Posts in Category: marsh
7/22/2010
iPhone 4 Possibilities
I have been having fun with the iPhone 4 camera. This is the first phone I have owned with anything approaching a real camera: 5mp with a focusing lens, etc.
Couple that with the excellent photo software available for the iPhone and you can have some fun.
The first shot is a panorama of 6 images, 3 across and 2 down, done in AutoStitch. You shoot roughy overlapping images, load them into AutoStitch, and it does the rest. And does it very well. Better really than any panorama software I have used on my laptop.
The second image is a two exposure HDR done in ProHDR. Again, you just shoot two shots, touching the screen where you want to take the exposure readings, first light, then dark, and the program combines them to an extended range rendition. It also has slider controls to tweek the result for contrast, saturation, and warmth.
I generally take the output of these two programs and crop and sharpen, and sometimes adjust the curves, in PhotoGene…also right on the iPhone.
That is a lot photographic power and a lot of photographic potential. Like I said, having fun!
Clicking either image should load a larger version for your viewing pleasure.
7/21/2010
On a Lazy River’s Evening Light
The Mousam, in Kennebunk Maine, at high tide, about 7:30PM on a summer evening after a hot damp day. View this larger on the Wide Eyed In Wonder site by clicking the image above. It has much more impact at larger sizes.
Canon SX20IS at 300mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 200. Landscape program.
Cropped for composition in Lightroom. Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and some Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Around Home 2010.
7/20/2010
Eastern Wood Pewee
I wish I were 100% sure of this id, but near as I can tell this is an immature Eastern Wood Pewee. It hunts, most days, off a series of old fence posts set out in flooded marsh about 30 feet from the raised bed of the Kennebunk Bridle path on the ocean side of Rt. 9. Here it is very intent on the dragon and damsel flies hovering over the water below. Every 90 seconds or so it swoops. Occasionally it scores.
Canon SD4000IS behind the eyepiece of the new ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of a 4200mm lens on a full frame DSLR. Effective f11 @ 1/320th @ ISO 400. Programmed auto. Only rarely do you have the light and a cooperative bird for such a frame filling shot, even with a digiscoping rig. Viewed at full screen resolution on my laptop, this bird is well over life-sized.
Some Recovery in Lightroom. A touch of Fill Light. Blackpoint a fair distance right…which threw the color balance well into the yellow, so Auto White Balance to start, and then further adjustment by eye. Added Clarity and just a smidge of Vibrance (otherwise too yellow again). Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From New DiaScope 65FL.
And for a more moderate view…the same bird at maybe 2000mm equivalent.
7/14/2010
Song Sparrow
Great light. Evening sun, after a day of rain and fog. Parson’s Beach. I walked out behind the dunes along the river, with my digiscoping rig over my shoulder, to see what I could see. And this Song Sparrow popped up on a little dead branch in the grass to reach the higher seeds just I as passed. Tripod down, scope up, camera to side, focus, camera in, camera on, zoom, and let the shutter run. Sometimes it all just comes together. (And, of course, the harder you work at it, the more time you spend in the field, the more often it all comes together. 
)
This Sparrow fed along the length of the branch, fairly oblivious to me, for several moments before disappearing down deeper into the grasses. I got several keepers.
Canon SD4000IS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for an equivalent focal length of about 1700mm @ f5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 400. Programmed auto. Second one at something more like 2000mm @ f5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 125.
A touch of Fill Light and Blackpoint right a good amount, added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. Auto White Balance.
I continued on around the point looking for gulls. When I returned, with the sun even lower now, I caught another sparrow just after his or her bath, while still preening wet feathers. I got a few stills, but the sparrow was in among a tangle of dead branches and never still… hard to focus on. I decided to try from some video just as the sparrow finally hopped out on the tip of a branch in the open.
Sometimes it all comes together.
7/12/2010
Evening Light/Tidal Pool
Summer’s late light, going on 8PM with the sun still well above the horizon and seemingly hanging there forever. The slant picks out abundant detail in the sea grass surrounding this tidal pool, here full and reflective with the tide. A bit of mist left from a hot muggy day still floats up-river, thinning toward the coast. Peace. It will repay a larger look on Wide Eyed In Wonder (click the image).
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/320th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky, Blackpoint just right, added Clarity and just a tiny amount of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. Finally I pulled a Graduated Filter effect down diagonally from the upper left corner to bring up some blue where the mist catching the light had overexposed the area.
From Around Home 2010.
