All posts by Ed Rosack

Catching up

January 30, 2011Cameras and Photography, Circle B Bar Reserve, INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWRBarred Owl, birds, BPWD, landscape, Scrub Ridge Trail, Spoonbill, sunriseEd Rosack

Hello again, readers! I apologize for a somewhat lengthy post, but today I wanted to catch you up on photo related happenings over the last couple of weeks – so there are several topics worth mentioning.

Circle B Bar Reserve

A week ago (Saturday, 22 Jan), I returned to the Circle B Bar over in Lakeland Florida with the Photography Interest Group. The first time I wrote about this place, I said: “I’ve only been to the Circle B once, and need to go several more times to get an idea of how consistent the photo ops there are.” Well, the second visit lived up to the first, starting with a quite pretty dawn:

Dawn at the Circle B Bar Reserve

One of the highlights of this trip was seeing a Barred Owl and getting a relatively good photo of it. The owl was high in a tree and ended up attracting quite a crowd before it got tired of us and flew off. The lighting was a bit tough – I’m glad I had my flash and Better Beamer ready.

Barred Owl watches photographers

We also sighted Ospreys, Red Shouldered Hawks, a Red Bellied Woodpecker, Whistling Ducks, and many other birds. Unfortunately, the beautiful yellow sunflowers that were all over the place last time are no longer there. They are seasonal and to see them you’ll have to return around mid to late November next year. All in all, a very nice trip and the Circle B definitely lived up to its reputation once again. You can look at more of my photos from the Circle B in this set on Flickr.

Black Point Wildlife Drive

Yesterday, I visited Black Point again. I’m not sure why, but this place seems to be really great for photos with reflections. Quite often the water is extremely calm and you can see scenes like these:

Clear day, calm water

Spoonbill and reflection

There was a lot of activity at Black Point. We spotted an otter, Hooded Mergansers, Belted Kingfishers, Hawks, and many other species. We also paused for a while to watch a pair of Ospreys fishing. They were too far away for good photos, and never came closer even though we had fish jumping out of the water right in front of us! You can look at more of my photos from Black Point in this set on Flickr.

Scrub Ridge Trail

A couple of weeks ago on Flickr, I saw some very nice photos of Florida Scrub Jays, made by “moonfloweryoli“. I commented on them and she mentioned a trail in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge where she saw them. This led us to an add a second expedition to yesterday’s Black Point visit. We wanted to try to observe this unique species that only lives here in Florida. To make a long story short, we tried hard, but we never saw any. We’ll have to go back and try again. Kevin K. did make this image to document our search:

“Wilbur” and “Donuts” looking for the hard to find Florida Scrub Jay (image courtesy of Kevin Krause); Your humble author is the one on the left.

Alligator Farm and Gatorland blogs

A quick update for those of you looking for info on the St. Augustine Alligator Farm or Gatorland. I reported back in November that Gatorland was canceling its photographer early entry program. The Gatorland Blog hasn’t been updated since then, so it’s a bit hard to find out what’s going on at that park.

Meanwhile, the St. Augustine Alligator Farm announced they would continue their photographer early entry program. They’ve been running a mailing list on Yahoo where you could find information, and last week they announced that they’ll be discontinuing this and starting a blog of their own. It’s now up and running, check it out.

Sigma 150 – 500

Finally, here’s an equipment update. I’ve been doing much of my bird photography since early last year with a Sigma 150 – 500 OS lens. I’ve been very happy with it and one of my few complaints was that the Optical Stabilization was a bit noisy. Lately, it’s developed a “chatter” where it sounds like the OS motor is vibrating back and forth. While it does this, you can see the image vibrating through the viewfinder. I called Sigma and they said to send it back. So I’ll be without it for a while. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

That’s all for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Two Image Pano / HDR / Focus Stacking

January 21, 2011Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Technique, Viera WetlandsHDR, landscape, panorama, post processing, sunriseEd Rosack

Intro

It’s been a while since I posted an in depth technique article, so I thought I’d do another one. Warning: Major photo geek out ahead. If you’re not into HDR, panoramas, post processing, etc. please move along.

…

OK, now that it’s just us photo nerds left, wanna see some sausage made? Let’s get started.

