Posts in Category: brook
8/16/2009
Bubbles in the Stream
Happy Sunday.
Another shot from the depths of Emmon’s Preserve. Lest you get the wrong idea, the total extent of Emmon’s Preserve is maybe 25 acres. It is tiny. Sandwiched in between rural housing areas. In spots, when the leaves are thin, you can see the backyards and hay fields that surround it from the deepest parts.
Still beautiful. And the stream is never the same twice.
Sony DSC H50 at about 85mm equivalent. F3.2 @ 1/100th @ ISO 400. Programed auto.
Just the basic added Clarity and Vibrance, and Landscape sharpen in Lightroom. Cropped slightly at the top to eliminate a bright, distracting highlight.
7/22/2009
Iris Against the Fall
The Azalea garden at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens is the oldest part of the grounds. Built in 2001, the plants on the terraced hill are just coming into their own, and were well past bloom when we visited. The water feature however is one the most stunning landscape sculptures I have ever seen. Water cascades down over a number of ledges and then sheets off a final carefully placed shelf in a rippling curtain of water that is surely designed to catch the light in a million different ways. There is then a short run to a lily pond, surrounded this season with Iris. Beautiful.
I used moderate tel on the zoom to frame this shot from a distance, and Program Shift to select the smallest aperture (greatest depth of field) and a slow shutter speed for the falling water. It was cropped from both the left and right in Lightroom for composition.
Sony DSC H50 at about 120mm equivalent. F8.0 @ 1/50th @ ISO 100. Programed auto with program shift.
Punch and Landscape sharpen presets in Lightroom. Recovery for the highlights. The rock at the bottom right was still too bright, so I used the Local Adjustment Brush to paint a mask and reduce brightness where needed.
The alternative view…
Iris And the Fall
For this, I zoomed in to about 300mm equivalent, and then cropped in Lightroom to come in even tighter, and to place the Iris on the power line (rule of thirds). No Program Shift here. I let the camera set moderate aperture and a faster shutter speed.
F4.0 @ 1/200th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Only Punch and Sharpen in Lightroom.
7/13/2009
Song Frozen in Time
Continuing the theme from yesterday, here is no apology water frozen by the shutter image. I am always amazed at what gravity, rocks, and light can do with this peaty water. You could take a thousand pics, and no two would catch the same forms, the same play of light, the same energy. This, to me, is a high energy shot.
The trick with a shot like this, where you have such a wide range of light values, is, of course, to get the exposure right. I used heavy Exposure Compensation and underexposed to save the highlights, and then brought the shadow back up in Lightroom when I post-processed. The net effect is very like what I saw, and what I visualized in the field.
Sony DSC H50 at about 80mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. Programed auto with -1.7 EV exposure compensation.
In Lightroom, heavy Recovery for the highlights. Fairly heavy Fill Light for the shadows. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Landscape sharpen preset.
7/12/2009
The Rush (Batson River, Emmons Preserve)
We have had a lot of rain this summer, as I may have mentioned, and all the streams are running full. Baston River which runs through the Emmons Preserve (part of the Kennebunk Land Trush system) is no exception. I have photographed it before in spate, and know the challenges from my failures.
This shot is your traditional rushing water between green banks shot. One of the difficulties in shooting at Emmons is the depth of the shadows and the brightness of the light where it does fall through. I am always having to compromise on exposure and manipulate in post processing. This shot, on the other hand, being fairly even in lighting, required only that I change the white balance to cloudy, and use Program Shift to force a slow shutter speed. Community wisdom says that blurred silky water captures the rush better than water frozen in motion by the shutter. Generally a tripod is needed, but with the image stabilization on the H50 you can get away with hand holding.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F7.1 @ 1/6th sec. @ ISO 100. Programed auto, with Program shift.
On the other hand: this is closer to what it looked like. We do not, after all, see silky water anywhere but in photographs. It is an artifact: an attempt to capture the feel rather than the reality of the subject.
The Rush 2
Even in this shot, the low overall illumination under the heavy canopy pushed the shutter speed below water freezing levels, but certainly there is more detail in the water. This is the other extreme, where I used the program shift to select the highest shutter speed possible in this light.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F2.7 @ 1/40th @ ISO 100. Programed auto, with Program shift.
Both had the same post. In Lightroom, Recovery for the highlights in the water and considerable Fill Light to open the shadows. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Landscape sharpen preset.
So my question, both to myself and to you, is: which one do you like better?
I plan a more extensive examination of this subject on Point and Shoot Landscape in the next few days, but what do you think? Which does a better job of capturing the sensation of the rushing water? Which looks more real? (Those might be different answers.) And finally, which is more aesthetically satisfying? To you?
7/6/2009
High-tide in the Tidal marsh, With flowers.
The first sunny Saturday morning, after 2 weeks of steady rain, found me down at the beach before my shower. Pics to be taken.
I tried several variations of this shot, with the wildflowers blooming up out of the sea-rose hedges and clumps in the foreground, and various backgrounds. This is the tidal-marsh on a little tributary of the Mousam River which apparently has no name (not that I can find on maps anyway). The stream drains freshwater wetlands just back from the coast, across Rt. 9.
