Posts in Category: tree
Eagles in Early Light
Not quite dawn, actually. We (it was my wife’s first successful trip to see the eagles at Roger’s Pond) had to wait for the sun to get up over the trees, but still very early. Not your typical Digiscoped shot, either…but I wanted both eagles in the frame. The 15x setting on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL’s Vario eyepiece, and zooming up just far enough to eliminate vignetting on Canon SD320HS’ zoom gave me about 750mm equivalent…and kept both eagles in. As it turns out, this image is as much about the bare limbs of the old maple tree against the backdrop of pines. The eagles are ornamental 🙂
Scope and camera as above. ISO 400 @ 1/200th. Processed in Snapseed and Photo Editor by dev.macgyver on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
The Pearl
I love macros, and I sometimes remember to take them 🙂 There is a definite discipline about looking closely enough to even see the possibilities. I find it takes and effort to shift my focus to macro, and, once there, an equal effort to shift out again, so my macros come in bunches. (I am not speaking of the camera focus here, but my internal vision’s focus.) This was a macro morning, with fresh ice on the trees.
One of my tests of any walk-around-camera, for me, has to be how well it does macro. The Sony NEX 3NL with the 16-50mm zoom can be tricked into being quite a satisfying macro machine. You just have to use macro mode, and Clear Image Zoom. That gives you something above 1 to 1 macro, and the results are pretty good. This pearl of ice was actually quite a bit smaller than you are seeing it, if you are looking at the image on anything bigger than a phone. 🙂
Sony NEX 3NL. 16-50mm zoom. Macro mode. 75mm equivalent plus 2x Clear Image Zoom. ISO 200 @ 1/160th @ f6.3. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Winter Fields. Winter Trees.
This is not today, nor even yesterday. Yesterday we got 8 inches of fresh snow…but then, in the night, it turned to rain, and it is still raining. So, this morning we have about 5 inches of very soggy snow, and a good deal of ice on the trees (5 inches, on top of 5 inches, on top of the remnants of 14 inches, on top of etc. We have a lot of snow still on the ground). Pics later 🙂 (Though it may be a shoot from under the umbrella day.)
This is our last 5 inch snowfall way back on Monday. Smooth, unbroken fields of snow, long shadows of the morning, frosted pines, piles of cloud against the blue winter sky. Classic!
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. ISO 200 @ 1/250th @ f16. 75mm equivalent. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Three in a tree. Odd man out.
I could not resist “three in a tree”, but “odd man out” also seems too apt to pass up, so I used them both 🙂 This is Viera Wetlands (Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands) near Melbourne Florida, and we have, of course, two White Ibis and a Little Blue Heron. And a tree. And a curiously cloud-dappled sky, for that matter. Apart from the interesting birds, and bird behavior, the 4 elements against the sky make a pleasing composition. Or that is what I think.
Canon SX50HS. Program with -1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. 1200mm equivalent field of view. ISO 125 @ 1/1000th @ f6.5. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Practicing for the squirrel Olympics!
I actually quite like squirrels. But I do find that their antics are a lot more attractive, a lot more fun, in a park in Virginia far far away from the birdseed on my back deck than they are at home. Strange how that works. Virginia had a cold snap while I was there, being at the edge of the Polar Vortex…it was 5 above zero on Tuesday morning, but by mid-day Thursday the temperatures were back up in the mid-forties, and the Squirrels were making up for lost time. Lots of foraging going on…but also lots of what I can only call play…unless of course there really is a Squirrel Olympics…then it would definitely be practice. This aspiring Squirrel acrobat was testing him (or her) self against gravity. How long can I cling? How flat can I get? It was such an odd pose that it tempted me to take way too many pictures…all of which are just about identical.
Canon SX50HS. Program with – 1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. ISO 320 @ 1/1000th @ f6.5. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. Cropped slightly for composition.
Winter Wood
This is another shot from my Friday exploration of the fresh snow fall. The loop of trail at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters never disappoints. On this day, the woods were still, and the fresh snow was over everything…even piled on the branches of the baby Pines and the sapling Furs. The early light of mid-winter, with its long shadows and touch of warmth, keeps the scene from being frigid…and an HDR treatment brings up the vivid green of the evergreens and the rich browns of the tree-trunks. This is a winter where life is very possible…a winter a human can still enjoy 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. ISO 100 @ 1/180th @ f3.2. 45mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Early Christmas!
