Posts in Category: morning
11/18/2009
Anhinga 1
Anhinga 2
Anhinga 3
The Anhinga always looks to me like a bird assembled by a committee. Especially the females, with their long necks dressed in what appears to be brown fur. Check out the feet. This lady is preening and primping for all she is worth, an very aware of herself.
The light is from the back here, and a bit of a challenge, and not close…across the full width of a Alligator Lake at Estero Llano Grande State Park (about 60 feet at this point), but the bird is irresistible…if you are into birds.
Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL at 40x (about 1600mm equivalent field of view). 1/35 and 1/40th sec. @ ISO 100. Metered at about f5.0.
Basic increased Clarity and Sharpen Landscape preset in Lightroom. Blackpoint to the right slightly. A touch of Recovery for the highlights.
From Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL.
11/2/2009
Morning Marsh, Mackerel Sky, Drawing Water Sun
A very difficult image to expose and process. But who could resist the morning light, the pond, the sky, the reflections? One of the best parts of birding, as far as I am concerned is that it gets me out to places like this at times like this.
I am still not totally happy with the exposure on this image. I needed to catch the drawing water rays, so the foreground was way too dark. You can only do so much manipulation in software. This is a case where multiple exposures processed for HDR might have produced better results.
Still…it is what it is, and I think it catches the mood.
Sony DSC H50 at about 60mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto. Exposure read favoring the sky by tipping the camera up and locking exposure.
Heavy Recovery and Fill Light in Lightroom. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Landscape preset.
From Cape May 10/09.
Okay…had some time this am so I opened LightZone (for the first time in months) just to see what I could do with this difficult image with the tools there. This is maybe a bit over the top…processed for maximum drama. But it certainly is an alternative view.
As above: but with drama! LightZone treatment.
11/1/2009
Facing the Day
Happy Sunday! and Happy November! Can you believe it?
After 1) birds, and 2) Lighthouse, and 3) Gingerbread houses, the thing I imaged most often in Cape May on this last trip was the dawn. I was staying right across from the beach, and it was easy to crack my curtains to check the progress of daylight and get caught by the dawn. There were two wonderful sunrises while I was there and both of them pulled me out of the room early.
Of course, I was not alone. There were always a number of dawn walkers ahead of me on the beach…or maybe beach walkers caught by the dawn as I was.
This couple were clearly caught: I suspect by the little flock of Sanderlings along the tide line. I zoomed in to 240mm equivalent to frame the shot, knowing I could crop slightly in software to finish the composition.
Sony DSC H50, as above, at 240mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/30th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto. The image stabilization of the H50 made this easy, even without a tripod…or perhaps just gave me the confidence to shoot it.
In Lightroom I applied a slight color temperature adjustment, Recovery for the sky, along with added Clarity and Vibrance. Very slight Fill Light for the foreground. Sharpen Landscapes preset. I experimented with graduated filter effects but ended up not using them on this shot.
From Cape May 10/09.
10/25/2009
Another from a Cape May Dawn
Happy Sunday!
Capy May Gingerbread is always a treat. And the fad for white gingerbread is well past, or never caught on in Cape May. The Victorian era homes, now mostly B&Bs are painted as they were when new, in a full rainbow of colors. Even in the light of a cloudy dawn they have a glow.
Sony DSC H50 at about 110mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
This is another shot that required Lightroom’s Graduated Filter to bring up the foreground and make the scene look something like it would to the naked eye. GF from the bottom with added exposure, clarity, and just a touch of contrast. General application of Recover for the sky. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen Landscapes preset. Cropped slightly from both bottom and top for composition.
From Cape May 10/09.
For those of you who love Gingerbread, I walked around Cape May late yesterday afternoon as the rain held off and shot a quick gallery of Gingerbread images, using my little pocket Sanyo camera, to show my wife what Cape May is like. You might enjoy it too. Best Quality Cape May Gingerbread on Posterous.
10/24/2009
Cape May Sunrise
Without resorting to Neutral Density filters over the lens, sunrises are among the hardest of scenes to image. You have a great range of light, with a very bright band, generally, just at the horizon. Getting the foreground to look natural is a real challenge…such a challenge that we are used to seeing sunrise shots which, in fact, have the foreground much darker than it ever appears in real life…when you are standing there on the beach facing the sun.
