Posts in Category: morning
6/8/2012: Beach Rose in the Morning
Yesterday on my early scooter jaunt to the beach, the roses were looking rather tattered from the days of rain and wind. The fully open blooms were almost all missing at least one petal. The partially open blooms had weathered the storm in better trim. The low angle of the morning sun really picked up the water remaining on the roses from a night of rain, as well as bringing out all the warmth of the deep pink petals. I like this shot for the wet rose, but also for the detail in the sky behind. Alright…there is not a lot of detail in the sky behind, but the fact that there is any at all adds a lot to the image, imho. In fact, I was amazed when I got the image up in Lightroom to see any there at all. The sensor and the processing engine in the Canon SX40HS continues to amaze me.
For contrast, I provide a white beach rose, also wet, also with a bit of detail in the sky behind it. Here you see how yellow the center is in the morning sun.
Both shots use the Tel-Converter Macro trick. They are taken at the 24mm Macro end of the zoom for extreme close focus, but with the 1.5x digital tel-converter function engaged. That pushes the equivalent field of view to 36mm for a larger image scale. I like the effect a lot. You still get great depth of field and rich detail, but without pushing the lens so close to what you are photographing that you see the wide angle distortions (and risk getting water on your lens).
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. As above. Both at f4 and ISO 100. 1) at 1/250th and 2) at 1/1250th. I love that the Canon can maintain a full range of detail in this white flower!
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
A note on the rose since I got some questions on it yesterday. It is Rosa rugosa, an import form the far east, planted originally as an ornamental and to stabilize san dunes. It is now invasive all through New England along the sandy sections of coast. It forms low dense thickets on the land side of dunes, often extending for miles. It has been here long enough so most people think it is native. On Cape Cod, they make “Beach Plum Jelly” out of the hips. Just as an added note, it is super hardy and salt resistant, and hybridizes easily, so it is used extensively by rose culturist in the development of new varieties.
5/18/2012: Dew on the Rose, Washington Oaks Gardens, FL
Washington Oaks Gardens has an extensive formal water garden, and, inside a wrought iron fence with trellis gates, a great collection of carefully tended roses. Since I am often there early for the birds, I often catch the dew on the rose in all its glory.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. This is a digital tel-extender macro…with the lens at 24mm and macro where I can focus to 0 cm, and 1.5x digital tel-extender engaged for an equivalent focal length of 36mm and larger image scale. This is a use of the digital tel-extender feature I an sure Canon did not foresee, but results, I think, are convincing. f4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 125.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
1/10/2012: Nubble Light in Morning Light
When I went looking for the Snowy Owl reported at Nubble Light last Saturday, I went early. Early is not the best time to photograph the Light itself. The light is behind the Light, so to speak, or off to the south of it considerably, and you get shadows across the face of the buildings and the slope of the island. This shot, while it holds some interest in itself, was helped along considerably by the Dynamic Photo HDR application after the fact.
DPHDR, in my limited experience of it so far, does an excellent job of tone-mapping a single .jpg file to simulate a true multi-exposure HDR image…and it does it without the obvious artifacts of some other tone-mapping software. (It does, of course, produce conventional HDRs from multiple files, but I have not experimented with that yet.)
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. f7.1 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 250. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
The file was processed in DPHDR, then taken into Lightroom for final processing…Fill Light, Blackpoint, Clarity, and a touch of Vibrance. There was a reddish lens flare (the sun is just out of the frame), over the right end of the island which required some treatment. I desaturated the flare using the selective desaturation tool, then painted a Local Adjustments region over the area and pumped up Clarity and Contrast.
The result is, I think, striking…a bit on the hyper-real side (click for more on hyper-real imaging)…but powerful enough to make up for it.
1/7/2012: Branch Brook, Kennebunk ME
As I have mentioned, we are still snow deprived in Southern Maine this winter. We actually have a dusting on the ground this morning, thanks to all day efforts yesterday (a flake here, a flake there), but it will not last. Temps in the 40s today. This shot from was the last dusting a few weeks ago.
