Today's Weather in Your Garden - 13

I just went out and measured 6" of snow on the deck and it's still going strong. The thermometer says 30 degrees but no wind. Looks like we're in for several more hours of this according to channel 7 and Intellicast. Woo hoo.

Well I want to thank ya all for sending the white stuff my way...again. It's snowing, hope it doesn't amount to much. Ho-hum.

It is BAD BAD BAD - even DH said hes had enuff.

All plowed out and now it's starting to melt. Tomorrow will probably get rid of most of it when (if) we hit the promised 40 degrees.

What did you get Pirl? Looks like about a 10" here.

Maximum 3".

36 and raining. We only got 1.6 inches.

I am guessing after all said and done we got to 7 or 8 inches

That was a fun day. The office closed. Only one doctor in today and he was only scheduled to 11:30am. He would rather his patients stay home. Looks like we got about 5". I hear Nassau got closer to 8"

This is the most snow we've had this winter. Eric made it to Philadelphia - by Acela, his flight was cancelled, now he is hoping the plane from Philadelphia to Columbus OH will get him there tonight.

It would've been SO fun to have had a snow day off together.

sigh.

Just got back in from shoveling the wonderful snow. We got about 4-5 inches and now it is mostly sleet. Glad I got it shoveled before it got too heavy to move. Temp is at 28 degrees with no wind at all.

It's stopped here now. Don't know if it'll start up again, I haven't checked. Looks like we got 8"

Temp 32.9° Wchill 20.7°, wind NE 13.5

Got about 5" of snow. ☺

Oh cool, Mrs. came to visit this time. How nice they take turns!!

Yes but they have domestic problems, they can't stand to see each other... for now... ☺

Really nice pic WC2. She looks like she is posing for you.

5" so far north of Boston. Need to get to an iris meeting tomorrow, but they have moved start time back to noon. Both our cardinals came to the feeder, there is a second male around as well as the pair. Flock of juncos made desparate by the snow.

Thanks!
She's a good model but a little pricey on the peanuts. ☺

Nice shot, WC.

No wonder they are having domestic problems, your tempting her with peanuts!!

Our cardinals have to eat black oil sunflower seed if they want anything. Afraid peanuts would make squirrels worse pests than they are.

I have a peanut box on the other side of the yard for them, they lift the cover and take a peanut and plant it somewhere, then they actually come back to the same spot days later and dig it out. ☺

that is a beautiful picture, WC. i think the female cardinals are beautiful - i love their coloring.
Eric is on an airplane in Philadelphia - only about 40 minutes delayed (so far). It's an Embraer - i think i'm glad it isn't a prop. Columbus is reporting light sleet.
These trips make me nervous.

At last check, we got 7" and there was some type of precip falling which was not snow. At least the driveway has been cleared so we don't have to deal with that mess.

Had to cancel the reunion this AM, but we've rescheduled to meet in the town where we went to HS in Rockland County, NY. This will be a real blast from the past, and maybe the weather will cooperate this time! Thanks to everyone who kept me abreast of the CT weather.

Back to back shots showing what changing the white balance setting can do.

Next.

Absolutely gorgeous, Victor! These could sell for a pretty penny! Depending on whether you want a warm or cool feeling, you've covered it all.

Very interesting Victor. Such a different feeling from one to another. I hope you print some of these beauties.

Thanks Nancy and ngam. Actually, I rarely print any of my photos. I enjoy seeing them as my screen saver. To see random shots of my kids for the past six years is really cool.

WC - beautiful shot.

Victor - I don't even know what white balance is or how to use it but I do prefer the first shot over the second. Which do you like better?

I like them both. Different moods for sure. The first one is closer to what your eye would see.

So just what does white balance change?

How it senses color. Color looks different under different light conditions such as sunlight, clouds, fluorescent light, incandescent light, etc. White balance is the camera's attempt to compensate for it. The 'auto' setting on my current camera does not to a good job at it. You can set it to other settings such as those I mentioned. Good cameras have one where you can continuously vary it until it looks right to you. The same can be accomplished with external filters.

There's something I could never figure out with my cell phone. do you set it for the light you want, or the light you are in?

Cell phone cams have very limited controls. Mine just has a brighter / darker setting.

Mine has sun, fluorescent, cloudy, and a couple others. i never knew what to do with them. LOL...if I was in the sun I set it for sunny, cloudy day, clouds, etc. never knew if I was doing it right.

The instruction manual described it in a way I find easy to comprehend:

Whatever the kind of the light, the human eye adapts to it so that a white object still looks white. On the other hand devices such as digital cameras see a white subject as white by first adjusting the color balance to suit the color of the ambient light around the subject. This adjustment is called matching the white balance.

They do give instructions on how to set the white balance.

i tend to shoot first, and fix it later in Photoshop. Pictures that look too dark to have anything useful in them can have a surprising amount of image buried in there.

That's a lot of extra work, Amy. Plus, I don't have any fancy editing programs! Your second point is important. Given the choice, you always want to underexpose. Overexposed is gone forever.

O, it's so easy! i only even know how to use probably 25% of Photoshop's potential. But i'd rather do the work on my computer - usually a super quick fix - than have to think a lot while taking pictures.

DH bought himself a fancy digital after giving me mine for my birthday. It works more like film - it has a viewfinder and different lenses and filters and... yikes. But i understand the appeal of being really good at using all that, i just don't want to work that hard.

i think i do ok with mine (though i doubt i'll be giving y'all a run for your money anytime soon) and i have one dial and a flash with 4 or 5 settings. And that's all.
Guess who takes more pictures?

Gee, i love modern technology sometimes!