Posts in Category: water
6/12/2009
The Bowl, Acadia National Park
I am in Acadia National Park for a few days, very likely without internet access, so I am preparing a few Pic of the Days drawing on my Acadia shots from last year about this time.
The Bowl is a small pond behind the Beehive.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
In Lightroom, recovery for the sky and just my basic Clarity, Vibrance and Sharpen.
From Bar Harbor 08.
6/11/2009
Prairie Lake with Storm
The North Dakota Prairie sometimes seems as much water as land. There are potholes, ponds, marshes, and fair sized lakes dotting the landscape wherever you look. This small lake is on the edge of Chase Lake NWR, again, on a day full of intermittent rain and glowering skies.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F5.6 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Dual graduated filters in Lightroom. From the top to darken the sky to its natural tone, and from the bottom to increase brightness and contrast. General Vibrance and Clarity and Landscape sharpen preset.
6/3/2009
Big Sky over Sea Rocks (with house leaning in)
Seaweed covered rocks and tiny tide-pools on the point at the south end of Parson’s Beach, with just a bit of house leaning in (due to the wide angle lens, should I fix it??) under that same huge sky from yesterday.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F5.6 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky, Fill light for the foreground. Added Clarity and Vibrance, and sharpen. I was still not happy with the seaweed. It was too dull. I pulled a Graduated filter up from the bottom and added Brightness, Clarity, and Contrast to make it a bit more interesting and balance the image.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.
5/14/2009
Pond with Pollen
Lighthouse Pond on Cape May Point. Swirls of weed below the water and pollen on the surface provide foreground interest in this low angle shot of the pond. Sky reflections give the water further out an interesting texture. And I like the sculpted shapes of the trees along the far shore. Though this is clearly an suburban pond (no way to hid the houses all along the back side) it still has a wild feel (at least to me).
Sony DSC H50 at about 42mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/600 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, I used a graduated filter effect from the top to darken the sky, increase contrast in the houses slightly, and bring out the wispy clouds…and then another gfe from the bottom to adjust exposure slightly and add Clarity and Contrast. My usual added Vibrance and Clarity in the Presence panel, and the Landscape sharpen preset.
From Cape May 2009.
5/2/2009
Shell Brook
South of St. Augustine, the white Florida sand is mixed with crushed shells. The Atlantic is a much more vigorous shell crusher than the Gulf of Mexico. Where rock outcroppings occur, as here, the shells heap up and form interesting patterns. Streams. Brooks. Little oceans of shell.
Taken from beach level using the fold out LCD panel on the H50.
Sony DSC H50 at about 36mm equivalent. F8.0 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Because of the range of light and dark here, I used a considerable amount of Fill Light in Lr. Standard Clarity and Vibrance for the H50, Landscape sharpen preset.
From St. Augustine FL.
4/29/2009
Sculpted Shore
Rare outcroppings of rock along the coast south of St. Augustine FL. Even Florida’s minimal tide has sculpted the rock over the ages into all kinds of interesting shapes. That and the green and blue sea make for an interesting scene.
I tipped the camera down sharply to emphasize the long stretch of beach, leaving just enough horizon to keep it real.
Sony DSC H50 at about 35mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/640 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Minor processing in Lr. Added Clarity and Vibrance, Landscape sharpen preset.
From St. Augustine FL.
4/26/2009
The Layered Sea
White sands along the cost of Florida, especially on the gulf side, make for a glass green sea, an emerald sea as they say up along the panhandle. I don’t associate with the Atlantic coast, but here in North Florida they certainly do have a green sea. The white sand here is not so pure, being mixed with a brown crushed shells, but it seems to get the job done.
Washington Oaks beach is steep, with weed covered rock outcroppings under the water and up the beach, so the effect is especially complex, as in this shot of the surf line. It creates a pseudo-abstract design in color and texture.
Sony DSC H50 at about 45mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/800 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, only my basic Vibrance and Clarity adjustments in the Presence panel, and Landscape sharpen preset. Cropped slightly at the top to narrow the band of blue sky.
From St. Augustine, FL.
4/16/2009
Evening River
We arrived in Drum, just north of Aberdeen Scotland, late in the day, or early in the long Scottish evening. We were staying with a friend of my friend the driver on this adventure, who had a house facing the North Sea across agricultural fields. We drove out to this river, a quiet spot, looking for wrens. This was taken from a footbridge across the river. The light was that glooming which you only really get in the far north in summer, when the sun never goes far below the horizon, even late in the evening. If you have been there, you know that the light is warm, despite the late hour. The problem is that the camera does not see the light as warm. Then too, with the generally low light levels, if you expose for the foreground, the sky goes white. Not what you want.
Actually, this shot would have been impossible without the H50s built in stabilization. The low light brought the shutter speed down to 1/6 of a second…much longer than I should have been able to hand hold.
And, as always, but especially on this trip, I was working against time, out with other folks who were not their to see the scenery, and I did not want to keep them waiting while I played with exposure. Just one shot, on Programed Auto. Which is, of course, where Lightroom comes in.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F4.0 @ 1/6th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, I used two graduated filters, one pulled down from the top to darken the sky, and one pulled up from the bottom to reduce the brightness there as well, and to increase contrast. Then I went to the HSL panel and did some selective brightening of specific colors. I placed the HSL tool over the purple reeds and slide it up to increase the luminance. I did the same over the sandy hill in the background. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Landscape sharpen. A bit of Luminance Noise Reduction to counter the mottling caused by the selective color brightness changes.
The result is something very close to what I saw that night…certainly much closer than the original file, which I include here for reference.
From Scotland.
Original file:
The original, resized fresh from the camera
4/2/2009
On Skye
I was only on Skye a matter of hours, going out to the Hebrides, and coming back and on both days we had a tight schedule and a long way to go. I want to go back. Skye has some of the most amazing scenery I have ever had the pleasure to travel thorough.
This is a pretty straightforward shot with a delicate balance between the foreground and sky brightness. I have not applied Graduated Filter effects to this yet. I may go back as time allows and see if I can improve it, but I am pretty happy with it.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide angle. F5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, I used Recovery for the sky, and Fill light for the foreground. Added Vibrance and Clarity in the Presence panel, and used the Landscape sharpen preset.
From Scotland.
3/29/2009
Monumental Shell
As I have mentioned before, one of the features I like best about the H9/H50 cameras from Sony is the tilt out articulated LCD. It allows getting right down on the ground for images without actually laying down. It allows upward angles from ground level (something that is difficult even if you do lay down). In this case, laying down was not really an option unless I was willing to get wet all over.
When you combine the articulated LCD with a very close macro ability, all kinds of new photographic options open up.
Just a shell on the beach, becomes a monument to shelldom.
Sony DSC H9 at full wide (32mm equivalent). F5.0 @ 1/200 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto. Macro mode.
In Lightroom, basic processing for Presence and sharpness. Recovery and some Fill Light was used to aid the transparency of the water. I used a graduated filter effect to further darken the sky, and added a bit of saturation to the filter as well. Levels were adjusted to bright up the lights +60 and subdue the darks -20. (It is maybe important to mention again that though it sounds like a lot of manipulation in Lightroom, I spent less than 3 minutes on this image in post…Lightroom is very fast.)
From Around Home.