Monthly Archives: December 2012
Kennebunk River in the Snow
We had a brief few hours of good light between fronts yesterday morning, after a night of heavy snow that clung, so I got out and did a tour of likely spots. The wind was coming up fast, and with the sun and that wind I knew the clinging winter-wonderland snow on the pines and spruces would not last long. You can see that the wind cutting across the top of the Kennebunk River bed had already dumped the snow from the tall spruces.
I took my Fat Gecko carbon-fiber, shock-corded tripod with me, intending to try some In-camera HDRs in the snow. Snow Scene Mode on the Canons SX50HS does really well keeping the highlights in the snow within bounds, but with a lot of sun on the snow, the greens go dark…losing most of their color. HDR produces a file that can be processed to show good values in the snow and keep the green in the greens! In this shot it also kept the water from going black. (Note: the In-camera HDR of the Canon SX50HS is not the overcooked, somewhat surreal, HDR that is often offered as examples of HDR processing. It is a gentle, natural extension of the apparent contrast range that produces very natural looking images.)
The only thing is, since the camera takes three images for every one, and then processes in-camera, a tripod is really needed. The Fat Gecko works well, and adds less than a pound to my kit. It is not a conventional tripod at all…the legs are shock-cored like tent poles, so they fold up rather than slide into each other. When you shake them out, the shock-cord pulls them together semi-automatically. It is easier to do than to explain. The carbon fiber legs and a small ball head provide a platform stable enough for HDR without the weight of a conventional tripod.
Canon SX50HS set for In-camera HDR. 35mm equivalent field of view. Recorded exif: f4 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Snow Before Dawn: Happy Sunday!
Carol had to be at Church early so both she and I were up well before dawn to shovel out the cars and driveway. Before last night’s storm, we had a good six inches of snow on the ground that fell wet and and packed down, and we woke to about 8 inches of new snow on top of that. It has been a long time since we had this much snow on the ground. And, unlike the Christmas Day storm, the snow last night stuck on the trees, creating a more traditional winter-wonderland look.
I had to try for a few before-dawn ambient-light shots…straining the limits of even the Hand-held Night Scene Mode on the Canon SX50HS. Even with exposure stacking, the recorded ISO was 6400, and while the images were pretty amazing for what they were from a small sensor camera…they required some additional noise reduction and some fiddling with shadow and high-light colors to be really pleasing renditions of the scene. Still. It is totally awesome to get anything at all in this kind of light! And hand held at that.
That is the moon showing through the pre-dawn snow clouds and the snowy trees.
By the time we had finished, first light had come.
And for the Sunday thought: The God who has commanded my faith is a desert God, but the faith is at home in any kind of adverse conditions. The desert puts a constant strain on life…on living. Mindfulness is required all the time just to stay alive. Oaseses are few and far between, and the days of green plenty are short and separated by long dry seasons. The home is a place of shade, relative coolness, and comfort. While God transcends all time and place, the metaphors of my faith were formed in the desert…and it is impossible to completely escape the ways that shapes my understanding of life and spirituality.
For us in the Temperate Zone, winter is our desert, producing, if we let it, something of that same desert mindset. I go out to shovel snow before dawn, but also to encounter my God in the extremes. It is good for faith. It is good to come in the warm house, and settle back with tea and give thanks.
Later on I will go back out into the white desert of the day to find some images with more light. But for now, it is a Happy Sunday morning. Dawn has come. Thank God.
Nuthatch on the Suet Feeder
I like White-breasted Nuthatches. I like all the Nuthatches. They are quick and vibrant, acrobatic and always interesting. My feeding station this year is not, so far, tremendously successful. I am getting a few birds in a mixed flock at long intervals during the day. Mostly Titmice, a few Chickadees, and some Juncos. The Blue Jays come when it is snowing. But mostly the feeder and suet blocks hang lonely. I suspect that I may be the only one feeding for miles, so the birds have to leave their regularly scheduled route from feeder to feeder to get to me. I have put out premium seed and suet, so that can’t be it (or shouldn’t be it). The White-breasted Nuthatches have come only twice when I have been there to see them. And we have had only one Red-breasted.
Besides the obvious, I had a particular reason for putting the feeding station up this year. I have a new digiscoping camera I need to practice with. So far the combination of birds on the feeders and good light has been a challenge. Still a new camera is always fun.
