Posts in Category: macro
5/20/2009
Strawberry at the Path Edge
Strawberry likes waste ground…poor soil…gravel…the edges of paths and roads, sand. And, of course, sun and heat, which is often associated with such spots. Not surprising then to find it along the edge of the trail at Rachel Carson NWR. Brave and fresh, these blossoms are in their prime. The articulated LCD on the H50 gets me right down to eye level with the blooms, the macro setting gets me in to 1/2 inch, and the image stabalization saves the exposure at 1/40th of a second.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F6.3 @ 1/40th @ ISO 100. Programed auto, -.7 EV exposure compensation.
Cropped from the top in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpened.
5/19/2009
Blue-bead Lily, from above
An alternative view of what I now know to be Blue-bead Lily (Clintonia borealis) at Rachel Carson NWR. I like the way the flower floats above the smooth curves of the leaves.
On the last two shots, I have gotten some advice over at one of the digital photography listserves I frequent. Some feel that the backgrounds are still too much in focus and detract from the flowers. Part of it is, they assert, the limitations of my equipment. The Sony DSC H50 is an advanced Point and Shoot and the assumption is that the small (tiny) sensor in these cameras makes for smaller lenses and smaller physical apertures which makes it difficult to produce a shallow enough depth of field.
Undoubtedly they will say the same of this. Of course, I am not trying for the traditional flower shot, with the flower isolated against a dark or completely blurry background. These are more enviornmental shots, intended to capture some of the context of the flower, with the background making a real contribution to the overall image. Not portrait of a flower, but flower in forest or flower in meadow, or flower in the world.
Whether or not they work for you that way, or meet your expectations of flower photography, is, of course, another question…and one I can not answer.
Sony DSC H50 at about 465mm equivalent. Macro. F6.3 @ 1/40th @ ISO 100. (The H50s image stabalization makes this kind of shot possible without a tripod.) Programed auto. -.7EV exposure compensation.
Cropped slightly for effect. Added Vibrance (very little, since it would have over amped the yellow), Clarity, and sharpen in Lightroom.
5/18/2009
Trout Lily (at least what they call Trout Lily in Maine)
This may, or may not, be Trout Lily. That is what I have always called it, but google turns up several different plants by that common name, and none of them are this one?? [ed. note: it is more commonly Blue-bead Lily (Clintonia borealis)] Anyway, it always blooms between the Trillium and Lady Slipper here in southern Maine, overlapping both. Because of the unique greenish yellow color, it is a difficult flower to photograph. The sensor wants to render it either too green or too yellow, and the subdued light of the overcast morning did not help. It took more than usual color adjustment in Lightroom to bring it back to reality.
Because of the down drooping flowers, it is an ideal candidate for the flip out LCD on the H50. You have to get really low to see it to full advantage. That low, care must be taken with the background, so that it does not overpower or overwhelm the flower itself.
I used Program Shift to select a smaller aperture for depth of field on the flower itself.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro (taken from about 1/4 inch). F8.0 @ 1/40th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto. -.7 EV Exposure Compensation.
Besides the color adjustment (both temperature and tint), I added Clarity and Vibrance (very little vibrance to avoid bringing out the yellow too much), and sharpened in Lightroom. I used a graduated filter effect from the top to darken the background, and cropped a bit for composition.
From Rachel Carson NWR Seasons.
Trout Lily and Trillium
5/17/2009
Trillium (Bloodroot)
I atempted to get into the woods to look for Trillium on Friday morning in the sunshine, but the blackflies (state bird of Maine in May) drove me out. On Saturday morning, despite the general overcast, I armored myself in DEET and penetrated deep into Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge’s headquarters trails in search of early spring wildflowers. (May is early spring in Maine, as far as wildflowers go. And deep is a relative term…the whole trail system is just over a mile long, but it is a very good trail, from a photographic standpoint. I have a whole gallery of images taken there at various times of the year.)
Last year I missed the Trilliums altogether as the season was about 2 weeks advanced. This year I hit it just right, with the Trilliums newly bloomed and fresh, and the Trout Lily just coming on.
The light was still pretty dim in the forest, even at 9am, and the damp of the night’s rain had still not gone off, so the images are atmospheric and appropriate to the day.
For the trillium I used some exposure compensation on the H50 to keep the pure white of the petals from burning out against the dark leaves.
Once more, I am reminded how much I like the flip out LCD of the H50 for wildflower (and general macro) work. I am also reminded how much I have come to rely on the image stabalization. I simply don’t worry about show shutter speeds in situations like this where the subject is still. Without stabilization shots like this would require a tripod.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro (taken at about 1/2 inch). F4.0 @1/80th @ ISO 100.
Just the basic added Vibrance and Clarity in Presence panel, and sharpen, in Lightroom. I moved the backpoint to the right to increase the intensity. Cropped slightly at the left to improve composition.
From Rachel Carson NWR Seasons.
Bonas shot: Pulled back to get the context and shot at the tel end of the zoom (about 300mm equivalent).
Trilliums
5/6/2009
The Other Prickly Pear
Prickly Pear comes in at least 2 colors in Texas, yesterday’s yellow and today’s red. The exposure problem is the same: keeping the predominant color from burning out. Same solution. -1.3 EV exposure compensation, and restore exposure in Lightroom to desired effect.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F4.5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto with -1.3 EV.
Cropped from the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance in Lightroom. Landscape sharpen preset.
From Corpus Christi ABA.
