Monthly Archives: June 2011
6/30/2011: White-tail at a Distance, CO
At the end of the day at the shooting range in Byers Colorado, after spending the odd free moments between workshop sessions Shooting the Clouds, there was a barbeque, and during the barbeque two White-tailed Deer decided to risk ambling across the range, behind the bunkers. They were obviously young deer and maybe did not know any better. You would think the strong smell of cordite and the recent thunder of the guns would have deterred them!
They were not really all that close…the shot above is at the full 810mm reach of the Nikon Coolpix P500 (actually in looking at the exif data I apparently zoomed a bit into digital zoom, 972mm is the recorded figure), and cropped…and heat shimmer from the long day of prairie baking in the sun was a real problem…but I like the early evening light and the layers with the flowers setting off the foreground. View it larger by clicking the image.
In this shot, where the deer are lower down and closer to the open expanse of the shooting range itself, you see more of the heat shimmer effect…which softens the whole…but I really like the light on the deer here.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 972mm equivalent field of view. f5.7 @ 1/800th and 1/500th @ ISO 160. User programed Flight and Action mode.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
6/29/2011: Obligatory Black-crowned Night-heron
For Wings on Wednesday.
We were all done at Talbert Marsh and the mouth of the Santa Ana river and trudging back to the car for the next part of the adventure (Bolsa Chica, see Point & Shoot 4 Wildlife takes a Tern at Bolsa Chica), scopes and cameras shouldered, when we came up on this Black-crowned Night-heron feeding at the near edge of the marsh. We were about to march right past…I mean, all of us have hundreds of shots of BCNH on our hard-drives, and the light was not great (misty and dull, Orange County June gloom), and then I thought, and then said, “We have to do this bird. My theory is: if you don’t do the easy birds when given the chance, then you won’t be given a chance at the good ones or the hard ones.” So we downed tripods and scopes, upped cameras, and shot the BCNH. It would have been the height of ingratitude to do otherwise.
Canon SD4000is behind the 20-75x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 85FL for the equivalent field of view of a 1400mm lens on a full frame DSLR, 1/250th @ ISO 125, f3.5 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
And zoomed up a little to about 2500mm equivalent.
6/28/2011: Log Walk with Cedars, Jordan Pond
We never, if we can help it, miss a chance to walk the loop of trails around Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park on any visit. It is sometimes the only hike we have time for, but if we have time for only one, it is it. This last visit we got rained on a lot (see Acadia from under and Umbrella: shooting in the rain) and we hiked around Jordan with rain gear on and umbrellas in hand…but still we did it. The subdued light and the rain wet woods provided interesting variations on our normal views. I always find the Atlantic Cedar forest at the south-west corner of the pond fascinating…dark and deep and dense and mysterious (even though in reality it is only a narrow remnant strip of trees in the semi flooded area next to the pond itself). The park service has built a raised “log-walk” (as opposed to “boardwalk”) the length of the habitat to keep hikers’ feet dry…and off the delicate roots and mosses.
This image captures the leaning Cedars right a the water’s edge, the log-walk, and a whole range of interesting textures and forms, from the ripples of the water to the grain of the wood in the logs, to the bark of Cedars, to fine green of the grasses and the feathery green of the Cedar foliage and the brown riot of fallen pine needles. I like the way the log-walk leads off, pulling the eye deeper into the image and the mystery of the forest.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f3.4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto with Active D-Lighting and Vivid Image Optimization.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
6/27/2011: General Woundwort instructs on Eating Thistle
The thistle, as a food source, is problematic. The question, don’t you see, is how to eat it…and I do assure you it is quite tasty…without getting stung on the lip. The proper technique is to roll the lip back and come in from the side. Observe.
You see? Quite delicious really, and quite worth the trouble, what?
Any questions? I thought not.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 403mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto with Active D-Lighting and Vivid Image Optimization. No animals were harmed in the making of this sequence.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
6/26/2011: High Plains Sky, Happy Sunday!
I had forgotten how big the sky is on the High Plains of Colorado. The Rockies push up amazing clouds that drift (or drive as the case may be) out over the gently rolling prairie. This is near Byers Colorado, about 90 miles east of the cloud factory of the Front Range peaks. It is a 4 frame panorama. Click on it to open it to the full width of your screen or monitor.
I spent an afternoon and early evening at a shooting range north of Byers demonstrating spotting scopes (work), and had an ideal opportunity to watch (and, between sessions, capture) the variety of High Plains clouds that you can see in a single day.
All these shots make use of the Nikon Coolpix P500’s Active D-Lighting to maintain detail in the clouds, and Lightroom’s Graduated Filter Effect to bring up the foregrounds. If you click the image to open it at WideEyedInWonder, and then click the Show Details button at the top right, you can see complete exif data on any of the images.
