Monthly Archives: May 2011
5/11/2011: Who? Me? Confused?
So okay…I realized after posting yesterday that I was totally day-of-the-week challenged. That’s what happens when you have been too many trips in a row, and when you leave home on a Sunday, which I rarely do, and when…oh…you know!
So, somehow, this image today is appropriate. Snowy Egrets are generally so elegant, but when they aren’t, they really really aren’t! Not quite, to my eye, laugh out loud, but close. It makes me smile. Maybe enough to forget my day-of-the-week challenge. 🙂
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 810mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160. Program mode. The depth of field on the P500 at 810mm equivalent is simply amazing!
Processed for Clarity and sharpness in Lightroom. Some color balancing was needed.
5/10/2011: A confusion of wings (for Wednesday)
Though this morning I am at The Biggest Week in American Birding on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio, I am still working through my Florida Birding and Photo Fest shots from two weeks ago.
The early Florida light at the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine is prized by photographers and quite a few of us gathered at the Red Door where, if you have a photo-pass or are attending a class there, you can be admitted two hours before official opening time. I like the first shot, even though it is somewhat confused, for the sphere energy and the beauty of the Roseate Spoonbill wings in this light. The following two are more conventional portraits of these amazing birds.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 1) 620mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160, and 2) and 3) 810mm, f5.7 @ ISO 160 @ 1/640th and 1/1000th. My self selected user flight program.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. The top image is cropped from the horizontal frame.
5/9/2011: Tricolored Heron at the Alligator Farm
Tricolored Heron’s have spectacular breeding plumage. That turquoise color has only one counterpart (obvious) in nature.
A bird in full sun, against a contrasting background can be almost too vivid to believe. And, of course the St. Augustine Alligator Farm provides abundant opportunity.
Nikon Coolpix P500. 1) 810mm equivalent field of view, macro, f5.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160, 2) 340mm, f5.5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 160. Program mode.
Processed very lightly in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
5/8/2011: Cherry. Happy Sunday. Happy Mother’s Day!
When we bought our home in Kennebunk, 16 years ago, I went to the Dollar Store in Wells, and bought a few plants for the yard. I paid $1.00 for a little stick with a few roots, about 1/2 inch through at its thickest, more dead than alive, and brought it home and planted it near the stump of what had clearly been a very large pine tree. My wife made some attempt to keep it pruned over the years, but today the trunk is 14 inches through and it stands taller then the peak of the roof of our story-and-a-half home. Each year it throws more blossoms: delicate and beautiful. Each year I look at it and remember that hopeless stick I rescued from a pile at the Dollar Store…and marvel that it has turned into this majestic tree that showers us with blossoms as the Creator showers us with blessings. Since the height of its bloom is always around Mother’s Day, it serves as a celebration of our time in our home, and of the woman who makes it one, my wife Carol. Happy Mother’s Day.
And that is really all the Sunday thought I have…and all I need. Thank you God, for this life we live together, for our children, for our home, for the absolute blessing and miracle of Cherry blossoms from a half dead stick. Who would have believed?
Nikon Coolpix P500. Processed for clarity and sharpness in Lightroom.
Happy Sunday. Happy Mother’s Day.
5/7/2011: Vaill Point HDR
One of the tricks made possible by the speed of the Back-illuminated CMOS sensor of the Nikon Coolpix P500 is in-camera HDR. The camera takes 3 or more shots when you press the shutter release and then combines them into a single image with extended range. I don’t actually like the results straight out of camera, but then I also postprocess my Photomatix HDRs in Lightroom when I have done all I can do in Photomatix. With judicious Lightroom processing, and a suitable scene, the Nikon HDR effect is actually pretty good, and it is far easier than shooting three exposures and combining them in Photomatix after the fact.
This shot is from the observation deck at Vaill Point Park (Sanctuary) near St. Augustine Florida. As you see, the HDR mode opens the shadows while maintaining the intensity of the greens and the blue of the sky. This is not an easy shot, exposure wise. I intend to experiment more with in-camera HDR when I find appropriate scenes.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, nominally f3.4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160. Backlight HDR mode.
Processed for levels, intensity, and clarity in Lightroom.
5/6/2011: Egret Elegance, Feathers on Friday
Classic bird in a classic pose. Great Egret in breeding plumage, St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery, St. Augustine Florida. Relatively early light.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 460mm equivalent field of view, f8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160. Program mode.
Processed in Lightroom for highlight recovery, sharpness and clarity.
5/5/2011: Middle-aged Mutant Ninja Tortoise
Admittedly I have no evidence this Gopher Tortoise is middle-aged, and it is almost most certainly not mutant, and there is only the vaguest possibility it is a ninja…but I could not resist. This creature was doing a job on the weedy plant in a drainage dip at Vaill Point Park near St. Augustine Florida when I visited last week. But its name is probably not Aristotle 🙂
Nikon Coolpix P500. 1) 810mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160, 2) 810mm, f5.7 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160, 3) 500mm, f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160, macro.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and sharpness.
5/4/2011: Wood Stork Leap to Flight (wings on Wednesday)
The Wood Stork leap is the second most coveted flight shot at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery (after the stick shot). Photographers stand shoulder to shoulder with their long lenses trained on a perched Wood Stork in the treetops, watching for signs of agitation, for the first hints of flight. When the bird finally goes, it goes with a spectacular leap and those huge wings flash out and cup the air in a mighty stroke. Often the bird drops in the first second, until it develops the lift to take it gliding up above the treetops. You want to catch the whole sequence. On this set I was a fraction of a second late to catch the first wing-rise, but the power of the first stroke is evident. You can hear the artificial motor drive sounds all up the boardwalk each time it happens (interesting point…a digital camera is, by nature, completely silent in capture…yet we program in the sound of a mechanical drive moving film ???).
Sandwiched in there somewhere between all the 300 and 600mm lenses with my little Nikon Coolpix, I feel like the boy scout photographer with a toy camera…but the results speak for themselves. Not, again, quite DSLR quality, but very satisfying.
Here is another sequence. The bird is further away. I am zoomed out to 500mm equivalent field of view on the Coolpix P500, and the images are cropped from the full 12mp frame. This sequence has the virtue 🙂 of combining the leap with the stick shot. (Note the green iridescence on the Wood Storks’ wings in motion.)
Yep…my camera may be a toy compared to the DSLRs at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm…but I am having fun!
These are all auto focus, auto exposure shots, using my User programmed flight mode on the Coolpix P500, which includes center metering, continuous focus, follow focus, and high speed capture. The first set were at the normal compression setting and 8mp size…the second set are at fine compression and the full 12mp size.
Processed very lightly in Lightroom for clarity and sharpness.
5/3/2011: Matanzas Inlet (cloud portrait)
Matanzas Inlet is a beautiful place…popular with both fishermen and Least Terns…and easily accessible because it is part of Ft. Matanzas National Monument. But of course it is the clouds that dominate this image. Thundershowers waiting to happen. The low angle, thanks again to the flip out LCD on the camera, and the long stretch to the horizon add to the tension of the sky. The extra wide angle zoom also helps to capture the effect.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Program mode.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
And here is an alternative way of capturing the day. It needs to be viewed large. Three 23mm views, stitched in PhotoMerge in PhotoShop Elements 9, and processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
5/2/2011: Green Anole, Ft. Matanzas FL
When I shot this Green Anole at Ft. Matanzas National Monument in Florida, I was assuming it was one of the non-native Anoles…escaped pets which breed all over Florida…but it turns out to the only Anole actually native to North America. An interesting creature. This one was after the husk of a bug of some kind which had fallen on the rail of the boardwalk at Matanzas. Interestingly, I attempted, without success, to photograph an Anole (not the Green) at this very bend in the boardwalk last year when I visited the National Monument. (Oh, I got pictures of it, but nothing I kept.)
Part of the success here is the new camera with its longer zoom and rapid fire mode…but mostly this Anole was just much more cooperative.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 810mm equivalent field of view. 1) f5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 180, 2) f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160, 3) f5.7 @ 1/160th @ ISO 220. User program for rapid fire and continuous focus.
Processed lightly in Lightroom, mostly for clarity and sharpness.