Posts in Category: New Jersey
10/28/2010: second helping of fall
One of the advantages of my travel schedule is that I get to experience extended springs and falls. Just as the foliage show is over in Maine, the last week in October, I always travel to Cape May, New Jersey, and, most years, the foliage in South Jersey is just at peak. Next month, just before Thanksgiving I will be in the Rio Grande valley in New Mexico. Fall is more variable in New Mexico than it is in New England, but about 3 out of 5 years, my visit catches the cottonwoods along the Rio Grande at their golden best. Spring is even more stretched for me, beginning in January in Florida, Feburary in Southern California, etc. I even occasionally catch Arizona’s second spring in August. 🙂
This is, according to my map, Ludlum’s Pond. Route 347, just north of where it comes back into 47 in Dennis, crosses the west end of it, and I have stopped several times on the way from Philadelphia to Cape May to photograph the foliage. This year the weather was chancy…with rain, thundershowers, and even a tornado warning in effect…but when I passed by the pond, it was no more than heavy overcast and a kind of watery light. With an HDR treatment, the weather actually shows the foliage to better advantage than full sun would have. Good thing, since that is all I had to work with.
HDR, in this kind of light, allows for a richly textured sky, while keeping enough light on the foliage and reflections to make for a very satisfying image. IMHO.
Canon SX20IS zoomed to about 48mm field of view for framing. Three exposures, auto bracketed, with the center moved down 2/3s EV. ISO 160.
Exposures blended and tone-mapped in Photomatix. My tone mapping in Photomatix is never extreme because I know I am going to do final processing in Lightroom: A bit of Recovery for the sky, some Fill Light, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and a touch of Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
And here is a more open, wider angle view, of the other shore. Another three exposure HDR.
9/16/2010: Cape May Dawn HDR
Out on the beach with only my Canon SD4000IS, early in the morning, with the golden light of the sun flooding in under an overcast sky, I could not resist trying a handheld HDR. Two exposures, separated by about 3.5EV using the exposure compensation dial. In hindsight I might have tried 3 exposures with a wider separation…with one exposure dialed all the way down to –2EV, but even then I doubt I could have preserved detail around the sun, and I certainly would have needed a tripod. I especially like the subtle, weathered blue of the tents in contrast to the greens of the beach plants.
Canon SD4000IS at 28mm equivalent. ISO 250.
Exposures blended with tone mapping in Photomatix. Final adjustments for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance and Sharpen in Lightroom. Cropped from the bottom for composition.
From Cape May Fall 2010.
5/25/2010
Unscardy Rabbit!
The rabbits of Cape May Lighthouse State Park and the Meadows (Cape May Migratory Bird Sanctuary of the Nature Conservancy) are among the most secure rabbits I have encountered. True there are a lot of people around throughout the year, but I am still not certain how they have become so confident. This fellow was caught out nibbling on some grasses in the shade of a trail-side bush, and let me approach very closely. All he did was cock up into this classic pose 🙂
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent. F5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Landscape program.
In Lightroom, a bit of Recovery for the highlights in the sand and on the fur. Fill Light and Blackpoint right to extend the apparent contrast range. Added Clarity and a touch of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
5/20/2010
Found Still Life
Another shot grabbed in passing during the rush of the World Series of Birding. Grabbed is, of course, an misnomer. There is a state you get too in your photography where a lot can happen in the second it takes to frame and shoot. A whole set of complex decisions are compressed so tightly that it feels like instinct or reflex. See photo, shoot photo. Move on. It can happen in a second, and in the middle of doing something else altogether…like documenting the World Series of Birding. 🙂
I liked the big leaves. I liked the yellow flowers. Then I saw them against the fallen log with the vines. I saw what the light was doing. I stepped off the side of the camp road, zoomed in a bit for framing, and shot.
Canon SX20IS at 112mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/13th @ ISO 200. Landscape program.
