Monthly Archives: December 2011
12/21/2011: Black-bellied Whistling Ducks
The Black-bellied Whistling Duck is a big, colorful duck…goose sized really…and there is nowhere better to see them than the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. This is Edinburg Scenic Wetlands World Birding Center in Edinburg Texas. Edinburg Wetlands is one of my favorite spots to digiscope birds (take pictures through the eyepiece of my spotting scope) and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks always make good targets.
The final shot is not digiscoped but it shows off the pink feet. It was taken at 1260mm equivalent with the 1.5x digital tel-converter on the Canon SX40HS.
1) and 2) Canon SD100HS behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope for equivalents of about 4000mm and 1500mm. ISO 100 at 1/80th and 1/200th.
3) Canon SX40HS at 1260mm equivalent (840mm optical x 1.5 digital converter). f8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 800.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/20/2011: Peach Promise on the Horizon, Kennebunk ME
I was surprised to find this lovely peach color along the horizon over the ocean yesterday. The morning held no such promise. A few moments of sun early, and then overcast moved in and looked set to stay the day. Even the weather reports said the same. Still there was no denying the peach…and indeed by an hour after this shot, the overcast had blown over and the sun was shining. It was a peach promise…or a promising peach. On the horizon. (If you view it at larger sizes you will see a “drawing water” effect along the center.)
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent. f4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness. I also used the dueling Graduated Filter effects trick, with a graduated filter pulled down from the top to darken the sky and graduated filter pulled up from the bottom to lighten the beach.
12/19/2011: New Mexico Varigated Meadowhawks
I have been having a lot of fun with dragonflies over the past 6 months or so, and I am slowly amassing a collection of images. You can see what I have so far at my dragonflies gallery on WideEyedInWonder. This is female Varigated Meadowhawk from Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. This was by far the most common dragonfly at Bosque during our November visit. Despite the name, they were hunting the edges of the ponds and over the dyke roads. We even found them, like the male that follows, deep in the upland scrub desert, 100s of yards from the nearest water.
It was interesting to see that Varigated Meadowhawk in New Mexico in November is a good deal duller in color than VMs from California (third photo) in October.
Maybe the NM VMs were just a month older and more worn (you can see the bits of missing wing in the female)…and maybe it is regional variation.
Another shot of a NM male.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 2) and 4 at 1680mm equivalent (840 optical plus 2x digital tel converter). 1) and 2) f5.8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. 4) same with ISO 125. 3) f5.8 @ 1/320th @ ISO 200.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/18/2011: Happy Sunday! Home for the Holidays
I have done a lot of travel in the last 30 days. I spent significant time in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas (Harlingen to McAllen), in New Mexico (Albuquerque, Gallup, Bosque del Apache), and at Wildcatter Ranch in Graham Texas. But now I am home in Southern Maine for 3 weeks…one already past…and vacation time the next two. I still have a few images from Texas and New Mexico to post, but I forced myself away from the computer yesterday long enough to get out on the local patch and see what was happening photographically.
It was chancy day…little balls of ice falling off and on, trying to convince us it was snow…and massive rolling cloud cover doing its best to make a gloomy December day. I drove down toward the ocean and my favorite walk along the Kennebunk Bridle Path through the marshes beside the Mousam river. The landscape was, indeed, dull…a winter landscape without the saving grace of snow. Brown grasses, bare trees, and, under the overcast, steely waters…as chill as the wind on this 30 degree day.
But the sky was impressive. And behind those clouds the sun was making every effort to break through. The clouds were shot through with light, and full of form and shadow. It was truly a dimension sky and pulled the otherwise dull landscape out of its doldrums.
