Posts in Category: forest
9/28/2010: Quoddy Head Forest
The forest at Quoddy Head is a typical northern coastal forest…full of moss and lichen…and, on my visit, made even more mysterious by the fog. I love this kind of landscape, but experience has proven that it is very hard to capture what I see there in an image. This one comes close. And so does this.
Both Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. 1) F2.8 @ 1/30th @ ISO 100. 2) three exposure HDR using auto bracket.
In Lightroom, some Recovery for the fog, a bit of Fill Light and Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset. Processing of #1 was more extreme than #2 as I was working from a single exposure.
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.
8/6/2010
Mushrooms
I have not been able to identify these mushrooms, found growing along side the Kennebunk Bridle Path in Southern Maine. The mushrooms they most closely resemble are supposed to grow on wood and have little to no stem??? But then I am far from a mushroom expert. I liked the cracked leathery look of the caps and could not resist a ground level shot. They were deep in a clump of tall grass, of course. Here is the shot from above, which has its own charm…especially the shadows of the grass stems across the left cap.
Canon SX20IS. 1) 28mm equivalent and Super-macro. f4 @1/250th @ ISO 125. 2) 450mm equivalent and macro @ f5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80. Programmed Auto
In Lightroom, some Recovery for highlights. Fill Light and Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Around Home 2010
6/8/2010
Name this Flower: Ragged Robin!
[Thanks to Dan Huber who came through almost instantly with the ID!]
Though I have searched my references and the internet I have not been able to identify this flower, two isolated clumps of which were growing in fairly deep forest along a path at Laudholm Farms in Wells Maine. It reminds me of a lot of different flowers but is not them. 🙂 The deeply forked petal structure and the color should be distinctive. ?? I am certain when someone names it I am going to go “Of course!”
Another view. This time hit by a shaft of sun.
Canon SX20IS. Both at 28mm and Super-macro. F2.8 @ ISO 100. The shade shot at 1/160th and the sun shot at 1/400th. Programmed auto.
Similar processing in Lightroom. Fill Light, Blackpont right, added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. The shade shot required auto white balance correction in Lightroom to warm the overly blue tone. It was also cropped slightly for composition.
From Laudholm Farm.
6/3/2010
Cinnamon Fern
The Cinnamon Fern gets its name from the fertile spike, or fond, which is loaded with cinnamon colored spores. According the wiki on the subject, it is genetically separate from the rest of the fern world, possibly even a separate, though related, family. Early light and Super-macro bring the cinnamon aspect. You see it more often like this.
Taken at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells ME on Memorial Day. The tricky part was exposure, as I was about 50 feet from the forest edge and the full sun on the marsh beyond, working a mix of light shafts and shadow. Mostly I just kept the brighter background out of the images as much as possible. The camera’s Programmed Auto handled the mix of light values very well.
Canon SX20IS. 1) F2.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160, 2) F2.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160, 3) F2.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 80.
In Lightroom, a touch of Recovery for the highlights and the bright backgrounds in 1 and 2, some Fill Light for the shadows, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
From the new Laudholm Farm gallery.
5/20/2010
Found Still Life
Another shot grabbed in passing during the rush of the World Series of Birding. Grabbed is, of course, an misnomer. There is a state you get too in your photography where a lot can happen in the second it takes to frame and shoot. A whole set of complex decisions are compressed so tightly that it feels like instinct or reflex. See photo, shoot photo. Move on. It can happen in a second, and in the middle of doing something else altogether…like documenting the World Series of Birding. 🙂
I liked the big leaves. I liked the yellow flowers. Then I saw them against the fallen log with the vines. I saw what the light was doing. I stepped off the side of the camp road, zoomed in a bit for framing, and shot.
Canon SX20IS at 112mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/13th @ ISO 200. Landscape program.
In Lighroom, a touch of Fill Light and Blackpoint just right. Added Clarity and a very small amount of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
5/19/2010
Early Light: Highpoint
During the chase of Team Zeiss for the World Series of Birding we made stops in some of the most beautiful country in New Jersey, and, though I was focused on documenting the Team’s efforts for the day, I was not totally insensitive to the beauty…and since I was not actually competing, I could turn my camera away from the team for a quick landscape, or even a flower shot, or two.
This is somewhere in the Highpoint/Stokes area in the far north-west of the state. The sun was just glancing across the landscape from the horizon. It does not get better than this.
It was a very demanding exposure problem. I tipped the camera up to meter more of the sky and locked exposure. That left the foreground too dark, but I was able to recover the detail in Lightroom. This image will repay viewing as large as you monitor will take it.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/200th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky. Heavy Fill Light for the foreground. Blackpoint well right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
5/14 – 5/15/2010
I will be doing a chase car for Team Zeiss at the World Series of Birding, beginning at midnight tonight and going trough midnight on Saturday, so…this post will most likely have to cover two days. (You can follow my adventures, and the adventures of Team Zeiss, on Twitter, @singraham or @zeissbirding_us, or see both twitters and blog posts at zeisssports.wordpress.com.)
That said, these are Pink Lady Slipper Orchids from Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, ME, taken last Sunday. The top shots are from a sunny patch facing the river, right at the edge of the forest, which bloomed early…most of the flowers at Rachel Carson looked like the bottom shot last Sunday. I was there early, and the low sun was in and out behind clouds, so the light on the full blooms is quite different than the light on the unopened buds.
All were taken with the Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent and Super-macro. Exposure varied with the light but was mostly at ISO 80 and ISO 125. The top three at F2.8, and the bottom one at f5.
For the sunny shots, a bit of Recovery in Lightroom. A touch of Fill Light, Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and Vibrance, Sharpen landscape preset. For the bottom shot, similar but, clearly, different amounts, plus cropping for composition.
5/12/2010
The Long and the Short of Fiddleheads
Same fern. Same fiddlehead. The top shot is taken at the wide end of the zoom, 28mm equivalent, and Super-Macro from centimeters away. The second shot is taken at the tel end of the zoom, 560mm equivalent, and Macro, from 3.5 feet away. Clearly they are very different images of exactly the same subject. The angle on the first one is slightly different as well. I used the flip out LCD to get down a bit lower to put the background elements exactly where I wanted them as part of the composition. In the second, I shot from higher up to increase the separation between the subject and the background, and to make sure there were no recognizable objects to distract. Both were carefully framed for effect.
I am not sure which I like better…and I am not sure that is even the question to ask. Both are strong images (in my opinion 🙂 ). They are just very different images. Same fern. The long and the short of it, so to speak.
Both are with the Canon SX20IS on Programmed auto.
1) F2.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160.
2) F5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 400.
Similar processing in Lighroom involving Recovery for high-lights, Fill Light for shadows. Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen landscape preset. Reduced exposure values #2 to match the tones better to #1.
5/11/2010
Unfolding Season
I have taken a shot (several actually) like this almost every spring. Compare to 4/15/2009 which are actually images taken on 5/19/2008. It does not matter. I find the emerging forms and the coiled potential irresistible.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent and Super-macro. The fiddlehead was actually inside my lens hood. F2.8 @ 1/160th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the background. Fill Light for the fern. Blackpoint just slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped for composition.