Sony RX100 behind the 30x eyepiece of my ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope for the equivalent field of view of a 2640mm lens. 1/100th @ ISO 800. Program with –1/3EV exposure compensation. f15 effective aperture.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Variegated Meadowhawk, Estero Llano Grande TX
The Variegated Meadowhawk is a widely distributed dragonfly across much of North America. It breeds in a wide variety of habitats, and it flies both early in the season and late, so it is very likely that you have seen it somewhere before. According to the books it is a bit shy of people, but where I see them in numbers, they are relatively easy to approach.
This is a tel-macro, taken at full zoom plus 2x Digital Tel-Converter function (2400mm equivalent field of view) from just about the closest focus distance (4.5 feet) on the Canon SX50HS. I especially like the bright weathered wood of the boardwalk contrasted with the water, which is thrown completely black by the bright foreground.
f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 125. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Snow on Apple. The Yard.
Today we are getting up to 7 inches of wet snow mixed with freezing (and not freezing) rain, but on Christmas Day we got about an inch of dry crystalline snow. I went out the next morning to look for a few images that would catch the feel of the light coating of snow.
We have two little apple trees in the front yard, and this year they made fruit (they don’t always), but bugs got to it before we did, so we just left it in the tree. This is the largest of our apples. With snow. Mostly it is just a study in shape and texture. 🙂
Canon SX50HS with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. Program with –1/3 EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view (for the macro effect). f6.5 @ 1/400th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Coyote on the Prowl: Bosque del Apache
One of the little tricks birders learn fast is “always look where the birders are looking.” If you see birding-types in the field with their binos or spotting scopes intently trained on a bush or a tree, then it is a pretty safe bet they are looking at bird, and more than even odds they are looking at a bird you might also want to see. So you always, always stop and look.
Something similar happens among photographers at Bosque during peak visiting times like the Festival of the Cranes. If you see a car load of photographers out of their car along side the road and set up with cameras on tripods, then it is a pretty safe bet to pull up behind or ahead of them (not so close as to scare off whatever they are photographing, but not far enough off so you miss the action:) and get out and at least evaluate the situation.
That is how I found this Coyote, working the dyke on the other side of the water channel along the tour loop at Bosque. I was only soon enough and quick enough to get this one shot before he/she disappeared into the reeds on the other side…but still…I might have driven right by if not for that “look where the photographers are looking” trick.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Merry Christmas to all!
It is strange how strongly identified Christmas has become with the Currier and Ives vision of a New England winter scene. Especially when you consider what a small percentage of those in the US, and certainly in the world, have ever experienced Christmas in those circumstances. As I write this there is a flurry of snow falling outside my Southern Maine, not quite New England, window with just a dusting showing on bare ground, and I admit that, hope against hope, I am hoping for ground cover by mid-day. These days you can not count on a white Christmas in New England. I think we have had only 2 out of the past 5 years. I had to go back to January of this year to find this image.
And certainly the source of Christmas, the reason for the season, the greatest story ever told, does not include, or justify, a snowy countryside nostalgia. Joseph and Mary had enough trouble with the inn and all without seeing them, and the donkey, trudging through fresh snow.
So, I am going to have to just go with it. When I think of Christmas it is a white Christmas…and I am always slightly disappointed when it is not. We have a chance…just a slim, 30% at any given hour, maybe totaling 1 inch…chance today.
But wherever you are celebrating (or not celebrating) Christmas today, I wish you the blessings of unconditional love, complete forgiveness, absolute mercy, and a grace…a gift of hope…that goes well beyond whatever you might deserve. I give my thanks for that gift, which I for one desperately need, to God in Jesus Christ, remembering the birth of the Son of God, the Son of Man, and the Prince of Peace…and celebrating in the spirit of creative love that, miraculously, still lives in me. Merry Christmas to you all.
Christmas Macro Magic
Merry Christmas Eve!
I went looking for a macro this morning. It is MacroMonday over on Google+, and, as I mentioned yesterday, I need a break from posting images from the Rio Grande trip to Texas and New Mexico. Something new. The living room was dark, with only the little white seed lights of the Christmas tree glowing (along with the screen of my wife’s laptop :). I was attracted to the way the light caught in the hair of this little nutcracker ornament. I was attracted by the way the figure was suspended in the shadows and shapes of the pine needles with only the Christmas Tree lights on.
