Monthly Archives: February 2011

2/8/2011: Green Heron in a Bush, Merritt Island NWR

On February 8, 2011 by lightshedder With 7 Comments - animals, birds, digiscoped, Florida, Merritt Island NWR, Pic of the Day, wildlife

This Green Heron is pretty regular (in my limited experience) in the pool by the restrooms at Merritt Island NWR. I have photographed a Green Heron in this spot several times, several different years…so either it, or another of its kind, frequents the pool and the water channel behind the pool on a predictable bases. I look for it now.

This bird was tucked back under a bush about 40 feet down the water channel from the road. I caught it as I turned the corner, only because I was looking for it, and parked and walked back. I really like the play of light under the mangrove foliage, especially behind the bird, and the way the sun catches in the yellow eye.

Canon SD4000IS at about 1800mm equivalent field of view, 1/400th @ ISO 160. Effective aperture, f5.

Processed lightly in Lightroom for clarity and sharpness.

And here is the shot zoomed in a bit, to about 4500mm equivalent field of view.

2/7/2011: Great Egret, intimate

On February 7, 2011 by lightshedder With 2 Comments - animals, birds, close up, digiscoped, Florida, Merritt Island NWR, Pic of the Day, wildlife

Sometimes, at Merritt Island and other prime Florida locations, the birds are so close and so cooperative that, with a digiscoping rig, it is possible to achieve really intimate portraits. For this shot I used the zoom on both camera and scope to frame the bird’s head against the dark background, using –2/3EV exposure compensation to hold detail in the plumage and send the background really dark. The effect is striking. Of course the curves are all the Egret’s doing 🙂

Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for something in the 3000mm range, 1/320th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto with EV.

Processed for clarity and sharpness in Lighroom.

2/6/2011: Rosehip in the Snow, Parson’s Beach

On February 6, 2011 by lightshedder With 6 Comments - close up, color, macro, Maine, Pic of the Day, snow, still-life, winter: snow and ice

Happy Sunday! A play of textures, set off by the contrast between the brilliant red of the rosehip and the white of the snow. I also like the way the red of the rosehip has absorbed enough heat from the sun to melt the snow around it and create a little frame for itself. The thorns, to my eye, give it an extra appeal.

For this shot I used the tele-macro on the Canon SX20IS, shooting from a standing position and well back, but still getting the macro effect. 560mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Snow Mode.

Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. Cropped from the left to eliminate a distracting out of focus twig, and from the right slightly to more or less restore “rule of thirds” composition.

This is part of the sequence of grand snowscapes I shot on Friday. You saw one of them yesterday, taken only a few moments before. As part of my photographic discipline I have trained myself to always, in every situation, spend at least some time looking down, looking close, thinking small…even when the grand vista is compelling. There is often something worth my attention right at my feet. No…there is almost always something interesting right at my feet, if I take the time to look. And often, looking close produces an image which opens out with as much contrast and texture and pattern as the full landscape.

Without trying to stretch the metaphor too much, I think there is a spiritual truth there. I would not like to think that, in the grand and thrilling sweep of eternal values that opens to the spiritual eye, I would ever lose the intimate details, the small beauty of what is right at my feet. The poets say the universe is contained in a single grain of sand…or, say I, in a rosehip in the snow.

2/5/2011: Great Hill from Parson’s Beach, Kennebunk

On February 5, 2011 by lightshedder With 4 Comments - beach, landscape, Maine, Pic of the Day, snow, weather, winter: snow and ice

A break from the unrelenting diet of birds, birds, birds of the past two weeks, and a return to my current reality…snowy, snowy Maine. We now have, after another foot fell on Wednesday, and taking into account settling and melting (sublimation actually, since the snow is going directly from ice to vapor without ever being water) about 3 and a half feet of snow standing in our front yard. What you see here is a healthy stand of beach rose. The tallest of those plants tops five feet. This is a perspective shot taken at moderate telephoto. Great Hill with its houses is about an eighth of a mile behind the dune and snow buried rosehips in the foreground, on the far side of the Mousam River.

Canon SX20IS at about 70mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Snow Mode.

Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.

2/4/2011: Anhinga, round two, Merritt Is NWR

On February 4, 2011 by lightshedder With 2 Comments - animals, birds, close up, digiscoped, Florida, Merritt Island NWR, Pic of the Day, wildlife

The little pond by the restrooms at the head of the Cruikshank trail off Black Point Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is always worth a good long look. I almost always find something to photograph there…over the years: lizards, alligators, Green Heron, Snowy Egret, or, in this case, an elegant Anhinga in the final stages of his sun bath. There are very few birds that have the feather texture of the Anhinga, and these shots show it off to good advantage.

This bird was so close that to get anything like a full body shot, I had to zoom all the way out so the bird just filled a round circle in the middle of a black lcd screen…and then crop. And then I could not fit the full tail in.

And these are full frame views, showing off the stuff the neck gets up to and the feathering on the head…

 

All with the Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. Working at the 600 to 1200mm field of view range. Processed very lightly in Lightroom for clarity and sharpness.

2/3/2011: Wood Storks, Merritt Island NWR

On February 3, 2011 by lightshedder With 4 Comments - animals, birds, digiscoped, Florida, Merritt Island NWR, Pic of the Day, wildlife

Wood Storks are both beautiful and ugly. The plumage is elegant, and in flight they are majestic, but that head!

Of course even in the head there is a kind of grotesque beauty…kind of beautiful ugliness. Yes I know, contradictions…but that is Wood Stork for you.

By the way, with these storks we move from Viera Wetlands to Black Point Wildlife Drive in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Merritt Island is another favorite birding and digiscoping place in my yearly round of festivals. I always try to do the Blackpoint loop at least twice, at two different times of day, on every visit to Titusville, and I am rarely disappointed. Even if the birds are less abundant than usual (as was the case with ducks this year), there is generally at least one really cooperative bird that sits for a series of really satisfying images…and generally several.

Canons SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for equivalent fields of view between 1000mm and 2500mm. 1) 1/500th @ ISO 125, 2) 1/640th @ ISO 125, and 3) 1/800th @ ISO 125. Programmed auto.

Lightly processed in Lightroom for Recovery (highlight control), and image clarity and sharpness.

2/2/2011: Anhingas, Viera Wetlands

On February 2, 2011 by lightshedder With 4 Comments - animals, birds, digiscoped, Florida, Pic of the Day, wildlife

Wings on Wednesday. And such wings…though this male Anhinga evidently just got out to dry as the feathers are still in somewhat of a disarray. There is so much to look at in an Anhinga’s wings, so many different patterns. I don’t think I have ever noticed the horizontal banding on the innermost long wing feather.

And a close up of the head (different bird).

And finally, a female striking a different pose.

Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of 1) an 850mm lens, 1/1250th @ ISO 160, effective aperture f4, 2) 2000mm, 1/500th @ ISO 125, effective aperture f5.7, 3) 3000mm, 1/1000 @ ISO 200, effective aperture f8. Programmed auto.

Lightly processed in Lightroom for clarity and sharpness.

1/2/2011: GBH on a palm, viera Wetlands

On February 1, 2011 by lightshedder With 3 Comments - animals, birds, digiscoped, Florida, Pic of the Day, tree, video, wildlife

I could not resist this Great Blue Heron on the palm top, among the fronds of neighboring palms…even though I knew it would be a soft image at best…the wind was blowing so hard and the magnification needed to fill the frame was so high that despite my best efforts there was going to be some softening due to camera motion. It was just such a classic composition. You can see what I was dealing with in the video below. I had to put the video through the heaviest level of image stabilization in Sony Vegas at that.

Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of a 4700mm lens, 1/1000th sec. @ ISO 125. Effective aperture f13.

Here it is pulled back to about a 3000mm equivalent.

And here is the video. I left the sound in, just for effect. 🙂

GBH on a Palm and in the Wind.