In Lighroom, a touch of Fill Light and Blackpoint just right. Added Clarity and a very small amount of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
5/19/2010
Early Light: Highpoint
During the chase of Team Zeiss for the World Series of Birding we made stops in some of the most beautiful country in New Jersey, and, though I was focused on documenting the Team’s efforts for the day, I was not totally insensitive to the beauty…and since I was not actually competing, I could turn my camera away from the team for a quick landscape, or even a flower shot, or two.
This is somewhere in the Highpoint/Stokes area in the far north-west of the state. The sun was just glancing across the landscape from the horizon. It does not get better than this.
It was a very demanding exposure problem. I tipped the camera up to meter more of the sky and locked exposure. That left the foreground too dark, but I was able to recover the detail in Lightroom. This image will repay viewing as large as you monitor will take it.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/200th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky. Heavy Fill Light for the foreground. Blackpoint well right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
5/18/2010
House Wren with Ambitions
On a scouting day for the World Series of Birding there is time for some digiscoping. This House Wren was attempting to lay claim to a nest box on the trail behind the Hawk Watch at Lighthouse State Park in Cape May, NJ. I watched for 30 minutes or more, as it was petty amusing to see the wren attempt to get those twigs through the small hole in the nest box. Eventually, however, a Tree Swallow preempted the box by the simple tactic of sitting in the hole, completely blocking it.
Canon SD1400IS Digital Elph behind the eyepiece of a Zeiss Diascope 65FL for an equivalent focal length of about 2000mm. Exif reads f3.5 @ 1/100th @ ISO 80. Programed auto. Computed f-stop, based on the camera/scope combination was f5.5.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the bright cheek patch, a bit of Fill Light and Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped slightly form the right. I used a Local Editing Brush in Lightroom to further reduce the brightness of the cheek.
And here is a shot pulled back to see both birds at the box, this one at about 1000mm equivalent. The camera was at the same zoom setting, and I zoomed out using the scope zoom.
And here is a bit of video of the “trials of wren”. 🙂
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.
5/15/2010
Cape May Sunset
Happy Sunday! Just a quick post of a pic from yesterday’s World Series of Birding effort. Sunset after 36 plus hours awake :) And still a glory. Cape May Lighthouse from Sunset Beach in Cape May.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/160th @ ISO 80. Landscape program. Exposure biased by tipping the camera up, locking exposure, and reframing.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky, Fill Light for the foreground, Blackpoint slightly right, added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
Not in a gallery yet.
12/14/2009
Yellow-rump Looking Up
Shooting Warblers in the fall in Cape May New Jersey is just too easy. No, of course, I take that back. Shooting warblers, anysmall active bird for that matter, anywhere, anytime, is never easy…but it is less hard in Cape May in the fall, when the warblers are many and fueling for the Delaware Bay crossing is most on their minds.
This bird was one of many that used this branch for a momentary perch as it foraged through some brushy trees behind the Hawk Watch platform at Cape May Point State Park. I could prefocus on the perch, but I had to rely on the auto-focus assist on the Zeiss PhotoScope to tweak focus as the bird was in all but constant motion.
I have mixed feelings about the out of focus branch that threatens to obscure the bird (it did in the next second as the bird moved further up the branch). I could clone it out, but in a way, it adds to the reality of the shot, and is certainly a more accurate record of the bird in its habitat, and the challenges of photographing it.
Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL at about 40x (1600mm equivalent field of view). 1/800th sec. @ ISO 100. Metered at about f5.2.
Light processing in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Sharpen Landscape preset. Blackpoint slightly right.
From Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL.
And, just for interest sake (and to prove I can do it), here is the same image without the branch in the foreground…worked in PhotoShop Elements 7.0.
Looking Up without branch
11/3/2009
Cape May Lighthouse over Water
This is, I am pretty sure, the last Pic of the Day from this year’s visit to Cape May…and, fittingly it would seem, it is another image of Cape May Lighthouse. This time I am far down the beach, just inside the dunes, looking back over one of the small ponds that from there. I found the sky interesting and exposed to keep all the detail in the clouds.
Sony DSC H50 at about 90mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Recovery for the sky in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint just slightly right. Sharpen Landscapes preset.
The last from Cape May 10/09.