Posts in Category: bokeh
6/27/2010
Up with Flowers!
Happy Sunday!
Anther shot from the overgrown flower maze at the University of Machias. Daises and Lupine in abundance. This shot, from an odd angle, low down among the stems, captures some of the riot of blooms.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm and Super-macro. F3.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom 3 for the white petals and the sky. Fill Light and Blackpoint just barely right. Added Clarity and just a touch of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Machias 2010.
6/26/2010
Red and White (and Yellow)
There is a neglected and overgrown flower maze on the campus of University of Maine at Machias, and I spent a happy hour while waiting for my daughter in the garden taking pics. I like the contrast of the red and the out-of-focus daisys in this one, plus the way the light in the background grades into shadow.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm and Super-Macro. F2.8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Programmed auto.
Some Recovery in Lighroom 3. A touch of Fill Light and Blackpoint barely right. Added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Machias 2010.
6/7/2010
Iris Surprise
This is a pretty straightforward shot. My wife planted these Iris several years ago. Nothing. Then this year, boom. Tall and beautiful and full flower. Early morning sun brings out all the richness. A long tel macro setting at about 550mm, from 4 feet away, isolates the bloom against the background.
Canon SX20IS. F5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto.
A touch of Recovery in Lightroom (mostly for the background). Some Fill Light and Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and just a tiny amount of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
And for the alternative view: more or less the same shot at 28mm and Super macro from centimeters away. This plant is in open shade, not full sun.
6/3/2010
Cinnamon Fern
The Cinnamon Fern gets its name from the fertile spike, or fond, which is loaded with cinnamon colored spores. According the wiki on the subject, it is genetically separate from the rest of the fern world, possibly even a separate, though related, family. Early light and Super-macro bring the cinnamon aspect. You see it more often like this.
Taken at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells ME on Memorial Day. The tricky part was exposure, as I was about 50 feet from the forest edge and the full sun on the marsh beyond, working a mix of light shafts and shadow. Mostly I just kept the brighter background out of the images as much as possible. The camera’s Programmed Auto handled the mix of light values very well.
Canon SX20IS. 1) F2.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160, 2) F2.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160, 3) F2.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 80.
In Lightroom, a touch of Recovery for the highlights and the bright backgrounds in 1 and 2, some Fill Light for the shadows, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
From the new Laudholm Farm gallery.
5/27/2010
Pastel Jungle
While this gives the impression of a veritable jungle of purple blossoms and green stalks, it is actually quite a small patch of chives in flower in our garden out back. The low angle facilitated by the flip out LCD on the Canon SX20IS, combined with the 28mm equivalent Super-macro, transform the mundane into the exotic. The chives were in deep shadow, early in the morning, with the sun already on the lawn beyond the sheltering trees. Composition and placement of the plane of sharp focus is critical to the success of this shot. I wish I could say I did it on purpose…but I just shot several exposures and selected the one that works best in post-processing triage. 🙂
Canon SX20IS, as mentioned, at 28mm equivalent and Super-macro. F2.8 @ 1/50th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the highlights in the background. A touch of Fill Light for the flowers, Blackpoint to the right. Added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Finally, the tricky light made the chives too purple. Auto White Balance in Lightroom brought them back to reality.
From The Yard, Kennebunk ME.
5/12/2010
The Long and the Short of Fiddleheads
Same fern. Same fiddlehead. The top shot is taken at the wide end of the zoom, 28mm equivalent, and Super-Macro from centimeters away. The second shot is taken at the tel end of the zoom, 560mm equivalent, and Macro, from 3.5 feet away. Clearly they are very different images of exactly the same subject. The angle on the first one is slightly different as well. I used the flip out LCD to get down a bit lower to put the background elements exactly where I wanted them as part of the composition. In the second, I shot from higher up to increase the separation between the subject and the background, and to make sure there were no recognizable objects to distract. Both were carefully framed for effect.
I am not sure which I like better…and I am not sure that is even the question to ask. Both are strong images (in my opinion 🙂 ). They are just very different images. Same fern. The long and the short of it, so to speak.
Both are with the Canon SX20IS on Programmed auto.
1) F2.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160.
2) F5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 400.
Similar processing in Lighroom involving Recovery for high-lights, Fill Light for shadows. Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen landscape preset. Reduced exposure values #2 to match the tones better to #1.
5/11/2010
Unfolding Season
I have taken a shot (several actually) like this almost every spring. Compare to 4/15/2009 which are actually images taken on 5/19/2008. It does not matter. I find the emerging forms and the coiled potential irresistible.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent and Super-macro. The fiddlehead was actually inside my lens hood. F2.8 @ 1/160th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the background. Fill Light for the fern. Blackpoint just slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped for composition.
4/18/2010
Daff on the Rocks
Happy Sunday.
This lonely Daffodil, posed against a granite bolder with its lichen in my daughter’s piano teacher’s yard, somewhat caged by dry stems, caught my eye. The bright yellow, the vibrant green, the texture of the stone and the delicate tracery of the weeds. This is another shot that employs the long end of the macro zoom on the SX20IS to good advantage.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent and macro. F5.7 @ 1/400th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, some Recovery for the yellow in the Daff, a touch of Fill Light to offset Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and just a tiny amount of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
From Around Home 2010.
4/17/2010
Coltsfoot
I am not sure I am done with the NYC images, but we will go back to Maine this morning (appropriate since I am physically back in ME this morning). This is Coltsfoot…a plant I honestly never noticed before this spring. It was abundantly blooming way ahead of anything else out in the waste ground of our local gravel pit. Could not miss it with those bright yellow flowers! I caught this clump by zooming in to 560mm and using the macro setting. It was on a little rise of ground (pile of sandy gravel), and by getting down low I was able to put the flowers against the out of focus background of the far edge of the pit many hundreds of yards away. Hence the bokeh. The dark band is trees. When I got it in Lightroom, I cropped from the top for composition. I am really enjoying saying “this looks even better at larger sizes” (on weiw.lightshedder.com if you click on the image above) with the images from the Canon. I often could not say that with images from the Sonys I was using. 🙂
Canon SX20IS at 560mm and macro. F5.7 @ 1/400th @ ISO 125. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, besides the cropping already mentioned, I added Clarity and Vibrance, moved the Blackpoint slightly right, and employed the Sharpen landscape preset.
From Around Home 2010.
This is a more standard shot, which perhaps shows the plant to better advantage, but is a less interesting image. Also at 560mm equivalent and macro. This time taken from on top of a sand/gravel pile looking down on the flowers.
4/8/2010
This Bud is for You!
So, I am getting really impatient for spring here in Maine. I think I may have said that before. To ease my pain I have been collecting buds of various kinds…photographically collecting that is. Once we get beyond yesterday’s maples, though, I am not good enough with local plant life to identify buds, but that does not keep me from enjoying their shapes and colors.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm and Super-macro, with manual focus. F2.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 80. Programmed auto. I am finding, on occasion, that the SX20 fails to find focus on Super-macro. Other times it works fine??? It does have an excellent manual focus mode with an enlarged display that, for macros, is good compensation. This was taken, by the way, according to the exif data, at .09 of an inch. The bokeh on these macro shots is interesting as well.
Just basic Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance and Sharpen in Lightroom. Cropped just slightly for composition.
And of course, here are a few more from the bud collection, all taken the same day at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, ME.
Okay…this next one is, apparently, a flower. It was tiny. As seen here it is at least 4x life size.
And this one is plainly a Catkin, but it fits the theme. I looked it up. A Catkin is a pendulant cluster of flowers, mostly without petals.