My question to you: What if you want more pixels in your final image, more dynamic range in both highlights and shadows, and better depth of field, all by using a much simpler technique than you might normally use? How would you go about it? I’ll explain one approach I used recently to make this lead photo from my previous post:

Finished image (click to view on Flickr)

I made this with a 12 megapixel Nikon D700, but my final image file is 4238 pixels wide by 5776 pixels tall (about 24.5 Megapixels). It has good depth of field with objects from very close out to the horizon in focus. It also has good dynamic range with both the ground and the sunrise & clouds well exposed.

Details

If you were going to create an image like this using conventional techniques, it could require 6 or more exposures. You’d mount your camera on a tripod and manual focus. You might analyze the scene to decide on an optimum exposure. Then you’d make three bracketed exposures around that, first of the lower portion of the image, then shifting your camera viewpoint up toward the clouds – three more bracketed exposures. Then you’d use panorama software to combine the three pairs of images at each exposure value, followed by HDR software to combine the three resulting panoramas into an HDR file and tone map it. You might have to play with the result quite a bit to eliminate noise, ghosting, etc. introduced by the HDR software. And if you wanted to stretch the depth of field, you might go through this twice with different focus points, and combine them too. In some situations, you could also try using graduated neutral density filters to control dynamic range.

Whew – that could be a whole lot of work! I didn’t do all that. Instead, I used a much simpler idea. Basically, I just combined two images manually in Photoshop.

If you’re still with me, read on (it might look complicated, but it’s actually harder to read about than do). Here are the details.

I hand held my camera and used an image stabilized lens so I didn’t have to worry too much about longer exposures. The camera was in landscape orientation. I used aperture priority, with matrix metering auto exposure, and auto focus using the center focus point. When I made these, I held my camera very carefully to make sure there was no side to side movement and that the horizon was level so there was no rotation between shots, and I made sure there was at least 30% vertical overlap between the two images. I also shot in RAW mode for the best dynamic range and control over processing.
For this first photo, I pointed at the sky and let the camera auto expose for the bright clouds and sunrise. It also auto focused on the clouds in the middle of the frame. It’s at 16 mm, ISO 200, and f/8 @ 1/160 sec. Here’s the unprocessed RAW source image for the sky:

For this second photo I pointed down at the ground and this time the camera exposed for the dark foreground. It auto focused on the ripples in the water just short of the first coot (again in the middle of the frame). It’s at 16 mm, ISO 200, and f/8 @ 1/25 sec. (almost 3 stops more exposure). Here’s the unprocessed RAW source image for the ground:

_DSC1056 — RAW source image for the ground

Then I processed the RAW photos. I used Capture NX2 and converted them to TIF, but you could use Photoshop to convert them and not need CaptureNX2. I set picture control to neutral, white balance to daylight, enabled distortion correction, and tried to bring both photos closer in overall brightness. Here are the two processed images:

_DSC1058-2 — Sky image after RAW conversion

_DSC1056-2 — Ground image after RAW conversion

Next I loaded the files into Photoshop as separate layers in the same file, and used Photoshop’s Edit / Auto Align Layers function to place the two images relative to each other.
At this point, I added a layer mask (reveal all) for the sky image and then painted black to remove the portions below the horizon that I didn’t need. It was fairly easy to blend the images by changing the brush opacity and either erasing or painting in until it looked correct.
The final steps then are the same ones used for any photo: crop, sharpen, levels, apply any creative filters you like, etc.

Once you go through this a few times, it’ll be easier and you can, of course vary some of these steps based on your own preferences.

Conclusions

I think this “Two Image Pano / HDR / Focus Stacking” technique can be really useful and it has several advantages over standard approaches normally used for this kind of image.

Benefits

It’s simpler than conventional techniques, and yields very good results.
You can hand hold in many cases, especially if you use an image stabilized camera or lens.
It uses the camera’s auto exposure effectively to expose correctly for the different areas of the image.
You can post process with just Photoshop – other software isn’t required.
It greatly increases the dynamic range of the final image without requiring HDR processing or software. It doesn’t require a straight line horizon like graduated neutral density filters would.
Depth of field can be increased over that in a single exposure or in a conventional pano / HDR approach.
It also substantially increases vertical field of view.