Lots for the eye to play with in this image, from the flowers in the foreground, to the lone grass head breaking the horizon, to the folded marsh covered in a pelt of grasses, to the intense blue of the tidal pond, to the tall centered stand of pines, to the clouds painting the blue of the sky. Almost too much, but, for me, the tall clump of pines anchors it enough to give the eye some ease and let it all hang together. I would prefer to have the clump of trees on one of the power lines (rule of thirds lines), but no crop with the trees there is successful, and they would not move for me.
You might want to click on the image to view it larger. What fits in the blog-space does not do it full justice.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F8.0 @ 1/200th @ ISO 100. Programed auto with program shift for the smaller aperture and greater depth of field.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky and clouds. Blackpoint slightly to the right. Added Vibrance and Clarity, and Landscape sharpen preset. This is a candidate for dual graduated filter effects, top and bottom, but it does not, considering the brilliance of the light, really need it. Cropped slightly from the bottom for composition.
7/3/2009
Fernald Book: in context
This the fullest context shot of the series. It would have taken a wider wide to get the full height of the trees, and I actually zoomed in a bit for better framing.
Sony DSC H50 at about 35mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/25th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
In Lightroom, added Clarity and Vibrance, and blackpoint just to the right. Landscape sharpen preset.
7/2/2009
Sky and Trees Paint Tea-Brown Water
If nothing else this latestes series of Pics should illustrate my often repeated principal of shoot all around the subject. (Why take just one… and Lupine Lessons from Point and Shoot Landscape). All of these shots were taken from one spot. I did not move, but the camera did, and so did the zoom (for framing).
In this shot, what caught my eye was the strong reflections of the trees against the sky in the water…as well what the sun was doing with the water color and the sand on the bottom of the brook.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F4.0 @ 1/20th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto with program shift (to slow the shutter speed for the best reflection effect).
In Lightroom, heavy recovery for the highlights on the foliage and to cut some of the glare from the water. Added Clarity and Vibrance and the blackpoint moved just slightly to the right. Landscape sharpen preset. I also used the Local Adjustment brush to tone down the brightest highlights on the ferns and skunkcabbage leaves along the stream.
7/1/2009
Abstracts in Water and Light
Looking more closely at the brook from yesterday, playing with what the sun and shadow was doing in and on that tea brown water. Patterns.
I played with the exposure on these, attempting to catch the way it really looked, but since part of the look was the gentle motion of the water, any slice of time image misses something. I used Program Shift to choose a slow shutter speed on this one to slightly blur the reflected sky highlights on the moving water.
Sony DSC H50 at about 110mm equivalent. F7.1 @ 1/30th @ ISO 400. Programed Auto and Program Shift.
Note the high ISO. I had the camera on Auto ISO (I rarely take it off auto), and I did not fully realize just how dark it was under the forest canopy. I was paying more attention to framing. Still, the Sony held detail and color very well at ISO 400, with a good contrast range.
This is another abstract shot from the series.
Abstract Two
In this one I did not use Program Shift, and, with fewer shadows, the camera chose a higher ISO. I also dialed back the zoom for a wider framing.
Sony DSC H50 at about 50mm equivalent. F2.8 @ 1/60th @ ISO 250. Programed Auto.
For both in Lightroom, just my basic boost in Clarity and Vibrance, with a touch of blackpoint to the right (limited in these shots because I did not want the shadows to pack up). Landscape sharpen preset. The second shot was cropped to remove distractions along the right edge and emphasize the abstract nature of the patterns.
6/30/2009
Stained Glass Water: Fernald Brook, Kennebunk ME
Getting out of the house for the first time in a week with camera in hand and sun in the sky is always a treat. This day, having limited time, I decided to explore a tiny section of woodlands between our home and the railroad tracks. I knew Fernald brook crossed under the tracks a 1/4 mile from the underpass right down the road from the house, and found a way down the embankment and into the woods well short, where I could still get down the bank safely. Much to my surprise there was a well beaten path right inside the woods. Turns out some boys, some summer long past, had dragged lumber and poles out and built a major tree fort near the brook. There was even a bridge worthy of Teribithia.
The stream itself, when I continued past the fort, was a maze of loops, cutting back and forth through lush forest, running pure and clean, but a deep tannin brown. The sun slanting through the trees and reflecting off the sandy bottom of the stream caught all the color and created almost a stained glass effect. I took many shots, attempting to capture the effect.
This is the stream as I first walked up on it, a simple framing of one straight section of loop across the stream’s wider bed among the ferns and skunkcabbage. Indeed a magical place.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F2.7 @ 1/50th @ ISO 100. Programed auto. I was able to hand hold the shot at ISO 50 because of the Sony’s built in sensor image stabilization, and I was able to shoot straight Programed auto because I knew I could draw the green, sun on the ferns and leaves, highlights back in Lightroom with the Recovery tool when I got home. I did try a few shots with Program Shift, attempting a better overall exposure, but I could tell even on the camera’s lcd that I was loosing too much of the effect of the sun in the water. The result is a compromise, with some of the green highlights reaching saturation, but the stream bed standing out as it did while actually there.
Recovery in Lightroom, then, for the highlights. A touch of Fill Light and the blackpoint to the right just slightly. Added Clarity and Vibrance, and Landscape sharpen preset. I was still not happy with the highlights so I went in with Lightrooms Local Adjustment Brush and painted adjustment masks, heavily feathered, over most distracting highlights. Reducing exposure in those areas, and adding some saturation to retain the color, made, I think, for a more pleasing rendering (and one closer to the actual visual impact of the scene).