When I went out to photograph the freshly fallen snow the other day, I expected to find some icing as well. The strom had begun as freezing rain. There was, in fact, very litte. None at all under the snow on the car. No glistening branches among the snowy beach roses. And I had to look for it in the forest. In fact the only ice I found was on single pine needles, where drops of water had been caught by the freeze. The drops, in the right light, looked like micro-christmas tree orniments…as though each fond of evergreen was a whole Christmas Tree in and of itself.
I backed off and used the long end of the zoom to isolate the frozen drops against a deep background. Smart Auto was smart enough to switch to Macro Mode on its own 🙂 The result is several times life size on any thing bigger than a phone display.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Smart Auto. ISO 480 @ 1/90th @ f5.9. 480mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. Cropped slightly for composition and to eliminated out of focus elements on the right.
Sunlit Autumn Tapestry. Happy Sunday!
Yesterday I published (various places) a collage of similar photos…but they were taken just before the sun broke through and really lit the leaves. I did some color balance adjustment to warm the individual segments of the collage and the collage as a whole, but there is no substitute for direct sun when you are after color.
The image was taken from the 7th floor of the Marriott Long Island Convention Center, where they put me while I worked the New York State Ornithological Society Annual Meeting (for ZEISS). Right across the road from the Marriott is a Nassau County Nature Preserve, the last remnants of Hampstead Heath, and my window looked right down on it. It provided a uniquely colorful view in October, and a unexpected bonus for the trip. And, to frost the cake, the Marriott is one of the few hotels I have ever stayed in where you can actually open the thermopane windows, if only a crack. It was enough to get just the lens of the camera out far enough so I did not have dirty hotel glass between me and the scene. Bonus x2.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And for the Sunday thought. I never cease to be amazed at the subtle ways God has of blessing me…reminding me of the Creator’s essential good will for me, for all of us, and, I have to think, exercising some humor. I did not have high hopes for this trip. Ornithological meetings, in my experience, are not fertile ground for ZEISS, and who in their right mind would choose to spend an Autumn weekend on Long Island, 40 minutes out of the City? A much busier day than expected at the ZEISS booth on Friday, and then the sunset view out my hotel window, as enough to remind me that God is God, and God is good. Always. And then to look out before breakfast to the Tapestry across the street…to come back from breakfast and find the Tapestry sunlit…well, like I say, frosting on the cake. And me, being me, thinks “yeah, okay God, you got my back…even here on Long Island you put me good places.” I even grudge a thanks.
Well this is me, this Sunday morning, more than grudging! Thank you God.
Now you might be wondering, as I sometimes do, if is really that God puts me in good places, or if I have just developed the ability to see what I identify as God’s good in the the places I am? And to that I say “what does it matter?” I am convinced it does not at all. Either way, I see God’s action on my behalf at work…demonstrating undeserved love. And either way the evidence of God’s blessing continues to build in my life.
And while I am at it, here’s a thanks for what I take to be God’s will at work in those who preserved the little patch of Hampstead Heath across from the Marriott on Long Island. I certainly enjoy and appreciate it. God is God. God is good.
Even, apparently, on Long Island. 🙂
The living logic of trees…
I am pretty sure these are Persimmon trees. We don’t have them in Maine, but in Cape May NJ, in the little patch of forest behind the dunes at Cape May Lighthouse State Park, they are among the most common trees. In summer all you see is the green crown, but fall shows off the fantastic forms the limbs take, in their living reach for the sky and light. There is a logic all its own the the growth of trees, and something to be learned from observing them. Unfortunately their lifetimes are considerably longer than ours. We never see anything but the latest episode, and have to use our own logic to trace back to what might have come before…the the forces, internal and external, that shaped the tree we see. And, when considering trees, our logic has to be suspect. Trees have a living logic all their own.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Light in the forest
In a Redwood forest that has been cut, besides the rings of trees growing from the old roots of one of the fallen giants (see my previous post on the trees of Jack London State Park), you also find many of these double, tripple, quadruple trees, again, clearly, growing from a single root. The rings I think are essentially healty. All the trees in a ring, if it is big enough, have a chance to live. I am not so sure about the triple trees.
At any rate, this image is not about the trees, or only incidentally at any rate…it is about the light…the unique layered, filtered, highly patterned light of the forest floor. The challenging light, from a photographer’s point of view, of the forest floor. The beautiful light on the forest floor, from almost anyone’s point of view.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode (in-camera HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.