Monthly Archives: March 2011
3/22/2011: Mousam Panorama
This has to be seen as large as your screen will allow. Click on the image and it should open full width on your system. It is three 28mm equivalent fields of view stitched in Photoshop Elements 9. The Panorama tool in PE has been pretty good since they introduced it a number of versions ago, but it seems to have been improved again in PE9. I used the Cylindrical tool, which places the images just about perfectly, given that my handheld technique rotates the camera through an arc between shots. With the auto setting I have used before, I generally lost considerable height due to alignment issues. Here the full height of the individual frames is preserved. This is far and away the most natural looking pano I have ever shot or assembled. This is very close to the naked eye view if you were standing on that spot.
And, of course it is really about the expanse and the clouds, the reflections in the river, the texture of the marsh grasses, the grand view and all its little details.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode.
Stitched in Photoshop Elements 9, processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
3/21/2011: Spring Snow
Another shot from the spring snow on Saturday. Catching the effect of falling snow in a still image is a challenge, but this is about as close as I have come. The snow was atypical, and easier…big flakes, falling slowly. Zooming in the image turns abstract.
This is my favorite of the series, but I suspect I would have to explain what it is to many people. To see it in motion, skip down to the video at the bottom.
Canon SX20IS. 1) 140mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 800. 2) 240mm equivalent, f5 @ 1/100th @ ISO 800. Sports Mode to catch the motion for both.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
And here is a short video…not great quality due the the low light, but it gives you an idea of the effect.
3/20/2011: All in a day. Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday!
We woke to freezing rain yesterday, which, by full daylight turned to huge feathery wet flakes of snow. Not totally welcome as the last of the 3 plus feet of compacted snow from winter is just about gone from the backyard, and we are all (I think I speak for the general population here) getting a bit eager for spring in Southern Maine. It showed pretty heavily through noon, lightly covered any bare ground, and clung to bushes and trees and standing grasses.
This shot is out the window of the car at Parson’s Beach and gives a good sense of the density of the falling snow. In the dim light, I used Sports Mode, to force the ISO higher and the shutter speed faster, to catch the flakes, as much as possible, in mid-air.
And this shot was taken at about 3:15 that same afternoon, from just about exactly the same spot, looking the other way. The sky had cleared, the snow on the ground had melted away, and the sun had a touch of spring, even summery, warmth that made me, for one, hopeful.
And that is early spring in Maine…the most inconstant of seasons: Winter and seeming summer in a single day.
Both with the Canon SX20IS. 1) 160mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 400. Sports Mode. 2) 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode (biased for the sky by tipping the camera up and locking exposure…then processed for the foreground in Lightroom).
And being Sunday: certainly there must be a spiritual lesson in the rapid alteration of the season and the mood from morning to afternoon of a single day. Of course, the day itself is rare enough for record…in it we see the change that is spring happening in such an unmistakable way, in such an exaggerated way, that we can not miss it…so that the day becomes a parable for seasonality and, in a way, in this season, for the hope associated with the coming of spring. I know it makes me feel like throwing off care, like embracing a hopeful turn of mind, like renewing my trust. On a day like this I am reminded: Though dark may cloud the morning, I know who wins the day. And that is true in any season. It is just hard to miss on such a day.
3/19/2011: Memories, N. Uist, the Hebrides
I was preparing a set of my Scotland photos to transfer to my Xoom Tablet (my digital portfolio) and enjoying them so much (long with the memories of the trip, of course) that I just have to take my Scenery for Saturday back to the Hebrides. This is North Uist, near the ruin of a medieval monastery known locally as Carinish Castle, on a hill overlooking the hamlet (behind me) and the outer islands of the Hebrides.
I am always attracted to the rusted implements of agriculture in hard soil. Where I grew up in upstate New York, they were common in the fields…not worth the effort to drag them back to the bark after their final breakdown. Now days, of course, antique dealers have dragged them to their barns, and sold them as lawn ornaments to suburban housewives. This scene takes me back in more ways than one.
Sony H50 at 28mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/250th @ ISO 125. Programmed auto.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
3/18/2011: Surprise Among the Reeds of Light
I posted most of the best of my digiscoped images from this year’s trip to Space Coast Florida, but while watching a slide show of the images last night, this one really popped out at me. I love the light on the reeds, the backlight on the bird, and the contrast between the texture of the reed bed and the feathers of the bird. The color pallet also catches me. This is an image that makes me smile…and my Feathers on Friday offering.
Not digiscoped. Grabbed out the window of the car at Viera Wetlands, with Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/400th @ ISO 200. Landscape mode.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity (see the Processing link).
