Monthly Archives: September 2010
9/10/2010: Earl passes by: HDR
The skies for two days after Earl were amazing. This is shot looking south from Narragansett point, past Middle Beach to Lord’s Point, and Great Head beyond.
Three exposures using the auto bracket feature of the Canon SX20IS. It is possible to use the Exposure Compensation dial to move the end points of the exposure 3 stop range, and I slid it down to –1.66 to +.33 EV. Blended in Photomatix using detail emphasis tone-mapping. Final processing for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpening in Lightroom. Some distortion correction as well, to bring the horizon back to level.
9/9/2010: Earl’s footprints
The storm surge from Earl, on the high tide, was not over a foot in Maine, but it was enough, and carried enough extra energy, so that where the water was sucked back out to sea over the marsh, it left a track of grass swirled, combed down, and left all akimbo. Add the low, early morning sun on the heavy dew, and the heather along side, and you have a study in texture and light. I used a moderate zoom setting to frame.
Canon SX20IS at 60mm equivalent @ f4.0 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
A bit of Fill Light in Lightroom. Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
9/8/2010: Earl passes by, Kennebunk ME
Hurricane Earl passed Kennebunk well off-shore during the night last Friday, or Saturday morning rather…and may in fact have been downgraded to a tropical storm by then anyway. Certainly the only sign we had of it was rain, a stiffish breeze on Saturday AM, and some uncommonly big waves along our beaches…and, of course, some amazing skies. This is from Narragansett point, which separates Middle (or Stony) Beach from Gouches (or Big) beach.
With the sun and warm weather, more like August than September, Earl provided a excellent day for our local, and long suffering, surfers. Surfing in Kennebunk means wetsuits, waves that rarely deserve the name, shorts runs and long swims. Earl provided a rare treat.
I tried some HDR for the skies, which you will see more of in the coming days, but these are straight shots. One of the first things I learned about both panoramic and HDRs is not to try to include anything that moves as fast as surf 
Canon SX20IS 1) 28mm equivalent @ f4.0 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. Landscape program. 2) 128mm equivalent @ f4.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Adjusted for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpening in Lightroom.
9/7/2010: Margret Todd at anchor
I have many shots of the Maggy Todd taken over the years I have been visiting Bar Harbor. We even went out on her one year, for a sunset cruise along the bay. Here she is contrasted a bit with her slip mate…the Tiger Shark, a lobsterman loading traps for the day.
Canon SX20IS at about 50mm equivalent @ f4.0 @ 1/400th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Adjusted for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpened in Lightroom.
From Acadia 2010.
9/6/2010: Bar Harbor from Shore Path
Happy Labor Day!
The Shore Path runs a mile along the outer harbor parallel to the Porcupine Islands in Bar Harbor. It always offers some lovely views in almost any weather, from deep fog to sunny morning. This is the later of course. We were up early to meet daughter #1 when she opened her shop on Maine Street, and took the Shore Path to improve the time we had to wait.
This is just a straight Landscape mode shot from the Canon SX20IS. F4.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80. I zoomed in to about 120mm equivalent for framing.
Standard treatment in Lightroom. Some Recovery for the sky, Fill Light for the shadows, added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Acadia 2010.
9/5/2010: Jordan Pond and the Bubbles
Happy Sunday!
The three mile loop around Jordan Pond is one of my favorite hikes (walks?) in Acadia National Park, and that is saying quite a bit as there are a lot of hikes in Acadia that I really like. Of course, the fact that we have had a daughter (or two) working at the Jordan Pond House the past 6 summers only adds to the attraction. It does not matter how many times I walk this walk…there is always something new to see, even if it only the angle of the light, or the pattern of the ripples in the sun, or the way fog drapes the cedars on the south shore. Always something new. But then new is a gift we receive from the author all things new, inside, before we can see it outside. Or at least that is the way I see it.
This is another experiment in HDR using two SX20IS exposures 3EV apart and Photomatix to blend them. Final adjustments for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance and Sharpness in Lightroom, plus some distortion correction for the challenging perspective.
From Acadia 2010.
9/4/2010: Frenchman’s Bay from the Narrows
Here is an interesting comparison of similar HDR shots from 1) the Canon SX20IS/Photomatix combo, and 2) the iPhone 4 with the ProHDR app.
