Posts in Category: moss and lichen
3/26/2009
Lichen Horns: Acadia National Park
One afternoon in Acadia National Park last summer I had what amounted to a macro holiday. There were mushrooms and lichen everywhere, and they were particularly photogenic (who knows why). You know how it works. You get tuned in. If you see one, if you see two, if you see three…then you are going to see hundreds because now you are looking for them. You are in macro mode. You are in the macro groove.
I found several stands of fruiting (flowering?) lichen, with bright red horns, and took maybe a dozen shots during the afternoom…widely spaced out among all the mushroom shots. This is my favorite.
One of the great things about the Sony H50 is that, at the wide end of the zoom, it focuses to 2 cm. That is really, really close. (In fact, once while shooting in the rain and fog, the very similar previous generation H9 focused on a water drop on the outer lens element, just for an instant.) Macro focus at longer focal lengths is equally impressive. There are challenges to working this close, but it is really great to be able to do it at all without special attachments.
The other great thing about the H50 is the built in, sensor shift, image stabilization. Stabilization makes shooting hand held at low shutter speeds possible (or much more possible). In the subdued light of the forest floor, stabilization gives you the freedom to work quickly and naturally, without complicated tripod set-ups.
One of the challenges of working close is not getting in your own light. What made this day ideal for macro work was that the light level was fairly bright, but high overcast above the tree canopy made the light diffuse. No heavy shadows and enough light to work. Ideal. I could generally find a well lighted angle on almost any macro subject.
For this shot, I backed off a bit from closest macro, and zoomed up to about 40mm equivalent to frame the full cluster of lichen.
Lichen with the Sony DSC H50 at about 40mm equivalent. F3.5 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Only the most basic sharpening and presence adjustments in Lightroom.
From Acadia Shrooms and Lichen. The whole gallery is worth a look. One amazing macro day.
One more teaser.
Can you resist?
2/12/2009
Mossy Stair
The visitor center at Jack London State Park looks as old as the hills it stands on, probably because it is make out of the rocks of the hills themselves and any rock in this climate grows moss and ferns. I reframed this shot as a close up to eliminate the brown downpipe, but on reflection, I like this better. The downpipe adds color and angularity which only highlights the natural forms of the stone. IMHO.
Shooting in this rainy subdued light pushed the ISO (on Auto) to 200, but gave me interesting saturation in the moss and stone.
Sony DSC H50 at about a 35mm equivalent. F2.8 @ 1/40th @ ISO 200. Programed Auto. Again, the image stabilization in the H50 made a tricky exposure possible without tripod.
From Vallejo and Sonoma.
1/12/2009
Winter
I took a short walk in the woods in the fresh fallen snow…still falling snow actually. Not much to see. The light was subdued to say the best, but I wanted to get out in it before flying to Florida this morning.
I took some shots of my tracks in the deep snow, and a few of the river, but this tree really caught my attention. Something about the texture of the bark and the clinging snow, and the arrangement of the trunks.
Sony DSC H50 with the zoom at about 40mm equiv. for framing. F4.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, I was experimenting with the Auto Tone button. It increased exposure slightly, and raised the Black point, and decreased contrast. All in all I liked the effect. I increased Black point slightly more. Added Clarity and Vibrance, and used the Landscape sharpen preset.
The image is found in the Winter Weather Gallery.
12/28/2008
Icy Fingerss
Emmons Preserve is another of the pocket gems around my home. Just a few acres along a stream, set aside by the Kennebunk Land Trust, with a short trail that follows the stream up and over a set of gentle falls between two pools. I go back there many times each a year.
This day, the frozen spray was the subject…along the mossy banks and clinging to branches over the water. Impossible constructions that caught the winter light. I played with Program Shift on the H9 to capture a variety of images, some with the water blurred to silk like this one, and some with the water crisp and frozen in motion.
Sony DSC H9 at about 270mm equiv. for framing. F7.0 @ 1/13th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto. Program shift engaged to decrease the aperture for a long exposure to blur the flowing water.
From the Around Home Gallery.
12/11/2008
Iced Moss: Kennebunk ME
Still raining. I was working fast to avoid getting my camera too wet. The light was miserable. This is moss. Very tiny. Taken from 2 cm close focus of the macro at the 32mm equiv. F2.8 @ 1/40th @ ISO 400. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom this shot required some lightening, a bit of color temperature correction to warm it, my usual Clarity and Vibrance, and Landscape Sharpen preset. Because of the higher ISO it also required some noise reduction, both Luminance and Color.
It is still not critically sharp. The slow shutter speed and the awkward position (even using the LCD), combined with my hurry lest a big drop of half frozen slush fall on the camera and forever short it out, all combined to soften the image. Still, it is a very pleasing shot at screen resolution, and would look fine printed at wall hanging size, from the usual several feet of viewing distance. 1 to 1 on the screen, or in a print from an inch away, you would see the softness.
From Winter Weather