3/17/2011: Little Blue/Liquid Light
Little Blue Herons are great birds…with the range of blues and purples in the plumage, but this image is as much about the reflections that frame, and set-off, the bird as it is the bird itself. If you could pull back you would see that the reflected colors come from the urban surroundings of this pocket refuge at Famosa Slough in San Diego, in the residential area at the head of Point Lomos. Still.
Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL Spotting Scope for the equivalent field of view of something like a 2500mm lens. 1/320th second @ ISO 125, f7 effective.
Processed for clarity and sharpness in Lightroom.
3/16/2011: Cooper’s Hawk, Wings on Wednesday
The San Diego Birding Festival has turned up some nice local birds over the years, around Mission Bay, in the marina or in the San Diego River channel just beyond. This year a pair of Cooper’s Hawks were building a nest in a tree right in the parking lot of the Marina Village Conference Center where the Festival is headquartered. As you might guess, this is a very photographed bird 🙂
The male was about 10 feet over and up in this same tree, busy breaking off branches and flying them back to the nest. I am not sure any of us were fast enough to catch him in the act, but it was interesting behavior. He would snap the branch off with his beak, drop it, and catch it on the wing to take it back. Very impressive! Momma had apparently come over to the harvest tree to supervise his choices, as she was not active in gathering (and therefore provided the easier target for digiscoping). Decent light, somewhat offset by an active bird and good stiff breeze moving the branches. And the bird was further away than it looked. In the top of one of those very tall Eucalyptus and several rows of cars over, so I was working at maximum zoom on the camera. The second shot is near maximum zoom on the scope as well. All in all I am happy with the results. Both images took some extra sharpening on the birds head.
Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. 1) about 3000mm equivalent field of view, 1/250 @ ISO 160, f8.5 effective. 2) about 4500mm equivalent field of view, 1/200 @ ISO 200, f13 effective. Programmed auto.
Processed in Lightroom for clarity and sharpness.
In both shots, the bokeh of the moving leaves behind the bird, the pattern on the branches, the light itself, add interest and impact to the shots.
3/15/2011: San Diego Bay
This shot will benefit from viewing at a larger size (click the image and it should resize to as wide as your monitor will take). San Diego Bay and Harbor from Point Loma’s Cabrillo National Monument. Not the clearest of days but a good sky. Cropped from the bottom for the panorama effect.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. Landscape mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
3/14/2011: Looking at You, Godwits
Not quite as sharp as I would have liked but the light was miserable, and I was working at the limits of magnification range of the camera/spotting scope combination. At the best of times the image would have been a challenge from a depth of field stand-point, and the shutter speed was too slow as well.
What makes the image a keeper for me are the feather patterns, the overall overlapping form of the three clustered birds, and the eyes (dare I say the expressions on the birds).
Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of something like a 4000mm lens on a full frame DSLR, 1/80th second at ISO 400 (bad, bad, light!).
Processed in Lightroom for clarity and sharpness, contrast, exposure, etc. trying to get it as sharp as possible.
3/13/2011: Point Loma Light, San Diego
I don’t know about you, but lighthouses always fascinate me. Not that I am a fanatic. We get lighthouse fanatics here in Maine, driving up the coast, light to light, and ticking them off. There is even a shop, just down route 1 from us in Wells, called the Lighthouse Shop, which does a brisk summer business, and supplies lighthouse nick-knacks to aficionados world wide on the web. Not one of those. Still, I do enjoy a lighthouse.
This is the “old” light on Point Loma overlooking the north end of the harbor in San Diego California. It is many hundreds of feet above sea level, and has been replaced by a tower light right on the point below (see below). As you can see from the flag, there was a bit of weather moving through, and, as you can see from the tourist in the door, it is now a museum. Lighthouse museums are unique (we have several in Maine) in that the main attraction, and almost the only artifact on display, is the building itself. They do have an extra lens, which is a study in itself, here on Point Loma in the shed on the left. Here it is, on the right, from a trip a few years ago.
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The main shot at the head of the blog is with the Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
And of course, being Sunday, there has always been a spiritual dimension to the lighthouses. Placed as a warning for ships at sea, they became the beacon announcing home to returning sailors. Even in danger they are a reminder that someone cares. On the final leg of the journey, they are our hope of return. As Christians we are instructed to be the light of the world, not to hide our lights under bushels but to let them shine brightly, to let our eye be full of light so that we are all light within…and told that our God is, in that sense that is so true that that it is beyond common sense, light, all light. Many churches, especially of the more evangelical mold, are named Lighthouse, and every church should be one: Both caring warning and hope of home. And, in truest sense (again beyond common sense) every Christian should be one as well. I suspect this imagery is pretty common across all the great faiths, and that is safe to say that each and every human being is called to be a lighthouse…that it is our nature and our heritage if only we would. Granted most of us need a bit of polish to the lens and a bit more fuel to the fire, but that does not dim the truth of what we are called to be. Maybe that is why we love lighthouses.