Monthly Archives: November 2009
11/20/2009
Gables of Wetzlar
I have take this shot on every trip to Wetzlar over the past 7 years, and this is the first one that has worked. I love the shapes of the contrasting jumbled gables, and all the various textures of the building materials.
Perhaps what makes it work is this is my first trip with the H50 with its long zoom. 150mm puts the skyline in correct perspective and crops it effectively without losing detail in the textures.
Sony DSC H50 at about 150mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/160th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Some Recovery in Lightroom for the sky. Added Clarity and Vibrance (not much Vibrance). Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Germany 2009.
11/19/2009
Old Town Wetzlar: half timbered house
Wetzlar is a medieval walled city in north west Germany. It features many of the half timbered houses, from the 1500s, built one story at at time so that over the centuries, each story has developed its own list. Some are elaborately restored and decorated as when they were new.
They are hard to photograph, especially in Wetzlar which still actively uses the cobble streets they are on. There are cars everywhere. And there is never a decent angle. I end up photographing snippets of building, and strange angles like this one.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/250th sec. @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
In Lighroom, a bit of Recovery for the sky, blackpoint slightly right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Germany 2009.
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.
11/17/2009
Just about to burn...Young Male Vermilion Flycatcher
There were more Vermilion Flycatchers at Estero Llano Grande State Park than I have ever seen in one place before. The full adult males are one of hardest birds to capture on digital medium since the red/orange almost always saturates the sensor to the point where all detail is lost. Very tricky. This young male, however, is well within range, especially as posed here on a branch tip under the partial shade of a tree. The gray tones of the tree and the out of focus greens just add to the overall composition.
Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL at about 40x (1600mm equivalent field of view). 1/500th at ISO 100. Metered at about f5.0.
Very little processing in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL.
11/16/2009
Heavenly White Peacock
I saw this White Peacock (petty worn fall specimen) perched up high on a bush along the trail at Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco, TX and was impressed by the light through the wings. To shoot it with the PhotoScope I had to back off to the minimum focus of about 16 feet. Exposed for the wings, the background went too dark and had to be brought up in Lightroom with the Fill Light tool.
Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL at 40x (1600mm equivalent field of view). 1/680th @ ISO 100. Metered at about f5.0.
In addition to the Fill Light in Lightroom, I added Clarity and just a touch of Vibrance and used the Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL.
11/15/2009
Great Kiskadee: Rio Grande Valley
So…you may have to indulge my other passion for a few days here. I am still actually in the Rio Grande Valley, and I will be going out in a few moments for some more PhotoScoping of birds. This Kiskadee was right off the observation deck at Estero Llano Grande State Park and World Birding Center. It is one of the typical valley birds that makes the whole place feel so tropical!
Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL at about 40x (field of view of a 1600mm lens on a full frame DSLR). 1/500th at ISO 100. Metered at about f5.0.
Very minimal processing in Lightroom. Added Clarity, a very small amount of Vibrance (out of habit…it did not really need any), and very gentle sharpening via the Sharpen Landscape preset.
From Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL.
Pic of the Day 11/14/2009
Road into Autumn Sunset
Today marks the one year anniversary of Pic of the Day, and I will have more to say on that…only…I am due on the bus for the Valley Salt Lakes fieldtrip at Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in way too few moments. I promise a pic and a full post by evening! It has been great. I look forward to a second year.
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So, evening in Harlengen Texas, after a day of fieldtripping and optics talk at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, on the 1st anniversary of my Pic of the Day blog. What started as a casual series of posts on Twitter and FaceBook, morphed into a full fledged WordPress blog within the first month, and took on it’s current form after about 3 months.
What has kept me at it, as I have mentioned before, is that I am learning with every day’s pic. The process has made me much more aware of what I am doing in the field, while capturing images, and at the computer when processing images…and, maybe most importantly, how the two: camera work and computer work interconnect, cooperate, to produce the images that are important to me. Neither dominates. Both are important. Increasingly my knowledge of what I can do at the computer influences what I do with the camera. Of course, both camera and computer are used to capture and reproduce some semblance of what I see in nature…with the emphasis on the I. Because, of course, I am creating an image…not capturing reality. Images play with different rules than reality…if you know what I mean. Different elements, different effects, matter. In the end we judge images by image standards, and similarity to reality is only one of them…and often not the most important among them.
Anyway. I have learned. I hope you have too. I intend to learn a lot more in the coming year. And I hope you will go along with me.
This image, by the way, was taken at the end of a sunset session at the beach. I had actually visualized the image on the way in. I simply drove till it looked right. Stopped in the middle of the road. Head the camera out the window one handed. And took the image.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/40th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, I added Vibrance and Clarity, moved the Blackpoint right, and used Sharpen Landscapes preset. I also increased exposure just slightly, and warmed the image slightly by adjusting color temperature.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.
11/13/2009
Cut-out Toys
The children’s area at Mother’s Beach, Kennebunk ME. Not my kind of shot…but I found the shapes against the light of the sunset hard to resist. The wires make it busy…but they are part of the reality and can be considered an element of the design. I tried processing this as a direct positive…which made it essentially black and shades of orange…but I actually like this better.
Sony DSC H50 at 320mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Cropped top and bottom in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen Landscape preset.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.
11/12/2009
Bound Sea at Sunset
The sun is still up there behind the clouds but the sunset effect is already happening.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Programmed Auto.
Heavily post processed in Lightroom. Graduated filter effects top and bottom…dark on top, light on bottom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint to the right. Sharpen Landscape preset. Overall increased exposure.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.
11/11/2009
Gulls Below the Surf
The gull standing were such a great subject, I was tempted to get down to sand level and see how they looked with the surf as a background. I was surprised at how high it rose above them. Moderate tel to compress the image planes, and tight cropping top and bottom emphasizes the horizontal lines of the image.
Sony DSC H50 at about 315mm equivalent. F4.5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Cropped in Lightroom. Some Recovery for the sky an surf highlights. Blackpoint well to the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance and the Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.