Posts in Category: morning
9/24/2010: Back Creek iPhone HDR
Early morning light along Back Creek where it meets the Mousam River. This is an iPhone 4 HDR. With the 4.1 upgrade to iOS, HDR is now built into the iPhone camera, but, though very fast, it is pretty mild compared to the effects that you can get with the dedicated ProHDR app. The built in variety is great for opening shadows in difficult lighting, but for dramatic landscapes ProHDR is the app you want.
I am learning where HDR is appropriate and where it is not. This shot, for instance, did not benefit all that much from the HRD treatment, and I probably could have achieved the same results with a standard exposure and post processing…and there are a growing number of excellent post processing apps for the iPhone.
In this case, I straightened the horizon, sharpened the image, tweaked the color temperture, and adjusted shadows and highlights in PhotoWizard. The tools (filters) in PhotoWizard will be familiar to anyone who has worked with any variety of PhotoShop or most other dedicated image processing applications.
This version, with a bit more sky, made more of the HDR treatment.
9/20/2010: Dew wapa dew
I was there to do some HDR of the sky and beach…but when something like this is on offer, it would be most ungrateful not to take a moment to work it. And gratitude is a central tenet of my photographic method…or maybe philosophy…whatever. I try not to pass up any opportunity.
I like the dew on the spider web, but it is not easy to catch in a way that does justice to its native impression. Here the rose-hips, withered and ripe, are a definite bonus, providing a secondary focus at the strong point of the composition.
Canon SX20IS at 400mm equivalent and macro. F5.0 @ 1/400th @ ISO 80. Programmed auto.
Recovery on Lightroom for the highlights on the web, Blackpoint adjustment, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
And, of course, when I say work it, I mean more than one exposure and angle.
This shot is cropped just a bit, both by zooming out to 560mm equivalent, and in Lightroom (from the bottom).
Flipping out the lcd for a low angle shot, and zooming to around 500mm, gives an alternative view, again cropped in Lightroom.
Like I said…make the most of any opportunity!
9/12/2010: Self Portrait in the Shadow of Earl
Happy Sunday!
The morning after Hurricane Earl passed by Southern Maine was still showery and very windy, with lots of moisture hanging in the air and some high clouds building where a cold front pushed the storm further out to sea. I was out early to see what could be seen. The whole marsh behind Parson’s Beach, where Back Creek, here still full with the flood tide, flows to the Mousam, looked, in the early morning light, like it had been tousled by the retreating waves (see 9/9/2010)…producing interesting textures and patterns in the wet grasses. Here I attempted to set off the marsh patterns with a touch of vivid color from the rose-hips.
In doing so, I inadvertently created a self portrait. I try to keep my shadow out of landscapes, but for this shot I intentionally left it in. Can you see me in the rose bush? I will give you a clue…I am wearing a Tilley hat with a wide brim.
And, of course, every image I capture and publish is a self-portrait, whether I caught my shadow or not. I can not avoid intruding on the landscape I photograph…and there you go: “avoid” and “intrude” are already casting the matter in the wrong light.
Myself, the way I see and respond, is what I bring to the image…my gift…my contribution to creation…to the creation. All any photograph says is “I saw this and it moved me…I wanted to show it to you too.” And the only honest response to any photograph is “I see it. I see what you were looking at, and why it moved you.” When the photograph is truly great, we can also say “It moved me too!”
Of course, what is moved in us is not shadow, but light…which is, I guess, why I try to keep my shadow off the landscape.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent @ f4.0 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky and clouds, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, Sharpen narrow edges, and slight crop from the bottom for composition.
9/9/2010: Earl’s footprints
The storm surge from Earl, on the high tide, was not over a foot in Maine, but it was enough, and carried enough extra energy, so that where the water was sucked back out to sea over the marsh, it left a track of grass swirled, combed down, and left all akimbo. Add the low, early morning sun on the heavy dew, and the heather along side, and you have a study in texture and light. I used a moderate zoom setting to frame.
Canon SX20IS at 60mm equivalent @ f4.0 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
A bit of Fill Light in Lightroom. Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
8/9/2010
Summer Morning: River Meets the Sea
Saturday morning I headed out to my favorite birding and digiscoping spot, along the Kennebunk Bridle Path where it crosses Route 9 by the Mousam River bridge. It was one of those clear, cool, summer mornings after days of heat, with bright sun and broken cloud cover and I was hoping to do some more iPhone HDR experimentation. When I got out of the car to set up my scope, I realized that my iPhone was back home on the charger. No HDR today!
