Scarborough Creekside park - September 21

[Shortsighted]

I decided to visit Scarborough this morning instead of the bluffs in Pickering. The dirt side trails were so grown together that it was too difficult to traverse them in blue suede shows. I therefore stayed on the main drag. I can appreciate why it's a drag ... high-speed bicycles, dogged dog walkers, radios, loud conversations between pedestrians, everyone stopping to ask what I'm looking at. It just wears me out.
I could hear a few warblers in the canopy but couldn't see anything moving ... no bins. I looked for fungi ... too early. I looked up at the dead trees for raptors, saw two (RTH and Merlin). The creek-side was very quiet. Only saw a couple of thrush (Swainson's and maybe Gray-cheeked). There was no evidence of salmon run yet, ie) no visuals and no sound of splashing in the shallow creek. I did see a kingfisher a couple of times but it was too far away for my lens.



Grackle rock


Swainson's Thrush


Merlin



Red-tailed Hawk


Possible Gray-cheeked Thrush

[Charline]

That's a great collection!


Did you remove the UV filter in your camera?

[Shortsighted]

It was a hazy sky, almost as if camp fires were somewhere in the vicinity. My camera doesn't have a digital UV filter and my lens doesn't have a physical one either. With a 3" diameter objective lens a top quality UV filter would be too expensive and a cheap one is counterproductive. The extended slide-out lens hood protects the lens element. I can't afford expensive luxuries. My luxuries involve chocolate and viewing your photos, not necessarily at the same time. I'm not an undisciplined hedonist, but I'm sure that I know a few.

[Charline]

Sorry, I meant if you removed the IR filter from your camera. I had one old camera modified by removing the IR filter. After that, all my normal photos have this brown hue.

[Shortsighted]

Very interesting. The only other factor that may have played a role is that I set the white balance to 'auto' the day before when I usually have it set at 'cloudy' because I previously decided that I liked the results better. Other than that, it must be the haze scattering the red end of the spectrum.I looked at other 'uncropped' frames and they all look the same. Certainly, a 600mm lens would have come in handy for these raptors.

[Charline]

Almost all of your recent photos have this reddish hue.


Did you buy this camera new or used? If used, the previous owner might have the IR filter removed for astrophotography. If that's the case, the white balance will not matter much.

[Shortsighted]

I didn't buy my camera, it was a gift back in 2012. I imagine that it was new at the time. I think the colour shift may have come from the temperature scale in Photoshop because it wasn't set at center position, notched as it were slightly to the warm side. I didn't notice it probably because I like things warm and cozy. It may have been off the neutral position for a few weeks. I'll re-set it. You are very perspicacious to have noticed and I am decidedly obtuse for having missed it. Then again, after the nuclear exchange everything will be warmer and have a red glow. I can pretend that the sun is beginning to exhaust itself and be morphing into a red giant. Wait till Sol discovers it doesn't have enough mass for that event, it will be so livid. There's that red again.