Little Planet - David Mathre Photography

Monday (31-January-2022) — New Jersey

Wintertime Nature in New Jersey.

Birds of the day viewed at the birdfeeder and in the backyard: Mourning Dove, Red-tailed Hawk, Downy Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Tufted Titmouse, House Finch, Dark-eyed Junco, White-throated Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Northern Cardinal. The flock of Red-winged Blackbirds is still around.

Birds of the day. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Flock of Red-winged Blackbirds. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Little Planet video of the flock of Red-winged Blackbirds.

Daily Electric Energy Used (120.0 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (0.9 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. The solar panels still covered with snow. The supplemental resistance heating kicked on at night as the outdoor temperature dropped below 10°F. Deficit of 109.1 kWh.

Monthly Electric Energy Used (2846 kWh) from Sense. Monthly Solar Electric Energy Produced (618 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Deficit of 2228 kWh.

Monday (20-December-2021) — New Jersey

Autumn Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

The temperature dropped to the low 20’s (F) overnight. The solar powered pump for the birdbath continued to pump water part of the night leaving an ice sculpture.

Birdbath Ice Sculpture. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Birds of the day viewed at the birdfeeder and in the backyard: Mourning Dove, Northern Mockingbird, House Finch, Dark-eyed Junco.

Birds of the day. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Time-lapse Little Planet videos of the day. The concrete for the inner sleeve posts was allowed to set for 48 hours. Combination rain day, and colder temperatures. Eight of the eight foot outer sleeve posts were installed with the appropriate hardware (bottom brace band with eye bolt, middle collar with eye bolt, and top brace cup). The 2nd video shows eight more post holes being dug by Red Rover. Will wait for warmer weather to install the inner sleeve posts and Quikrete fast-setting concrete.

Daily Electric Energy Used (81.1 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (32.9 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Sunny. Geothermal HVAC heating the house, much of the day stage 2 since it is cold outside. Deficit of 48.2 kWh.

Monday (29-November-2021) — New Jersey

Autumn Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Birds of the day viewed at the birdfeeder and in the backyard: Blue Jay, House Finch.

Birds of the day. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Little Planet Time-lapse Videos. Continuing to evaluate the LabPano Pilot EE 360 camera. I found that I can do longer shoots using an external USB-C battery pack. It just needs to be one that can do fast charging. The first time-lapse little planet video was changing the AAA batteries in the solar powered Trolls.
Five of the batteries that were removed, wouldn’t take a charge. With the new batteries, three of the Trolls LED lights were on during the day. They are supposed to charge the batteries when it is light out, and only light up when it gets dark out. All but one of the Trolls lights went on when it got dark out, and they were still on at midnight. Will continue to monitor if they continue to charge during the shorter days, and now that the temperature is dropping below freezing every night.

For the next video, the camera was mounted on Red Rover, and on a tripod in the field. Today’s main project was to prepare and seed some of the back sections. A couple of months ago, the sections were fertilized, rototilled, and then covered with black agricultural fabric (to kill germinating weeds). The wildflower seed vendor recommended to sow the seeds after the first few freezes. Apparently, some seeds germinate better if they are out for some time in the cold. (Just hope the birds and mice don’t eat all of the seeds). Today, the black agricultural fabric was removed, the plot leveled with a drag harrow, seeds sowed, then the seeds pressed down with a water-filled drum roller. The LabPano Pilot EE 360 camera was set for a 20x 4K time-lapse video. The white balance and exposure were set to Auto. In the time-lapse video you can see problems with the white balance and exposure. The lighting conditions kept changing from sunny to cloudy.

Daily Electric Energy Used (69.1 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (24.5 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Cloudy and cold. Geothermal HVAC heating the house. Deficit of 44.6 kWh.

Two-Years Ago (19-October-2018) — Portugal

Gone to See Portugal. Street Photography Workshop with Steve Simon. Day 5: Lisbon, Portugal.

While walking around the LX Factory (a former fabric company transformed into a hipster hangout with graffiti, cafes and boutique shops) we came upon a commercial photographer shooting a model. As soon as he saw us with cameras we were chased away. A bit later I happened to catch the model talking on her cell phone.

LZ Factory. (David J Mathre) — LZ Factory Back Street – Little Planet View. Composite of 25 images taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens (ISO 110, 15 mm, f/8, 1/320 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and stitched together with AutoPano Giga. (David J Mathre)

Photographer. (David J Mathre) — Commercial Photographer. Afternoon Street Photography in the LX Factory. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens. (David J Mathre)

Model. (David J Mathre) — Model. Afternoon Street Photography in the LX Factory. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens. (David J Mathre)

Daily Electric Energy Used (41.1 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (28.1 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Sun in the morning, some clouds in the afternoon. Geothermal HVAC system turned on to heat the house. A deficit of 18.9 kWh.

Tuesday (15-September-2020) — New Jersey

Summertime Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Out working on the patio, I harvested the Broccoli Rabe and Radishes in the Grow Towers. This opened up light for the Basil and Pepper plants. I also distributed worms in to the composting tubes in each Grow Tower. I used the Ricoh Theta Z1 360 degree camera to make time-lapse Little Planet videos of the work on the patio. Same workflow as yesterday: Theta Z1 Camera set to record images using program auto mode (shutter, aperture, white-balance, JPG + RAW (DNG) every 10 seconds. Camera mounted on a tripod just above head level. The camera collected ~ 360 images (~ 1 hour) before running out of internal storage space. The DNG dual fisheye images were processed with Capture One Pro, saved in TIF format. Then converted to 360 degree equirectangular pano images with PTGUI (batch process). The Little Planet time-lapse video was created using PhotoShop CC (image converted to 1:1 format (7430 x 7430), rotated 180 degrees, converted to polar coordinates, then exported as a MP4 video (1920 x 1920, 10p). Rotation to the video was added using Premiere Pro.

Daily Electric Energy Used (39.7 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (52.1 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. More sun. A surplus of 12.4 kWh.