Posts in Category: lighthouse
12/29/2011: East Point and Wood Island Light
Yesterday was a good day to look for Snowy Owls. I had to go north on a shopping expedition so on my way back I worked my way out to East Point Sanctuary at the tip of Biddeford Pool. I have seen Snowys before on the the rocks and stony beaches of the point, as well as on Wood Island, which is visible from the point across the Saco River channel. In fact I saw my very first Snowy there.
As it turns out, yesterday was a very good day to look for Snowy Owls…it just was not a very good day for finding them. 🙁
The goodness of the day is due to the weather. There was a front passing and the clouds and the sea and the light all along the coast south from Casco Bay was spectacular. This is the view across the channel to Wood Island Light. I love the hammered steal of the sea, and that mass of cloud slanting in over Wood Island, with the Lighthouse standing against the ranked clouds out over Cape Elizabeth and the far shore of Saco Bay.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
The seas coming into Saco Bay were huge. In this second shot, I zoomed in for more detail on the Lighthouse, but also to catch one of those breaking swells. Coming in against the wind, when the swells broke on the underwater ledges between the Point and the Light, the spray made for some fantastic shows.
Canon SX40HS at 77mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 125. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. To capture this shot I took a burst of images at 4 fps when the wave began to break and selected the best of them.
The final shot is from a bit further down the channel, looking past the light and out to sea, at an intermediate zoom between the first two. Again, I was after the braking wave in front of the Light.
Canon SX40HS at 30mm equivalent. f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
All processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness. I used Graduated Filter effects to balance exposure on the sea and sky, and adjusted color temperature to warm the sea to its visual gray, rather than the blue-grey the the camera rendered.
9/17/2011: Marblehead Light
A couple of classic postcard views of Marblehead Light in Marblehead Ohio. What can I say? The Light is there. The Light is way picturesque. You shoot the Light. It is photographed so often that all that angles are taken, but still you just have to do it. (I think they might actually keep the arch of tree brancbes in the first shot trimmed just for this shot 🙂
Nikon Coolpix P500. 1) 36mm equivalent field of view. f4 @1/1250th @ ISO 160. 2) 36mm, f8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting. -.7 EV exposure compensation for the white of the light.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
7/25/2011: Up the creek behind the beach
If you remember Saturday’s Down the creek post, this shot is the same evening, from the same bridge, only looking up the creek, where it passes behind the houses that face Gooch’s Beach. Here again it is the quality of the light, and the reflections of the sky in the water that form the foundation of the composition. (This is a tidal creek and we are seeing it here brim full of tidal backflow…it shrinks to creek size at low tide.)
Because the low sun was right there, just out of view in this shot, the only way to capture anything like the naked eye view this was HDR. I used the camera’s built in Backlight/HDR mode (which takes multiple exposures and stacks them for extended range), and adjusted the result in Lightroom. Though at first I dismissed the way too flat results of the in-camera processing, I am finding that with experience in processing them in Lighroom, it actually works pretty well…at least in some situations.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 22mm equivalent, nominal exposure f3.4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Backlight/HDR mode.
Processed for intensity, Clarity, and Sharpness in Lightoom.
4/5/2011: Wood Island Light Panorama, etc.
This is a 4 shot panorama, taken from East Point in Biddeford Pool, Maine, looking up the coast past the Wood Island Light and well out to sea. It really must be viewed larger. Clicking on the image should open it to the width of your monitor.
And this is a closer view, at about 300mm equivalent field of view…as you can see there was a high wind and lots of moisture in the air, which limits the sharpness of the light at this distance. What you see beyond the light is Cape Elizabeth.
I am still experimenting with Panorama. I always forget that the sea is not still and any shot with waves is going to take some fixing. I had to go in with the clone tool in PhotoShop Elements 9 and do some creative wave adjustment…still, in a shot this large and expansive…most people will not notice. Since the level of the horizon in a shot this wide is critical, I did not use widest angle on the Canon’s zoom, which would have introduced some linier distortion in each shot. I find that normal lens (50mm or there abouts) stitches better when there is such an obvious horizon.
1) Canon SX20IS, four 62mm equivalent field of view shots, stitched in PSE 9’s Panorama tool using the Align Images setting. f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. 2) Canon SX20IS at 300mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode for both.
Both processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
3/29/2011: Cape Porpoise, ME
If you stand on the fishing pier at Cape Porpoise, Maine and look back down the harbor toward town, this is what you see. Certainly one of the classic Maine fishing village vistas, with the white church steeple and the white clapboard houses, the lobster boats floating on a ultra-blue sea under a spring blue sky. And, in this hard spring light, if you turn right around and look out to sea, you are confronted by the Goat Island Light on the stone ledge that guards the entrance to the harbor and the extensive shallows.
All together classic for Maine. These views make Cape Porpoise, otherwise a sort of sleepy neighbor to far more touristy Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, just about as well visited in the summer. It is still spring here, and I was all but alone out there last Saturday. And look what they all missed!
Canon SX20IS at 1) 125mm equivalent field of view @ f4.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80, Landscape Mode, and 2) 150mm equivalent @ f4.5 @ 1/1250 @ ISO 80, Landscape Mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
3/13/2011: Point Loma Light, San Diego
I don’t know about you, but lighthouses always fascinate me. Not that I am a fanatic. We get lighthouse fanatics here in Maine, driving up the coast, light to light, and ticking them off. There is even a shop, just down route 1 from us in Wells, called the Lighthouse Shop, which does a brisk summer business, and supplies lighthouse nick-knacks to aficionados world wide on the web. Not one of those. Still, I do enjoy a lighthouse.
