Monthly Archives: September 2013
Frog of the Oostvaarderplassen?
I am not sure what this huge frog is. It was several sizes larger than the Common Frog I saw out on the trails at the Oostvaarderplassen in Holland. If it had been in the US I would have called it a Bull Frog without hesitation, but in Europe I am not so certain. In fact, the American Bull Frog is a problem in many countries in Europe…one of the most invasive of introduced species, so this could, in fact, be exactly what it looks like 🙁 A Bull Frog on the wrong side of the pond. 🙂
Canon SX50HS at 2400mm equivalent field of view. Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation and iContrast. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Nexus 7 2013.
A Day along Back Creek
This is an 180 degree plus sweep panorama from the shores of Back Creek where it meets the Mousam River, a few hundred yards from where the Mousam meets the sea. As you can see, I was there digiscoping, but I got distracted by the sky. 🙂 I never really get tired of watching the camera paint the image one line at a time as I sweep the camera around. There is a technological magic to it, and I can not argue with the results!
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Panorama mode. Processed in Snapseed, on the Google Nexus 7 2013. (You really should see it full sized…click on the image to enlarge it to the width of your screen.)
Snowberry Clearwing Moth
I spent several hours yesterday at Massachusetts Audubon’s Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary being the ZEISS guy for their yearly Optics Fair. Mostly I was talking optics but I did take them to chase down this interesting moth when it flew by.
At first I thought it was a particularly yellow Hummingbird Moth…or “Hummingbird Clearwing Moth” more properly…but further study shows it as the closely related Snowberry Clearwing. It was quite large: 2 inches tip to tail and with a 2 inch wingspan. Quite a creature!
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Program and Macro, with Intelligent Zoom to about 600mm equivalent field of view at 10 mega pixels. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7. Cropped for scale.
Orchid: quietly blooming. Happy Sunday!
This is an orchid that my daughter bought for my wife on her birthday the beginning of August. It has been quietly blooming on the entertainment center by our front windows ever since. Occasionally I look at it and think I should photograph it. It is a thing of beauty and I should celebrate it! Yesterday I took it out to the back deck and actually did it 🙂
I could not find and did not take the time to improvise a completely dark background, and I don’t have the sophisticated lighting required for a studio style shot anyway, so I made do with the shadowed trees around the deck and my Samsung Smart Camera in Macro mode. I did do some extra processing to isolate the flower in Snapseed. Besides my usual Ambiance and Structure adjustments, I used the Center Focus filters to blur and darken the background, then finished off with a dark frame just highlighted with a thin white edge.
All in all I think it works. It is certainly a beautiful flower. Nothing I could do could obscure that, and I am hoping my efforts do help to capture and share that beauty.
And for the Sunday Thought. I am reminded by this birthday flower that my wife too is a thing of beauty, quietly blooming, and that I do not take time often enough to celebrate her. Her beauty is more a matter of character and harder to capture and to share, but that does not mean I should not make the effort. So, Carol, this orchid and my efforts are for you this morning. An orchid quietly blooming. 🙂
Another England
I have been playing with Snapseed on Nexus 7 v2 these past few days, and seeing the potential with some recent Smart Camera HDRs, I had to go back and reprocess a few of my pics from England. This one is from the grounds of the Gretham Valley Golf Club and Conference Center where we stay while working the British Bird Fair. Who could resist the purple weed in front of the pond under that English sky? I could not 🙂
Rich Tone mode on the Samsung WB250F. Processed with Ambiance, a touch of Saturation, Sharpness and Structure in Snapseed. Snapseed really does an excellent job of picking up an HDR without producing halo at the light/dark boundaries.
Last Rose of Summer
I went down to the beach yesterday to see if there were any birds around to digiscope, and got honestly and seriously distracted by the amazing sky 🙂 And it was cold at the beach! Not jacket cold, but chill enough in the wind so that I was not truly comfortable in my shirt, birding vest, and shorts. Fall is coming on way too fast.
As I say, I could not resist the sky, and there were just a few Beach Roses blooming very late right in front of one of my favorite views. Okay! Pic-op.
I used the Samsung Smart Camera’s in-camera HDR mode (Rich Tone), and then processed the image for maximum impact in Snapseed on the Nexus 7 v.2. Snapseed has matured since I last tried it. It now works with full resolution files. I like several of the editing features: Ambience and Structure in particular, and I like the slide to adjust metaphor. It is as close to Lightroom as Android is likely to get 🙂
And for this image I got the effect I was after. The last rose of summer, with fall coming on too fast!
Mazarine Blue. Holland
I don’t chase little blue butterflies much anymore. I have learned the hard way that you rarely get the shot you would like and I have enough pics of a closed blue, generally tipped over on its side somehow, thank you very much! However, on my last day in the field at the Oostvaarderplassen in Holland, this one posed irresitably. I think it might be the Mazarine Blue, which is said to be a common Blue through-out Europe. It is certainly a well worn specimen, but it has the blue over the body that seems, at least in my brief study of internet resources, to give it away. I could certainly be persuaded otherwise by anyone more in touch with European butterflies 🙂
Canon SX50HS at 1800mm equivalent field of view. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed on then go with PicSay Pro on the Nexus 7 2013.
Sand Lizard. Germany.
I spent much more time in the countryside in Germany on this last trip than I have ever before. While I did not see a lot of wildlife, except for birds, I did see some. This the Sand Lizard, perhaps the most common native lizard in Germany. I love the patterns and the colors here!
Canon SX50HS at 1800mm equivalent field of view (full zoom plus 1.5x digital tel-converter). Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. f6.5 @ 1/500th @ ISO 800. Processed on the go in PicSay Pro on the Nexus 7 FHD.
Tide combed grass
I find the patterns that a flood tide leaves in the marsh grasses fascinating. Add the intense sky if a passing front, and you have the ingredients of an image. Then shoot it as an in-camera HDR and process it creatively and you get something Turner might have enjoyed painting. Well, at least a hint of Turner’s heightened vision (version?) of reality. 🙂
This is a stretch of the Mousam River valley near its mouth in Kennebunk Maine.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone mode. Processed using the filters and enhancements in the Google+ app on the Nexus 7 FHD.
Goldfinch
For some reason there have been a lot of Goldfinches around this summer…more than I can remember in any recent year. I found this one in my photo prowl to Quest Ponds in search of dragonflies yesterday. Who can resist a nicely posed Goldfinch…even if slightly fluffed up? 🙂
Canon SX50HS at 1800mm effective field of view. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation.