Monthly Archives: October 2010
10/21/2010: Cadillac cloud event
Our most recent trip to Acadia was not Cadillac Summit weather. We had mostly rain and mist and fog, and then fog and mist and rain. It was beautiful, of course, and we enjoyed it as much as any trip so far. But it really looked like we would finally make an Acadia visit without a drive up the winding road to the summit of Cadillac.
The last day there, after hiking in the heavy fog around Jordan Pond, and a pop-over lunch at the Jordan Pond House where our daughter who works there got to wait on us (lucky her) and we got fully fed, we started for home and suddenly, just before the Cadillac turn-off, drove right out of the fog and into sun. Looking up we could see the summit, standing out clear against a blue sky. Who could resist?
As we drove up though, it became obvious that we were racing the front. The fog was literally boiling up the south flank of the mountain on a strong wind ahead of the mass of fog and cloud that closed the whole south east horizon like a wall, and already hid the mountains behind us. The first wisps were crossing the summit as I got out of the car. It was the strangest thing. A clot of cloud would tear of the front of the cloud mass, which itself was moving so fast you see it come, and race on ahead of the mass across the summit like a living thing…boiling and rolliing, twisting into a thousand shapes as the irregular mass of the summit and its complicated air-currents caught it and tossed it every which way as it passed. The wind was so strong I could barely stand to take a picture. I tried to catch several of the cloud things (cloud beings) as they passed, but this (above) is the best I could do.
I finally turned, just ahead of the on coming mass of cloud, for the car…grabbing this shot as I passed. In less than 30 seconds I was in cloud where I stood.
I am sure it is not all that uncommon an occurrence on Cadillac summit…but it was the first time I had experienced it. My only regret is that I totally forgot to shoot some video of it!
Canon SX20 IS. Post processing in Lightroom.
10/20/2010: duck brook bridge, Acadia np
The bridges of Acadia National Park were built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to employ master stone masons out of work due to the depression. They are, real works of art…but none are easy to photograph, and Duck Brook Bridge, which spans a deep little ravine, is particularly hard. Finding an effective vantage point is particularly difficult, especially among the trees. This shot catches some of the interesting features of the bridge, and puts it in is natural context…this is a view anyone who visits could see. The leading rail of the fence was an experiment that I think works, and between exposure and Lightroom processing I managed to preserve a relatively natural and balanced look. A slight crop from the bottom was applied to eliminate the more severely out of focus rail, and to improve composition.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/400th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Recovery for the sky in Lightroom. Some Fill Light for the foreground. Blackpoint right for intensity. Added Clarity and a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
And a second view.
10/19/2010: otter cove with Birch
Otter Cove is a deep tidal inlet between on Mount Desert Island in Maine. The Park loop road crosses it on a causeway bridge about 1/3 of the way in, producing what looks like a lake on landside at high tide, and leaving a landlocked mud fat at low tide. Most of our days on our last visit in September were misty, rainy affairs, with distances fading off into fog. I did a lot of experimentation with HDR to see if I could capture the effect of the vivid foreground, the few early bright fall trees, and the persistent fog, but this is a straight on Landscape program shot.
Of course, what I like here is the sharply defined birch and the brush underfoot, the touches of color on the sides of the inlet, the glisten of the light on the mud and water and the more colorful hill in the background shrouded in fog.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/100th @ ISO 80. Landscape program. Processed in Lightroom using Recovery, Fill Light, Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen. Cropped slightly for composition.
10/18/2010: Mousam fire
There is a little park around what used to be a skating pond on the banks of the Mousam River in Kennebunk Maine. It is mostly now a picnic and dog walking area, but it also provides access to the rapids for fly fishermen…and photographers. This little foliage tapestry is from the bank of the Mousam looking upstream.
Canon SD4000IS zoomed into its max 106mm equivalent for framing, f5.3 @ 1/250th @ ISO 125. Foliage program (yep. Canon puts a foliage program on all its P&Ss, and it works!, tweaking the sensor response and internal processing to retain all the richness of the fall color).
