Monthly Archives: September 2011
9/20/2011: Summer’s Gone :(
This is a case where the built in HDR on the Nikon Coolpix actually worked! I took the shot without, and of course, in this lighting, the tree went black and the clouds went featureless white. The built in HDR produced a result that was a bit flat, but toning up in Lightroom produced a good rendering of the range of the scene.
The racks of resting boats at the Lakeside Sailing Club and School testify to the lateness of the season, and the tree and building provide a compositional frame.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 22mm equivalent field of view, f3.4 (nominal) @ 1/1000th (nominal…this is the sum of several exposures), @ ISO 160. Backlight HDR mode.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness, with special attention to the intensity of the scene.
9/19/2011: Lakeside Tree of Vines
And the wonder of it is that this tree itself seems healthy and well despite its burden of vines. It provides a name (and shade) for the Bed and Breakfast behind it. I looked for an angle that would show the texture of the twisted vine cover and the vigor of the leaves, contrasting with the yellow siding of the house. The exposure needed to maintain the blue of the sky.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at about 50mm equivalent field of view, f4.2 @ 1/200 @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/18/2011: Late Lake Erie Dawn: Happy Sunday
I went out early yesterday to see if I could find some birds and maybe digiscope a few before the Midwest Birding Symposium vendor area opened. Birds were in fact somewhat scarce, at least where I was, but I got to East Harbor State Park and the shore of Lake Erie just as the sun made its first brave attempt to break the hold of the overcast. Though it was well past actual sunrise, the horizon was streaked with orange, and contrasted sharply with the cold grey waves of the lake.
I took a number of shots. These three move from a wide angle view to zoom in on the details of the dawn.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm, 100mm, and 300mm equivalent fields of view. ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought: that bit of warm light forcing its way under the edge of the solid cap of cloud and out over the cold waves speaks of hope and the irrepressable surge of day. The light of life has come into the world and the darkness can not extinguish it, as John wrote, thinking of that other light of the world…and mornings like this it is that much easier to believe. Happy Sunday!
9/17/2011: Marblehead Light
A couple of classic postcard views of Marblehead Light in Marblehead Ohio. What can I say? The Light is there. The Light is way picturesque. You shoot the Light. It is photographed so often that all that angles are taken, but still you just have to do it. (I think they might actually keep the arch of tree brancbes in the first shot trimmed just for this shot 🙂
Nikon Coolpix P500. 1) 36mm equivalent field of view. f4 @1/1250th @ ISO 160. 2) 36mm, f8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting. -.7 EV exposure compensation for the white of the light.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/16/2011: Lake Erie Morning
The Midwest Birding Symposium is at Lakeside Ohio and, as you might guess from the name, it is right on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio’s resort belt. I always forget that Lake Erie is a major body of water…an inland sea in fact. The “lake” label obscures the actual nature of the experience. It is, in my experience, a pretty wild stretch of inland sea at that…with its own weather even.
A front was passing yesterday morning as I was headed out from Lakeside to Magee Marsh and Ottawa NWR, and I had to run down to the lake to catch a bit off the action before getting in the car for the drive. Amazing waves and clouds.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view. 1) f4.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. 2) f3.4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/15/2011: Saint Anne’s Angles
I am in Ohio for the Midwest Birding Symposium and digging back to share this shot from August. Saint Anne’s church on Old Fort Point in Kennebunkport ME is a favorite for upscale weddings. I love the stonework, which in many lights is spectacular. Here it is late on a Maine summer day. I intentionally framed an odd set of angles and then cropped close.
Nikon Coolpix P 500. 68mm equivalent field of view. f4.7 @1/800 @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/14/2011: Semipalm Sand with Snails, Wings on Wednesday
Dull morning, but I really like this shot for the composition. The bird is partially hidden, so it is not a great ID shot, but I love the way the Semipalmated Sandpiper is emerging from behind the snail covered stump. The contrast in textures and colors (especially the wood and tangled pile of seaweed) is interesting as well.