Limitations

This technique is situation dependent: It’ll only produce portrait or perhaps square orientation output images (although you’ll have lots of pixels to crop to other formats). It only works where the scene is easily divided into two portions where the brightness varies vertically. Also,the dynamic range increase available from just two images may not be enough in all situations.

So, should you use it?

Why not? Under the right conditions, it can generate very good results with minimal effort. Now that you’ve heard about this technique, you can watch for scenes where you may be able to use it.

Then you can try it – and please let me know how it works for you.

A very nice Viera morning

January 15, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera Wetlandsbirds, Cormorant, Fish, landscape, sunrise, Wilson's SnipeEd Rosack

Although it was very tempting to sleep in this morning, I was up early and made it over to Viera Wetlands in time to witness another one of nature’s shows. The clouds cooperated and did their part, the sun and calm water pitched in, a couple of coots made just the right ripples, and all I had to do was snap the shutter.

Sunrise at Viera Wetlands

Once the sun was up, we parked the cars and walked for a while, thinking that the slow deliberate approach would yield better photos than the quick drive method. It didn’t – we failed to find much of interest on foot. The light wasn’t very good either – due to the clouds that made the sunrise so nice. We ended up getting back in the cars and using them to find things of interest. And after a while, the clouds cleared and we had better light for bird photography.

Last week we saw several Snipes, but couldn’t get good photos since they took off and flew fast and erratic as soon as we got close. This week our luck was better (or this bird was a bit tired). He stayed still for us to make his portrait.

Wilson’s (Common) Snipe

We saw the usual Heron and Egret suspects, along with Anhingas, Hawks, Black Crowned Night Herons, American Bitterns, Savannah Sparrows, Northern Shovelers, and Sandhill Cranes. I was able to photograph two new (for me) species – Ring Neck Ducks, and Lesser Scaups.

We also took a turn ’round the click ponds and there was a great deal of activity there. This Cormorant surprised me when he came up with his breakfast.

Cormorant with fish

We had a great time. Clicking on these photos will open them on Flickr, where you can view larger versions. You can also visit my Viera Wetlands set on Flickr to see other photos I’ve made there.

Jim Goldstein’s Best Photo Project

January 12, 2011Cameras and Photography, VARIOUSEd Rosack

Since 2007, Jim Goldstein has been organizing a “your best photos” project among the readers of his blog. I participated last year and this year, and I’m grateful to Jim for organizing this.

The 2010 results were published today, and the images from all of these photographers are outstanding and well worth a look. You can read more on Jim’s blog here: Best Photos of 2010 by JMG-Galleries Blog Readers

NOTE: Maintaining links this old has gotten hard as of 2019. So I’ve had to delete the web references. Sorry for the inconvenience.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