I like the early morning light in the trees and the way the snow frosts the little pine…the curve of dark water, etc.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/80th @ ISO160. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/27/2011: Winter Pond with Self Portrait (3)
We had a dusting of snow Christmas night, so I was up early and out to try to catch some of it on the ground before it melted. These shots are of what I call Back Creek Pond #2 (since between this and Back Creek Pond #1 they form the headwaters of Back Creek). There was no way to avoid getting my shadow in while maintaining the sweep of the tree shadows across the pond toward the receding end…so I decided to play with it a bit, shooting from my general three levels…standing, ground level using the flip out LCD, and mid-level. Each one is, I think, a striking image on its own, but taken together they make an interesting self-portrait of the photographer at work. 🙂
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. Interestingly enough I got three different exposures out of Program and iContrast at –1/3EV for the three images. 1) f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. 2) f2.7 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200, and 3) f4 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. I suspect the short shutter speed on the second shot was because I had the LCD display flipped out. Canon engineers know that using the LCD is inherently less stable than using the eye-level finder, so they bump up the shutter speed for better chances at a sharp shot. I suspect.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness. I also used Auto color temperature to tame the blue in the shadows somewhat, but backed off on the too warm hue that resulted.
12/6/2011: Cranes in Early Sun, Bisque del Apache NWR
I posted a sequence from this same morning a few days ago, taken as the sun was rising behind a bank of cloud on the horizon. Eventually the sun got up above the clouds and spread across the empondment and the birds. It was, as is often the case in New Mexico in November, a clear crisp light with a good deal of warmth to it. It made the Sandholl Cranes look particularly alive.
Canon SX40HS. 1260mm,1680mm, and 72mm equivalents. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
10/8/2011: Virginia Frost
Ah yes…a touch of winter in old Virginia already. Did a bit of fotoprowl before work on Thursday, just a few moments around the industrial estate where our office is located in Chester VA. I could not resist the frost n the barberry hedge leaves…both as a sign of the season (unusually cold for VA this past week), and as an abstract design and texture study…gotta love what the low sun does with the frost crystals.
For this shot I backed away and framed using the 840mm equivalent field of view on the Canon SX40is from about 8 feet. f5.8 @ 1/250 @ ISO 125. Program.
Processed in Lighroom for Intensity, Clarity, and Sharpness. (just as a note: I am finding the Canon SX40is takes much less processing than the Nikon P500.)
9/16/2011: Lake Erie Morning
The Midwest Birding Symposium is at Lakeside Ohio and, as you might guess from the name, it is right on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio’s resort belt. I always forget that Lake Erie is a major body of water…an inland sea in fact. The “lake” label obscures the actual nature of the experience. It is, in my experience, a pretty wild stretch of inland sea at that…with its own weather even.
A front was passing yesterday morning as I was headed out from Lakeside to Magee Marsh and Ottawa NWR, and I had to run down to the lake to catch a bit off the action before getting in the car for the drive. Amazing waves and clouds.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view. 1) f4.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. 2) f3.4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/8/2011: Once Upon an English Golf Course
We will pop back to England, and my recent visit there, for today. Mallards in the early morning sun on one of the many ponds along the heavily designed water course that passes through Greetham Valley Golf Course were we stay while I am at the British Bird Fair. Mostly I really like the reflections of the greenery around the pond. This is a long zoom shot to isolate the birds. And it is cropped slightly for composition.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 810mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/26/2011: Manicured English Morning
While at the British Bird Fair we stay at the Greetham Valley Golf Club and Convention Center about 12 miles up the hill and over into the next valley from Rutland Water. As you might expect the landscape is rather on the manicured (not to say manufactured) side…it is, after all, a golf course. Still, of an English morning, or evening, before or after the golfers, it has its charm. Especially when capped by an outrageous midlands sky.
And, since the landscape is already sculpted to please the eye (and the nine-iron), all a photographer has to do is frame and expose.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity, Sharpness, and impact.
And, you only have to turn around to catch the Brown Hare bounding. (I cheated here. The Hare is a shot from the evening before…but they were out behind me on the morning too!) You might imagine, if you like, that the Hare is in charge of the manicure.
P500 at 810mm equivalent field of View, f5.7 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.