This is looking toward the sea from the Route 9 bridge over the Mousam. Now that is what I call a sky, and I composed with just enough land in the foreground to give it scale.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent. Program and iContrast, with –1/3EV exposure compensation. f8 @ 1/1600th @ ISO 200. This was great exposure for the sky (and I tipped the camera up when metering to bias it for the sky) but it left the foreground dark and lifeless. Fill Light, rather heavy, in Lightroom restored some life to the landscape, and a blackpoint adjustment restored it even more. Finally I used Auto Color Temperature to offset the under-corrected blue bias from the camera’s Auto white balance setting. All of which brought it pretty close to what I saw standing there.
So, for the Sunday thought: no matter where you roam, and no matter how dull by comparison, it is always good to be home for the holidays. As a photographer I am not really anywhere until I can see the beauty and experience the wonder of the landscape I am in…and that can be a challenge at home. But it must be done. You do have to come home, all of you, everything that is you, for the holidays. In the house, we have been listening to Christmas music (and I have bought my limit of three new Christmas albums), and last night we put up the tree and decorated it and set up the crèche. Packages have been arriving all week from Amazon. The kids are gathering in or setting arrival schedules. The season is in gear. But until I went out yesterday to find the beauty and wonder in the winter dull landscape, I was not really home. We will, of course, have sunny days sometime in the next two weeks, and I can still hope for snow for Christmas, but whatever happens now is okay…I am home for the holidays. And glad to be here.
12/17/2011: Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Bosque del Apache
One morning at Bosque del Apache, having got to the refuge early but without a car, I shouldered my tripod, my spotting scope and the tiny Point & Shoot I use behind the eyepiece, along with my binoculars and my ever-present super-zoom Canon and walked out along the center, two-way, road on the tour loop. Even though I was on foot they insisted on giving me a receipt at the toll house to prove I was official when I flashed my Duck Stamp (Migratory Bird Conservation Stamp in actuality…every birder should buy one! and not just because it gives you free entry to all National Wildlife Refuges). I found Cranes along the road and got some good shots in the early light (which perhaps you will see one of these days)…but the best bird of the day came when I was (very) foot weary and almost back to the Visitor Center.
I had just turned out of the refuge road onto NM Route 1 and was walking along the wide verge between the pavement and the brush when a hawk came up off the ground 50 feet in front of me and went by me at waist level. It was small, so I was thinking Kestrel, and I was also thinking “too bad I was not looking more carefully…it is surely gone now.” But I turned anyway, and scanned the brush along the edge of the pond.
What do you know? There it was, perched on the back side of the brush about 60 feet from me again.
Figuring it would not sit there long, I sat the spotting scope down and pulled out my Canon SX40HS. All in all the super-zoom is a lot faster getting on the bird and getting off those quick shots. And I have come to trust the 1.5x and 2x digital tel-converter settings on the Canon to give me decent hand held results out to 1680mm equivalent. So, I worked by way into the brush just there to see if I could get a clear line of sight to the backside where the hawk sat. It was a Sharp-shinned…a small male…not much bigger then my first guess Kestrel would have been. And, indeed, there was a marginally clear shot.
It was tricky focus but the auto focus on the Canon was up to it. I keep the Canon set to continuous, which, with a fast Class 10 SDHC card, gives me something near 4 frames per second. I shot a burst at full optical zoom (840mm) then clicked in the 1.5x digital converter and took another burst (I have the converters set on my short-cut button). Between those two bursts the Sharpy turned its head just enough more toward me so that the sun, coming in from the side, caught the eye and lit the orange iris like an LED. One more click of shortcut button and I got off a burst at 2x, or 1680mm equivalent. The top shot is one from that burst, the second shot is from the 1.5x burst.
Sometimes you just get blessed beyond any deserving.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 125.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/16/2011: Church Rock Revisited
I already shared one set of images from the hike my wife Carol and my daughter Kelia and I did in the red rocks near Gallup New Mexico, but it is worth a revisit. And besides, I still have a lot of images from that hike. In this shot you can see the drop off to the canyon floor from the the next ledge of hard stone above it. This shelf is being slowly worn back toward Church Rock itself. Above the ledge the character of the canyon changes…it becomes narrow and more resembles the famous slot canyons of Arizona.
And the way the water carves the rock is always interesting. This is a pot-hole, dug in solid stone by a swirl of water over centuries.
And as always, the red of the rock contrasts dramatically with the the high blue New Mexico sky…especially with a few wispy clouds to set it all off.
Church Rock in Red Rocks State Park is a fascinating place for a hike.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3 EV exposure compensation. 1) and 2) 24mm equivalent field of view, 3) 28mm, 4) 60mm.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/15/2011: Water Canyon, New Mexico
If you are a birder in New Mexico, or even a birder visiting New Mexico, you have probably heard of Water Canyon in the Magdalena Mountains above Socorro. Water Canyon has the look and feel of the mountain island canyons of south west New Mexico and south east Arizona, and indeed, it is the northern outpost for many bird species typical of the more southern canyons. November is not the time to visit, but then, November is when I am there every year. This year I had company. My daughter Kelia and my wife Carol met me in Albuquerque and I took a couple of vacation days before the Festival of the Cranes. Kelia and I visited Water Canyon early in the week, and she and Carol went back for a hike there on Sunday. And it really does look like the south east Arizona. You could be in the Chiricahuas instead of the Magdalenas, and I am sure that in spring and early summer the birds must be rewarding. In November it is all about the scenery.
This view, taken near where the canyon proper spills out onto the upland plain catches a bit of the atmosphere (and I like the windmill).
Then we have a view looking up canyon form the rise just before the parking area for the campground and trails.
And cottonwoods adding some fall color.
And finally Buck Peak which dominated the view along the upper reaches of the canyon.
Canon SX40HS, program mode with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/14/2011: Cedar Waxwing, Wildcatter Ranch TX
Cedar Waxwings always fascinate me. I don’t see them that often…once or twice a year…but their chatter, which is right at the top of my aging hearing…puts me on full alert. A small flock was moving through Wildcatter Ranch in Graham Texas on my bird walk last Friday, and I was able to catch this one perched well in the sun. The other thing I love about them is the super fine, silky feathering.
I like the eye in this shot…with just enough definition in the black mask to be satisfying.
These shots are with the Canon SX40HS at full optical zoom plus 2x tel-converter for an equivalent focal length of 1680mm, hand held. Pretty impressive results from a Point and Shoot.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/13/2011: Wildcatter Dawn
Wildcatter Ranch bills itself as the Resort Ranch in the North Texas hill country. It is a working ranch and they cater to corporate retreats and weekend getaways for those who enjoy luxury rustic. The restaurant and conference buildings are strung out along the top of a narrow ridge and the views off either side are wonderful. This is dawn coming to the hills of North Texas.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/500th @ ISO 250. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
This image got a lot more processing than I normally do. I was experimenting with Lightzone again, and then trying to approximate (and improve on) the Lightzone tone-mapped effects in Lightroom and Photomatix. In Lightroom I used the dueling Graduated Filter effect technique to lighten the foreground and darken the sky. That produced a pleasing image but with a very soft sky. In an attempt to bring some definition to the clouds, I exported the Lightroom image to Photomatix for tone mapping. I began with the Painterly setting and then backed off on the controls until I got the definition I wanted, without the artificial look (I hope).
This next was taken a few moments later and further down the ridge. It received similar treatment in Lightroom and Photomatix.
12/12/2011: November Light on the Bosque
As I may have mentioned, if there is a place where the light is more beautiful than New Mexico in November, then I have not seen it yet (a distinct possibility…but that does not diminish my affection for New Mexico Novembers). A crisp, clear high desert morning with a few clouds to reflect off the water at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, and the mountains etched on the horizon…the contrasting warmth of the cottonwoods in autumn plumage, and the grasses and reeds browning toward winter…and all flooded with that unique light: there is nothing quite like it.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.