Posts in Category: Florida
1/8/2008
Eye Level
The Terns and Gulls on Bowman’s Beach on Sanibel Island FL are clearly used to humans. Shell pickers work the tide-line and so to Terns. Standing, a really close approach is possible…but I wanted to get down to eye-level with the birds for a different perspective. The flip out, articulated LCD on the Sony DCS H50 makes this kind of shot much easier…otherwise I would have been on my belly in the sand. The main difficulty was that I had to have the Programed Auto set to -1.7 EV for the blindingly white highlights in the sun, which made the LCD hard to see. Still, I got several effective shots (imho).
I especially like the contrast between the birds in the foreground here and the beach bathers in the background.
Sony DCS H50 at full tele (465mm equiv.). F8 @ 1/3200 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto with -1.7EV. (Note that 1/3200th second! We are talking bright light here.)
Recovery in Lightroom for the highlights, and I actually had to increase the exposure about a stop (-1.7 left the whole scene somewhat dark). Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped slightly for composition.
The image is from the Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.
1/7/2009
Shell Heap
The beaches on Sanibel Island are some of the best shelling (I am told) in the world. I can believe it. This shot is from a “drift” of shells, pushed up by high tides and storms, that is at lest 3 feet deep and about 30×30 feet square…and that is just what is exposed. People dig there for more exotic shells, leaving a cratered look and lots of little heaps of shell.
The challenge is capturing the extent of it…trying to give an impression of just how many shells we are talking about here. This is one of several shots taken while my wife dug around in the pile. The flip out LCD on the Sony makes low angle shots like this possible (or maybe comfortable.)
Sony DSC H50 at about 60mm equiv. F8.0 @ 1/2000 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto with -1.7 EV
In Lightroom I had to increase the exposure value. This is one reason to be careful with EV settings. It is very easy to forget that you have the EV setting off 0, and misexpose following shots. Sharpening, Vibrance, and Clarity.
The image is from the Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.
1/6/2009
Spoonbills
Another shot from the feeding/mating party at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. Roseate Spoonbills. A male displaying either aggression toward another male or interest in a female???
Again, even the intense pink of the bird’s plumage would have over saturated the sensor and burned out the highlights with normal exposure in the full sun. -1.7 EV Exposure Compensation set in the menu kept the exposure within the usable range for the sensor. With fast action like this, quick reflexes and fast auto focus are required. One you develop. The other has to be built into the camera. The H50 manages, just about as well as I do.
Sony DSC H50 at full zoom (465mm equiv.). F5.6 @ 1/800 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto with -1.7 EV.
Recovery for the highlights in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Landscape sharpen preset. Uncropped.
The image is from the Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.
1/5/2009
White Ibis
On our last day on Sanibel, we came on a group of birds actively feeding along the road…Ibis, Egrets, Spoonbills, Herons, Cormorants, and even a Pelican. (A Woodstork flew in just as we were pulling away.) I took a lot of images, trying to catch interesting action. Because most of the birds were white, I used the EV (Exposure Compensation) setting on my Sony H50 to decrease the metered exposure by 1.7 stops. Even so, the white birds in bright sun and open shade presented a range of brightness that was often simply beyond the senor’s ability to capture. Decreasing exposure more would have made the shadowed whites go gray, and I did not want that either.
Still I got some good shots. The birds kept taking short flights across the pond (100 yards or so), so I had many opportunities to practice. I have a lot of blurred birds in motion, but out of 25 shots several are keepers. This is one of my favorites.
Sony DSC H50 at about 160mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto with -1.7 EV.
Only basic Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpening in Lightroom.
The image is from the Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.
1/4/2009
Sanibel Light
This is a second view of the Sanibel Lighthouse against the New Year’s Day sunrise. For this I zoomed in enough to isolate the light, but keep significant sky. The sky behind the light, being well away from the sun, was not as spectacular, but still colorful. Exposure for the sky, metered in Programed Auto Wilde Matrix setting normally, since the sky dominated the image anyway, and I was willing to let the lighthouse go black. A pretty straightforward image.
Sony DSC H50 at about 400mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/200 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky, added Clarity and Vibrance (Vibrance picked up some orange in the sky), and used the Sharpen Landscapes preset. Cropped some water out. Originally I put the horizon at the 1/3 line…moved the horizon lower and let the light itself have the power point.
The image is from the Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.
1/3/2009
New Year's Sunrise
Sunrise on January 1, 2009. The Sanibel Lighthouse from the causeway.