via JMG-Galleries and Borrowlenses.com

1. – JMG-Galleries
2. Best Photos of 2010 by Matthias Wassermann – Mawpix.com
3. Exploring Light -Top Photos 2010 – Chris Moore
4. My Top Ten Photos for 2010 – Tom Varden
5. My Top Ten Photos of 2010 | Craig’s Musings – Craig Vitter
6. Top 10 Photos for 2010 | Dobson Central – Ken Dobson
7. Best Photos of 2010 – Carol Bauer
8. My Best photos from 2010 – Janis Janums
9. My Best Photos of 2010 – David Daylor | SixtyOneNorth.com
10. 2010 – Year In Review – Jon McCormack Photography – Jon McCormack
11. S Zacharias: Best of 2010 – Stephen Zacharias
12. 2010 Photos – David Hernandez
13. Iceman Photography – Top 10 in 2010
14. Best of 2010 – Dave Wilson
15. Skolai Images – Bears of 2010 – Carl Donohue
16. My Best Photos From 2010 – Art Kuntz
17. 2010 in Review – Jay Goodrich
18. – Sven Seebeck ***
19. Lunchisoptional: Favorites of Year: 2010 Edition — Ken Trout
20. My ten favorite photos of 2010 – Stefan Bäurle
21. Top 10 of 2010 – Behind The Clicks – Mohammad Noman
22. Top Ten Photos Of 2010 – Jed Link
23. 2010 in Review – kRiZ cPEc Photo Blog
24. Chuqui.com- Best Photos 2010 – Chuq Von Rospach
25. My Favorite Photos of 2010 – Ed Rosack
26. 2010 Favorites
27. Favorites of 2010 – Kevin Moore
28. Top 10 of 2010 from BlazingB Photography – Bill Pennington ***
29. My Favorite Photos of 2010 – Mike Criss ***
30. My faves from 2010 – Matt Smith
31. My favourite shots of 2010 – Catalin Marin | Momentary Awe ***
32. 2010 a Year in Review, My Top 10 Memorable/Favorite shots – Mike Criswell
33. Craig Ferguson Images – A Year In Photos – Craig Ferguson
34. Top 50 Images from 2010 and Goal Setting – Mike Cavaroc
35. Jim’s Photography – Jim Wheeler
36. Sharpimage.net – The best of 2010 – David Sharp
37. StephenWeaver Photography/Earth Systems Imaging-Stephen G. Weaver
38. Best of 2010 – Changing Perspectives – Jenni Brehm
39. Best of 2010 – Thomas Kneppeck
40. 2010 Favorite Images – Alpenglow Images – Greg Russell
41. Best Images of 2010 – Peter Cox Photography – Peter Cox
42. Best of 2010| Simon Says – Simon Ponder
43. My Favorites Shots of 2010 – Fine Art Prints – Jeff Colburn
44. Mountain and Climbing Photography – Alexandre Buisse
45. Siam In Contrast 2010 – Adrian Young
46. Olivier Du Tré | 2010 in review (black and white)
47. John Dunne Photography | My Top 10 Favourite Images of 2010 – John Dunne
48. Best of 2010 Flickr Set – Tony Rath
49. Top 10 from 2010 – Behind-the-lens-lukey – Luke Weymark
50. Evan Gearing Photography’s Top 10 of 2010 – Evan Gearing
51. 2010 Photos in Review: Water – Rebecca R Jackrel ***
52. Justin Korn [dot] com – Best of 2010 – Justin Korn
53. My Best Photos of 2010: Learning and Growing> – D. Travis North
54. Uncommon Depth – Roberta Murray
55. Organic Light Photography Best of 2010 – Youssef Ismail / Organic Light Photography
56. The Best of 2010 – blackandwhite.ie – Neil McShane
57. My Best of 2010 – Larry Rosenstein
58. Will Wohler Photography: 2010 A Year in Review – Will Wohler
59. digitizedchaos – best of 2010 – rian castillo
60. My Top 10 from 2010 – Chaz Curry Photography ***
61. My best underwater photos 2010 – Suzy Walker ***
62. Favorite Photographs From 2010 – Fine Art Landscape Photography of Seung Kye Lee ***
63. Best photos from 2010 – Amanda Herbert
64. Wrapping Up 2010: My Favorite Photographs – Ivan Makarov Photography
65. Graf Nature Photography | Reflections on 2010 photographs – MARK GRAF
66. VACANT SHOP IN DOWNTOWN SANTA BARBARA – G. Kaltenbrun
67. Pat O’Brien Photography – A Look Back at 2010 – Pat O’Brien
68. G Dan Mitchell – 2010 Favorites – G Dan Mitchell ***
69. Favorite Photo of 2010 – Naturalvision-photo.com –Derek Griggs
70. Crest, Cliff & Canyon – Jackson Frishman
71. 2010 In Review – Photoimagery.net – Peter McCabe ***
72. Favorite Photos from 2010 – In the Field Photo Blog – Richard Wong ***
73. Year in Review Best Photos of 2010 – Matt Graham Photo Blog – Matt Graham
74. Elizabeth Brown Photography PhotoBlog: Ten Favorite Photos of 2010 – Elizabeth Brown
75. My Top Photos of 2010 – Jonesblog – Bryan William Jones
76. latoga photograph: My Favorite Photos of 2010 – Greg A. Lato
77. Best of 2010 Images – Rob Tilley
78. Living Wilderness: 12 Best from 2010 – Kevin Ebi ***
79. Highlights of 2010 – TO KNOW MORE WEB JOURNAL – KENT MEARIG ***
80. My Best Photos of 2010 – Michael Russell | Michael Russell Photography
81. Best Photographs of 2010 – Chuck Goolsbee