I shot with the SD4000IS because this was taken on a grocery run and it is what I grabbed on the way out the door.
Processed in Lightroom with some Fill Light, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and smidge of Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
10/17/2010: Autumn marsh pools
Happy Sunday!
You have seen variations of this scene before. This little stretch of old rail bed, known as the Bridle Path for some reason, that runs through a isolated patch of Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge (Rachel Carson is one of the most fragmented NWRs) between Route 9 and the ocean along the lower Mousam River in Kennebunk Maine (to be precise), never fails to turn up something of interest. I digiscoped a lot of birds and chipmunks there this summer, found my first Wood Lily and Wood Nymph, and this fall this particular view over the marsh pools toward the trees and houses along route 9 has often been interesting. See 9/23/2010: hdr marsh pool panorama or 9/13/2010: marsh mirror sky. Here the fall weeds in the foreground add yet another layer to a layered landscape, and a 3 exposure HDR treatment captures an unusual range of light and shadow to render the scene very close that what the eye actually sees (at least the eye of a painter). HDR skies are dramatic, but its ability to maintain detail in the shadows of the foreground and to pull full color out of the the fall foliage is what makes it worth the effort in this image.
Being Sunday, I return to how fruitful this particular little patch of out of the way ground has been for me this year…how often I have have been blessed (given an unexpected and underserved gift) there, and how often I have been blissed (opened to the joy of contact with the creator through creation). In many ways this has been my church this year, from late winter to deep fall, just as much as the building with the steeple down the road, and my moments of worship there have been just as vital to me, though solitary. I am thankful. In so many ways.
Technically, this is a 3 exposure HDR at 28mm equivalent on the Canon SX20IS, using auto-bracket with the center of the range shifted down 2/3s EV. Exposures blended in Photomatix and final processing (including a bit of distortion control which was needed because of the odd angle of the lens to the landscape) in Lightroom.
10/16/2010: Margret todd and the Caribbean princess
This is from my trip to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park a few weeks ago. I have lots of photos of the Margret Todd, one of the more picturesque (by intention) boats using Bar Harbor. With its maroon sails, it does the scenic thing several times a day on Frenchman’s Bay, ending with a sunset dinner cruise every fair evening. The Caribbean Princes behind the Maggy Todd, on the other hand, is also typical of the boats that use the harbor…Bar Harbor is a regular stop for the cruise ships that work the eastern seaboard of the Americas from the Caribbean to to Newfoundland. They arrive in the night, ferry passengers ashore in the morning in an endless relay of shore boats, 30 folks at a time, and the passengers spend the day spending money at the throng of gifty and arty shops that line the streets of downtown Bar Harbor, spending money (via bus excursions, or even taxi) seeing the sights of Acadia National Park, or spending money visiting one of the tourist attractions that dot the island (museums, Oceanariums, etc., there is even a Maine Lumberjack show in Trenton across the mainland bridge).
What is of interest to me here, of course, is simply the size difference between the ships. Aboard the Maggy Todd you have the impression of being on a fair sized sloop indeed…but seen under the bows of an ocean going liner you get a different picture…it is not so much that the Maggy Todd is small, but that the liner is HUGE. How very tall it is! The Princess carries 3000 passengers when full and it not the biggest boat that drops anchor in Bar Harbor. That is totally amazing.
A closer view adds some human scale.
The Maggy Todd is actually as close as it looks here. It must have passed within 50 yards of the bow of the Caribbean Princess (and its mast tops were closer), giving the passengers of both boats a rare thrill.
Canon SX20IS, my normal processing in Lighroom, with some distortion correction in the top shot to bring the water back to level, and a crop for composition.
