Monthly Archives: February 2012
2/19/2012: Winter Beach Panorama, Kennebunk ME. Happy Sunday!
I still have lots of birds and scenery (and a few other critters) left from Viera Wetlands and Merritt Island taken during my January trip to the Space Coast Birding and Nature Festival in Florida, but this Sunday morning we will return to real time and home for a 4 shot handheld panorama of the marsh, dune, and beach in late winter (taken yesterday morning). Of course the clouds are as much the subject as the beach.
This was not an easy panorama. The light was changing rapidly as the clouds moved and the variation in exposure from the marsh to the sea (the sun is just beyond the left edge of the frame) was extreme. And then the ocean is always in motion, making wave and even shore lines a problem in a pano. The four files were matched (by eye) for exposure and color temperature in PhotoShop Elements and then stitched into a pano using the PhotoMerge tool. I then took the file into Dynamic Photo HDR and tone mapped it, backing way off on the auto settings for a more natural look. Then I reimported it into Lightroom where I did some final tone matching using Graduated Filters and the Local Adjustment brush. Not perfect, but pretty satisfying. Click on the image to open it in my gallery lightbox. It will automatically display as wide as your monitor will allow.
And for the Sunday thought: I am blessed in my work to travel extensively to really great places with interesting scenery and great birds (I visit mainly birding festivals, as the Birding and Observation Product Specialist for Carl Zeiss Sports Optics, so the birds are pretty much a given). I came back from Florida with over 3000 images on my hard-drive from two cameras and close to 400 keepers uploaded to my WideEyedInWonder gallery, and I have been posting from that stock for most of a month now. And for most of that month I have been here in Kennebunk, working in my home office, and enduring the tag end of pretty blah winter. Maine, along with most of New England, got very little snow this winter, and we have had unseasonably warm temperatures. Precipitation fell, when we got any, as freezing rain…or mostly as just plain old rain. We happen to have patches of snow still on the ground (now pretty much solid white ice) right here in my neighborhood, left over from a storm in late January that seems to have been very selective in its dump, but go 2 miles in any direction and the ground is bare. So are the trees. The bushes and grasses are winter brown. Dull. Blah.
All of which is my excuse, along with the press of work, for not getting out to do any local photography. Until yesterday. And, wouldn’t you know, there were Eiders in Back Creek, and Grebes, and a couple of loons…gulls on the beach…and great clouds stretching away to the south and west. The light was our New England late winter/early spring light…nothing like the winter light of Florida…thin, so to speak, still lightly touching the ground without a lot of warmth…but with much clarity and a growing promise. The marsh and the beach and sky were beautiful. Worthy of my attention. Worthy of my admiration. Worthy of sharing.
It is so easy to just stay inside and miss it. Even yesterday I was not out long. The wind was bitter. My nose began to run, and I could feel my sinuses filling by the second. But I am very happy to have gotten out, to have seen and recorded, to have something of it to share today.
Now there is a spiritual message, to my way of thinking in all this. I am wondering this morning how much I have missed in my inward focus this last month while I lived off the stock of images and experiences from warm bright Florida. And I am not speaking of photography now, but of the heart and soul. My camera is often the tool God has given me to turn me outward…to open the eyes of my heart, to wake me to what the spirit is doing in me, in the world around me, and in those around me. I can’t afford, in the spirit, to live off my stock of images of anywhere, anytime. I need to keep current. I need to keep my focus outward.
It would have been a shame, in so many ways, to have missed what was happening down on the marsh and dune and beach, right here at home, yesterday.
2/18/2012: Roseates with a View, Merritt Island NWR
We will back away from the intimate bird portraits today and present a group of feeding Roseate Spoonbills as accent to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge view. This is landscape (waterscape?) and the birds are really secondary. The fact that they are bright enough to occupy one of the power-points in the composition (junction of the rule of thirds lines) is just a bonus.
This shot began life as standard jpeg of the scene, exposed in Program mode on the Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100.
I used Dynamic Photo HDR to tone map it for extended range and added detail, though I toned down the auto settings for a more natural look. I then took it into Lightroom, cropped at bit at the bottom for composition, and used a Graduated Filter effect from the top to lighten the clouds and sky (again going for a more naturally balanced exposure and realistic look), and another GFE from the bottom to darken the vegetation so that your eye is drawn up to the bright birds and the horizon. Added clarity and a touch of vibrance, and sharpened the whole thing. The result is just subtly heightened when compared to the straight Lightroom processing version. A little extra pop, but nothing that stands out as obvious HDR.
Which is exactly what I was after.
