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07/12/12 Rain comes to Arkansas and provides some much needed drought relief

Posted on July 12, 2012 //
Pine needles after the rain

Pine needles after the rain

All of the photos in this entry were taken with a Sony Nex-7, and a Sony 18-200mm E mount lens.  I used Adobe Lightroom 4.1 for all the raw conversions.  This first image was taken in color and converted to B&W by using the conversion process in Lightroom 4.1

I was out in my backyard and kept hearing the ominous sounds of thunder, but every time I looked around the sky, I couldn’t see any thunderheads.  Soon the wind picked up and it was clear that a good rain might be headed my way.  While walking around the side of the house, I was able to see a break in the trees and saw that all along the Arkansas River, that a large storm was forming and would soon be headed over to my house.  The wait was not long and soon we were blessed with about a 30 minute heavy rain that was really needed.  As soon as the rain stopped I decided to try and get some pictures since it had been so long that I had been able to work around water in Arkansas.

Robin after the storm
Robin after the storm

I wanted to try out my Sony Nex-7 with the Sony 18-200mm F3.2 to F6.3 lens.  I had not really used this lens in low light/high iso photography and was curious how well both the camera and lens would perform.  Since the Sony Nex-7 has a cropped sensor with a 1.5x factor, the 200mm lens would be the 35mm equivalent of a 300mm lens. I did not use a tripod and mainly used the cameras LCD for all the focus/framing of the various subjects I photographed.  The robins were a push at 1600 iso and a F stop of 6.3.  I quickly realized that the Sony 18-200 lens was not a low light lens.  I ran into immediate focus problems which I had not experienced before. Even though the lens was showing good focus confirmation, it was not really able to lock on to many of the finer subjects I was trying to work with.  The shot of the robin came out very well.  He was moving around quite a bit and this shot is a crop of about 1/25th of the full sized image.  In this case the 18-200 was able to lock in very well, but even with 300mm, it was really not enough to work this robin which was about 25 yards away from me.  Still after working up this crop in Lightroom 4.1, I was very happy with the results.  The robin had been through the worst of the rain as can be seen by looking at his head.

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07/07/12 Relief comes to Arkansas from both heat and drought

Posted on July 7, 2012 //

The high temperatures in Arkansas for the 6th of July set many state records.  LIttlle Rock hit 107 degrees and Russellville was at 108.  However yesterday, during the afternoon and into the night, Arkansas received the first rain in almost 30 days.  The rainfall was sporadic and thus not uniform but still offered greatly needed relief to parched areas of Arkansas.  The other added benefit was the addition of cloud cover over most of the state.  This also added relief since the sun’s direct effect was blocked.

I have noticed now that many of the parts of Arkansas are showing the effects of the drought.  If you hike along any ridge line in the central part of the state or in the northwest, you can see oak trees that have turned brown along with other deciduous trees.  These trees most likely will hold their leaves until fall and then drop them.  If they drop off now, more than likely the tree will not recover in the spring of 2013.  I am also starting to see some pine trees that are also developing brown needles.  Pines in Arkansas seem to react different than deciduous trees in that they will turn from green to brown in a few days and then die.  The short leaf pine which is native to Arkansas seems to be able to hold a bit better than the imported slash and loblolly pines.  The later two varieties are for pulp and paper only.

I have monitored a few very large short leaf pines around Pulaski county and have noticed that they are all developing some brown needles, but have not turned all brown yet.  Hopefully this continued cloud cover and lower temperatures will help keep things in Arkansas from getting out of control.  The weather forecast for the next week is for lower temperatures and chances of rain for the next few days.  The high temperatures are forecasted to be below 100 degrees for at least 5 days.

What does this mean to outdoor activities for Arkansas:

  1. Keep your campfires out for now as any type of spark or cinder could cause a major wildfire.
  2. If you are going to hike, get an early start and try to stay out of the sun.  Make sure you carry plenty of water.  Odds are you will not find any potable water on your hike.

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