Monthly Archives: July 2009
7/21/2009
Stone and water
Detail from a sculpture in the Mediation Garden at Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. The artist took a block of this amazing schist and polished a bowl into it 5 feet long and 3 feet wide. It is kept filled with clean clear water. This is just an isolated corner where the patterns in the rock and the angle of water cutting across caught my eye.
Sony DSC H50 at about 70mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Punch and Landscape sharpen Develop presets in Lightroom.
7/20/2009
Primrose's On My Mind
I like Primrose, but then I don’t think I had ever seen primrose on this scale, or exactly this color. Breathtaking might be too strong, but certainly something like a hiccup. Again when the subject is really the mass effect, you have to shop for a pattern that catches the eye. Zooming out to about 200mm and shooting at a low angle into the mass of flowers captured the effect I was after. (We are, by the way, still at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, ME.)
Sony DSC H50 at about 200mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/800 @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
I used the General-Punch develop preset in Lightroom and the Sharpen-landscapes preset. That is all. Did not even open the image in the develop module.
Here is a more traditional view from a higher angle, with a longer zoom (350mm equivalent) and from further away. Greater compression here.
Primrose Sea
Same presets in Lightroom. A similar effect…but different.
7/19/2009
Massed Coreopsis
For me, sometimes it is not so much about a subject so much as it is about the mass of color and form. Color and form and the play of light become the subject, and rather than looking at the image as an image of something, the image becomes the something. Do you know what I mean?
This shot is that kind of shot. No center, no subject, no where for the eye to rest…unless you step back and just see the whole thing at once. It would do well as print on the wall where it could become the object of interest in and of itself. I think.
To take it I used about mid-zoom, the short end of the long tel range on the H50, to frame this particular segment of the mass of flowers, and to flatten perspective. I spent a few second framing and reframing until I found the most pleasing pattern.
Sony DCS H50 zoomed in to about 250mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Just the most basic added Vibrance and Clarity and shapen in Lightroom.
From Coastal Maine Botanical Garden.
And here is a single flower from the mass.
Portrait of Coreopsis
7/18/2009
Happy Harvester
Of course the happy part is pure anthropomorphism. Can bees be happy? I certainly don’t know, but the sight of one busy in a flower makes me happy, once I get by my diffuse fear of stinging insects.
It was a brilliant day at the Coastal Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Maine, and the high sun cast strong shadows, but picked out all the subtle detail in both petals and bee. One of the advantages of the articulated LDC on the H50 is that I can hold the camera one-handed, well away from me, out over a bed of flowers, for this kind of close in and personal shot.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F5.6 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Just my basic added Vibrance and Clarity and Landscape sharpen preset in Lightroom. There was a bit of purple fringing along the bottom petal edge which I also removed in Lightroom.
From Coastal Maine Botanical Garden.
And a second bee in flower from the same day…this time in open shade.
Happy Harvester 2
7/17/2009
Pretty as a Prince (and not bothered at all)
Just catching some rays beside the forest pool at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Maine. Not bothered at all by the photographer down on his knees beside him…or by the camera inches away. Prince of his domain and confident with it.
As you can see, I utilized the swing-out LCD on the H50 to get right down on the ground for this shot. Who could resist?
Another visitor to the Botanical Gardens saw me down there, and commented to my wife who was also watching me, “You folks must be from the city.” I guess she assumed only a city-folk would be that interested in an old frog! I missed the opportunity to educate her on the wonder to be found in the common sights of home, the creatures and plants of her backyard, since she was gone by the time I levered myself back to my feet and turned. Ah well.
The Coastal Maine Botanical Garden by the way, is a world-class facility tucked away (way away) in a corner of the Maine coast, pretty literally out…if not exactly in the middle of no where…at least at no where’s inner edge. If you have an interest in plants and gardens, it should be part of any planned trip to Maine. You will see a few more shots (maybe quite a few 🙂 from there over the next few days.
Sony DCS H50 at full wide and macro. F5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Cropped slightly from the top for composition in Lightroom. Added Vibrance and Clarity, and Landscape sharpen preset.
From Coastal Maine Botanical Garden.
And a second view of his Captain of the Guards.
Captain of the Guards
7/16/2009
Maine Uber Chic
I got several comments on the digital photo groups to the effect that yesterday’s image was too busy and lacked a center of interest. Valid observation. What I see in the image is the riot of color and form, which I see as a subject in itself, but I know what the commenters are objecting too.
Short of physically going back and reshooting, this time maybe taking someone with me to stand in front of the roses, I wondered if overemphasizing the form and color aspect of the shot would improve it. I generally do not do this kind of manipulation, as I like my images to be an accurate reflection of what someone might see if confronted with the same scene, but there is room for pushing the limits of the process to make a point, or to create a vision that captures what you saw in the image, rather than the reality itself. This is, of course, what the whole To Blur or Not to Blur piece was about over on Point and Shoot Landscape.
