Monthly Archives: January 2013
Winter Avocet: Merritt Island NWR
I could, of course, not resist getting out at least a few hours yesterday. I don’t think my cold is an worse for it, and I know I am considerably better! My plan was just to go to the Blue Heron Wetlands right behind my hotel, but when I got to gate I found it locked for Sunday. Ah. So I drove to Titusville proper and out to Merritt Island NWR’s Black Point Wildlife Drive. Blackpoint can be more or less productive, depending on the year and the day and the hour, but it is certainly the most accessible of the viewing and photo opportunities at Merritt Island. As I tell the locals when they complain, a bad day at Blackpoint is a better than a good day almost anywhere else.
This is a winter plumaged American Avocet. As you can see, by the time I got to Blackpoint the light was not at its best. I am learning to use a new camera and a new adapter for digiscoping with my ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. I have a prototype of the adapter ZEISS will bring to market in a month or so, and the newish Sony Rx100. The Rx100 is a hopped up Point and Shoot, with a 1 inch 18mp sensor for better image quality, full manual control and RAW, and a ZEISS Sonnar 1-3.6x zoom lens…it is the first Sony to have a Sonnar in many years, and it is a great lens for work behind the eyepiece of the spotting scope.
Sony Rx100 behind the 15-56x Vario on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for an equivalent field of view of 1360mm. Program with –1/3 EV exposure compensation. 1/400th @ ISO 125. f7.8 effective.
Back at Space Coast: Happy Sunday!
There is no where for bird photography quite like Florida in January. The light is spectacular. The birds are mostly cooperative. It is just so much easier than anywhere else in the nation…if you are satisfied with the FL specialties. Herons and Egrets and Spoonbills and Hawks…dabbling ducks…Blue Jays, etc.
This is an image from last year, just to set the tone. I only got to FL late last night and went straight to bed trying to shake a nasty Vegas flu/cold. I may get out today, and I may have to let my body heal. We will see how strong the draw of birds becomes as the day goes on…and how I feel.
DigiScoped with the Canon SD100HS behind the 30x eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. 1/500th @ ISO 200. Equivalent field of view: 2140mm. f5.8 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday Thought: I forget, to often, how blessed I am to have a job that gives me the opportunity to do what I enjoy doing…being out in nature…capturing nature with a camera. Other people have to play for, sometimes years, to get to the Space Coast Birding Festival. I am there every year as matter of course. That is pretty special.And I am not going to let any Vegas Flu diminish my thankfulness! Spoonbills are waiting, and even if I stay abed today, I know they are there, just outside the door. That’s enough.
(And, checking the weather, the forecast has shifted. Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain all day today, and partially sunny tomorrow! God is good.)
Blue Jay in the Pine
I am leaving Las Vegas this morning…at the airport already waiting the first long leg of my flights to Orlando and the Space Coast Birding Festival in Titusville. I am looking forward to birds and landscapes instead of the the artificial environment of Vegas.
This is a Blue Jay from the backyard to celebrate!
Canon SX50HS in Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent (1/5x Digital Tel-converter). f6.5 @ 1/320th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Vegas Flowers
In typical Vegas fashion I can not tell if these are real blossoms or paper. This is a 30 foot “tree” that is part of the China themed display at the Palazzo. I suspect the flowers are fake but the make a brave show with their contrasting hanging lanterns.
This is a moderate tele shot to isolate the lantern buried in the flowers.
Canon SX50HS at 200mm equivalent field of view. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. f5.6 @ 1/20th @ ISO 1250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Vegas Morning
I am making an effort to “keep my eye in” while in Vegas…attempting to find and take at least a few images a day. Not easy, since I am spending 10 of my daylight hours sequestered deep inside the Sands Expo Center. This is part of the view out my window yesterday, soon after sunrise. In the right foreground is the other wing of the Treasure Island, where I am staying. Center is the Encore with the classic reflection of the Wynn and the Strip beyond in its windows. I say classic, because I can not imagine that the architects of the Wynn and Encore did not pre-visualize exactly this mutual reflection when they designed the buildings. In front of the Encore is the strange space ship like structure of the Fashion Mall. The building at the far left is under construction and looks to be another play on reflections building project…or at least another building with an all glass exterior.
Canon SX50HS in Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. 70mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/50th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Palazzo Chinese: The Flip Side
Another In-camera HDR from the Shoppes at the Palazzo and the SX50HS. Again we will return to our regularly scheduled programing in a few days: after I get out of Vegas. Still this visit has given me an excuse to experiment with interior in-camera HDR.
I like the open effect here…very natural, very balanced exposure.
Canon SX50HS at 45mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/30th @ Iso 800. HDR Mode. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Palazzo Chinese
I feel like prefacing these Vegas posts with “We will return to our regularly scheduled nature photography posts after this brief intermission.” Be patient with me while I survive my time in Vegas!
Finding myself with an unexpected few hours of free time yesterday, I went back to the scene of Sunday’s phone photo with my “real” camera. I wanted to try the In-camera HDR for some interior shots. As I have said before, the Canon SX50HS’ In-camera HDR does not produce the over-the-top HDR effect you often see as examples of the technique…it simply provides a gentle extension of the natural contrast range, and a file that can be processed in Lighroom for a very natural look. In an interior like this you see further into the shadowed areas, without sacrificing the highlights.
This is part of the display just off the lobby of the Palazzo Hotel, where the Shoppes at the Palazzo start. They are just finishing building this particular display, around a Chinese theme, complete with at dragon in a flowering tree. I am always amazed at the sheer opulence of these Vegas hotels. Talk about eye-candy. I am certain this display alone, which is, I remind you, seasonal and temporary, must have cost half a dozen of my yearly incomes. It is, like most of Vegas, simply so far from my comprehension that just have to nod my head and press the shutter button. Well okay! Can you imagine that!
Canon SX50HS in HDR Mode. Three 24mm equivalent shots processed in-camera. Recorded exif: f3.4 @ 1/30th @ ISO 640. I propped the camera on a stone railing. Processed in Lightroom for intenisty, clarity, and sharpness.
Vegas Nightview
After a long day at our yearly National Sales Meeting, which we always do in the days before the SHOT Show in Vegas, I came back to the hotel and made video loops for the booth for the show, and processed the few pics I had had time to collect during the day. Yesterday I put my little Canon SD100HS in my pocket and did manage a few snaps on trips back and forth to the hotel during set-up for the meeting. After my processing, I looked out the window, pretty much for the first time, and, of course, had to dig out the SX50HS to try a few hand-held night shots of lights along the west end of the Strip.
This is shot is in Hand-held Night Scene Mode. The recorded ISO is 6400, but it is actually three shots taken in rapid sequence and stacked. The Digic 5 processing engine in the SX50HS attempts to process out some of the noise and and some of the camera motion compared to one long exposure, and it seems to do a pretty good job. No one in their right mind, two years ago, would have believed you get this kind of shot with a P&S, especially without a tripod.
I used –1 1/3 EV Exposure Compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Some work on the highlights and whites.
Vegas by Phone: Happy Sunday!
On my first night in Vegas, I walked across the pedestrian bridge from the Treasure Island, to the the Venetian, in search of the Food Court, and got totally lost. In the process I came on some typically over-the-top Vegas interiors. Of course I left my camera in the hotel room. I mean, I was only going to the Food Court. Right. Never again. All I had was my Android phone with its wimpy 5mp camera which I knew from past experience was, well, wimpy. Still. I might never find this part of the Palazzo again (I was lost), and I have been impressed with what Snapseed can do to even a bad photo photo, so, I did the total tourist thing with my phone.
Unfortunately, back at the TI, the Play Store informed me that Snapseed was not compatible with my device. Uuugh! So, I emailed the images from my phone to my XOOM Tablet, which is already good to go with Snapseed, and processed them on the XOOM, then uploaded them to WideEyedInWonder. Not bad for a phone shot. In Vegas. (And the Food Court at the Venetian is worth the trouble…fair prices and good food. I had a wonderful New York Style Deli Egg Salad Sandwich on rye with coleslaw and ice-tea for less than $10.00! In Vegas!)
And for the Sunday Thought.
Being in Vegas, for me, is roughly like being underwater, without any breathing apparatus. Once I leave my hotel room, I am always wondering if I am going to be able to hold my breath until I can get back there, where at least I can float with my nose out of the water. Even scenes like the one above, are like the fake sunken ships, the bright shells, and the carefully tailored plants of an aquarium. They say, “see, we know what beauty is like above the water, and we can fake it so you hardly know.” I am not fooled, and I struggle not to be impressed either. It is a counterfeit world. Totally false, and designed to deceive.
But then, those who live by faith have always testified that “the world” of our mundane experience is just the same: A counterfeit of the reality that is only perceived by the spirit…the place where the real air is, that the faithful breathe. And yet, I attempt every day to see through that counterfeit to the reality that informs it and gives it meaning and value.
Vegas I guess is just one layer deeper. A counterfeit of a counterfeit…even here a bit of the real shows through where men have labored to coin beauty. How could it be otherwise? Even when captured with a phone. And especially when you factor in the excellent egg salad on rye!
Downy on Suet
We have both Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers in Southern Maine, and occasionally they will be in the yard at the same time. When they are I am always tempted to call the Downy, the Dainty Woodpecker. I am not sure if it is the smallest North American Woodpecker, but it must be close. And more than small…it is indeed dainty…compact and elegant in both appearance and habits. Great bird!
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3 EV exposure compensation. f6.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.