Posts in Category: foliage
8/25/2010
Giessen Backyard
Still rainy days in Germany when I took this shot. I visited a colleagues home in Giessen in the early German evening, and while he discussed roof repairs with his contractor, I looked around for photo options. This is taken straight down from a balcony on the second floor. I like it as an abstract…the contrast of colors and textures and forms.
Canon SD4000IS at 28mm equivalent field of view @ f2.8 @ 1/100th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto.
Adjusted Blackpoint, added Clarity and Vibrance, sharpen, and auto white balance in Lightroom.
From Germany and England 2010.
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.
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.
Pic of the Day 11/14/2009
Road into Autumn Sunset
Today marks the one year anniversary of Pic of the Day, and I will have more to say on that…only…I am due on the bus for the Valley Salt Lakes fieldtrip at Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in way too few moments. I promise a pic and a full post by evening! It has been great. I look forward to a second year.
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So, evening in Harlengen Texas, after a day of fieldtripping and optics talk at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, on the 1st anniversary of my Pic of the Day blog. What started as a casual series of posts on Twitter and FaceBook, morphed into a full fledged WordPress blog within the first month, and took on it’s current form after about 3 months.
What has kept me at it, as I have mentioned before, is that I am learning with every day’s pic. The process has made me much more aware of what I am doing in the field, while capturing images, and at the computer when processing images…and, maybe most importantly, how the two: camera work and computer work interconnect, cooperate, to produce the images that are important to me. Neither dominates. Both are important. Increasingly my knowledge of what I can do at the computer influences what I do with the camera. Of course, both camera and computer are used to capture and reproduce some semblance of what I see in nature…with the emphasis on the I. Because, of course, I am creating an image…not capturing reality. Images play with different rules than reality…if you know what I mean. Different elements, different effects, matter. In the end we judge images by image standards, and similarity to reality is only one of them…and often not the most important among them.
Anyway. I have learned. I hope you have too. I intend to learn a lot more in the coming year. And I hope you will go along with me.
This image, by the way, was taken at the end of a sunset session at the beach. I had actually visualized the image on the way in. I simply drove till it looked right. Stopped in the middle of the road. Head the camera out the window one handed. And took the image.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/40th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, I added Vibrance and Clarity, moved the Blackpoint right, and used Sharpen Landscapes preset. I also increased exposure just slightly, and warmed the image slightly by adjusting color temperature.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.
11/7/2009
Flotsom: Oak afloat
Just enough cloud reflections in the water to make the surface interesting…and then the copper gold of the floating leaves and the extended pattern they make on the water. Cropped up from the bottom for composition.
Sony DSC H50 at about 60mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/80th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Very simple Lightroom work. A touch of recovery for the reflections. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Rachel Carson NWR Seasons.
11/6/2009
Deep Autumn on the Little River
Another not so easy exposure. I really wanted the wispy clouds in that very blue sky, so the foreground went dark. It took a Graduated Filter effect in Lightroom to bring it back up to where I am happy with it…but, oh, the sky!
I also cropped out some of the river in the foreground as it was too strong an element in the composition.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide (31mm equivalent). F5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto. I tipped the camera up to meter more of the sky and locked exposure before reframing for composition.
As mentioned above, Graduated Filter and cropped in Lightroom. The GF effect was pulled up from the bottom to cover about 2/3s of the image. Added 60 Exposure, and some Clarity and Contrast. Added Clarity and Vibrance overall, Sharpen Landscape preset.
11/4/2009
Oaks Turn to Shine
We really have two fall foliage shows here in Southern Maine. First the maples turn in all their firey glory…and then, weeks later, when the last of the maple leaves are just clinging on, the oaks turn their rich copper brown and the forest and roadsides are filled with color again.
This is one of my two favorite vistas at Rachel Carson NWR, overlooking a bend in the Little River. This is higher than I generally frame it, but the oak leaves are as much the subject of the shot as the river and reflections. To me it all works together.
Sony DSC H50 at about 55mm equivalent for framing. F4.5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, slight recovery for the reflections in the water. Fill Light for the foliage in the foreground. Blackpoint just slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Rachel Carson NWR Seasons.
10/31/2009
Red Light (house) framed in Red
So, are we tired of this Lighthouse yet? Cape May Light. This time framed in red sumac leaves and twisted sumac branches. I knew this shot would need cropping in software once I got it home and planned it that way.
Sony DSC H50 at about 70mm equivalent for framing. F4 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Cropped in Lightroom from the bottom. Recovery for the sky behind the light. Blackpoint to the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Landscape preset.
From Cape May 10/09.
10/30/2009
Autumn Pond Full of Cloud
I photographed this pond at Lighthouse State Park in Cape May NJ two days before with moody cloud cover. This day there were still clouds, but the autumn sun transformed the scene. The reflected sky…with pond weed showing through…as well as the band of fall color separating the clouds from their reflections…there is a lot to look at in this image.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
A touch of Recovery in Lightroom for the clouds and reflections. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint to the right. Sharpen Landscape preset. I used the selective HSL tool to increase the Luminance of the red-orange of the fall leaves to make them stand out more.
From Cape May 10/09.
10/28/2009
Pond, Swan, Fall
We seem to be getting a lot of these moody fall days. I manage at least two falls each year. One in Maine, one in New Jersey, and one in New Mexico: mid-October, late-October, and mid-November. This year I will be in Germany in mid-November. I am not sure if that is fall there or not. We shall see.
This is a little pond on the back side of Lighthouse State Park in Cape May, New Jersey. I have never seen as may Mute Swans as there are this year. They are everywhere there is fresh water. A touch of fall in the foliage on the far side and the cat-tails in the foreground give the image some depth.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programmed Auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky. A touch of Fill Light for the foliage. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Cape May 10/09.