With the Sony H50 I have learned to just bias the exposure somewhat for the sky, enough to keep the colors in the sunrise intense, and work the rest of the image in Lightroom. I just tip the camera up to take the exposure reading, then reframe. Quick and dirty, but it works.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/80th @ ISO 100. Programmed Auto.
In Lightroom, some Recovery for the sky and highlights in the dawn. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint to the right. Then I pulled a Graduated Filer Effect up from the bottom to just over the horizon and added exposure and brightness, as well as additional Clarity and a little Contrast to the foreground only.
From my new Cape May 10/09 gallery.
10/13/2009
Looking At You!
We went back to the pond behind the amphitheater on Jekyll Island for our digiscoping workshop, since, as they say, the pickings were easy there. Lots and lots of immature Yellow-crowned Night Herons perched out in the early sun. I was tucked back in the shade of the trees on the bank, but this youngster must have seen the glint of the light in my objective lens. I certainly saw the glint of light in his eye.
Zeiss PhotoScope at about 1400mm equivalent. 1/130th @ ISO 200. Approximately f5.0. Programed auto.
A touch of Recovery in Lightroom for the feather highlights. Added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped from the right for composition.
From Colonial Coast 09.
9/27/2009
Great Horned Owl
My first experiment in RAW (DNG) processing in Lightroom. This is an image from the new Zeiss PhotoScope, a spotting scope with an integrated 7mp camera. It has the option to record directly in DNG.
The owl was a gift. I walked up under it’s tree and took a series of images, then climbed the dune at Pajaro Dunes in Watsonville, CA…which put me right at eyelevel with the owl. I had lots of time to experiment with different camera settings.
Zeiss PhotoScope at 1800mm equivalent. F5.6 (approximate) @ 1/35 @ ISO 100.
In Lightroom, after separating the DNG file from it JPEG mate, I chose the “cloudy” preset for color balance and then made it just a bit cooler. Recovery for the highlights, and then additonal highlight modification in the Levels sliders. Blackpoint well to the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset with added Detail. Noise Reduction for both Luminance and Color.
From Monterey Bay 09.
9/24/2009
Across to Great Head
Another from last year at this time. Point Lobos, CA. Perhaps the most scenic stretch of coast in the world…or at least the most photographed.
Here the misty fog over the water lends an etherial look to the land/seascape. Foreground branches frame a bit.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.0 @ 1/250 @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky and mist (Recovery works magic with mist…bringing out the lights within). Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Sharpen Landscape preset.
From Point Lobos Morning.
9/22/2009
Busy Spider
I thought spider webs were a Lakeside specialty (see 9/20/2009) but it turns out they are more of an Ohio thing. The area out behind the Visitor Center at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, in the brush beyond the boardwalk where the Astor and Goldenrod are in bloom, is just full of them. This morning, the dew was turning them into webs of light. There was no direct sun on the area yet so light levels were low, and the ISO on this shot is pushed up to 320. Still, not bad.
Sony DSC H50 at about 340mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/125 @ ISO 320. Programed auto.
My basic added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel in Lightroom. Blackpoint well to the right. Highlights well to the right in the Tone Panel to bring up the web. Cropped from the right to aid composition (to put the center of the web off the center of the frame).
From Lakeside OH.
And here is another. This one is cropped heavily from top and bottom to show just the web.
Looking like a net cast for light...
8/9/2009
Big Sky, Little Stream
Happy Sunday!
I went to the beach to do some videoscoping…but who could resist this sky? Technically, not a difficult shot, at least with the H50, and Lightroom to back it up. Programed auto all the way. Apply some Recovery for the sky in Lightroom. Punch it up with Vibrance and Clarity. Sharpen a bit. That’s it. The scene itself makes the image.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F5.6 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Lightroom as above.
However…I took both a horizontal (more sky) and a vertical (more stream). I can not decide which one I like better. Different images. Same scene. I would be interested in your likes…and your reasons for them. (Both of these benefit from the largest view your monitor will allow.)
Big Sky, More than a Little Stream