Monthly Archives: March 2012
3/31/2012: Pelican Perch, LaJolla CA
On a dreary day suspended between winter and spring here in southern Maine, I dig back into my recent trip images for this sunny southern California shot of the Pelicans of LaJolla. I am sure there are other places where large numbers of Pelicans come to breed in the spring, but LaJolla has to be among the most accessible. They congregate daily on the rocks below Scripps Park, within easy lens reach of the sidewalk along the edge of the sea-cliff. In this shot the band of greenery is Ice Plant below the hedge that lines the sidewalk. I zoomed in to the 114mm equivalent field of view range to frame the three strong diagonal bands: plant, rock and birds, and sea.
Canon SX40HS as above. f4.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/30/2012: Along Church Street, Burlington VT
I am sure this building has a name, but I do not know it. The distinctive architecture graces one end of the Church Street shopping mall in Burlington Vermont. I chose to leave the lens and perspective distortions as part of the image, since the converging lines add to the composition (which is another way of saying “because I like it.”) The same with the lamppost intruding into the lower left of the frame. As I see it, the lamp makes its own contribution to the convergence, and pins the corner of the frame down for the eye, making the whole composition more coherent. And I wish I could say I thought all that through while framing the image…but of course I just pointed and shot, letting my inner imaging eye (or engine) do the work, just as I let the cameras imaging engine do the work of exposure and focus 🙂
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/29/2012: Maple Blossoms is a Snow Squall, Kennebunk ME
As I mentioned in yesterday’s Maple Blossom Special post, snow squalls were in the forecast for Southern Maine yesterday am, and one hit our back yard about 7:30. Of course, I threw on a coat and ran out to get a few shots of my maple blossoms with caps of snow. It was still snowing, and you can actually see a clumpy “flake” coming in for a landing in this shot.
The light was very different, afternoon to morning, sun to heavy cloud with snow in the air, and exposures were considerably different. Program with iContrast on the Canon SX40HS pushed the ISO well up to handle the subdued light, and the yellows brought out by the afternoon sun of the previous day turned dull. Only the reds held color.
Though a lot of my attention went into keeping the camera dry, I did manage to pay attention to the background of the shots. I tried both open framing, with the whitish sky behind, and closed framing, with the dark trunk of the tree behind. The top shot is in between, with background blossom clumps and branches making a patterned bokeh. One of the advantages of extreme tel-macro is the interesting bokeh effects you get.
All at 1680mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical zoom plus 2x digital tel-extender function). 1) f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 500. 2) same. 3) f5.8 @ 1/100th @ ISO 800. These are all at –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for color temperature, intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/28/2012: The Maple Blossom Special, Kennebunk ME
Maple blossoms are another of my yearly subjects…one of those happenings I time my life by. I love them. Many people are probably totally unaware that the maple blossoms at all, let alone with such intricate beauty. They might see the red blush on the trees in spring, but unless they have gotten really close, they may not have realized that the first red blush is flowers. There is a second red blush, generally as intense, when the first leaf buds open, but that comes later.
You have to get really really close to see that the flowers are not just red…they have yellow centers with red petals and frilly green stamens. The impression from a distance is much redder than the actual blossoms.
I checked my archives and the maples in the back yard have bloomed a full month ahead of the same trees last year. That is how mild the winter has been (though snow-squalls are predicted for this morning).
In past years I have had to wait until the lower limbs blossomed or until I could find a small maple in bloom. This year, with the Canon SX40HS’s long zoom, close focus, and digital tel-extender function, I was able to capture better-than-life-size images higher up in the tree. The close-ups here were taken at 1680mm equivalent…840mm optical plus 2x d.t.e. function, hand held, from about 6 feet underneath. Since the breeze was bouncing the limbs around quite a bit, it was a matter of timing and taking bursts of shots at 4 fps. Using d.t.e. function keeps shutter speeds on the high side anyway.
1) f5.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160. 2) 72mm equivalent. f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. 3) f5.8 @ 1/320th @ ISO 125. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
One last shot before the Maple Blossom Special is round the bend, and the red is gone until the leaves first pop!
3/27/2012: Another visit with the Kingfisher of Famosa Slough
On my last Saturday in San Diego I fully intended to get out to Cabrillo National Monument, but time got away from me. I was passing Famosa Slough on my way there when it occurred to me that there was little wind, and that maybe the Kingfisher might be sitting on the pilings where the Slough channel flows under West Point Lomas Drive. Worth a look! And I did not have time to do Cabrillo justice anyway.