10/15/2010: autumn silver river
With the forecast for heavy rain and winds gusting to 40 mph overnight, it seemed wise to get out for an hour at lunch time yesterday to catch a bit of foliage. By some reckonings we are just at peak. Some were holding out for an even better show in a a week…but the storm may change that! The sky, running in ahead of the front, was an unexpected bonus, and no one could have predicted the way the light interacted with the tide pushing up into the mouth of the Mousam River. Taken from the bridge on Route 9 in Kennebunk Maine. (The line in the water, by the way, is the shadow of a telephone pole 🙂
This is a three shot HDR from the Canon SX20IS at full wide angle (28mm equivalent), auto bracketed around a center shifted down –2/3 EV with Exposure Compensation. Exposures blended and tonemapped in Photomatix Light.
Medium Recovery in Lightroom to tame the reflections on the water somewhat. A touch of Fill Light for the foliage, Blackpoint right for intensity, added Clarity and just a smidge of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. Some distortion control for a more natural perspective.
10/14/2010: jordan pond in fog
I have photographed Jordan Pond and the Bubbles in all weathers. It is the one hike (walk?) we never miss on any trip to Acadia National Park, partially because of its proximity to the Jordan Pond House, and a pop-over lunch (and where we generally have at least one daughter working), but mostly because it never fails to delight. This last trip we had a foggy early fall day to work with, and it was still beautiful.
Canon SX20IS all at 28mm equivalent, f4 @ ISO 80, Landscape program, and 1/200th, 1/400th, and 1/320th respectively.
Similar processing in Lightroom including heavy Recovery to restore transparency to the fog, Blackpoint right slightly, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset. The last shot, with the lens of the camera tipped well down, required some distortion correction to bring the water horizon back somewhere near level.
10/13/2010: Anhinga doing its wings
For Wings on Wednesday…some real wings. The Anhinga is so much more attractive than its cousin the Cormorant. This lady was in relatively deep shade just at sunset. The mosquitos were coming out, and I was about to leave the rookery pond in the golf course on Jekyll Island, Georgia, after a session with the Wood Storks and Egrets, but I could not resist. The bird was pumping both wings and tail, and moving its head rapidly from side to side, and in the dim light I only managed a couple of shots that caught the bird still enough to show full detail. It was an excellent example of a situation where the HD video capability of today’s compact cameras comes into its own. See the video below. (And it does, by the way, demonstrate the photographic challenge pretty well too!)
Canon SD4000IS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the approximate equivalent field of view of a 1400mm lens on a full frame DSLR. Camera limited aperture of f4 @ 1/50th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto.
A touch of Fill Light and Blackpoint slightly right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
And here is the video. One thing about video is that you can shoot in much lower light levels and get good results than with still.
10/12/2010: Blue jay!
The Blue Jay is certainly a striking bird, one that probably does not get the credit it deserves because it is so common, and often so annoying around feeders. These shots were taken at the Clam Creek Campground Bird Sanctuary on Jekyll Island, Georgia. As I have mentioned before, the sanctuary is a single campsite set aside, with feeders and water features, and some flowers to attract hummingbirds. It is a great spot to see all the resident Jekyll Island species and almost any thing that might be migrating through. It is deep under cover, and the light is tricky at best. For photography, high ISOs are required, and even at that shutter speeds will be slow…so slow that burst mode and taking lots of exposures is the only way to get a decent shot.
These images are digiscoped…taken through the eyepiece of a ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope with a Canon Powershot SD4000IS Digital Elph, a pocked sized camera. I was using both the zoom on the scope and the camera zoom for framing, so equivalent focal lengths are hard to track, but the top shot is probably about 2000mm equivalent, while the full body view is about 30000mm equivalent (the bird was further away) and the Napoleonic pose is about 4000mm. All are ISO 800 at between 1/20th and 1/30th second. (Until this current generation of pocket digital cameras this kind of high ISO performance, especially coupled with relatively fast frame rates in burst mode, was simply unheard of. The Canon SD4000IS has a fast, clean, back illuminated CMOS sensor. With in-camera noise reduction clearly working, it still managed at least 2 frames per second of its normal 4fps. I am impressed!)
But of course it is still really about this stunning and highly expressive, bird. Lots of personality in a striking package…that’s the Blue Jay.