Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Sky With Mud On The Lens

I don't know why it didn't occur to me to look at the camera lens before I started to photograph this most amazing sky of clouds, but I didn't. We have been hiking around on the very muddy trails lately and definitely kicking up a lot of red mud everywhere (the camera lens?). Also, we ran into a VERY friendly pup on the trail that over-exuberantly decided it loved us and wanted to jump all over us with its muddy paws. We didn't mind, but it knocked the lens hood around on the camera and loosened it (unbeknownst to me) which you'll see in the upper left hand corner in some of the photos. I totally love these pics. They're so representative of the beauty and chaos of life.




Then I reviewed the photos in the camera to see if I was in any way capturing the amazing sight of these clouds in this sky. That's when I saw it. Holy shit! There were spots all over the place. So, I cleaned the lens with my cotton teeshirt sleeve (I hope that's not a terrible thing to admit), and took a few more even though the sky was already changing. I didn't even think about the lens hood. D'oh.


Oh well, c'est la vie. It's not like it's really possible to capture the sky-size beauty of the sky without a wide-angle lens. That never stops me from trying.
Posted by at
Labels:

22 comments:

  1. kenjuJanuary 11, 2011 at 6:26 PM

    Such gorgeous, feathery clouds! The spots don't bother me at all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Julie ZickefooseJanuary 11, 2011 at 6:34 PM

    David Wilcox has a wonderful song called
    "Leave it Like it Is."

    Leave it like it is
    Never mind the turpentine
    Just leave it like it is
    It's fine.

    Mares' tails, so glorious, mud or not.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TaraDharmaJanuary 11, 2011 at 7:05 PM

    i think the spots look like UFOs.....

    ReplyDelete
  4. C. CoraxJanuary 11, 2011 at 7:20 PM

    Yes! No! You can! You WHAT?!!!

    Yes! The clouds in the photos are spectacular.

    No! Don't worry about the mud. It happens. At least it wasn't dirt inside the camera.

    You can capture the sky with persistence and patience. You did a nice job there. Those photos pulled my heart into the blue.

    You what?! You wiped the lens with your shirt?!!!!! Tell me you have a UV filter on the camera, please! If you don't, get one posthaste! Then at least if that gets scratched, it's a lot cheaper to replace. And then I'll admit, "Oh, I do that sometimes, too." ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. SkyJanuary 11, 2011 at 7:45 PM

    Wow - these are gorgeous, mud or no mud! The pup just added another aspect of interest to the visuals and a fun story/memory. I love that wide open sky in Montana, too - wish we could have captured it via camera.

    ReplyDelete
  6. RainJanuary 11, 2011 at 8:04 PM

    Lovely photos. I ended up with some mud alongside my telephoto lens but not on it. I am still not sure how it happened.

    ReplyDelete
  7. bevJanuary 11, 2011 at 8:18 PM

    Stuff gets on my cameras too. I lent a camera to a friend when we were in SLC and it had food on it within about ten minutes. I know better ways to clean off a lens, but must admit that i have most often resorted to breathing on it and then wiping it clean with the edge of my brushed cotton t-shirt. Not sure that I'd want to do that with mud - rather abrasive stuff - but it works okay for removing baklava.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jim McCullochJanuary 11, 2011 at 9:19 PM

    You can get mud off the lens with photoshop, though it may constitute a sort of cloud-journalism dishonesty.

    But not hard to do. Nice pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  9. maryanne stahlJanuary 12, 2011 at 3:32 AM

    looking at these photos makes me want to breathe deeply.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Arkansas PattiJanuary 12, 2011 at 4:12 AM

    Just beautiful sky shots. Were the ground willing, those are the kind of days it is cool to just lay on your back and enjoy.
    Think the mud factor would kill that idea.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Julie ZickefooseJanuary 12, 2011 at 7:49 AM

    Don't forget the trick of licking the crud off your lens. Safer and less scratchy than a T-shirt. And my sky filters have saved my lenses from my T-shirts many a time!

    ReplyDelete
  12. amJanuary 12, 2011 at 8:24 AM

    Thanks so much for sharing your sky and clouds with and without mud spots!

    ReplyDelete
  13. kathy a.January 12, 2011 at 1:21 PM

    great photos! the mud is hardly noticeable, and adds veracity.

    there's something wrong with the t-shirt cleaning of lenses? at least you didn't try a paper towel... oh, well. just another reason i'm not a pro.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Ontario WandererJanuary 12, 2011 at 3:34 PM

    Great sky photos!
    You can get rid of the mud with post processing if you have photoshop or something equivalent.

    ReplyDelete
  15. FloridacrackerJanuary 12, 2011 at 6:46 PM

    What a fun sky!
    And how delightful to be mud spalttered by a happy pup.

    I puff first and then find the cleanest (tucked in part usually) segment of t-shirt to wipe the lens.

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousJanuary 12, 2011 at 6:54 PM

    I just hope that if I have to resort to licking the lens on my camera that it's the baklava and not the mud I'm removing!

    Great skies! Again!

    ReplyDelete
  17. jeanne marieJanuary 12, 2011 at 6:56 PM

    Hmm. I filled out the handy dandy form, but it still left me as anonymous.

    Off, to find me something good to lick.

    ReplyDelete
  18. DaveJanuary 12, 2011 at 9:15 PM

    The best photos you'll have in your mind and not on you camera. Anyways, that adds to a nice story.

    ReplyDelete
  19. mandtJanuary 13, 2011 at 2:07 PM

    I thought they were purple spirits. Guess I'd better wait until this flu passes and look again,

    ReplyDelete
  20. oldwhiteladyJanuary 16, 2011 at 5:35 PM

    Great pictures. You could have pretended you didn't know what those spots were. Perhaps they were alien ships shimmering into shape:) I'm glad you have weather where you can hike and enjoy the nature.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Springer KneebloodJanuary 16, 2011 at 5:58 PM

    I really, truly LOVE those clouds!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Buy Generic Viagra OnlineJanuary 24, 2011 at 3:51 AM

    When I began writing your article I could so easily understand what you meant to tell. Why don’t you also get into the teaching field? I am sure we all students shall pass out with flying colors, because even your articles are so simple and so easy to understand.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)