82. Favourite Photos from 2010 – Tim Smalley
83. My Best 10 Photos 2010 – A Reconnection to Nature – Mark Fenwick
84. Best of 2010 – Quotidian Photography – Jessica Sweeney
85. My Top Images of 2010 – ANDREW KEE
86. A Photo A Day… Done! – WelliverPhotography – Beth Welliver
87. Batsto Village – Louis Dallara Photo Blog – Louis Dallara
88. Best 10 of 2010 – John Wall’s Natural California ***
89. 10 from 2010 on the Ann-alog – Ann Torrence ***
90. Favorite Photos from 2010 – My Photo Blog – Ron Niebrugge ***
91. My favorite photos 2010 on Flickr – Markus Heinisch ***
92. My best photos of 2010 – Mike Hellers
93. Dave Reichert’s Best Of 2010 – Dave Reichert
94. Photographs: 2010 Revisited – Joseph Szymanski
95. Best Pics 2010 on Flickr – Michael Rubin
96. My 10 Best Shots of 2010 – ROBIN BLACK PHOTOGRAPHY – ROBIN BLACK
97. Top 10 from 2010 – Anne McKinnell
98. Vanilla Days – Best of 2010 – Pete Carr
99. Top Photos of 2010 – Gary Crabbe / Enlightened Images ***
100. Top Images from 2010 – Russ Bishop | Nature Photo Blog
101. Favourite photos from 2010 – Bryn Tassell ***
102. 10 Best Photos of 2010 by Scott Thompson – Scott Thompson
103. My Top 10 photos of 2010 – Alexander S. Kunz ***
104. My 10 Best for 2010 – Dan Baumbach ***
105. Unified Photography – Best Photos of 2010 – Ken Snyder
106. 5 From 2010 – Contemporary Wildlife Photography – David Lloyd
107. Top 10 Photos of 2010 – Steven Bourelle Digital Arts
108. 2010 Top Ten Photos – Andrew S Gibson
109. 2010 Reflections – Dru Stefan Stone – Dru-Color My World
110. Best of 2010 – Dave Hammaker
111. Top 20 of 2010 – Jenna Stirling
112. LandLopers.com Top Travel Photos of 2010 – Matt Long
113. Best of 2010 – Stephen Davey
114. Landscape Photography Blogger My Favorite Photos of 2010 – David Leland Hyde ***
115. Views Infinitum – Best of 2010 – Scott Thomas
116. One Per Trip – Favorite Travel Photos From 2010 – The Carey Adventures – PETER WEST CAREY
117. Best of 2010 – I Love It, SF – Kara Murphy
118. My top 10 pictures from 2010 – Duffy Knox
119. Burrard-Lucas Photography – Will & Matt Burrard-Lucas ***
120. Hank Christensen Photography Top 10 2010 – Hank Christensen
121. My Best Photos from 2010 – 365-1/4 Sra
122. Top Ten Images of 2010 – Michael Frye ***
123. Jono Hey’s Best of 2010 on Flickr – JONO HEY
124. My Favorite Photographs from 2010 – Stories From Home –David Patterson ***
125. My 2010 Best Images of California and Arizona – Steve Sieren ***
126. My Top 10 Landscapes of 2010 – Andre Leopold
127. Best of 2010 set on Flickr – Erik Turner
128. This was 2010 on Flickr – Jeffrey Van Daele
129. Top 10 of 2010 – Brian Mangano
130. Best Photos of 2010 – KBTImages – Kevin Thornhill
131. Best Photos of 2010 – The Sun Shines & The Igloo Melts
132. Top 10 of 2010 – Chad Griggs
133. Best Photos of 2010 – WASEEF AKHTAR
134. My Favorite Images from 2010 – Outdoor Exposure Photography by Sean Bagshaw – Sean Bagshaw ***
135. My Best Shots of 2010 – Annika Ruohonen Photography – Annika Ruohonen
136. Top sights from 2010 – Mariana Travieso Bassi
137. Year 2010 in Korwel Photography – Iza Korwel
138. WISCONSIN SUMMER – Jarrod Erbe
139. Best Photos of 2010 – Jim Stamates
140. Top 10 of 2010 – Younes Bounhar
141. Light on the Landscape Photoblog/My Favorite Images of 2010 – WILLIAM NEILL ***
142. My Best Photos of 2010 – Itsa a greyt day for a photo – Terri Jacobson
143. Listening to Nature Photography Blog by Rhoda Maurer – RHODA MAURER ***
144. My favorites of 2010 – David Richter
145. Best of 2010 – View from the Little Red Tent – Edie Howe
146. tmophoto best of 2010 – Thomas O’Brien
147. Best Photos Of 2010 – Dawnstar Australis – Daniel McNamara
148. Top 10 of 2010 – Cranial Aperture – Jeffrey Yen
149. 10 Best Favorites of 2010 – Sudheendra Kadri ***
150. Flickr – Best of 2010 – Chris Arts
151. Flickr: Best of 2010 – Heidi Donat
152. Best Photo of 2010 – Anton Huo
153. Best of 2010 – Travel & Landscape – Eugene Cheng
154. Preetalina Photography: 2010 Favorites – Preeti Desai
155. Hidden Light Photography 2010 Favorites – Alan Williams
156. 5Mae 2010 Favourites Flickr Set – Sarah-Mae
157. Best Photos of 2010 – John Fujimagari ***
158. Best of 2010 – Paavani Bishnoi
159. Best Photos of 2010 – Phil Colla ***
160. 100 Favorites from 2010 – Patrick J. Endres ***
161. Top Ten Of 2010 – Steve Cole Photography
162. Some of My Favorite Images From 2010
163. Clark Crenshaw Photography ***