Frenchman’s Bay separates Mount Desert Island from the Scodic Peninsula to the north, and is almost the closest thing we have to a fjord in North America. (Our only actual fjord is just one range of mountains south in Somes Sound, which splits Mound Desert Island.) These shots are taken from The Narrows, where the Route 3 bridge joins Mount Desert Island to the mainland.
With a little work in PhotoGene on the iPhone or Lightroom on the laptop, I could adjust the color balance of the two images to match. It is something I am learning. ProHDR leans towards the warm, and Photomatix leans toward the blues, maybe too far in both cases. The Photomatix shot has already had considerable toning down of the blues.
In comparison, I like the perspective of the iPhone shot better, with its slightly longer lens it brings up the far shores of the bay much more prominently. Having seen this comparison I would now use a longer setting on the zoom of the Canon SX20IS, which was at its widest, 28mm equivalent here.
(By the way, Apple just announced that the next version of iOS for the iPhone, due out next week, will include built in HDR for the Camera, using up to 3 exposures. We shall see how that compares to ProHDRs renderings.)
One thing that this comparison demonstrates pretty dramatically is the quality of the lens and sensor on the iPhone. You expect this kind of quality in today’s P&S offerings…but this is, in my opinion, pretty amazing for a phone!
9/3/2010: Cadillac Mountain
On the way back from dropping daughter #3 off at College, we stopped for the afternoon and night in Bar Harbor…mostly to see daughter #1 and #2. Daughter #1 lives there, and daughter #2 is working there in Acadia National Park for the summer. No visit to Acadia, of course, is complete without a drive to the top of Mt. Cadillac. Even though we only had a few hours there, after a hike around Jordan Pond (also a must as far as I am concerned), we drove to the summit on the way back to Bar Harbor and dinner. It was not a pristine day…there was a good deal of haze over the ocean, but the late afternoon/early evening light was interesting on the stone of the peak.
This is an HDR using two exposures and Photomatix Lite. In realty I am not sure I gained much through the two exposures. I am pretty sure I could have adjusted a single exposure in Lightroom for close to this effect. Still, the tone-mapping for detail in Photomatix certainly brought up all the character in the foreground rocks, and I am certain I could not have pulled up the greens in the trees to this level. The greens have always frustrated me in shots from Cadillac, since exposing for rock and sky always leaves the greens running toward black. Keeping the greens vibrant gives this shot three strong layers instead of two. This is good.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. Two shots separated by 3 EV using the Exposure Compensation dial.
Photomatix as above. Adjusted for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpness in Lightroom.
From Acadia 2010.
9/2/2010: Fox Pond, Maine
And so we leave rainy Germany and merry old England (also rainy) for perhaps another year, and return to home and Maine. Last weekend I drove my daughter to her first days of college in Machais, and, on the way back to Bar Harbor, where we planned to spend the night, my TomTom (on the iPhone) took me a shortcut across the mountains inland from US Route 1 and the coast. The sign as you turn on Route 182 says it is a Maine Scenic Byway, and it is indeed. The road climbs through the low coastal mountains, up and down, past streams and lakes and ponds. It was a glorious day. Good job TomTom! The only complaint I have about this shortcut is that it was, considering the wonderful scenery, too short!
This is Fox Pond, about 2/3rds of the way between the two ends of the loop of US 1 that 182 cuts off. A low angle shot with the SX20IS flip out LCD to get the water hyacinth in frame.
I used a single image tone-mapping in Photomatix to give it an HDR effect, before bringing it into Lightroom for final adjustments of Exposure, Blackpoint, Clarity, and Sharpen. I also had to straighten it a bit.
Canon SX20IS @ 28mm equivalent @ f8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 80. Aperture preferred so I could use a small f-stop for depth of field. The hyacinth was barely a foot away.
From Machias 2010.
9/1/2010: Rutland Water UK
I had to crawl between a tent and flap, where, strictly speaking I was not supposed to be, to get to this image out over Rutland Water at the British Birding Fair, but honestly, who could resist? This is England at its best…or maybe on its best behavior, at least as far as weather goes. And, of course, it only lasted a few moments. Within 30 the sky closed and within 60 it was raining again. I especially like the mottled sun on the foreground.
iPhone 4 HDR, two exposures in ProHDR (which now has an auto mode that analyzes the dynamic range of the image and computes its own two exposures), sharpened and contrast adjusted in PhotoGene and uploaded to my SmugMug site with SmugShot.