Posts in Category: morning
5/14 – 5/15/2010
I will be doing a chase car for Team Zeiss at the World Series of Birding, beginning at midnight tonight and going trough midnight on Saturday, so…this post will most likely have to cover two days. (You can follow my adventures, and the adventures of Team Zeiss, on Twitter, @singraham or @zeissbirding_us, or see both twitters and blog posts at zeisssports.wordpress.com.)
That said, these are Pink Lady Slipper Orchids from Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, ME, taken last Sunday. The top shots are from a sunny patch facing the river, right at the edge of the forest, which bloomed early…most of the flowers at Rachel Carson looked like the bottom shot last Sunday. I was there early, and the low sun was in and out behind clouds, so the light on the full blooms is quite different than the light on the unopened buds.
All were taken with the Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent and Super-macro. Exposure varied with the light but was mostly at ISO 80 and ISO 125. The top three at F2.8, and the bottom one at f5.
For the sunny shots, a bit of Recovery in Lightroom. A touch of Fill Light, Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and Vibrance, Sharpen landscape preset. For the bottom shot, similar but, clearly, different amounts, plus cropping for composition.
5/2/2010
Sunday Sunrise: St Augustine Beach
Happy Sunday! This was exactly a week ago, give or take an hour, on St. Augustine Beach, right across form our hotel. I got down low at the edge of the tide (using the flip out lcd and staying dry). The random stranger wading gives scale and dimension the shot would lack without her…I know because I too that shot too 🙂 .
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F2.8 @ 1/1250 @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Recovery for the sky and Fill Light for the foreground in Lightroom. Added Clarity and just a touch of Vibrance. Blackpoint just barely right. Sharpen landscape preset.
From St. Augustine FL 2010.
And turning 90 degrees south, this is the view down the beach, again with a lone Sunday morning tourist.
4/25/2010
Fishing Pier: Ruddy Turnstone and a View
Happy Sunday! Still here in St. Augustine Florida. This is the St. Johns County Fishing Pier in St. Augustine Beach, right across the road from our hotel. You can buy a sightseeing ticket to the pier for a dollar. A few years ago the fishing pier was loaded with birds…pelicans, turnstones, terns, gulls, egrets, even, for many months, a Brown Booby!, but on my last two trips to St. A, bird life has been sparse, though I have visited the pier several times at different times of day, just hoping. This Ruddy Turnstone, like most of his kind who frequent the pier, was running along the rail waiting for a handy fisherman to discard some bate or some offal, and incidentally, posing for me. You don’t this eyelevel view of a turnstone too often. I even had to zoom back slightly from the full 560mm reach of the camera to frame this bird. The sun, still low soon after sunrise, also adds to the eyelevel effect, and really brings out the ruddy tones in the plumage.
Canon SX20IS at 520mm equivalent. F5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, a touch of Recovery. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
Of course, there is more to the fishing pier, for the tourist, than the bird life. This is the view of St. Augustine Beach looking south from the pier.
28mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/320th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
1/21/2010
Fog in the Valley, Snow on the Mountains, Sunrise, Vegas
A Twitter friend was apparently watching the weather channel and saw the report of a rare fog in Las Vegas and twittered me to ask if I was photographing it. I had not yet opened the drapes of my 18th floor room overlooking Vegas and a corner of the strip. When I did, the sun was just rising…the mountains behind Treasure Island were covered with snow and the valley was indeed filled with fog. I took many shots.
This one required a good deal of perspective and distortion correction in PhotoShop Elements using the Camera Distortion filter…after my normal processing in Lightroom: Blackpoint right, Fill Light, Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen Landscape.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F2.7 @ 1/20th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Not your usual view of Vegas.
From Las Vegas 2010.
1/1/2010
So Cold…
Happy New Year!
Another shot from a cold morning at Parson’s Beach. So cold the salt water is frozen: or at least a layer of fresh is frozen over the salt.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Blackpoint to the right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.
And for something a bit different, visit Point and Shoot Landscape for a retrospect of the past year in the places I have been and the pics I have taken. Click the screen shot below.
12/31/2009
Salt Ice on the Salt Marsh
Last Pic of the Day for 2009! Parson’s Beach, Kennebunk ME. We had a cold snap night before last: 2 degrees, climbing to about 25 at the high yesterday. Cold enough to freeze salt water, or at least turn it into rime. Cold enough to freeze a thin layer of rime over the marsh grasses as the tide fell. We also had a flood tide, so areas of the marsh that are rarely wet were under water. The combination created some interesting effects.
I took many shots of the patterns formed by the grass and ice, and then a few like this one, from ground level looking across the frozen marsh.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent and macro. F5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Blackpoint to the right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Landscape preset.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.
And here is one of those pattern shots.
12/9/2009
Rose by Any Other Name
Rugosa Rose, beach rose, Japanese rose, Ramanas rose, introduced from Asia to North America many generations ago as an ornamental landscape rose, escaped, and now lives rampant on the dunes of New England. The hips are sometimes made into jelly. In this first snow of the season they certainly stand out, still only slightly shrunken from their fall glory, and still very red. The early light only emphasizes the color.
I took quite a few exposures of different clumps with snow cover. I shot in very close with wide-angle and macro, and I used the macro setting with full telephoto to isolate clusters of hips. Once more, the flip out LCD made shots like this one, where I had to hold the camera well below waist level to get the angle, possible…even easy. I look at the new entry level DSLRs and wonder…but until I see one with as flexible an LCD. I will have to stick with my little Sony P&S!
Sony DSC H50 at full tel (465mm equivalent) macro. F5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Just your (my) basic added Clarity and Vibrance in Lightroom. Sharpen landscapes preset.
From First Snow 12/09.
12/8/2009
Breath of Snow
This has a look of frost to me, but it actually quite a heavy layer of snow, molded around every branch and twig. One good breath of wind and it is all gone! The low dawn light, just half behind picks out the detail.
Sony DSC H50 at about 400mm equivalent. F6.3 @ 1/200 @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Added Clarity and Vibrance in Lightroom. Blackpoint to the right. Sharpen landscape preset.
From First Snow 12/09.
12/7/2009
Dressed for Winter Sunrise: never looked so good
Over-night snow, early sun, and this tree, though attractive at all times, really looks it best. This is, of course, an image all about shape, texture, and light. Very simple. Even more about the essentials than most photographs. I used the camera zoom to crop and frame for that effect.
Taken in the fields behind Parson’s Beach in Kennebunk ME, about 2 miles from home.
Sony DSC H50 at about 70mm equivalent. F5.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
You might think that a snow scene like this would require some exposure compensation, or the sand and snow program at the very least. But the light was low…sun just cresting the clouds along the horizon on a day approaching the solstice in Maine…and the intensity of the light was easily handled by the regular Program on the camera.
Auto color balance, auto tone in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From First Snow 12/09.
And, from the same morning, a little video that maybe captures the winter wonderland effect.
12/6/2009
First Snow: Early Light
Happy Sunday!
This is really the first snow of December 2009, early this morning, just as the sun cleared the cloud line along the horizon to the east. It was a long slow night snow with little wind, even along the coast here, so it clung and weighed. This beauty will be gone in a very few hours.
Sony DSC H50 at about 180mm equivalent. F5.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto. Framing shots this morning, I was again thankful for the flexibility of my superzoom, articulated LCD, Sony H50. Nothing like it really.
Added Clarity and Vibrance in Lightroom. Blackpoint slightly right. Sharpen Landscape preset. Auto white balance.
From First Snow 12/09.