Posts in Category: Florida
5/3/2010
Bearing Gifts
See me. I come with my plumage all asplender and carrying the down-payment on a nest!
Of course you see a lot of nesting behavior at the St Augustine Alligator Farm rookery. This Great Egert had landed on a branch above the nest and was displaying, as well as carrying substantial offering. That is a bit unusual. Generally the male comes right into the nest with material. Maybe he and his lady had had a tiff? Or maybe she was saying “Now where am I supposed to put that thing. I mean, look at the size of it!” Sorry. It is almost impossible not to anthropomorphize when dealing with nesting birds.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent. Oddly enough, though these images were taken seconds apart, the EXIF data varies widely from f5.7 @ 1/800 @ ISO 80, to f5.7 @ 1/1250 @ ISO 125 to f8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 250. ?? Go figure. All were close enough to correct exposure to for very similar processing in Lightroom. The first two were cropped slightly for composition.
Recovery for the highlights, Fill Light for the shadows, Blackpoint to the right slightly, added Clarity, a tiny bit of Vibrance, and Sharpen landscape preset.
From St Augustine FL 2010.
5/2/2010
Sunday Sunrise: St Augustine Beach
Happy Sunday! This was exactly a week ago, give or take an hour, on St. Augustine Beach, right across form our hotel. I got down low at the edge of the tide (using the flip out lcd and staying dry). The random stranger wading gives scale and dimension the shot would lack without her…I know because I too that shot too 🙂 .
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F2.8 @ 1/1250 @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Recovery for the sky and Fill Light for the foreground in Lightroom. Added Clarity and just a touch of Vibrance. Blackpoint just barely right. Sharpen landscape preset.
From St. Augustine FL 2010.
And turning 90 degrees south, this is the view down the beach, again with a lone Sunday morning tourist.
5/1/2010
A Little Tricolor Love
Tricolored Herons nest low, mostly in mangroves, which places them, amazingly, delightfully, close to the boardwalks at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery. Some are literally within reach of a long arm, and all are certainly within reach of your average P&S zoom. Tourists love them. I (while not admitting to being a tourist) always come back with lots of Tricolor shots, so this will be a bit more than a Pic of the Day…kind of a Tricolored Heron retrospective.
It is well to remember that, while taken in what amounts to a zoo, these are wild birds, attracted to what is apparently in their eyes, an ideal nesting site. They are not fed, managed, caged, clipped, or manipulated in any way. They are free and fully wild. While they might be habituated to close human presence on the boardwalk, they are not tame. That is the real wonder of the Alligator Farm rookery.
All shots were taken with the Canon SX20IS on my most recent day at the Alligator farm. All were taken at equivalent focal lengths of 520-560mm, @ f5.7 on programmed auto with –1.3EV exposure compensation. Shutter speeds and ISOs varied as the camera set them, with ISOs ranging from 100-320. All received similar processing in Lightroom. Basic Presence adjustments, Blackpoint and White Balance on the two in the shade, and the Sharpen landscape preset.
And finally, a bit of video, also shot with the Canon SX20IS.
Gotta love those Tricolored Herons! Gotta love the Alligator Farm.
4/30/2010
Ancient Dunes: Live Oak/Palmetto Forest
Once upon a time the ocean levels along the Florida coast were considerably higher. When they receded they left a pattern of ancient dunes well inland. Over time, vegetation conquered the sand, mostly Live Oak, Bay Tree, Palmetto, and in the troughs between the dunes, Cabbage Palm and Slash Pine. You see this habitat at Ft. Matanzas National Monument and, as pictured here, at Anastasia State Park (among a host of other spots). Add the inevitable Resurrection Fern and Spanish Moss and you have a truly tropical look.
In a shot like this, for me, it is the variety of shapes and textures that capture my eye…and, of course, the way the light plays over it all. I have taken more than a few shots on every visit to this kind of habitat. They rarely work. This one, I think, manages to hang together and capture something of the experience of being there.
One of the limiting factors in these shots is always exposure. It is very difficult to capture the range of light…from sky visible between trees, to the shadows under dense vegetation. I make no claim to special skills in this area. I have come to trust the auto exposure in most modern compact digital cameras to do a better job of balancing exposure than I could…at least getting it close enough so that the image can be post-processed to bring both highlights and shadows back in range. The SX20 on Landscape program certainly handled it well, with enough balance so that a little extra work in Lightroom brought it up to something quite close to the naked eye impression.
Canon SX20IS at about 48mm equivalent. F3.5 @ 1/80th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom, fairly heavy Recovery for the backdrop of skylight. A touch of Fill Light for the foreground shadows. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and a smidge of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
From St. Augustine FL 2010.
4/29/2010
Whoo goes there?
