Posts in Category: hdr
Mushroom’s Eye View.
One of the things I am coming to love about the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8 lens is its ability to shoot from inches away, to produce very natural looking close-ups. It would not work, I suspect, with people, as the distortions would be distracting, but for plants and mushrooms it can be very effective. I think, in fact, that the perspective and depth of field are both very close to a naked eye view. That means that in a shot like this one, of a mushroom growing along the trail at the Kennebunk Land Trust’s Secret Garden Preserve, the mushroom sits very naturally in its environment. When you add the absolute clarity of the lens, and some subtle processing, the result is, to my eye, very close indeed to bending down to look for yourself. 🙂
Sony Alpha NEX 5T. Lens as above. ISO 160 @ 1/60th @ f4. Processed in Snapseed for HDR effect on my tablet.
At the Mouth of the Little River
This is another shot from my photoprowl the length of Laudholm Beach at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. The Little River is formed when the Merriland River meets Branch Brook about a three quarters of a mile inland, already well out into the tidal marsh. It has to flow at least twice that far, in a huge S curve, to actually reach the ocean. A recent study of the watersheds of the Merriland and Branch Brook shows that both are actually surprisingly healthy and productive streams. You can see here the clarity of the water as it flows the last few yards across the sand to the sea. It is a somewhat static composition, with the horizon splitting the frame, but I tried crops both top and bottom and this actually works best to my eye. I think the rushing water and the dramatic sky, with its own strong focused pattern give it enough tension to save it. 🙂
This is a low angle shot with the Sony Alpha NEX 5T and the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. In-camera HDR. Processed for further HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet.
Summer in Maine
I wanted to explore the beach at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve at Laudholm Farm yesterday to complete the Photoprowls series on Laudholm…or at least to extend it. You pass this permanent Pond on the way to the beach, formed by the dam created by the road (Old Farm Lane) built across the marsh generations ago. It is strictly a hiking and biking path in this day of the Reserve. I could not resist this view of the high summer in Southern Maine. The Welcome to Maine sigh on I95 says “The way like is supposed to be.” On a July day like yesterday it is hard to argue. 🙂
This is another shot made possible by the extreme depth of field of the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8 lens. I was maybe 3 inches from that rose. The Touit lenses, this and the 50mm macro, have become so integral to the way I see the world (photographically) that I had to purchase them when my loan period ended. Either one of them would have been far and away the single most expensive piece of Photo gear I have ever bought, but there is simply nothing that even begins to compare with the way they image the world. They indeed capture life the way it is supposed to be. 😉
Superior Auto on the Sony Alpha NEX 5T pegged exposure at ISO 100 @ 1/250 @ f13. Processed for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet.
Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains
Day Brook Pond is on the Kennebunk Plains, which is jointly managed by the Nature Conservancy and the State of Maine for the protection of this unique sand plain habitat and several endangered and threatened species. Yesterday you saw some of the Wood Lilies along the pond. Here is the pond itself, in all its rough beauty. This is not a manicured park…it is just nature preserved as it is. Recent Beaver work has significantly raised the level of the water in the pond and access to the actual shire line is limited but it is certainly a beautiful spot. The gathering clouds add to the drama of this mild HDR rendering.
Sony Alpha NEX 5T with ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8 lens. Superior Auto. ISO 100 @ 1/100th @ f13. Processed for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet.
For the full Photoprowls treatment of my visit to Day Brook Pond, visit Photoprowls.
Falls on the Batson. Happy Sunday!
I went to Emmons Preserve, and down the trail to the falls on the Batson River in particular, to look for Ebony Jewelwings…the darting, dancing, electric sometimes blue, sometimes metalic green, set-winged Damselflies that prefer rapid water…but of course the rapid waters have their own attraction. The place is beautiful…almost other-worldly…elven…with the still shadowed pools connected by falling runs of peat-brown water, the moss and rocks, the dappled light through the covering trees…a feast for the senses. I try, again and again, to capture it…but the true essence of the place is very difficult to catch.
This is a three exposure in-camera HDR with the exposures separated by 6 EV, with the Sony NEX 5T and the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. I put the camera right down at water level and only inches from the falling water. Nominal exposure, as determined by the Program, was ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/60th. The file was further processed for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet. And it is getting there. It is satisfyingly close to the visual impression…or at least to the emotional impression…of the place.
And for the Sunday Thought: there are lots of places, like the falls on the Batson River, that have such a rich emotional impact…such a rich spiritual impact…that any attempt at photography is bound to fall short. That does not, and should not, keep us from trying. We reach, and in reaching, pay homage to the creative spirit of love that shapes both the beauty of the world, and our sense of beauty. Like the Ebony Jewelwings, we dance…our intention dances above the falling water of creation…and we take pleasure in the dance…as we were made to do. Such beauty can not be caught and held…but it can be pointed to…celebrated in the beautiful gesture of the attempt.
Kennebunk Beaches over Rocks and Rose.
And on a stormy day too! This is the mouth of the Kennebunk River. Kennebunkport is out of the frame to the right. You see just the end of the jetty there. Then you see the Narragansett on Gouch’s point, with Lord’s Point beyond, and the great curve of the beaches at Wells and Ogunquit running away to the south. The rose and the rocks in the foreground are along Parson’s Way on Old Fort Point (west of St. Anne’s church).
I am having fun, as you may have noticed, with the extreme depth of field of the ZEISS 12mm Touit.
Sony NEX 5T with ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. Processed for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet. Selective (brushed on) unsharp masking for the Rose in Photo Editor by dev.macgyver, also on the tablet.
