Posts in Category: weather
10/14/2009
Fall Mood
Okay…we all need a break from birds! As you can tell, most of my photography over the past few weeks has been PhotoScoping and I still have a whole set of birds from Green Cay Wetlands in FL from Monday to share…but enough birds already. Lets look at a scenic. Fall. Heavy weather. Mood. (Which seems the norm for fall in Maine this year.) Actually, of course, by the time I get home tomorrow the leaves will probably be gone. This was taken a few weeks ago, just at the start of the turn. I could not resist the sky and the reflections in the water, and that small band of color in the trees.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky and clouds and reflections. Blackpoint just slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Sharpen landscape preset.
10/8/2009
Mousam Pond: Moody Fall
Just down river from the falls (yesterday) there is a dam that backs up this pond (by Maine standards…perhaps a lake elsewhere). I also have many, many images taken from this spot. This is by far the moodiest. The light makes the foreground almost as prominent as the foliage. I like the subtly of the reflected clouds and the few floating leaves.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky and reflections. Blackpoint just barely to the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Sharpen landscapes preset.
From Fall 09 Maine.
10/3/2009
Fog over South Point and Cypress Grove
Like I said…no such thing as a bad day at Point Lobos. Even the fog is epic! This is a shot from the Sea Lion Point trail looking back at South Point and Cypress Grove. One of the classic views at Point Lobos. The blowing fog, moving in across the point, adds some mystery and drama, without detracting significantly from the view.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the fog effects. Recovery, as I have mentioned before, reduces the highlights in the image. In the case of fog, a lot of what you are looking at is scattered light. Recovery removes a layer of that so that you see deeper into the fog, and increases the contrast between light and dark areas within the fog so that it looks altogether more transparent….as it does in real life. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Blackpoint just right. Sharpen landscape preset.
From Monterey Bay 09.
10/1/2009
Off North Point
Perhaps the only drawback to Point Lobos is that, because it is so popular, it has to be closely managed. You walk on the paths, and the paths, where there is any question, are set off by cable guides. It makes for a “stand here, shoot this” kind of experience at the really good vistas…but then…they are really good vistas! and they have done a good job of putting you where you need to stand to see them to best effect.
However that means that if you shoot wide or try for an alternative composition, you are likely to get a cable guide in the frame. No way around it.
For this shot I backed away to the far side of the path to catch the frame of the lichen covered tree skeleton branches. I am tempted to go into Photoshop and clone out the cable…but then…it is part of the scene too…part of the experience of Point Lobos today. So it says in this time. Maybe later I will change my mind.
And now that I have called your attention too that obtruding cable, I am really hoping that the overall strength of the image will keep folks from noticing it until it is too late to spoil the image for them…if it spoils the image at all.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/800 @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom to bring out the light in the fog. Some Fill Light for the foreground branches. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Sharpen Landscape preset.
From Monterey Bay 09.
9/30/2009
Point Lobos Fog
There is no such thing as a bad day at Point Lobos…not even a bad day for photography. When I got there on this year’s visit, the fog was already blowing over the point, and was actually quite heavy at Cypress Grove. Still the scene had its charm.
Compositionally this is a challenging shot. Normally I would not have put the upright tree trunk so near center, but it was necessary to put the fog bound tree on the offshore rock where I wanted it…at the power point (rule of thirds). The result is that the eye is drawn past the upright trunk out into the fog to the tree on the rock…which is what I was after. Only then, after exploring the details in the fog, does the eye come back to the strong shapes in the foreground. Works for me. How about you?
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/500 @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Cropped slightly from the right in Lightroom for composition. Recovery for the fog (brings out the inner light), added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel, Sharpen landscape preset.
From Monterey Bay 09.
9/21/2009
Coronodo National Monument, AZ
Travel day today and no time to upload pics from yesterday’s short visit to Otawa NWR in Ohio, so we will visit Arizona: Coronodo National Monument to be precise. This amazing piece of landscape sits right on the border with Mexico and contains some of the wildest accessible landscape I have encounted. A road runs up and over the mountain pass and good trails shadow it on the south side. Wonderful views. This is looking north across the valley to a storm capping the southern ramparts of the Hauchuas.
Sony DSC H9 at 31mm equivalent. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Sharpened.
From Cochise Co. Arizona.
9/4/2009
Rutland Water with Sky!
A brooding sky over Rutland Water. This one is all about atmosphere. Raining on and off. Dark earth, dark water, dark sky.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky. Punch and Sharpen Landscape presets. Blackpoint to the right.
From Rutand Water.
8/29/2009
Along Grasmere
This meadow is maybe 7/8s of the way around the Grasmere-Rydal Water loop, and what I remember vividly is how tired I was by this point. We had to hike down a side path and climb back up to the road (we were off the end of the path and back on roads by then) and at the time I was not sure it had been worth the side-trip. Of course, now, looking at the image, I can say it was worth it.
(As an aside…it was at the end of this circuit that I discovered Apple/Melon J2O for the first time…)
Minolta A1 at 28mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/200th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Punch and Sharpen landscape presets in Lightroom. Blackpoint slightly to the right, and Recovery for the clouds.
From England 2005.
8/25/2009
Foot of Rydal Water
We hiked the circuit of Grasmere and Rydal Water, starting from Grasmere and going across the ridge above Rydal past two Wordsworth dwellings and then back on the other side, catching views made famous in hundreds of paintings, Turner’s among them. Totally amazing! One of the best days of my life despite doddgy weather that closed the more distant views of the mountains behind Grasmere, and very tired feet.
This is a shot from the very foot of Rydal Water where the bridge crosses the the stream looking north up the lake.
Minolta A1 at 28mm equivalent. F7.1 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky. Punch and Landscape sharpen presets. Blackpoint to the right.
From England 2005.
7/25/2009
Storm Surf
Taking a break from out coverage of the Coastal Main Botanical Gardens…
Last night my wife and I and youngest daughter went for a walk on the beach. It was the end of close to 24 hours of petty steady rain from a classic noreaster gale, and the ocean was muddy brown in the late light and the clouds still impressive. And, of course, this being Maine, the surfers were out. To be a surfer in Maine means you haunt the edges of storms and surf in a wet-suit even in July and August.
I did not take my H50. I have a new little HD camcorder with a 10mp CMOS sensor that also takes stills. It has a 16×9 wide screen mode at 7.5mp, and I am still experimenting with it as a pocket, all purpose, always on me, camera.
I have taken a few shots with it in better light than the evening offered which have showed promise…so…
If you blow the image above up to full size so you can peek at the pixels it begins to break down. It is, in fact, more like a painting of the scene than it is a photo. That is undoubtedly the result of over-agressive noise reduction which kicked in to compensate for the light levels. Even though the exif data says ISO 50, the sensor was clearly starved for light, and the camera did its best to overcome its limits.
Still, at normal screen resolution, and even in a 5×7 or possibly 8×10 print, it is a dramatic image. I could have gotten better with my H50, but the only camera that counts is the one you have with you.
Sanyo VPC CG10 at about 190mm equivalent. F4.2 @ 1/400th @ ISO 50. Auto.
Recovery for the clouds in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint to the right, and added Contrast. Landscape sharpen preset.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.
And just for fun…the video: