Posts in Category: bokeh
4/25/2009
Snowy Egret on the Prowl
Another from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. (See yesterday’s entry for a more complete description of the Farm.) At any given moment at this time of year you have birds that have already nested with chicks in the nest, birds on eggs, and birds still on the make. This Snowy Egret was still looking.
White bird, dark background. Always a dramatic shot. I used a bit of exposure compensation to keep the highlights in range. I especially like this shot because of the dappled light on the bird, though it made it more difficult to expose properly. If not for the extreme image scale of the digiscping rig, which fills the sensor with detail and seems to make the automation work at its best, a shot like this would be very difficult.
Sony DSC N1 through the eyepiece of a Zeiss Diascope 85FL spotting scope. I wish I had remembered to shut the auto date thingy off. I will photoshop it out when I have more time. 1/1000th @ ISO 64. Aperture determined by the scope.
Very minimal Lr processing. Sharpen, Vibrance, Clarity.
From St. Augustine FL.
4/24/2009
Snowy Egret with Chick
So ugly it is cute! Snowy Egret on the nest at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery…a wild rookery within the grounds of the biological park. The SAAF is not you usual tourist trap. It is a well constructed and managed facility showcasing Alligators and their kin from all over the world, which just happens to have attracted a major rookery of wild birds. Wood Storks, Great and Snowy Egret, Tricolor and Green Heron, Little Blue Heron, Roseate Spoonbill, and Ibis all nest in close quarters over the Jungle Boardwalk. We are talking maybe 400 pairs of birds in the space of a your average suburban house lot. Some nest so close to the boardwalk that you could reach out and touch them on the nest. It is a bird photographers dream, and, of course, it attracts 1000s of photographers every year. The Farm sells early morning and late evening passes just for Photographers so you can come early and stay late (for the best light).
This mother Egret was in the process of feeding your chicks. The nest was maybe 70 feet from me. This shot is digiscoped, photographed with a pocket sized Sony camera through the eyepiece of a Zeiss Diascope 85FL spotting scope at an equivalent focal length of something in the 3000mm range.
Sony DSC N1. 1/500 @ ISO 64. Scope determines the aperture, in the F12 range.
Very little processing in Lr. Slight sharpening, added Vibrance and Clarity (not really needed).
From St. Augustine FL.
And here, for you video fans is the full feeding sequence. Warning. Cute overload.
4/23/2009
Hibiscus (backlight)
I looked at this huge Hibiscus bush by my hotel in St. Augustine FL yesterday at least 25 times. This shot is late in the day, with the low sun backlighting the blooms. Taken in telephoto macro mode from about 12 feet away.
Sony DSC H50 at just over 400mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/400 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Minimal processing in Lr. Just my usual Clarity and Vibrance, with Landscape sharpen preset. I moved the black point to the right a few degrees.
From St. Augustine FL.
4/15/2009
Fiddlehead
Not quite here this year, but this shot from last year reminds me of what is to come. And it is somehow works for tax day. I took a series this day as the fiddleheads were just at, imho, their most attractive stage. Again, this is the H50 with its articulating LDC, which allowed me to get right down on the ground with some comfort and shoot from below fiddlehead level. Makes for an interesting perspective. There had to be a balance between a small enough aperture for sufficient depth for the subject, and wide enough for interesting bokeh. Happens the H50’s Programed Auto chose just such an aperture.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F4.0 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Minimal processing in Lightroom. Some Recovery for the background highlights. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Landscape sharpen preset.
From Around Home.
Bonas shots…
4/11/2009
Lichen among the Moss
I did go out yesterday in better light and rework the crocus…but I will save one of those for tomorrow. Today we have a shot from later in the day, from a walk around the never fails me trail at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. It is only a mile, but I find something interesting to photograph on every visit.
The moss this early spring is the brightest thing in the forest, so vibrantly green and lush that it has to draw the eye. This shot is right down at moss level, with a cluster of lichen breaking though for interest. I left enough background to, hopefully, supply some scale. This is tiny, tiny stuff shot at the closest 2 cm macro of the H50…which is one of the things I really love about this camera (I don’t love everything about it…just enough to keep me carrying it).
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F5.6 @ 1/125 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom I used a graduated filter pulled up from the bottom to pop up the foreground with added clarity and contrast. You could not apply the kinds of levels I used here in standard processing, or to any area without a lot of detail, but as a graduated filter over appropriate areas of the image it gives a pseudo-hdr effect. After applying it I always find I have to increase the brightness of the whole image. That is in addition to my normal Presence adjustments for this camera, plus both Clarity and Vibrance applied globally and the Sharpen portrait preset.