5/5/2009
Prickly Pear
Prickly Pear cactus in bloom, near Kingsville TX. The challenge with PPC is always keeping the yellow from over saturating the sensor and clipping, so that you lose all detail in the highlights. For this quick shot while birding, I used -1.3 EV exposure compensation and then pulled exposure back up in Lr to get the effect I wanted, and maintain the full rich detail in the flower petals.
Also in Lr I cropped in from the left to improve comp0sition.
Sony DSC H50 full wide and macro. F5.6 @ 1/1000 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto with -1.3 EV compensation.
Added Exposure in Lightroom, Vibrance and Clarity. Landscape sharpen preset.
From Corpus Christi ABA.
4/15/2009
Fiddlehead
Not quite here this year, but this shot from last year reminds me of what is to come. And it is somehow works for tax day. I took a series this day as the fiddleheads were just at, imho, their most attractive stage. Again, this is the H50 with its articulating LDC, which allowed me to get right down on the ground with some comfort and shoot from below fiddlehead level. Makes for an interesting perspective. There had to be a balance between a small enough aperture for sufficient depth for the subject, and wide enough for interesting bokeh. Happens the H50’s Programed Auto chose just such an aperture.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F4.0 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Minimal processing in Lightroom. Some Recovery for the background highlights. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Landscape sharpen preset.
From Around Home.
Bonas shots…
4/12/2009
Happy Easter: He is Risen!
Really, the crocus is a more appropriate Easter flower than the lily. First in the spring yard (at least in Maine), bursting out of winter will color and life well before our trees are even budded. Such a joyful bloom. Like Easter. And a promise, as it rises in our day-lily and daffodil beds, of more to come.
For my own satisfaction, it was necessary for me to go back with better light (the next morning) and rework the crocus, to get some shots that where the stamens are sharper. Impressions are well and good, and have their place, but I do like a flower macro where you can see the pollen pores. Within the limits of the Sony H50, this is about as good as it is going to get.
Sony DCS H50 at full wide and macro. F5.6 @ 1/250 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, only my standard Presence adjustments for the H50 (added Clarity and Vibrance) and a bit of fill light to open the shadows. Touched the black point slightly to the right. Sharpen portrait preset.
From Around Home.
And the bonas shot, and that finishes with the crocus (I think) for this season.
4/11/2009
Lichen among the Moss
I did go out yesterday in better light and rework the crocus…but I will save one of those for tomorrow. Today we have a shot from later in the day, from a walk around the never fails me trail at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. It is only a mile, but I find something interesting to photograph on every visit.
The moss this early spring is the brightest thing in the forest, so vibrantly green and lush that it has to draw the eye. This shot is right down at moss level, with a cluster of lichen breaking though for interest. I left enough background to, hopefully, supply some scale. This is tiny, tiny stuff shot at the closest 2 cm macro of the H50…which is one of the things I really love about this camera (I don’t love everything about it…just enough to keep me carrying it).
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F5.6 @ 1/125 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom I used a graduated filter pulled up from the bottom to pop up the foreground with added clarity and contrast. You could not apply the kinds of levels I used here in standard processing, or to any area without a lot of detail, but as a graduated filter over appropriate areas of the image it gives a pseudo-hdr effect. After applying it I always find I have to increase the brightness of the whole image. That is in addition to my normal Presence adjustments for this camera, plus both Clarity and Vibrance applied globally and the Sharpen portrait preset.
I always feel a need to remind readers that while the above sounds like a lot of processing, Lightroom makes it easy (you can see your effects applied in real time) and fast (all of that took only about 2 minutes, start to finish).
From Rachel Carson Seasons.
4/10/2009
Crocus Impression
Interesting story. I took some shots of these newly opened Crocus for a test of two compact HD video cameras I did for P&S Landscape (here) and posted them to Flickr for convenience in placing them in my blog. On Flickr they immediately began to draw comments. So I had to go out, end of the day, with my real camera and take some shots. Clearly.
In pushing for greatest depth of field, I used Program Shift to move the auto exposure to smallest possible aperture, and ended up with some pretty slow shutter speeds. Anyway, I took some really close ups of the insides of the flowers, as in leading petals touching the lens. They did not work for me as straight on photographs so I tried some Lightroom magic to enhance the strangeness of them. I will reshoot some this morning without touching the Program Shift and see what I get. In the meantime, this slightly unreal, manipulated image stands on its own as what it is: an impression of Crocus.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide (31mm equivalent). F5.0 @ 1/30th @ ISO 100. Program Shifted for smallest aperture.
In Lightroom, some Recovery, and more than usual amounts of Clarity and especially Vibrance to push the look over the edge of reality. Landscape sharpen preset. But then I went in with the color selective HSL (hue, saturation, and luminance) controls and altered the luminance of specific colors. In Lightroom you have a color selection tool that you can place over the image. Clicking the mouse and dragging up or down over a specific color in the image changes the HSL (whichever you have set, luminance in this case) values on the fly, as you watch. Lightroom does all the calculations and changes whatever color bands it needs, multiple bands most generally, to change just the color that was under your tool when you clicked the mouse. It is magical. By selecting the orange of the stamens and sliding the mouse up, I brightened just that orange, making the stamens pop out of the image. Then I selected the purple of the petal veins and slid the mouse down to darken that color and increase the contrast between it and the rest of the petals. The result is a striking, if somewhat unreal, image.
From Around Home.
Here is a more straight on image of the same flowers.
A bit more real...but better?