Posts in Category: spider web
12/3/2009
Green Kingfisher
The Green Kingfisher is, most days, my most favorite bird. It is so improbable. Not much bigger than a sparrow, with that massive beak, and that intense green. The rust breast on the male just adds to the beauty of the bird.
It has not been an easy bird for me to photograph. They only live right down along the Mexican border, and I only get down that way once, or twice at most, a year. They are common there, meaning that they occur at least in small numbers where there is appropriate habitat, and are regularly seen…but seeing one and getting close enough for a good shot are two different things.
This is a small bird. Worse, the feature structure, typical of a diving bird, is very fine (waterproof tight) so that getting real detail means you have to be very, very close and have very, very good light.
All of which is to say that this is one of my best shots of a male Green Kingfisher to date. I like the greens. I like the pose. I would have liked, even using what amounts to a 1600mm lens, to have been closer.
Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL at 40x (as above, about equivalent in field of view to a 1600mm lens on a full frame DSLR). 1/80th sec. @ ISO 100. Metered at about f5.6.
In Lightroom, I moved the Blackpoint considerably right, added Clarity and Vibrance (a little), and used the Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL.
9/22/2009
Busy Spider
I thought spider webs were a Lakeside specialty (see 9/20/2009) but it turns out they are more of an Ohio thing. The area out behind the Visitor Center at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, in the brush beyond the boardwalk where the Astor and Goldenrod are in bloom, is just full of them. This morning, the dew was turning them into webs of light. There was no direct sun on the area yet so light levels were low, and the ISO on this shot is pushed up to 320. Still, not bad.
Sony DSC H50 at about 340mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/125 @ ISO 320. Programed auto.
My basic added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel in Lightroom. Blackpoint well to the right. Highlights well to the right in the Tone Panel to bring up the web. Cropped from the right to aid composition (to put the center of the web off the center of the frame).
From Lakeside OH.
And here is another. This one is cropped heavily from top and bottom to show just the web.
Looking like a net cast for light...
9/20/2009
Web
Happy Sunday!
Lakeside Ohio sustains three amazing populations. The most abundant are the Fox Squirrels. Big as the largest Gray, and fox red. Impressive animals. The second population is feral cats. They are everywhere. And finally there are more spiders in Likeside than I have seen in a long time. Their webs drape street signs and fill any open architectural gap. This one adorns a trellis gate. Late afternoon light picked it out against the shadowed wing of the house behind and the shapes of the trellis made for an interesting composition. It is cropped slightly from the left to eliminate the whiter portion of the support post.
Sony DSC H50 at about 410mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/125 @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the white highlights. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Sharpen landscape preset.
From Lakeside OH.
8/4/2009
Web in the Dewy Meadow
You see a lot of dewy web shots done with a mist bottle in the studio or against a black backdrop in someone’s yard. This is the the real thing, as provided by the creator’s hand and cool morning breath. Beads of moisture so fine as to be invisible from any distance along each strand of the web, itself all but invisible, catch the light and weave this tapestry in the grasses. You have to stand in the right place, at the right angle to the sun, to bring it to life.
For this shot I backed off to find a sweet spot where the effect was maximized…far enough to need 380mm equivalent to frame the web.
Sony DSC H50 at 380mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Cropped top and bottom to isolate the web more effectively in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance, blackpoint to the right, Landscape sharpen. I boosted the highlights slightly to increase the shimmer of the web.
Look at this closer shot at Original or X3 size by clicking the image and then choosing the larger size at the top on my smugmug site. It looks amazing as an 8.5×11 print! I will have to have one made at 11×14.
Web in the Dew