Monthly Archives: July 2010
7/11/2010
Peach!
Happy Sunday!
The peach Daylilies have finally bloomed in the yard. We bought these as an anniversary present to each other several years ago and they are pretty faithful to bloom on or about our anniversary every year. These shots are in subdued overcast morning light but they do a good job of capturing the subtle color.
Here is one later in the day, late afternoon actually, when the sun broke free. I like the inner light look.
Canon SX20IS. 1) and 2) 28mm and Super-macro. F5.6 @ ISO 80. Aperture preferred. 3) 400mm equivalent and macro @ F5.6 @ ISO 160. Aperture preferred.
All received about the same treatment in Lightroom. Touch of Recovery. Touch of Fill Light. Blackpoint just barely right. Added Clarity and a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From The Yard: Kennebunk ME.
And since it is Sunday, and these are anniversary daylilies, I am reminded that photography for me is about celebration: celebrating beauty and blessing. I go out with an attitude of worship and generally come back feeling like I have participated in creation. I am thankful to my Creator for giving me eyes and a heart like his, and my Savior for opening them wide again…and not a little in awe of such love. 
7/10/2010
Wood Lily
I don’t know how I have missed this beautiful native lily all these years, but this is, if memory serves me right (and it may not) the first one I have ever seen. A single plant growing beside the Kennebunk Bridle Path on the ocean side of Route 9.
This is a good example of “why take one, when you can take 3?”…and, of course, these are just the 3 I kept out of about 10 different shots, and 10 different angles on this single bloom.
Canon SX20IS. 1) 560mm equivalent @ f5.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 400. Aperture preferred. 2) 28mm equivalent, macro @ f5.6 @ 1/360th @ ISO 80, Aperture preferred. 3) 28mm equivalent, super-macro @ f5.6 @ 1/2500th @ ISO 125, Aperture preferred.
All processed in Lightroom. The top two my standard treatment: Blackpoint right, added Clarity and a bit of Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset. The bottom one required a lot of Recovery for the sky, Fill Light for the lily, as well as the standard.
From Around Home 2010.
7/9/2010
Fog Early Along the Coast
A typical August weather report, here in July. Flood tide on Back Creek, behind Parson’s Beach in Kennebunk, Maine. Trying for a sense of depth, even with a closed horizon, by including the few scraggly roses in the foreground. The passing seagull was just a bonus.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/60th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Heavy Recovery to add some transparency to the fog, a touch of Fill Light for the foreground. Blackpoint right for intensity. Added Clarity and just a tiny amount of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. Finally, I used a Graduated Filter effect drawn down across the top 2/3s of the image to darken the fog so it appears more like it did to the eye.
From Around Home 2010.
7/8/2010
Confusion of Lily
The Daylilies in our yard continue to bloom in profusion. This cluster caught my eye in the afternoon sun. This is Maine, so our afternoon sun at 2PM is already fairly low in the sky, something I have only come to appreciate as I have spent more time traveling. Again, I backed away here to frame the cluster with a medium longish zoom and macro. Using Aperture Preferred kept enough depth of field for the shot.
Canon SX20IS at about 260mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 80. Aperture preferred. –2/3s EV exposure compensation for the bright sun highlights on the petals.
Some Recovery in Lightroom to subdue the highlights even more. Added Clarity and a touch of Vibrance. Blackpoint just right. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
7/7/2010
Chipper on a Post
This was one noisy Chipmunk. Just proving the accuracy of its name.
Canon SD1400IS through the eyepiece of a ZEISS DiaScope 85FL for an equivalent focal length of about 1500mm, f4.5 @ 1/125 @ ISO 320. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, a touch of Fill Light, added Clarity and Vibrance, Blackpoint right, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
And, I have video too.
7/6/2010
Mousam Mouth
Just a gentle landscape shot, out across the marshes toward the mouth of the Mousam River…a rarity for the cost of southern Maine these days in that it is a unprotected river mouth…no jetty…therefore one of the last wild, unmanaged beaches.