7/9/2010
Fog Early Along the Coast
A typical August weather report, here in July. Flood tide on Back Creek, behind Parson’s Beach in Kennebunk, Maine. Trying for a sense of depth, even with a closed horizon, by including the few scraggly roses in the foreground. The passing seagull was just a bonus.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/60th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Heavy Recovery to add some transparency to the fog, a touch of Fill Light for the foreground. Blackpoint right for intensity. Added Clarity and just a tiny amount of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. Finally, I used a Graduated Filter effect drawn down across the top 2/3s of the image to darken the fog so it appears more like it did to the eye.
From Around Home 2010.
7/6/2010
Mousam Mouth
Just a gentle landscape shot, out across the marshes toward the mouth of the Mousam River…a rarity for the cost of southern Maine these days in that it is a unprotected river mouth…no jetty…therefore one of the last wild, unmanaged beaches.
This is a good example of what a little help from Lightroom can do for a landscape. The original…
has potential but is overall rather dull. Applying my normal processing…Recovery for the sky, touch of Fill Light, Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and sharpening…improves the sky but leaves the foreground too dark and still dull…maybe duller since the highlights are stripped from the grasses as well.
This is when I resort to Lr’s graduated filter effects.
Drawing one down from the top across the sky and well into the landscape, I am able to reduce some Brightness, and add additional Clarity and and a bit of Contrast to bring up detail in the clouds. Then, drawing a graduated filter up from the bottom about 2/3rs of the frame, I am able to add Brightness, increase Clarity and Contrast, to bring out both the color and the detail in the foreground. I call it the dualing GrFilter effect. Finally, since the midground right along the horizon was left a little dark, I went in with the Local Adjustment Brush in Lightroom and defined a brush that was mostly feather…then drew an area along the horizon and added Brightness and Clarity. The result is a far different image…but arguably one closer to what the eye sees, rather than what the sensor captures. Mind you, Lr does not add anything to what the sensor caught…it just remaps the tones to a closer approximation of the visual. In that sense, the sensor and the camera did a great job of capturing the scene…since all the information needed to post-process was in the file!
Note that I am working from the jpeg file, and even with the limitations of jpeg, a lot is still possible in Lr.
From Around Home 2010.
6/23/2010
Seawall Beaver Pond
The active beaver pond behind the Seawall at Acadia National Park is always picturesque. Here the beach roses set off the foreground and enough of the pond peeks over the hedge to make an interesting composition. Since the sky was largely featureless on this overcast day, I cropped most of it out, which gives an intimate feel to the landscape.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/320th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Besides the crop, in Lightroom 3, Recovery for the sky (though it did not help much on this day), Fill Light for the foreground, Blackpoint just barely right, added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Acadia 2010.
6/17/2010
Pitcher Plant in Bloom
Sieur de Mont Springs, at Acadia National Park features the Wild Gardens of Acadia maintained by local volunteers. In a small corner of the grounds they have recreated all of the major habitats, from the bogs to the peaks, on Mount Desert Island and planted them with representative plants. Few plants are more bazaars than the Pitcher Plant. Bog dweller. Carnivorous. Strange in shape. And with a particularly complex (looking) flower structure. This is the bloom. I got down practically to ground level to shoot low enough to see into the flower head, using Macro and the long end of the zoom on the Canon SX20IS. Generally what you see is more like the image below, also taken from a distance with the tel zoom, this time because they were in a wet area with no direct approach.
Canon SX20IS. 1) 425mm equivalent @ f5.0 @ 1/500th @ ISO 200. 2) 560mm equivalent @ f5.7 @ 1/400th @ ISO 400. Programmed auto.
Recovery for the highlights in Lightroom 3, some Fill Light and Blackpoint right to extend apparent tonal range, added Clarity and Vibrance, Sharpen Narrow Edges preset.
From Acadia 2010.
6/6/2010
Song Sparrow on a Post
Happy Sunday!
Brought to you through the magic of digiscoping. Nothing like it. I was 30 feet or more from this little guy. This is about as close to a bird-in-the-hand view as you can get. On my laptop monitor he is close to life size right here, and I could view him at several times life-size.
Canon SD1400IS Digital Elph behind the eyepiece of a Zeiss Diascoope 65FL. Equivalent focal length about 3500mm. Exif f5.0 @ 1/320th @ ISO 80. Programmmed auto. Computed f-stop based on the scope/camera combination: f9.6.
In Lightroom, some Recovery for the sky, a touch of Fill Light to compensate for Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
I zoomed back to get the full bird in full song. This one is at about 1800mm equivalent. Note that the bird has its nictitating membrane over the eye.
And here is the video, along with a curious passerby.