And for the Sunday thought: I really did not expect much from a shooting range on the high plains…in fact I was disappointed when I found out that our one day outside was to be further from the mountains than we already were at our hotel. I forget that no matter how flat the landscape of our lives at any given moment, the creator can, and very often does, fill the sky above with glorious evidence. We just have to look up and notice.
6/25/2011: Denver and the Front Range, panorama
You should click the image above to open it to the width of your monitor or screen. It is a thee shot panorama, each shot at 215mm equivalent field of view, with the tops of the Denver skyline on the left and the sweep of the Front Range mountains behind. I took it from the plateau above the city where they have developed the airport hotel complex, near Aurora. I caught a crow in passing, just as a bonus. I used the “assisted panorama” scene mode, hand held, on the Nikon Coolpix P500. After you take the first shot, about 1/3 of it is displayed on the left side of the finder, in transparent mode, so you can lay it directly over the live scene and line up the second shot, and so for the second, etc. for as many shots as you want to attempt. You need a program like the PhotoMerge function in PhotoShop Elements 9 to stitch the individual shots. PSE’s PhotoMerge is very sophisticated and does a excellent job of masking and tonal adjustment to make a seamless composition. It will even automatically fill in edge gaps left in the alignment.
Due to the heavy haze over the city this shot took some extra processing in Lightroom after assembly in PSE. I did my usual Clarity and Sharpness adjustments, plus some extra Recovery, Fill Light, and Blackpoint adjustment. I also did a general contrast boost, trying to offset that haze, and finally dragged a Graduated Filter effect down from the top for a local brightness and contrast adjustment (- brightenss and + contrast).
I think it captures the naked eye view pretty well.
6/24/2011: Least Tern Fledgling, Feathers on Friday
On my digiscoping excursion in Orange County CA last weekend, we went to the Least Tern enclosures (or exclosures more accurately). Beyond the page-wire fence are two smaller compounds protected only by snow-fencing. The nests there have not fared well this year, as a coyote discovered the easy pickings and accounted for many of the nests. Still, this fledgling, which we found on its own out on the open beach, is evidence that at least a few of the nests were successful. I love the delicate colors and patterning. Look closely and you will see a few pin feathers still around the brown patch on the head.
We kept hoping that one of the adults would come and feed the fledgling, but this is a close as we got…
We did not have good light as it was a pretty standard June-gloom morning for Orange Co., but adequate for these shots.
Canon SD4000IS behind the Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 85FL for equivalent fields of view in the 2000mm range. Auto focus and programmed auto exposure. Shutter speeds from 1/200th to 1/250. ISO 125.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
And I do have a snip of video.
6/23/2011: Rocky Mountain Hazy Majesty
I am spending a few days at the foot of Rocky Mountains near Denver Colorado (or near the Denver Airport, which is not quite the same thing). So close and yet so far! If I walk out between the hotels to the edge of the development, I can see the sweep of the southern Rockies behind the haze over the city…a haze so deep it almost swallows the foothills. For this shot, I moved back and used the long end of the zoom to compress the image and frame the high peaks, so the snow fields float mysteriously over the landscape, challenging our perception.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 466mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Program with Active-D Lighting and Vivid Image Optimization.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped slightly from the bottom for composition.
6/21/2011: Caspian Tern, Wings on Wednesday
While at Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach California doing some digiscoping, I could not resist trying to catch the Caspian Terns as they hunted over the boardwalk/bridge with my Nikon Coolpix P500. Bad light, fast birds, but still, you have to try.
This sequence captures the beginning of a dive that brought the bird into the water only about 30 feet out from where we were standing. Number 3 is my favorite, but the whole sequence builds an impression that no single image can. To have a chance of catching the birds moving this fast, I had to back the zoom off to medium telephoto.
Nikon Coolpix P500 using my custom Flight and Action program. 160mm equivalent field of view, f6.3 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped for image scale.
6/21/2011: Great Blue Heron, Puzzler for Tuesday
On a recent digiscoping expedition to Talbert Marsh in Newport Beach, CA, we watched (and digiscoped) this Great Blue Heron catch and eat this long green thing. The puzzle is, what is it? It had some strength, which was evident by the what it did to the heron’s throat once swallowed, but I can find, in what little googling around I have had a chance to do so far, nothing slim and green and vaguely reptilian that lives in the coastal marsh in Southern California.
So…any ideas? I have considered that it might not have been animal at all…but it did seem to be self animated (and fighting back).
Canon SD4000IS behind the 20-75x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 85FL for the equivalent field of view of 1) and 2) 1800mm lens on a full frame DSLR. 1/250th second @ ISO 400. 3) 2500mm equivalent, 1/125th @ ISO 125.
Processed for Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom.
And here is a snippet of video of the essential action.