This is a good example of what a little help from Lightroom can do for a landscape. The original…
has potential but is overall rather dull. Applying my normal processing…Recovery for the sky, touch of Fill Light, Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and sharpening…improves the sky but leaves the foreground too dark and still dull…maybe duller since the highlights are stripped from the grasses as well.
This is when I resort to Lr’s graduated filter effects.
Drawing one down from the top across the sky and well into the landscape, I am able to reduce some Brightness, and add additional Clarity and and a bit of Contrast to bring up detail in the clouds. Then, drawing a graduated filter up from the bottom about 2/3rs of the frame, I am able to add Brightness, increase Clarity and Contrast, to bring out both the color and the detail in the foreground. I call it the dualing GrFilter effect. Finally, since the midground right along the horizon was left a little dark, I went in with the Local Adjustment Brush in Lightroom and defined a brush that was mostly feather…then drew an area along the horizon and added Brightness and Clarity. The result is a far different image…but arguably one closer to what the eye sees, rather than what the sensor captures. Mind you, Lr does not add anything to what the sensor caught…it just remaps the tones to a closer approximation of the visual. In that sense, the sensor and the camera did a great job of capturing the scene…since all the information needed to post-process was in the file!
Note that I am working from the jpeg file, and even with the limitations of jpeg, a lot is still possible in Lr.
From Around Home 2010.
7/5/2010
Baby Barns (Swallows)
A group of newly fledged Barn Swallow chicks hanging out on rocks and posts along a bridle path in Kennebunk Maine. Taken with a Canon SD1400IS Digital Elph behind the eyepiece of a ZEISS DiaScope 65FL and 85FL at equivalent focal lengths in the 2000-4000mm range.
This one has a sun gleam off moving water behind its head…looking very like a full moon.
Processed in Lightroom. Recovery, added Fill Light, Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint considerably right. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
7/4/2010
Daylily Fireworks
Happy Sunday. Happy 4th of July.
Fireworks of another kind. The inner fire of the Daylily in the early morning sun. This is the common variety…though we have several cultivars of different colors in our yard, acquired over the years. A drive around the neighborhood yesterday afternoon reminded me of just how abundant these Daylilies are in Southern Maine. We have a few individual plants. Some yards have masses of them!
For this shot I used the tel-macro function of the Canon SX20IS to frame and isolate the strongly lighted flower against a darker background. One advantage of the tel-macro is that you can get this kind of shot without dealing with the shadow of the camera.
Canon SX20IS at about 450mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/500 @ ISO 250. Aperture preferred.
In Lightroom, a bit of Recovery for the highlights on the petals, Fill Light to slightly offset Blackpoint to the right. Added Clarity and a small amount of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From The Yard: Kennebunk ME.
And, since it is Sunday and the 4th, a few more to celebrate.
7/3/2010
Daylily in the Sun
This is the same lily as yesterday’s pic, but this time taken later in the morning when the early sun had found the flowers, and added some warmth to the purple.
Canon SX20IS. 1) 460mm equivalent @ f8 @ 1/640th @ ISO 125. Aperture preferred. 2) 28mm equivalent @ f8 @ 1/320 @ ISO 100. Aperture preferred.
The top shot is a good example of a tele-macro. It looks like a macro shot but it was taken from feet away at the long end of the zoom.
In Lightroom, Blackpoint just right, added Clarity and a touch of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. Auto white balance (since the Canon put too much warmth in the flowers…making them more peach than purple).
From The Yard: Kennebunk ME.
7/2/2010
First Daylilies of 2010
I was out early this morning for this shot of our first Daylily blooms. They actually came out yesterday, but I missed them. This is a fairly unique color for Daylily, and it is on the warmer side of the house so it often blooms first.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm and Super-macro. F2.8 @ 1/30th @ ISO 80. Programmed auto.
Blackpoint just slightly right in Lightroom 3. Added Clarity and a bit of Variance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. Cropped slightly on the right for composition.
From The Yard: Kennebunk ME.
And, for the fun of it, here is a similar shot taken with my new iPhone 4. You can see it on my flickr site by clicking the image. Not bad at all for a phone! Level adjustments and sharpening in PhotoGene on the iPhone.