2/17/2012: Tricolored Delight, Merritt Island NWR
Tricolored Herons are, possibly, even more abundant at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge than Great Blues. Along Black Point Wildlife Drive they are everywhere, in every pond, and in all the water channels. In the brilliant Florida winter light, they are a truly colorful bird. Even, as here, in more subdued light, they certainly fill the frame with color and interesting detail.
This bird was sitting up, as they sometimes do, in a small mangrove bush, about 4 feet above the water, and well isolated against the background of the mangroves on the other side of the pond. Ideal portrait placement with a long lens, or, as in this case, a digiscoping rig.
In second two shots you can see the subtle purple/red tinge to the back and lower neck feathers.
And I have to say, the Tricolored Heron is really considerably more than tri-colored. 🙂
Taken with the Canon SD100HS behind the 30x eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 3420mm equivalent field of view, 1/100th @ ISO 400. f9 effective. 2) 1881mm equivalent, 1/50th @ ISO 100, f5 effective. 3) 1368mm equivalent, 1/125th @ ISO 100, f3.7 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. 3) cropped for composition.
2/16/2012: Hunting the flats. Great Egret.
A lone egret hunts the flats of the Indian River off Biolab Road at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Not much more to be said about this shot, except maybe, that it was the only image I got on Biolab Road this year 🙂
Canon SX40HS at 840mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
2/15/2012: Anhingas (R Rated), Viera Wetlands FL
Anhingas in breeding plumage are quite striking. Those bright green eye-rings can be seen from a surprising distance. Which is good for these shots. They were taken at the maximum reach of the equipment I had with me…full zoom on the Canon SD100HS behind the 30x eyepiece on the DiaScope 65FL for an equivalent focal length of 3420mm. Even so I cropped away some of the image to increase the relative size of the birds. The Anhingas, He and She, were across at least 100 yards of water, nesting at the edge of what I call the Alligator Island, nearly all the way around the main tour loop at Viera Wetlands in Melbourne Florida. That is 100 yards of simmery, moisture laden, swampy Florida air. Might as well be shooting though moving water. So I am actually pretty happy with these.
I almost did not attempt them, as I knew it was pushing the limits, but I am glad I did, for I no more than got set up when He-Anhinga decided to get frisky with She-Anhinga…hence the R rating on the post.
She-Anhinga does not, by human standards, look all that happy about it. Do you suppose that head grip the male has on her is what passes for affection between Anhingas? She looks a bit more satisfied (and comfortable) after the fact.
All shots with the set-up detailed above. First and last image at 1/320th @ ISO 200. The rest at 1/500th @ ISO 200. Sequence selected out of burst shot at 3-4 fps (there are intermediate shots I did not post). Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed, including cropping, in Lightroom.
2/14/2012: Happy Valentines Day
Not in season, but, still…for Valentines Day…for my Valentine.
Tame flowers from the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Bath Maine. Cultivated as only love can be.
and wildflowers from the Kennebunk Bridle Path. Wild as only love can be.
2/13/2012: American Bittern Revisited
While still in Florida, I posted a series of images from my first encounter with this Bittern. Or at least I assume it is the same Bittern. I found it a second time several hundred yards down the same ditch, same time of day, and in the area where it was consistently reported during the week of the Space Coast Birding and Nature Festival. If it is the same bird, and I suspect it is, there are now almost certainly more images of this American Bittern in existence than of any other of its species, anywhere, ever :). It had the habit all that week of working along the water channel that parallels Black Point Wildlife Drive…the most heavily traveled and birded stretch of road at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge…most of the time in easy view of the road. And hundreds of photographers took thousands of photos of this bird during the week, with everything from the 3x zoom on their Point and Shoot, to 600mm Canon Image Stabilized lenses with 2x extenders, to, as in my case, a Point and Shoot behind the eyepiece of a spotting scope.
On this outing I had the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on my DiaScope, and with this combination and my Canon SD100HS’s native 3.8x zoom, in good air and good light, I can reach ridiculous equivalent focal lengths, for amazing close ups. The top image is at something like 3500mm equivalent, and the next one is at about 5700mm! For comparison, here is the bird at 840mm equivalent taken with the Canon SX40HS from the same spot.
And I can’t resist posting one more in this series (all taken before the bird began to move down the channel). This one is at something like 2200mm equivalent. I think he saw me.
Camera as above. The long shots are at 1/80th @ ISO 100 and 1/100th @ ISO 250. The SX40HS shot is at f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320. The intermediate shot is at 1/200th @ ISO 100. All in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed, and cropped where cropped, in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Color balanced by eye to match the series.