Timing is everything, and, while I might have been able to plan this shot, I certainly didn’t. We were on our way out to Sanibel for one last day of sun and birds, crossing the causeway in the early light, discussing where to go first. I was watching the sunrise out of the corner of my eye…well, considering the beauty of it, I was paying way more attention to it than I should have while driving.
“Or,” I said, “we could stop right here and wait for the sunrise.” We pulled in just before the last bridge to the island, drove down the beach as far as we could to get an angle where the lighthouse was as much against the sunrise as possible, and parked. I was getting out of the car just as the sun broke the horizon. Timing is everything.
I angled the camera up to read exposure from the sky while keeping the horizon in the focus zone (so that the camera would autofocus), locked exposure by pressing the shutter release half way, and then reframed for composition. I have taken a lot of sunrises and sunsets with the Sony H series cameras, so I can anticipate what the most balanced exposure looks like in the finder. Then too, I know the limits of the amount of Fill Light I can apply in Lightroom in post-processing to bring out the foreground, so I expose mostly for the sky, to get the intensity of the colors.
I took many exposures, from full wide angle, to full telephoto (catching just the lighthouse against the sky). I played with where the sun sat in the frame, shifting it along the 1/3rd horizon line. For this shot, I zoomed up to about a 60mm equivalent to put the sun at one of the rule of thirds power points, and let the lighthouse slide out toward the edge of the frame. It is such a strong shape that being toward the edge still keep attention on it and keeps the image balanced.
Sony DSC H50. F5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto with exposure biased for the sky by tipping the camera using exposure lock.
Fill Light in Lightroom to bring up the foreground. Some Recovery for the highlights, added Clarity and Vibrance (which deepened the blue and brought up the orange), and used the Sharpen Landscape preset.
All in all, a fitting salute to the new year!
The image is from the Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.
1/2/2009
Everglades Tower
Shark Valley in Everglades National Park is simply a must see. I can not imagine anyone not enjoying the tram ride to the tower and back. Close views of wildlife, including Alligators, stunning landscapes, and the tower to climb for even more expansive views.
This is the tower, on what might have been the ideal day for a visit. Just a snapshot really. I took only this one view of the tower as subject, but with the sky and clouds cooperating, it does the job.
Sony DSC H50, wide end of the zoom. F5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Minimal Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpening in Lightroom.
From the Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.
1/1/2009
Found
You could not construct a still life to match the ones you find, if you are looking for them. It is a matter of attention to pattern and detail. Once you begin looking in a certain way, you find interesting images everywhere.
This is from the walk back from Bowman’s Beach on Sanibel Island. I saw the flowers and took several straight ahead portraits, since the light was lovely on them, and then this. It looks like I arranged it, but I did not.
Sony DSC H50 465mm equiv. One of the things I really like about the H50 is the ability to take these full telephoto macros. F4.5 @ 1/160 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom this needed some Recovery for the highlights in the palm fond, then my standard bit of Clarity, Vibrance, and the Landscape Sharpen preset.
It is from the Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.
12/31/2008
Lettuce Lake
We spent an afternoon at The National Audubon Society’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, justly famous for its birds and its beauty. Being the slowest time of the day, the birds were not much in evidence, but there is beauty aplenty all along the 2.25 miles of boardwalk.
We did see a few birds. This Little Blue Heron is feeding on one of the smaller lettuce lakes (a pond really), and I really liked the contrast of the blues and magentas of the bird against the crisp greens of the lettuce. I took several shots as the bird was moving rapidly and I wanted to catch an interesting pose.
Sony DSC H50 at its full telephoto (465mm equiv.). F4.5 @1/400th @ ISO 400. Programed Auto.
Cropped slightly in Lightroom at the bottom to bring the bird to the third lines (he was moving too fast for perfect composition and I wanted the pose). Sharpen Landscape preset, and small amounts of Clarity and Vibrance.
From the Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.
12/30/2008
Fan
My wife and I are in Florida for a few days, visiting Sanibel Island and maybe the Everglades. No Pic of the Day for yesterday because we left home at 4 AM to catch our flight. We got to Ft. Myers with time enough to walk the Indigo Trail at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. There were not, to the honest, many birds in the late afternoon, but this intersection of two plants, in very different life-stages, caught my eye, as design.
As simple a shot as they come. Simply frame and shoot.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide angle, macro mode. F2.7 @ 1/40th @ ISO 125. Programed Auto.
Small amount of sharpening and Vibrance in Lightroom. I used the Auto setting under Color and White Balance to warm the image (taken in the shade) slightly.
From the new Sanibel and Everglades Gallery.