You will remember that I posted a series of shots of this Kingfisher previously (here)…taken on a day when considerable wind limited the sharpness of the images at digiscoping magnifications.
And the Kingfisher was indeed again sitting right where I had first photographed it. I set up and took all the Kingfisher images I could possibly want.
Except for #4, Canon SD100HS behind the 30x eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. All in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
#1 1881mm equivalent field of view, 1/640th @ ISO 200. f5 effective. #2 same except 1/500th. #3 2565 equivalent, 1/320th @ ISO 200. f7 effective. #5 2200mm equivalent, 1/400th @ ISO 200. f5.8 effective.
#4 Canon SX40HS at 1680mm equivalent (840mm optical plus 2x digital tel-extender function). f5.8 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/26/2012: Mt. Washington and the Whites from the car.
My daughter Kelia drove on the way back from Burlington Vermont, a few weeks ago now, and I had the opportunity to enjoy the views of the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I also, for lack of a better option, tried some “through the windshield” photography. This is as close as we got to Mt. Washington, the highest point in the Northeast. I zoomed in to avoid the top of the steering wheel on one edge of the frame and the rearview mirror on the other, shooting just one side of the windshield mounted GPS, at an angle out the little bit of windshield right in front of the driver. Sometimes you just get a better image than you have any right to expect! I even like the car on the other side of the interstate, caught in dynamic tension entering the frame.
This is, of course, one of a sequence of shots taken at 4fps. I would watch for a gap in the median vegetation and the oncoming traffic, and shoot off a burst. This image is from one of several sequences attempting to catch Mt. Washington as it passed. The picturesque Vermont dairy farm was just a happy accident…or an example of my amazing skills…whichever.
I did crop slightly at the left, bottom and top to improve composition and to eliminate a distracting power station just out of the frame on the left, and the shadow of the rearview mirror at the top.
Shooting through windshield glass required some creative color correction…and I would like to take credit, but honestly just hitting the Auto Color Temperature button in Lightroom did the trick. I did adjust shadows and blackpoint more than for a normal image.
Canon SX40HS at 153mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Interestingly enough, there is probably no other vantage point where you could get this particular image of the farm against the mountains. You have to be in a passing car.
3/25/2012: Closer to the Crocus, The Yard, Kennebunk ME. Happy Sunday
While I admit I was impatient for the Crocus this year, I checked back, at my wife’s suggestion, to see when I took my Crocus shots in past years. The earliest are from April 2nd, and they are mostly from the second week in April! So our crocus are, in fact, way early this year…tempted out by those three record-setting 80 degree March days. Yesterday with the temperatures in the more seasonable 40s, the crocus looked like they might be reconsidering the rush. They remained tightly furled all day. Even the most mature blooms, from the first day of the heat-wave, were only open just enough at the top to see the orange fans at the center. They are not going to have much fun in the next few days either, as we are expecting temperatures in the 30s and 40s with rain.
Still, yesterday’s more subdued afternoon light gave me a chance to try some really close shots, using the digital tel-extender function with macro on the Canon SX40HS. At the 24mm end of the zoom, in macro, the camera can focus on an object touching the outer surface of the lens…so I set the DTE to 1.5x or 2x and pushed in as close as I could, while not getting into my own shadow.
This close in, the orange fan of the feathery stigmas dominates the image. The crocus in our yard are a variety with short stamens and elaborate stigmas. (As an interesting note, discovered in my bit of research into the crocus this am on wiki, the spice saffron comes from the stigmas of one of the autumn flowering crocus. Who knew?) The purple striped petals of our crocus form a interesting backdrop for the real drama of the stigmas.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm and macro, with 2x digital tel-extender for the equivalent field of view of 48mm lens on a full frame DSLR. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Special attention was required to balance the exposure to bring out all the color and detail of the stigmas.
And for the Sunday thought. I love macros. I love to look really closely at the details of the common things around us. Moss. Lichen. The stigmas of flowers. The little lacy network of veins in a leaf…or the almost identical network in the wings of a dragonfly. It seems as though the structure of living things, and non-living things for that matter, becomes more intricate and more elegant the closer you look…to the point where pattern dominates…to the point where pattern is all there is. And I am not aware that it ever stops…that there is any degree of closeness…any magnification where the structure breaks down. Even at the atomic level, especially at the atomic level, the structure maintains its patterns.
