Posts in Category: PicSay Pro
Mud Puddling Swallowtails
Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies, West Kennebunk ME, Puddling.
Our extended family had a Memorial Day cookout at my sister-in-law’s home across town from us yesterday. When we drove in, I immediately saw some butterfly action on her freshly seeded front lawn. It was hard to miss. Three bright, fresh Tiger Swallowtails were mud puddling on an otherwise undistinguished spot of soil. As you see from the photo it was moist but not wet. Given puddling behavior of butterflies in general, it is safe to say these, and several others I saw on the spot over 15 minutes, were all males. And again, given the situation at my in-laws, it is safe to say that their cat had chosen this exact spot to urinate sometime earlier that day. Male butterflies are attracted to the soil salts in damp earth. They drink the fluids and force them rapidly though their bodies extracting minerals which they then, at least in some cases, excrete during mating with the female and present as a gift. The processes seems to increase an individual male’s reproductive success, and the minerals may help in sperm production. The male’s gift might be his way of saying “Look how salty my sperm is! Good stuff here!” No one knows for sure. Urine, of course, is particularly high in sodium and ammonia, both of which are prized by male butterflies. And since the puddling area was so restricted here, and I doubt anyone else in the household was out on the front lawn that morning releaving his or her self, I do suspect the cat 🙂
That is probably more than you really wanted to know about these beautiful butterflies. They were all about as fresh and bright as I have ever seen. I suspect they were no more than a few days old. Even-so, at least one had a large section of that bright hindwing, including the tail on that side, missing, probably due to an encounter with a bird…though I can not rule out the cat on that front either.
Nikon P900 at 550mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ f5 @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom.
English Peacock
I am always delighted to get to England while the Peacock butterflies are flying, and they are flying in great numbers among the flowers at Rutland Water this year.
This is a shot from outside the Optics Marquee at the British Bird Fair, taken with the Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Processed in PicSay Pro on the 2013 Nexus 7.
Decorated Leaf
The light was lovely by the time I got to the little pond by the office on Tuesday after work and the dragonflies were out in Virginia numbers…lots of Amberwings and more Blue Dashers than you see at three such ponds in Maine. On the other hand that was about it. There were a couple of Slaty Skimmers, but no other “large” flies. Still we takes what we can gets 🙂
This Blue Dasher posed nicely and I love the light in the leaves…in especially like how the dasher is cupped by the light.
Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Program with my usual modifications. Processed in PicSay Pro on the 2013 Nexus 7.
Goldenrod Forever!
I have never seen so much Goldenrod as is growing on the Kennebunk Plains this summer. A great spread of yellow under the sun. Of course, for allergy suffers, among which I am one, this is not good news 🙂 What we suffer for beauty…and it is a beautiful plant. I can almost forgive it my itchy eyes.
Here I have used moderate telephoto to compress the layers, and cropped both top and bottom for a wider effect…to emphasize the spread of the Goldenrod.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Rich Tone Mode. 85mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exif: f4.4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Weekly Blazing Star Bloom Update
Time for what is becoming my weekly Northern Blazing Star bloom update. Still not quite there. The bloom on the south side of the Kennebunk Plains is well advanced, with some blooms moving on toward seed, but there are only individual plants in bloom on the north side of the Plains…and even on the south many plants are still in bud.
Yesterday, however, the Goldenrod was in full cry! I was able to find this lovely stand of Blazing Star isolated against a backdrop Goldenrod. What a contrast in color. I may mess with this later in Dynamic Auto Painter to see what it would look like as a painting. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Action Freeze Mode (the wind was blowing a gale, and the flowers were never still). f5 @ 1/750th @ ISO 200. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Power Moth on Pickerelweed
I was really hoping, when I took the photo, that this blue pond plant had a lovely name, like Water Hyacinth, and that the bug was, as I originally assumed, a Skipper, so I could have a euphonious title (I head the word “euphonious” on a British TV comedy this week…and I have been, apparently, looking for a excuse to use it :). “Skipper on Water Hyacinth”. Now that is euphonious!
Unfortunately in the interest of accuracy, this is just common Pickerelweed, but, as some compensation, it is a Powder Moth of some kind…so we have some nice alliteration to contribute to a mellifluous title, even if it is not truly euphonious (yes, I have been at the thesaurus trying to find the spelling of euphonious. I always enjoy a little thesauric browsing before breakfast).
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Program and Macro focus (as opposed to the Macro Mode). I used Intelligent Zoom which increases the normal 18x zoom on the camera and maintains image quality by reducing the number of pixels captured at higher zoom ratios. This was a 10mp image (down from the native 14mp) at something in the 500mm equivalent field of view range. I then cropped it slightly for increased image scale. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Halloween Pennant
I have been looking for a Halloween Pennant for several years now. I mean, who could see them in the dragonfly guides and not want to see one, and photograph one, in real life. They are at the extreme north east of their range here on the coast in Southern Maine, but they are listed on the Odonata Central list for York County. I had hope. But I had no bug! Until last weekend when I found a single specimen at Roger’s Pond along the Mousam River in Kennebunk. Roger’s Pond is not nearly as productive as the Quest Ponds when it comes to Odonata, but I have found several dragons and a few damsels there that I have yet to see anywhere else.
I went back yesterday on my lunch-hour scooter prowl, and there was a second Halloween Pennant…this time in better light and closer, perching on the tallest stalks left in the mowed margin of the pond instead of on rushes out in the water. I know it is a second specimen because the first I saw was slightly worn…with an obvious notch out of one wing, and the colors somewhat faded. Yesterday’s bug was fresh and spectacular. What more could any odonatate ask for. (Yes, in my secret life, I an the Odonatator! 🙂
Canon SX50HS at 2400mm equivalent. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. Hand-held of course. Transferred to my Samsung Galaxy S4 via the RavPower WiFi disk and card reader, and then processed in PicSay Pro. (I am getting ramped up to spend two weeks in Europe without my laptop.)
Wet Rose
We are having another 24 hours of rain to end the week. This was taken near sunset on our last rainy day, when the storm finally moved out to sea and the sun broke through for a few moments. The sun was already gone by the time I got to the beach roses covered in rain water, but they still made a good study in the soft light of early evening. The colors are never richer than when wet, and the drops add interesting highlights. And, of course, Rosa rugosa petals always have that crushed silk texture that catches the eye.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Macro mode. 32mm equivalent (the Macro default). f3.4 @ 1/45th @ ISO 160. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone. Auto Enhance by Google+.
Evening at Back Creek
Back Creek is a tidal creek that flows into the Mousam River a few hundred yards from its mouth in Kennebunk Maine. The beach homes you see are on Great Head, across the Mousam. It had been a day of rain, heavy at times, and the front was still moving off the coast…but the sun broke through just for an hour or so before setting. Great light. Great sky. Landscapes are never better, I think, than when the sun breaks through under a stormy sky. You have drama on the land and drama in the sky. What is not to like?
This is a sweep panorama from the Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. I really like the fact that you can hold the camera vertically and sweep it around horizontally…producing a panorama that is fully as wide as a conventional panorama (this one is about 200 degrees), but much taller…not nearly so “pinched”. These tall panoramas also fit computer displays much better…if you click the image above on any computer with a reasonably sized display, it should fill your screen.
As I say, Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Panorama mode. f4.6 @ ISO 100. I discovered a Panorama trick for these cameras that have sweep pano modes. You pick the part of the view that has either 1) average brightness for your planned sweep, or 2) the brightness you want for the whole sweep (you might, for instance, want to expose for the sky rather than the land), point the camera at that section of the sweep and half press the shutter release to lock in exposure, then swing the camera, holding the shutter half pressed, to the where you want your pano to begin, and fully press the shutter. That way the whole sweep has the exposure you intend, and not the exposure that happened to be at the start of the sweep. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Trees by threes
This trio of popular trees along the Kennebunk Bridle Path caught my eye one day as I passed. I like the lichen on the bark, and the pattern the three make against the greenery. The 24mm equivalent lens provides the depth of field to shot close in to the front tree, and yet have the others in relative focus as well. It is all about composition, really.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Program. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. f3.2 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Processed on the Samsung Galaxy S4 in PicSay Pro.