So, in Lightroom I took the original image and applied a technique I have experimented with before on this kind of image. I slid the Clarity slider all the way to the left, applying what amounts to negative clarity. Because Clarity is essentially a local contrast enhancement, this is not the same as applying, for instance, a blur in photoshop. Negative Clarity produces a kind of soft glow. I then increased Saturation significantly, and boosted Contrast slightly. This all required a bit of added Brightness. Finally, I cropped the image more tightly to place the stair diagonal in a more powerful position in the frame.
The image now is certainly nothing you would see in reality (unless you where operating under the influence…some influence of some kind). Maybe it works better though to convey what I was seeing when I took the image. Maybe.
What do you think?
7/15/2009
Maine Chic
A restaurant on the pier at Cape Porpoise Harbor. What can I say? The riot of color and shape, the contrast of the rose plant and the railing full of lobster floats, the red boat…had to be done.
It was a somewhat tricky exposure and required some post processing for good tonal balance, but other than that…I just zoomed in for framing and shot.
DSC H50 at about 66mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/320 @ ISO 100. Programed auto, -.3EV exposure compensation.
Cropped slightly in Lightroom, from the right to eliminate some highly reflective and distracting windows. Heavy Recovery for the rose blossoms, Fill Light to open the shadows. Slight contrast increase, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Landscape sharpen preset. There was slight chromatic aberration (color fringing) showing on the left and right, so I used the CA filter in Lightroom to remove it.
7/14/2009
Goat Island Light: Over Rose
Goat Island Light at Cape Porpoise ME is not as often photographed as Nubble Light or Portland Head, and, to be honest, it is not as photogenic. Still, it has its charms. For this shot, one of many taken on the first sunny day we had had in a month, I attempted to get the rose and the light equally sharp for an image with great depth. Program Shift put the aperture at F8 (smallest on the H50) and I used a bit of EV as well to keep as much detail in the white buildings as possible. I also backed off from the rose and used a moderate zoom setting (about 70mm equivalent). This put the rose in the zone of sharp focus while the light was still sharp as well. A few clouds in the sky would have made the perfect shot, but you can’t have everything (or I couldn’t on this day). To compensate I used a Graduated Filter effect in post processing to darken the sky and balance the image better.
Sony DSC H50 at about 70mm equivalent. F8.0 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed auto with -.3 EV exposure compensation.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky and white buildings, Fill Light to open the shadows, added Clarity and Vibrance and Landscape sharpen preset. As above, use a Graduated Filter effect from the top to darken the sky and balance the image better, and one from the bottom (while I had the dialog open) to add maximum snap to the foreground.
From Around Home, Kennebunk ME.
And as a bonus, the light up close. Taken from about the same spot, but at full telephoto.
Goat Head Light
7/13/2009
Song Frozen in Time
Continuing the theme from yesterday, here is no apology water frozen by the shutter image. I am always amazed at what gravity, rocks, and light can do with this peaty water. You could take a thousand pics, and no two would catch the same forms, the same play of light, the same energy. This, to me, is a high energy shot.
The trick with a shot like this, where you have such a wide range of light values, is, of course, to get the exposure right. I used heavy Exposure Compensation and underexposed to save the highlights, and then brought the shadow back up in Lightroom when I post-processed. The net effect is very like what I saw, and what I visualized in the field.
Sony DSC H50 at about 80mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. Programed auto with -1.7 EV exposure compensation.
In Lightroom, heavy Recovery for the highlights. Fairly heavy Fill Light for the shadows. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Landscape sharpen preset.
7/12/2009
The Rush (Batson River, Emmons Preserve)
We have had a lot of rain this summer, as I may have mentioned, and all the streams are running full. Baston River which runs through the Emmons Preserve (part of the Kennebunk Land Trush system) is no exception. I have photographed it before in spate, and know the challenges from my failures.
This shot is your traditional rushing water between green banks shot. One of the difficulties in shooting at Emmons is the depth of the shadows and the brightness of the light where it does fall through. I am always having to compromise on exposure and manipulate in post processing. This shot, on the other hand, being fairly even in lighting, required only that I change the white balance to cloudy, and use Program Shift to force a slow shutter speed. Community wisdom says that blurred silky water captures the rush better than water frozen in motion by the shutter. Generally a tripod is needed, but with the image stabilization on the H50 you can get away with hand holding.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F7.1 @ 1/6th sec. @ ISO 100. Programed auto, with Program shift.
On the other hand: this is closer to what it looked like. We do not, after all, see silky water anywhere but in photographs. It is an artifact: an attempt to capture the feel rather than the reality of the subject.
The Rush 2
Even in this shot, the low overall illumination under the heavy canopy pushed the shutter speed below water freezing levels, but certainly there is more detail in the water. This is the other extreme, where I used the program shift to select the highest shutter speed possible in this light.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F2.7 @ 1/40th @ ISO 100. Programed auto, with Program shift.
Both had the same post. In Lightroom, Recovery for the highlights in the water and considerable Fill Light to open the shadows. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Landscape sharpen preset.
So my question, both to myself and to you, is: which one do you like better?
I plan a more extensive examination of this subject on Point and Shoot Landscape in the next few days, but what do you think? Which does a better job of capturing the sensation of the rushing water? Which looks more real? (Those might be different answers.) And finally, which is more aesthetically satisfying? To you?