But then, as I mounted my digiscoping camera and walked in toward the marsh I was thinking…all I am really doing with the iPhone is taking two exposures, one for bright (sky generally) and one for dark (foreground landscape generally). I could do that with my SX20IS…and actually it might even be a bit easier since I could use the exposure compensation dial…or even the auto exposure bracket built into the camera.
All the magic is in the software. Maybe I could download the images to the iPhone and use Pro HDR to combine them…or, failing that…surely there must be some software available to do it on the laptop. I just got an upgrade notice from Adobe on PhotoShop Elements 8…and didn’t that mention some kind of HDR?
So I took a bunch of experimental images using both the exposure compensation dial, judging exposure by eye, and auto bracket. Auto bracket on the SX20IS does three exposures, 1EV either side of center (you can shift the center point along the scale but you can not increase the range). By eye, I judged 1 EV to be too little compensation for the sky with clouds, though about right for the landscape, and, indeed that’s how it worked out when I came to process the images.
Back home, I found that even if I downloaded the images to the iPhone, they were just too large for Pro HDR to handle (not surprising since Pro HDR expected maximum 5mp images form the iPhone camera). Plan B.
I always try to find a free program first, and I downloaded what looked like the best of then. No. Did not work. So, after some more research, I downloaded the trial version of Photomatix Lite and gave that a try. Excellent. As easy as Pro HDR on the iPhone, and in “enhanced detail: tone mapping mode” it provides a very similar set of adjustments, and, with care, similar results. Best of all, it does the auto alignment of the images just as Pro HDR does, which makes shooting HDR handheld possible. I bought it.
And after all that…the image for today is my first Photomatix HDR. I still find that Pro HDR produces more natural results as its default, but you can achieve the same results with Photomatix with some tweaking of the controls. On the other hand, it is possible in Photomatix to do the massively overblown HDR thing too. I am not tempted that way, but I can understand the temptation.
I took the Photomatix processed HDR into Lightroom and made final adjustments…Blackpoint right, some added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
So, one more tool…one more set of imaging possibilities to bring to the landscape.
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.
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.
5/31/2010
Brief as the Dew on a Rose
Rugussa Rose, or Beach Rose, is an invasive plant all along the seaside in the northeast: so typical of the dunes in New England that most people assume it is native and natural. This is Parson’s Beach in Kennebunk, Maine, while I was out early one morning last week to digiscope Song Sparrows and Yellow Warblers, who feed and nest in fair numbers in the roses and Honeysuckle of the dunes. The dew had just touched this rose, and was not going to last long.
Somewhere in there is a reason why this might be an appropriate image for Memorial Day.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent and Super-macro. F5.6 @ 1/30th @ ISO 80. Programmed auto with Exposure Lock and Program Shift for greater depth of field.
In Lightroom, some Recovery for the highlights, Fill Light and Blackpoint to the right. Had to be careful with the blackpoint which tended to block up deeper pinks of the rose really quickly. Added Clarity and and a touch of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped from both sides for composition.
From Around Home 2010.
5/27/2010
Pastel Jungle
While this gives the impression of a veritable jungle of purple blossoms and green stalks, it is actually quite a small patch of chives in flower in our garden out back. The low angle facilitated by the flip out LCD on the Canon SX20IS, combined with the 28mm equivalent Super-macro, transform the mundane into the exotic. The chives were in deep shadow, early in the morning, with the sun already on the lawn beyond the sheltering trees. Composition and placement of the plane of sharp focus is critical to the success of this shot. I wish I could say I did it on purpose…but I just shot several exposures and selected the one that works best in post-processing triage. 🙂
Canon SX20IS, as mentioned, at 28mm equivalent and Super-macro. F2.8 @ 1/50th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the highlights in the background. A touch of Fill Light for the flowers, Blackpoint to the right. Added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Finally, the tricky light made the chives too purple. Auto White Balance in Lightroom brought them back to reality.
From The Yard, Kennebunk ME.
5/17/2010
Fly-fishing in First Light
We reached the Highpoint/Stokes Recreation Area soon after dawn in our World Series of Birding run on Saturday. One of the advantages of only being there to document the effort is that I had time (and attention) to spare for things without wings…like this angler in a pond in the early light. Zooming in, I as able to catch the arc of the line as he cast. This will repay a view at larger sizes on WideEyedInWonder (click the image for the link, and use the size controls at the top of the window to resize for your monitor).
Canon SX20IS at about 280mm equivalent. F5.0 @ 1/400th @ 1SO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom, a touch of Recovery for the glittering water, some Fill Light and Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance. Cropped from the bottom and top for composition.