The campground is close to several attractions, including Kentucky Lake, the National Quilt Museum, and the Floodwall Murals in Paducah. The reviews also mention that the campground has a fishing pond with a cool fountain that lights up at night.

Mexican Hat Rock Formation

We passed this southern Utah formation on our way to western Colorado. Photo by Verna. Click to enlarge.

The Mexican Hat Rock Formation is a unique geological formation located in southeastern Utah, USA. It is a remnant of a sandstone layer of the Halgaito Formation, formed from sediments deposited on a coastal plain next to a shallow seaway during Late Pennsylvanian time. The formation is a balanced rock, with a broad, flat, orange-red sandstone cap standing on a narrow pedestal of shale and siltstone, resembling an upside-down sombrero. This unique shape is due to different rates of erosion and weathering, where the softer layers of shale and siltstone were eroded faster from underneath the more resistant cap of sandstone.

Monument Valley Camping

This was the view in beautiful Monument Valley, Utah, where we “Glamped” overnight for a couple of nights. I say glamped because we have many of the comforts of home while away. We have satellite TV, streaming TV, Starlink internet and our laptop computers.

Glamping: A Luxury Outdoor Experience. Glamping, short for “glamorous camping,” is a type of outdoor accommodation that offers a more luxurious and comfortable alternative to traditional camping, i.e. “roughing it.”

There are other places we visited on this trip which we will post about later. Click on the image to enlarge.

Saguaro Propagation

If I understand the propagation of the Saguaro Cacti in the southwest correctly, the seeds in the fruit are eaten by various critters and deposited along with bird waste randomly in the desert, where a young cactus may eventually grow.

In any case, I photographed this Curve Billed Thrasher dining on some of the fruit on the big saguaro in our yard today. Click on either image to enlarge in the image viewer.

Desert House in 3D

It has been a while since I posted any 3D photos, so here is an image pair I took this morning with the Samsung Galaxy S23 camera phone. It was a little after nine AM and the sun and shadows were nice at this camera angle.

If in case you don’t have a pair of red/cyan 3D glasses, here is the 2D image:

Click on either image to enlarge in a new tab.

A New Camera Lens

My 75-300mm telephoto lens disappeared mysteriously over the last year, basically since we went to view the total solar eclipse near Waco, Texas, last year. The lost lens may eventually turn up, since we’re not generally that lax with keeping and caring for our equipment, but (s-word) happens.

So, in the meantime, before (and if) the old lens shows up, we ordered a new telephoto lens for my Canon EOS Rebel T6i camera, namely a Canon EF100-300mm replacement for the lost lens. To be sure, the new lens is somewhat superior to the old one, since it is lighter, has less chromatic aberration and is more compact than the “lost” lens.

As a quick functional test of the newly received lens, the photo above was taken of a white winged dove that perched on the bird feeder crook in the back of the house. The photo above was taken through the new lens at about a range of fifteen yards and cropped down to feature the bird. Thankfully, there seems to be no signs of chromatic aberration and the bird’s features come through very well.

Now, if the old lens turns up, it will go to one of the local charitable foundations for resale in their thrift store. The new lens, will be available for more shots like this of wildlife or whatever presents itself as we continue to photograph the world around us, both at home and on the road.