My today’s approach in association with testing new Sigmoid Smooth preset:
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Autumn sunlight on a half-dry swamp bayou
The late afternoon November sun illuminates a short bayou at the Catahoula National Wildlife Refuge in central Louisiana.
ART 1.20.1, Affinity Photo 2
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What defines a bayou? I only know the term from this song… 
Jambalaya (On The Bayou) - song and lyrics by Hank Williams | Spotify
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It’s got codfish in it. Boom, tish
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“Jambalaya” is also often played by John Fogerty ( in Creedence Clearwater Revival, Blue Ridge Rangers, or solo). CCR also has a “Born on the bayou” song…
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In the gist of this thread: as I couldn’t sleep tonight, seeing the full moon, I grabbed the cam and tried to get a reference shot for my recently acquired vintage 500mm mirror tele lens. Leaning against the wall and with some luck I managed to get a somewhat clean shot.
I had some trouble getting a sharp shot because of some atmospherical err stuff that kept the image from beeing sharp swinging to a somehow defocused state (without touching the focus ring) and then getting sharp again. Not sure what effect that was 
Here is the picture (i know, it’s nothing special - just keeping up with the thread)
It’s ISO 100, 1/500s, (fixed) F8.
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This is now my favorite celestial body, I experienced the first landing on the moon on TV during the 1969 vacation in France. Since then, the moon is my greatest friend and follow many events related to the moon, such as lunar eclipses, solar eclipses, planets conjoined with the moon etc…
I have also already taken pictures with tripod of a full moon with very limited options regarding lenses.
Surely you took a good picture of “my” friend here…
Translated with DeepL Translate: The world's most accurate translator (free version)
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As embarrassing (not to mention depressing) as it is to admit, I’ve lived in Louisiana all my life. That said, I can only give you a definition as I know it from an everyday sense, because I’ve never been interested in the subject enough to learn anything authoritative.
A bayou is simply a meandering, slow moving stream of water, often swampy in nature. The water is rarely clear or clean, it’s usually home to mosquitoes, snakes (often alligators) and other vermin. A bayou will commonly host bald cypress trees, water tupelo and algae.
All in all they’re IME almost never nice places to be, but with enough photo processing they can be dolled-up I guess.
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And they were from San Francisco, right? 
I think your description hits the nail on the head. To add to it, where the Louisiana corollary of a river is a bayou, the corresponding corollary of a stream is a coulee. Really, just a ditch that is always filled with water, same slow-moving, muddy dynamic as the bayou it eventually flows into. As a kid, friends and I did a bit of swimming in the coulees feeding the Vermillion Bayou (some folks try to use “River” instead of “Bayou”, but the rest of us know better…) ; I remember once sitting lips-deep in the water, staring at a cottonmouth snake winding it’s way in the water along the opposite bank, thinking, “this isn’t my best idea…”
At one stay at CampThistlewaite (Boy Scouts) we did an overnight canoe trip upstream on Bayou Courtableau (you can easily paddle upstream on a bayou). A muddy mess however, you can’t get out of a canoe into anything other than muck…
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Nice shot, lucky you, I lusted for some time over the Yashica 500mm f8 but could not find one in my price range … nor that I would have the time to use it right now.
Is your shot a 100% crop ?
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I had been looking for some time to get my hands on a mirror tele and this one had a low price, couldn’t resist It’s only 320g and has a minimum focus distance of 1.5m, both are nice bonus points.
The picture is not a 100% crop, and the shot by far wasn’t perfekt. I’m not a complete newbee, when it comes to manual focus lenses, but I found it hard to get the moon nice in focus, also clouds where flying by and there where some atmospherical effects, I think.
I wondered about one of these but would be 1000mm on micro-four thirds so wondered if would be very soft
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The other side of the Bay, actually, but yes…
But then real bayou music is more like this (even though the fiddler with a beard is Aly Bain from Shetland).
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I think it would be really soft, shaky as hell and very hard to focus. But yeah, if you can get your hands on a cheap one, doesn’t hurt too much trying it 
Hmmm
Yep, Zydeco. It can get popular in places around here.
The instinctive response to music – like most artistic endeavors – can be highly personal and this is no exception for me. There are lots of folks who really like Cajun music but I have to be honest and say I’d almost rather listen to fingernails on a chalkboard. Just sayin’ … No disrespect nor dismissal intended, just personal preference. I’m sure the same might well be said by others in regard to what I like.
When it comes to Louisiana “stuff”, I’ll give credit where credit is due and IMO that’s food.* Cajun cooking is easily the most delicious savory food I’ve ever eaten (not low-fat, though!). Now, I’m referring to real Cajun cooking, not the popularized blackened-this, blackened-that you’ll find in uptown restaurants. Some of it may be good, but I never saw anything intentionally (!) “blackened” cross my grandmother’s table. That said, the brown part of the rice that sat on the bottom of the pot was worth fighting over!
* But to be honest, as far as my interests are concerned that’s about it.
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My first encounter with Zydeco was this Paul Simon tune. I don’t mind it, but maybe it’s not representative of all Zydeco.
A friend of mine here has the exactly same opinion about country music - apparently all country music. I very much enjoy some country although I’m fairly selective. I should ask him sometime if there’s a particular bit he doesn’t like.
Actually, he did mention that his ex-girlfriend loved it… maybe that’s why!
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