I always feel a need to remind readers that while the above sounds like a lot of processing, Lightroom makes it easy (you can see your effects applied in real time) and fast (all of that took only about 2 minutes, start to finish).
From Rachel Carson Seasons.
4/9/2009
Pioneers of Spring
On my way out to do some new product testing yesterday I discovered these little guys springing up in the yard. At last. We still have isolated patches of snow around.
I took a very low angle, with the camera resting on my hands and my hands on the ground, using the flip out LCD of the H50. The problem was eliminating distractions in the background, and, even so, the background was already in sun, while the flowers were shade, lit by a stray shaft of extreme side light. Tricky.
I like the way the light on the flowers picks up the texture of the folded petals, and of course the shapes and colors of these brave spring pioneers.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro mode (almost touching the forward flower). F4.0 @ 1/200 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom I had to deal with the bright background. Recovery helped but not enough. I used a Graduated Filter drawn in from the upper left toward the flowers at an angle, and then the Adjustment Brush to mask an area behind the flowers on the right. For both I reduced exposure. That made the blue of the sky way too intense, so I also reduced saturation for both the Graduated Filter and the Adjustment Brush mask. Then the usual Vibrance and Clarity settings, and the Sharpen portrait preset.
From Around Home.
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.
3/26/2009
Lichen Horns: Acadia National Park
One afternoon in Acadia National Park last summer I had what amounted to a macro holiday. There were mushrooms and lichen everywhere, and they were particularly photogenic (who knows why). You know how it works. You get tuned in. If you see one, if you see two, if you see three…then you are going to see hundreds because now you are looking for them. You are in macro mode. You are in the macro groove.
I found several stands of fruiting (flowering?) lichen, with bright red horns, and took maybe a dozen shots during the afternoom…widely spaced out among all the mushroom shots. This is my favorite.
One of the great things about the Sony H50 is that, at the wide end of the zoom, it focuses to 2 cm. That is really, really close. (In fact, once while shooting in the rain and fog, the very similar previous generation H9 focused on a water drop on the outer lens element, just for an instant.) Macro focus at longer focal lengths is equally impressive. There are challenges to working this close, but it is really great to be able to do it at all without special attachments.
The other great thing about the H50 is the built in, sensor shift, image stabilization. Stabilization makes shooting hand held at low shutter speeds possible (or much more possible). In the subdued light of the forest floor, stabilization gives you the freedom to work quickly and naturally, without complicated tripod set-ups.
One of the challenges of working close is not getting in your own light. What made this day ideal for macro work was that the light level was fairly bright, but high overcast above the tree canopy made the light diffuse. No heavy shadows and enough light to work. Ideal. I could generally find a well lighted angle on almost any macro subject.
For this shot, I backed off a bit from closest macro, and zoomed up to about 40mm equivalent to frame the full cluster of lichen.
Lichen with the Sony DSC H50 at about 40mm equivalent. F3.5 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Only the most basic sharpening and presence adjustments in Lightroom.
From Acadia Shrooms and Lichen. The whole gallery is worth a look. One amazing macro day.
One more teaser.
Can you resist?
3/19/9009
Flowers of the Machair
The Machair is the region just behind the dunes on the Hebrides: traditionally the richest farming land, and site of the original permanent settlements in the islands. In season it is an amazing spread of wildflowers.
I cropped this shot in tight, to capture just the mass of the display of sunflowers. You can just see Ben More through them along the skyline. Shot low to the ground, using the swing out LCD on the H50, and close in, using the mid range of the zoom to compress the scene slightly.
Sony DSC H50 at about 80mm equivalent. F5.0 @ 1/250 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, besides the cropping (necessary both for effect and to eliminate some distracting weeds in the bottom of the frame), I used my standard Presence settings (added Vibrance and Clarity) and Landscape sharpen.
From Scotland.
And one bonus shot. Another Machair flower view.
On the Machair
(You might note the change in venue here: all my sites are migrating to my lightshedder.com address. Your older links will continue to work.)
3/13/2009
Pepper Tree
Pepper trees, though a non-native, are a prominent feature of the landscape in and around San Diego in the spring. They grow tall and the spectacular display of bright red flowers in February and March is something to see. It certainly adds to the semi-tropical look. Pepper trees above and Bird of Paradise plants (of all sizes) below.
This cluster of late blooms hung just in reach of the longest zoom setting on my H50. Because of the long zoom, however, the bokeh is almost as interesting as the flowers themselves: certainly it sets off the massed red well.
In Lightroom, I used my normal Vibrance and Clarity boost, but also some fill light (the flowers were on the shaded side of the tree). Portrait sharpen preset. I also cropped in a bit tighter, eliminating most of a distracting branch on the left.
Sony DSC H50 at full tel (465mm equivalent). F4.5 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
From San Diego 2009.