2/12/2012: Pelicans and Terns against Sunset Clouds: Happy Sunday!
This is another shot from the same Sunday evening, a few weeks ago, that was featured in last Sunday’s Pic 4 Today. Last Sunday it was the Skimmers crossing below the setting sun. This one was taken facing exactly the opposite way, away from the sunset, with the birds (White Pelicans and Terns) framed against the few clouds over the Indian River and Merritt Island which caught and reflected the reddening light. Perhaps because I know it was one of the last images taken that day, it has a going home…going to rest…feeling about it: but perhaps the feeling is actually part of the image, for anyone who knows the rhythms of the natural world.
Canon SX40HS at about 335mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/125th @ ISO 250. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom to bring up the color, and for intensity, vibrancy, and sharpness. Cropped from the top for composition.
And for the Sunday thought: Going home. Going to rest. Part of the natural rhythm of the world. I had a little heart attack scare this week…an unplanned trip to the ER in an ambulance, oxygen, ekgs, x-rays…the whole thing. Turns out it was a strange combination of symptoms caused by indigestion and incipient bronchitis…with maybe a touch of pneumonia. Better safe than sorry.
And I find that I am not really troubled by the event. A thing like that might well bring thoughts and fears centered on mortality, but I am pretty much okay with it. Better safe than sorry. I am safe.
Of course I have no idea how I would have responded if the results of the test had gone the other way. I would like to think that, like the birds against the sunset, I would have seen it as all part of the natural rhythm of life. The birds are going to their night home…to their night roost…and they have no doubt in their minds that dawn will follow the darkness, and they will wake refreshed for another day.
Of course, as far as we know, they have no hope either. Hope is a human…thought? emotion? feeling? concept?…I am not sure there is a word in English to describe what hope is in the human mind and heart. But I do know that hope is a decision…it is a verb…it is something we decide to do, based on all the evidence available to us. We go home, we go to our rest, with (or without) hope in our hearts. It is up to us.
I chose hope. My faith demands it…my faith authorizes it…and, I believe, my faith justifies it. Come night, come dawn, I will wake refreshed for another day. All part of the rhythm. All part of the life of faith.
As true when lying on a gurney in ER sucking down oxygen, as it is on a beach in Florida watching the Pelicans and Terns head for roost against clouds reflecting the setting sun.
2/11/2012: The Pond in HDR, Merritt Island NWR Visitor Center
Taking a Saturday break from birds, birds, birds. This is the pond behind the Visitor Center at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. In HDR. It is, maybe, a bit painterly. It is also a single jpeg tone-mapped in Dynamic Photo HDR for maximum drama…well…actually I took it into Lightroom after DPHDR and toned the drama down a bit. Still.
The pure Lightroom version on the left looks a little flat by comparison…but without the comparison it is still an interesting photo.
I always have mixed feelings about HDR. I certainly has immediate impact, but, honestly, the world is just not like that…or not often at least. I heard an interview with Trey Ratcliff, currently one of the super-star proponents of HDR and high drama photography (over 1 million followers on Google+), in which he said, in effect: more and more this becomes the world we see. Interesting. And, I suppose, true. I know that when I used to do a lot of HDR, I did consciously imagine every scene as it would look after treatment as an HDR.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. f6.3 ! 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Metered off the clouds. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed as above in Dynamic Photo HDR and Lightroom.
2/10/2012: Intimate Great Blue Heron, Merritt Island NWR
Intimate portraits of Great Blue Herons are not difficult at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in January. Great Blues are abundant along Black Point Wildlife Drive, and they are used to people stopping to photograph them. They simply go on about their business (which sometimes seems to be exclusively posing for photographers) and ignore the audience. This bird was perched in the top of a mangrove, perhaps 40 feet from shore, ideally placed against a semi-distant back ground for good bokeh in close-ups.
I have, honestly, a LOT of images of Great Blue Herons already, but who could resist this poser?
All three shots are with the Canon SD100HS behind the 30x eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. 1) 2565mm equivalent field of view, 1/200th @ ISO 100. f6.9 effective. 2) 855mm equivalent, 1/640th @ ISO 100. f2.8 effective. 3) 1900mm equivalent, 1/500th @ ISO 160. f5 effective. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
This is actually a very good demonstration of range of a good Point and Shoot behind the eyepiece of a scope. I had to crop out the dark corners (vignetting) on the 855mm equivalent shot, but that I could get that low an equivalent from a 30x eyepiece is pretty good okay any day. And then the other two framings are from the same spot, just by twiddling the zoom on the camera. Not bad!
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Cropped as needed for composition.