Mullen over the Atlantic
The Forth of July in Kennebunkport Maine was one of those high drama days along the coast. Storms building in from the west. We took a stroll (actually my wife was strolling, I was photo-prowling) along what is called Parson’s Way…a narrow sea-side park that runs along the top of the rocks from the Colony Beach in Kennebunkport, around past St. Ann’s Church on its point, and out onto Cape Arundel as far as the overlook for the George Bush Estate behind locked gates and Secret Service guards on its own point. This shot is along the way. I could not resist the two stalks of Mullen, the bit of visible bench, the ocean bonsai and the clouds, with just a hint of reflection in the sea.
And again, the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8 lens comes through with an image that would be very hard to capture with most other lenses. Sony NEX 5T in Superior Auto caught the exposure. Processing for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet completes the task. It is a challenging composition, but it works for me 🙂
Iris at the Pond
I have photographed this pond many many times. It is only a few feet from, a busy road (busy in the summer, that is) connecting the beaches of Wells and Kennebunk, but it always has the atmosphere of a secluded pool somewhere deep in the wilderness. Give it a good sky for reflections, and the right light, and it never fails to please. The Wild Iris is just a bonus, of the kind that is likely to turn up in the foreground at this pond. The low angle and the wide lens here puts everything into perspective and completes the composition. Even the overhanging tree on the upper left makes its contribution.
I have attempted this kind of shot so many times in the past, with a strong foreground element against a landscape with interesting sky, without, I must say, much success. The ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8 lens is the first lens I have used (I don’t own it…yet 🙂 that makes the shot not only possible, but easy. You can not (propably) imagine how close I was to that flower. I had to drop the camera in from the top, with the flip-up lcd out, down among the lily fonds to frame the single flower. And to credit the Sony Alpha NEX camera (5T in this case), it was able to find focus and set exposure (using Superior Auto) for an image that I could process in Snapseed using the HDR Scene filter to a fairly accurate rendering of the visual scene. To some eyes it might look a bit pumped up…but this is Maine in early summer…the way life is supposed to be…and I can attest that it is actually pretty realistic. It is just that we are not used to seeing this range of light and shadow, of color and contrast, in an image unless we are looking at a painting…at an obviously artistic interpretation. (The extreme depth of field is also unexpected in a photograph and adds to the painterly look.) In my HDR work, I strive for realism, not for obvious effect, and this image is, at the very least, life the way it is supposed to be. 🙂
Sony NEX 5T with ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. ISO 100 @ 1/100th @ f11. Processed for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet.
Emmons Preserve HDR
As I have said before, the stream-side forest at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport is one of the most challenging photographic subjects I have ever encountered. The range of light and shadow, the moving water with its own bright highlights, and the blue sky behind the trees…it is simply too much for conventional photographic methods.
My new Sony NEX 5T has a very sophisticated HDR program built in. It will take three exposures and combine them, but you can also set the difference between exposures and control the center point of the three using EV compensation. It is also very fast…so fast you do not need a tripod. This is an in-camera HDR with 6 EV between exposures, centered on minus 1 EV. I then gave it additional HDR processing in Snapseed on my tablet. And for all that it looks like nothing special. It looks like the scene looked to the naked eye. But, of course, that was my goal. I wanted to faithfully capture the ambiance of the stream-side forest, with its full range of light and shadow, realistic highlights and accurate color in the water, and blue sky behind the trees. I like it.
Camera and processing as above. ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8.
Pastoral. Happy Sunday!
Having a new lens to play with is, remotely, like having new eyes. At least it is when the lens is or does something different than lenses you have owned in the past. I have never owned a lens wider than 24mm. Therefore the 12mm (18mm equivalent) ZEISS Touit f2.8 is opening my eyes to new possibilities, and refining my vision of scenes I have captured before. When you add the extra clarity and resolution of the ZEISS lens…the particular crisp, clear ZEISS look…it makes old scenes well worth revisiting.
I have taken this shot before, with several different cameras and lenses, in various seasons of the year. Of course the sky, never exactly the same twice, would be enough to renew the scene, but each photographic rig certainly lends it’s own character. Here it is the Sony NEX 5T and, as above, the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. ISO 100 @ f13 @ 1/200th. Processed for a somewhat natural HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet.
And for the Sunday Thought: Well it ought to be something about new eyes and renewed vision, don’t you think, all things considered? After all that is part of the promise of Christ…new eyes…renewed vision. A whole new way of seeing the world. I am certainly thinking that this morning…and it is, indeed, one of the things I treasure most about a life of faith in Christ…but mostly I am thinking how easily amused I am. All it takes is a new camera, a new lens, and I am filled with new energy…happy as a boy with a new toy. All that is ill in life (and there is always a great deal that is ill in life, if not in my own, then certainly in the greater life of humanity in a troubled world) falls away while I go out to explore the new possibilities of new gear. I am happy. I am blessed. Such fun!
And I hope my excitement is at a least a bit contagious. I hope some of it got caught up in this pastoral image and that you feel it, behind the peaceful scene, when you look at it. It does not change the ills of the world, either my own or those of the people who really do suffer, but it somehow clears the mind, elevates the soul, puts the ill in perspective against a backdrop of beauty and light that makes it bearable. I can only really speak for myself here…I would not claim it makes the suffering of others any less intense…but for me the excitement, the fun, of finding and sharing beauty (even facilitated by new stuff) is part of the new eyes, the renewed vision that is our gift in Christ.