And here is where the magic comes in. This is a handheld, ambient light, macro taken in “handheld night scene mode” at 24mm equivalent field of view with the Canon SX50HS. And the “ambient light” came from the few white seed lights that were close enough. The exif data reads f3.2 @ 1/15th @ ISO 1600 but that is not the whole story. To make this happen, the camera took three shots in rapid sequence and then stacked them to produce an exposure with has much of the noise processed out, and which has been stabilized by using the position data in the three images to process out motion blur. I did use a monopod under the camera to help steady it a bit, but still, this is nothing short of magical! I have linked the image to the lightbox view at WideEyedInWonder on SmugMug so with a couple of clicks you can view this image as large as you like. (Size controls are at the top of the page.)
The third of Clarke’s Three Laws (Arthur C. Clarke, the famous SiFi writer) is “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” It certainly seems as though our cameras today are getting to the point where the technology is that sufficiently advanced. This shot could have been made even in the days of film…but it would have taken a lot of work, and a very skilled artist. Today’s P&S cameras put this kind of shot within the reach of anyone with enough imagination to see it…enough sense to read the manual…and just enough courage to press the shutter button. That is magical!
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness using my hyper-real preset.
Still Life with Tomatoes: Happy Sunday!
Yesterday morning while wandering through the kitchen I saw these two tomatoes sitting on the counter with their split stem, and just had to go get my camera and do some still lives. I turned a closer shot into paintings in three different styles yesterday, but this is the shot I originally saw, before I even went for the camera. There is something about the variations in greens when compared to the red of the fruit that really catches my eye. Then too, I found the subtle molding of the tomatoes by the mix of ceiling and window light very attractive.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 24mm macro plus 1.5x digital tel-extender. f3.5 @ 1/20th @ ISO 1250. (And who would have believed, even two years ago, that a small sensor P&S like the Canon could produce this kind of quality at 1250 ISO??) Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness, using my hyper-real preset.
And for the Sunday thought. Almost all my posts over the past month have been images from my last trip…to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and then the same valley in New Mexico. Birds, bugs, and landscapes in the bright, dramatic southwestern light. That is because we are having a totally uninteresting winter in Maine…photographically. Sunny days with no clouds over bare trees and brown landscapes…or murky days with a mix of rain and snow and very low light levels. I have gotten a few squirrel shots out the back door, and I put up a feeder and filled it with high quality seed…but apparently there is still so much fodder left in the bare woods and hedges that the local birds are not greatly tempted by my feeding station. When they come, it is always when the light is lowest, just before or just after a bout of rain with a few snow flakes mixed in.
I am not complaining. Really. I have been spending time building ebooks of the Bosque, my local Rachel Carson shots, and, currently, of pictures taken over the past several years in and around Acadia National Park. Still, I am getting an itch for new images. Which is why the tomatoes appealed so strongly.
I need to be creating. Oh, building ebooks might be considered a creative task in some sense…but it is more curative than creative…and not really a satisfying substitute. I need to newly frame the world and press the shutter button and process the results into a new image. I need to do that. It is a hunger. It is a spiritual hunger. I need it not for today’s life but for the eternal life that is in me. I need it to be who I am in the spirit.
And that is why the tomatoes caught my eye. And that Is why I am sharing them with you. 🙂
Happy Sunday! And may you find today, that which satisfies the creative spirit within you.
Million $$ Junk Bird!
I have said this before…and it is still true…I have never seen a more spectacular junk bird than the Green Jay. Junk birds are birds that are so common that birders do not look twice. House Sparrow. Juncos in winter. Mallards on a pond. Etc. Now, I can (and should) say that to a real birder, there are no junk birds…but the fact is that even the best, most conscientious, most righteous birder pays little attention to the most common birds most of the time.
And there is no doubt that if you live in South Texas, especially in the Rio Grande Valley, Green Jays are junk birds. They are that common. Put out a feeder, they come. Don’t put out a feeder, they still come. They are everywhere, all the time. And their habits in your yard, like the habits of most Jays, are, shall we say, not endearing? The very definition of junk birds.
However, if you don’t live in South Texas, the bird that you are most likely to be impressed by on your first visit, is the Green Jay. I mean, it is in-your-eye vivid, and so striking, so over-the-top exotic, that you will never forget your first encounter. “What was that?!?!?!”
And, being a junk bird, it is easy to see. If you only make one or two trips to the Rio Grande Valley per year, you will never get tired of seeing Green Jays. I know I have not!
I have not got tired of photographing them either. I have enough Green Jay shots from my Texas trips to make a calendar…most likely a 5 year calendar. (Not yet a Mayan Calendar…but I am working on it.) 🙂
These shots are from the National Butterfly Center gardens in Mission Texas.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. –1/3 EV Exposure Compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/100th and 1/125th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.