Posts in Category: fern
Maine! Fiddlehead season
Fiddleheads (emerging ferns): Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve at Laudholm Farms, Wells, Maine, May 2023 — It is fiddlehead season and the woods at Laudholm Farms are full of them. Emerging ferns. I was trying out the somewhat macro capabilities of the Olympus 100-400mm zoom. It does .5x at 800mm equivalent, and 1x using the digital tele-converter for 1600mm from 4.3 feet. You don’t have much depth of field, but still, it makes a emergency macro without carrying an extra lens. 🙂 Olympus OM-1 with 100-400mm zoom at 800 and 1600mm equivalent. Program mode with my evolving macro and environmental modifications. (Custom program #4). ISO 800 and 640 @ f6.3 @ 1/320th. Shot off my bean-bag headed monopod.
Winter Still Life With Fern
Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
Another shot from my photoprowl to Laudholm Farms in search of winter. I think this is actually Cinnamon Fern…or what winter has left of it. I like the delicate shapes and textures of the fern, especially in contrast to the surface of the snow.
Sony HX90V at 110mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/200th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Fall among Cedars
There is a well grown stand of Atlantic White Cedars at the far end of the boardwalk at Saco Heath. The trail loops through the trees and back. A softwood sapling provides a splash of color along with the dying ferns of fall. And the light of a late afternoon in October sheds its glory over the whole scene.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode (in-camera HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Pool in the woods
The Batson River makes a long loop through Emmons Preserve, with many pools, overhanging rock ledges, tumbling falls, and gentle stretches of water reflecting trees. It is really an amazingly varied stretch of river considering it can’t be more than a quarter mile of it included in the Preserve. This is one of the far pools, beyond the main, and most visited, section of the trail. The river splits here, with the main channel rushing through a narrow gap between standing stones, and a smaller side channel feeding this still pool. I love the play of light here, and the ripples leading out to the still water with its reflections and lily pads. Perhaps because of the depth and the odd angle, it has a kind of abstract feeling to it.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone (HDR) mode. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4. Auto Enhance by Google+ Photos.
A shady spot on a hot day.
Emmon’s Preserve is one of my favorite local spots for photography. It is just a stretch of forest along a river where it tumbles down through pools over ledges, but there is always beauty there, in every season. This is one of the pools from yesterday.
The range of light and shadow at Emmon’s almost demands HDR treatment. This is a traditional 3 exposure HDR…well, maybe not totally traditional :). I shot it on my Samsung WB250 Smart Camera, then transferred the 3 images to my Galaxy S4 smartphone where Google+ uploaded them as part of an Auto-Backup. The Auto Awesome engine at Google+ recognized them as 3 sequential exposures differing only in exposure value, and made them, without my intervention, into an HDR. I then opened the image in what used to be the Picnic Photo Editor, and is now part of the Google+ Photos tools, and gave it a little extra boost. So, no, I guess not any kind of traditional HDR…but certainly what HDR is coming to in this age of instant sharing. 🙂
Fallen Glory
I still have a lot of images from my trip to Arcata California and the Godwit Days Spring Migration Festival that I could share. This is one of my deep HDR experiments at Founder’s Grove in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. I like the way the Richardson’s Geraniums and a variety of ferns are growing on this fallen Redwood trunk. My guess, given the legendary durability of Redwood, is that this trunk has been down for well over 1000 years, to reach the stage of decomposition where it now supports it’s own micro-habitat. And I suspect it will be another 1000 years (or more) before all trace of the tree is gone. That is a long time!
It takes at least a 3 exposure HDR, with the highlight (dark) shot at least at -3EV, and the exposures well separated, to capture the range of light on the floor of Founder’s Grove. Canon SX50HS. 24mm equivalent field of view. From a tripod. Exposures blended and the HDR file tone mapped in Dynamic Photo HDR. Final processing for my usual intensity, clarity, and sharpness in Lightroom. Auto Color Balance to correct a yellow bias introduce in the HDR process.
10/11/2011: Northern Leapord Frog in Fall
I was out catching the fall foliage at one of my favorite places, Old Falls on the Mousam River, when this fellow popped out from under my feet. He sat just long enough, half hidden by the fern, for me to get off a few shots. This isbwhere the 4.5 foot close focus on the telephoto (840mm equivalent) comes into its own.
Canon SX40HS St 840mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Program with iContrast.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/13/2011: Bugs on Fern
There are lots of these Ruby Meadowhawks around in Southern Maine right now, and I have taken maybe too many of pics of them…question: “can you have too many pics of a Ruby Meadowhawk?” I could not resist this one, since the sun-lit fern makes such a great backdrop.
And, on the same theme, a tiny Hover Fly against a similar background.
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close Up mode…auto zoom setting overridden. 1) 403mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/250th @ ISO 160. 2) 309mm, f5.4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Both images cropped for scale and composition.
7/28/2011: Yellow Birch, Laudholm Farm
I really like Yellow Birch: the colors and textures of the trunks in any stage of growth. This is a relatively large specimen growing by the boardwalk at Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center in Wells Maine). Here the contrast between the green fern fond, the smooth Popular sapling and the strong arch of the Yellow Birch root and trunk make (to my eye) an interesting composition. Mid-afternoon light was somewhat harsh, so I have emphasized the contrasts in the scene, and it’s underlying graphic design, by adjusting both Blackpoint and Contrast.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 68mm equivalent field of view, f4.7 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity, Sharpness, and Contrast.
8/17/2010
Atlantic White Cedar
Okay, I am still in Germany, but this is a post I scheduled before I left.
I mentioned a few days ago in my first post on Saco Heath, that one of features of the place is a stand of Atlantic White Cedar, one of the largest in Maine, and certainly one of the furthest inland. The light in the grove is always interesting since it occupies a slightly raised hummock completely surrounded by open bog.
Canon SD4000IS at 28mm equivalent @ f2.8 @ 1/250th @ ISO 250. Programmed auto.
I took the file into Photomatix as an experiment and used the tone mapping tools to see if I could bring it more alive. I still used Lightroom for levels and sharpening. Compared to the same file processed in Lightroom alone, the result has a kind of 3D effect that I think is interesting.
From Saco Heath.