Scientists tell us that under that pattern and structure events are random, unpredictable…that indeed the apparent pattern that is our reality arises out of unpredictable interactions beyond our perceptions. And I am naïve enough to not believe them. I see no reason to doubt that the intricate and elegant structure goes as deep as deep is. Our perception may fail, our ability to understand and to predict may fail, but the structure, the elegance, the beauty, I see no matter how close I look, I choose to believe extends to the root of being…is inherent in reality.
In fact, it just may be the ability to perceive structure and pattern that is the most human thing about us. The ability to appreciate the elegance and beauty of patterns defines us, and defines our reality…no matter how closely we look! I believe it is part of our inheritance. I believe it is, in fact, the defining nature of the Creator to bring order out of chaos, to create structure and beauty, and that one of the strongest evidences of that we are of the family of creation is that we see that beauty and structure everywhere we look, no matter how closely we look.
And every macro I take reminds me of that. Happy Sunday.
3/24/2012: Cure for the Common Crocus, Kennebunk ME
Seems like it was only a few days ago, on the first day of spring in fact, that I was lamenting the state of the crocus (croci?) in our yard. Being the the tidal zone of a river, where the cold air from the ocean comes inland on every high tide, our spring is delayed when compared to our neighbors less than a mile inland, so I am always sensitive to the bloom of the crocus. Since the first day of spring, however, we have had three days of faux-summer here in Maine, with record setting temperatures in the 80s, and the crocus just leaped up.
Looking back through my The Yard gallery on WideEyedInWonder, I see that I have been faithful for at least the past 4 years to document the first bloom of the crocus with a series of close-ups. This year I am still learning to get the best out of my new Canon SX40HS. When I went back to the Canon, after a brief flirtation with the Nikon P500, the only thing I missed from the Nikon was the superior macro function. The Nikon, in Macro Mode, set the lens to 34mm equivalent and focused down to 2cm. It was wonderful. The Canon, on the other hand, only focuses really close (0 cm…touching the lens) at 24mm, which is, in reality, a less impressive macro effect.
A week ago, while shooting a few macros in NJ, it occurred to me to try using the digital tel-extender function with macro at the 24mm end of the zoom. I have gotten some impressive macros at the long end of the zoom at 1680mm equivalent using the DTE function, but you have to be 4.5 feet away. That is very useful with bugs, but not so handy with flowers.
These crocus are my first real experiments with extended macro on the Canon SX40HS. I’d say it works. The 1.5x and 2x DTE function allows you to shoot at 36 and 48mm equivalents, while still focusing to 0 cm. You can use the extra magnification for more impressive macro effect, or to back away from the subject to a more comfortable working distance (1 to 4 inches). And the image quality is just fine for my uses (whether seen at reasonable sizes on a computer monitor, or blown up to wall size on and LCD projector).
For comparison (and just for more crocus fun) here are two shots of the same flower…the first is at the wide end of the zoom, using macro and the 1.5x DTE for a 36mm equivalent field of view. The second is at the long end of the zoom, using macro and the 2x DTE for a 1680mm equivalent. The first is from an inch. The second is from 4.5 feet.
And to finish up, a low angle shot…just peaking over the petals to the orange fans at the center.
The addition of the DTE to the macro on the Canon SX40HS has cured my Nikon envy. And, of course, the crocus helped!
3/23/2012: The Other Bird of Paradise. San Diego CA
I featured a few shot this year already of what to me is the quintessential flower of Southern California in March…the Bird of Paradise. The orange flowers you have seen so far grow on plants that reach about 4 feet in height and grow in clumps. There is another common variety planted in and around San Diego…what we might call the Bird of Paradise tree. (I almost missed the obvious pun here: The BigBird of Paradise.) This is a big plant, a house story tall and more, with huge banana-like leaves. Its blooms are supersized too but they impress as being black and white. Only on close view to they reveal that same blue center spike and the delicacy of the pinks held in the mostly white petals.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, sharpness, and clarity.
3/22/2012: Pelican Reach. Point Lomas, CA
The cliffs above the tide pools at Cabrillo National Monument are great places to catch the Pelicans soaring. They ride the wave tops and the updraft all day long, mostly headed north along the coast.
These three shots are all with the Canon SX40HS at 1680mm equivalent field of view. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in LIghtroom for intensity, sharpness, and clarity.