This is the “old” light on Point Loma overlooking the north end of the harbor in San Diego California. It is many hundreds of feet above sea level, and has been replaced by a tower light right on the point below (see below). As you can see from the flag, there was a bit of weather moving through, and, as you can see from the tourist in the door, it is now a museum. Lighthouse museums are unique (we have several in Maine) in that the main attraction, and almost the only artifact on display, is the building itself. They do have an extra lens, which is a study in itself, here on Point Loma in the shed on the left. Here it is, on the right, from a trip a few years ago.
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The main shot at the head of the blog is with the Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
And of course, being Sunday, there has always been a spiritual dimension to the lighthouses. Placed as a warning for ships at sea, they became the beacon announcing home to returning sailors. Even in danger they are a reminder that someone cares. On the final leg of the journey, they are our hope of return. As Christians we are instructed to be the light of the world, not to hide our lights under bushels but to let them shine brightly, to let our eye be full of light so that we are all light within…and told that our God is, in that sense that is so true that that it is beyond common sense, light, all light. Many churches, especially of the more evangelical mold, are named Lighthouse, and every church should be one: Both caring warning and hope of home. And, in truest sense (again beyond common sense) every Christian should be one as well. I suspect this imagery is pretty common across all the great faiths, and that is safe to say that each and every human being is called to be a lighthouse…that it is our nature and our heritage if only we would. Granted most of us need a bit of polish to the lens and a bit more fuel to the fire, but that does not dim the truth of what we are called to be. Maybe that is why we love lighthouses.
10/5/2010: Quoddy Head Light
These are my last shots from Quoddy Head. The light as seen from the south in the heavy fog. I took a bunch of shots trying to catch the lamp lit and toward me, but the real trick was matching the color balance of this shot and the one at the foot of the blog. The fog, when zoomed in like this, really messed with the color, and cast everything blue. It took a lot of trial and error in Lightroom, working with Color Temperature and Hue to get the two images somewhere near balance…and then, for this one I needed dualing Graduated Filter effects…from the top to darken, from the bottom to brighten and increase contrast…in order to reproduce something like the natural look of the scene.
Canon SX20IS at about 100mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80. Landscape Program.
Besides the dualing GF effects and color adjustments above, some Recovery, Fill Light, Blackpoint well right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
The second image is taken from the same spot, but at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/400th @ ISO 80. Also Landscape Program.
Similar treatment in Lightroom, without the GF effects and color balancing. This one requires a larger view.
I am publishing this early since I have to be on a flight to Georgia at 6AM tomorrow morning.
9/27/2010: Quoddy Head Light
Quoddy Head Light, while not, perhaps, one of the more attractive Lighthouse in Maine, has the distinction of being the eastern-most Lighthouse in the United States, standing on the eastern-most point of land in the United States. It is so far east that my cell phone claimed it was in another time zone.
The other thing that distinguishes Quoddy Head is fog. Beside the light is the fog horn, and it goes part or all of most days. Certainly, while I had hopes according the National Weather Service, it never stopped sounding during my visit, and the fog never lifted more than a few feet off the ground. Maybe the NWS is not in charge of the weather in that time zone?
Still, you can’t visit Quoddy Head without photographing the Light, fog or no fog…so…
Though I tried this shot as an HDR, hoping for better light on the Lighthouse, I like this single shot version better, as I was able to maintain, and even emphasize, detail in the foreground grass…maybe I would have done better with the HDR with a tripod.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent, f2.8 @ 1/640th @ ISO 125. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, recovery for the fog, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset. Then I pulled a Graduated Filter effect up from the bottom to increase brightness, contrast, and clarity on the lawn (to bring up the fine details) and one down from the top to darken just a bit, increase contrast considerably, and add a bit of saturation. Finally, I used the vertical distortion control to straighten the house and Light.
And here it is from the other side:
6/22/2010
Bass Head Light
Until a few years ago if you wanted to photograph Bass Head Light from a flattering angle, you had to risk life and limb climbing down a cliff to the shelving rocks above the surf. The park service put in a stair, and that makes the photographer’s life much easier, and safer. Now you don’t have risk life and limb until you get to the shelving rocks above the surf. The best vantages are still a scramble.
On a cloudy Saturday morning, fairly early, I had the place to myself. In fact, I debated making the drive down to the light, as the day did not look promising. Turns out the flat light, along with just enough interest in the cloud cover, made for some of my best shots of Bass Head to date.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom 3, Recovery for the sky, Fill Light to balance the foreground, just a touch of Blackpoint right, added Clarity and a smidge of Vibrance, Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Acadia 2010.
And the vertical view.
5/15/2010
Cape May Sunset
Happy Sunday! Just a quick post of a pic from yesterday’s World Series of Birding effort. Sunset after 36 plus hours awake :) And still a glory. Cape May Lighthouse from Sunset Beach in Cape May.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/160th @ ISO 80. Landscape program. Exposure biased by tipping the camera up, locking exposure, and reframing.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky, Fill Light for the foreground, Blackpoint slightly right, added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
Not in a gallery yet.