Back Creek, in Kennebunk. Nikon Coolpix P300 behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for something in the 3000mm field of view range. 1/80th @ ISO 160. Programmed Auto. f8 effective (scope limited).
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/13/2011: Bugs on Fern
There are lots of these Ruby Meadowhawks around in Southern Maine right now, and I have taken maybe too many of pics of them…question: “can you have too many pics of a Ruby Meadowhawk?” I could not resist this one, since the sun-lit fern makes such a great backdrop.
And, on the same theme, a tiny Hover Fly against a similar background.
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close Up mode…auto zoom setting overridden. 1) 403mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/250th @ ISO 160. 2) 309mm, f5.4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Both images cropped for scale and composition.
9/12/2011: Two heads are better than one. Yellowlegs and Semipalm.
I saw this shot in the making and took several exposures to catch the Yellowlegs with its eye open and the Semipalmated Sandpiper with its head showing. Just for fun.
Nikon Coolpix P300 behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. About 3000mm equivalent field of view. 1/60th @ IS) 160. f8 effective (limited by the scope).
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/11/2011: Black Saddlebags, Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday.
As I mentioned a few days ago in the Ruby Meadowhawk post, I have started what appears to be a little love affair with dragonfiles. Suddenly they are everywhere I look, I am taking a lot of pics, and my iPhone Audubon Field Guide to New England, which has a good section on dragonflies, is getting a good workout. Browsing there, a while back, trying to identify a dragonfly I had managed to catch with my camera, I came upon an image of the Black Saddlebags…one of the larger and showier of the New England dragonflies (found everywhere in the US east of the Rockies, as a matter of fact). Okay, so I want to catch an image of one of those! I saw a few in the air earlier in the summer during my rambles, but they never settled for a pic. Of course that just made me want one more. It turns out those early flies may have been vagrants from the south. The Saddlebags only reach adult stage in late summer here in Maine, so this specimen is most likely newly awing. And clearly more cooperative.
I saw it cross the beach and settle a the edge of the beach rose on the dunes (I was chanting “land, land, land” the whole way), but by the time I got there the Saddlebags had moved in a few yards. I had to maneuver among the rose bushes to get a shot. It was sitting in full sun, but deeper in among twigs and grass stems, and there was no clear shot that showed the full bug. The only way to get a full body shot was to stand in my own light and shoot the dragonfly in my shadow. I was pretty sure that as soon as my shadow touched it it would be up and away…but it sat.
And here is a full sun shot for contrast.
One spectacular bug!
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close Up mode with the zoom setting overriden. 1) 403mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/80th @ ISO 400. 2) 538mm, f5.7 @ 1/40th @ ISO 200. 3) 499mm, f5.7 @ 1/250th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. 1) and 2) adjusted for color temperature and Vibrance to more closely match the balance of 3).
Sunday thought: Every time I look at these images in the future, I will remember the thrill of taking them…and the feeling of deep gratitude and crazy joy that lasted all the way back to the car after. Right now, writing about it, and looking at the images, that same feeling is there, just behind the words. I am grinning here. I will probably take better pics of Saddlebags in the future…but these will always be special. Special in part because of the anticipation…because of wanting them since I saw the first Saddlebags in my reference and on the wing…and special because I had to dodge rose bush thorns to get them…but most special because of the feeling of being in the right place at the right time and ready for the blessing. No credit to me. The joy of these shots has nothing to to with self-satisfaction…it has everything to do with appreciation of the gift. (And not “my gift” as in “a gifted photographer”…but something I have not earned, and don’t deserve…an outright gift from someone who loves me.) While taking the images I was, of course, concentrating on angles, light values, zoom settings, and all the technical stuff of photography…and holding my breath (almost literally) lest the bug fly…but in a sense I was also totally absent from myself…completely caught up in the wonder of the moment. And when I stepped back down off the dune to return to the car, I was only aware of the gift. And grinning like…well…like a very happy man (or maybe boy). And that is what it is all about. Photography. Nature study. My new love affair with dragonfiles. To be so gifted I can only grin.