Okay, so that is a really terrible pun. I admit it. One of the things, I think, that makes us love owls, or at least respond to them as strongly as most folks do, is that the forward facing eyes and the beak give them the most human of bird faces. This Great Horned Owl chick exemplifies the attraction. He was actually not all that interested in the group of noisy photographers and digiscopers gathered, for like the 6th day in a row, under his day-roost tree, but when a tourist dropped by with a dog on a leash, it was suddenly all whoo goes there! I am not sure if it was prey or predator behavior (it was a small, snack-sized, dog…but it was a dog) but the owl was certainly all attention. Good for me. I was already all attention and got the shot.
Canon SD1400IS behind the eyepiece of a ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. If you do the math: true focal length x sensor crop factor x scope magnification, you get an equivalent focal length of just over 3300mm. EXIF data says F5.9 @ 1/100th @ ISO 320, based on Programmed auto. Limiting F-stop, based on magnification and the 65mm scope, was actually, again according to the math, f9.2.
In Lightroom, just a touch of Recovery for the bright background. A bit of Fill Light. Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and a smidge of Vibrance. I had to use the Auto White Balance in Lightroom to tame the yellow cast that all that brought out based on the camera’s auto white balance.
From St. Augustine FL 2010.
And here is a shot pulled back some to show the whole chick.
2000mm equivalent at F6 (computed) @ 1/200 @ ISO 125. Programmed auto. Similar treatment in Lightroom.
4/28/2010
Guana River
I am trying to give you a break from the birds of St. Augustine Alligator Farm. This is an oyster shell beach at Guana River Research Reserve in Palm Coast, south of Jacksonville and north of St. Augustine. The whole beach is protected as a archeological site. The driftwood snag adds foreground interest and there are just enough clouds to populate the sky for depth.
Canon Sx20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightoom, slight cropping bottom and top for composition. Recovery for the sky. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint slightly right. Sharpen landscape preset.
From St. Augustine FL 2010.
4/27/2010
Domestic Encounter (Wood Storks)
What can you say? Spend a morning at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, keep your eyes open, your wits about you, and you finger on the shutter release, and magic can happen. Wood Stork nesting behavior is often dramatic.
Canon SX20IS at 470mm equivalent. F7.1 @ 1/250th @ ISO 125. Programmed auto with –1.3EV exposure compensation.
Cropped in Lightroom for composition and to eliminated distractions. Added Clarity and Vibrance, some Recovery. Sharpen landscapes preset.
And a bonus shot.
560mm equivalent @ F5.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto with –1.3 EV exposure compensation. Similar processing in Lightroom.
4/26/2010
Intimate Snow
Of course, one of the wonders of the St. Augustine Alligator Farm is that you are able to get close, really close, to some of the nesting birds. This Snowy Egret shot was taken at the 560mm equivalent on the SX20IS. I did not have to switch to macro but it was almost there. 🙂 And of course, this close, you get wonderful detail. I have shots like this taken through the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope spotting scope (digiscoped), but that is a different experience: a closeness without intimacy somehow. This is intimate.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent. F5.7 @ 1/60th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto with –1.3 EV exposure compensation.
Technically, I am very pleased with the SX20IS’s performance at ISO 200 here.
In Lightroom, just a touch of Recovery for the white highlights, a bit of Fill Light for shadows, and then Blackpoint to the right. Added Clarity and a smidge of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
From St. Augustine FL 2010.
4/25/2010
Fishing Pier: Ruddy Turnstone and a View
Happy Sunday! Still here in St. Augustine Florida. This is the St. Johns County Fishing Pier in St. Augustine Beach, right across the road from our hotel. You can buy a sightseeing ticket to the pier for a dollar. A few years ago the fishing pier was loaded with birds…pelicans, turnstones, terns, gulls, egrets, even, for many months, a Brown Booby!, but on my last two trips to St. A, bird life has been sparse, though I have visited the pier several times at different times of day, just hoping. This Ruddy Turnstone, like most of his kind who frequent the pier, was running along the rail waiting for a handy fisherman to discard some bate or some offal, and incidentally, posing for me. You don’t this eyelevel view of a turnstone too often. I even had to zoom back slightly from the full 560mm reach of the camera to frame this bird. The sun, still low soon after sunrise, also adds to the eyelevel effect, and really brings out the ruddy tones in the plumage.
Canon SX20IS at 520mm equivalent. F5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, a touch of Recovery. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
Of course, there is more to the fishing pier, for the tourist, than the bird life. This is the view of St. Augustine Beach looking south from the pier.
28mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/320th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
4/24/2010
Anastasia State Park
Just to prove that St. Augustine is not all about birds for me, here is a shot taken on the amazing white sand beach at Anastasia State Park. Thunder storms were predicted but never came, so the sky is pretty intense. White sand is the norm on the Gulf side of Florida, especially on the Emerald Coast in the panhandle, but it is rare on the Atlantic Coast. That is one of Anastasia Islands, and St. Augustine’s big draws.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom, some Recovery for the clouds and sand. Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and very little Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. On a shot like this, with lots of blue light bouncing around, I have to be careful with the Blackpoint or the clouds turn really blue.