The Photography Interest Group Visits Viera

January 9, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera WetlandsAnhinga, Belted Kingfisher, birds, Click Ponds, Great Blue HeronEd Rosack

Our local photography club organized an expedition to Viera Wetlands yesterday. It was one of our larger outings, with 8 people from the group there, including one new member. We arrived just after sunrise and spent a little over 2 hours exploring the main site, and also took a quick tour of the click ponds.

Great Blue Heron: These birds aren’t nesting yet, but they do seem to be reserving their spots.

Wow – what a day for avian variety and nature lovers! The weather was quite nice too – sunny with temperatures in the 50s. There isn’t much nesting going on yet, but we did see an amazing number of both year-round and winter visitor species. Several of these birds are difficult to spot and / or photograph well and it helps to make multiple circuits of the wetlands. It also really helps to have multiple sets of eyes watching for and pointing out interesting things. About the only thing we struck out on was the River Otters, but we did hear others talking about them – so they were around somewhere.

Belted Kingfisher: There were several of these at Viera Wetlands yesterday. They generally stayed out in the middle of the cells and so were hard to photograph.

Here’s a list of birds we spotted: American Bittern, Anhinga, Belted Kingfisher, Blue Wing Teal, Coot, Double Crested Cormorant, Glossy Ibis, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Green Wing Teal, Little Blue Heron, Little Egret, Hooded Merganser, Common Moorhen, Northern Harrier, Northern Shoveler, Red Shouldered Hawk, Gulls, Snowy Egret, Tricolored Heron, Wilson’s (or Common?) Snipe, White Ibis, Wood Stork, and others that I probably forgot or that we still have to identify.

Anhinga

If you haven’t been to Viera Wetlands recently, you really ought to check it out.

You can click on these photos to go to Flickr where you can look at larger versions. You can see more of my photos from Viera Wetlands in this set on Flickr. You can also visit our photography club’s group photo pool on Flickr here.

Winter winged visitors

January 2, 2011INSIDE FLORIDAbirds, BPWD, wildlifeEd Rosack

If you enjoy birding and / or bird photography – Central Florida offers many opportunities. The winter months especially can be quite rewarding. Insects and heat are much less of a bother, and many species that aren’t here year round, do visit. This allows us to expand our observation beyond the birds we typically see. Also, with less vegetation cover, some smaller birds are easier to spot.

I visited both Viera Wetlands and Black Point Wildlife drive over the past week and here are some of the less common (at least for me) birds that I saw:

Belted Kingfisher, Black Point – Winter, non-breeding (in central Florida; they are year round in north Florida)

Hooded Merganser, Black Point and Viera – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida

Killdeer, Black Point and Viera – Year round, but easier to observe in the winter

Loggerhead Shrike, Viera – Year round, but easier to observe in the winter

Northern Harrier, Black Point – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida

Savannah Sparrow, Viera – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida

White Pelicans, Black Point – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida

Last winter, I also saw these at Viera:

American Bittern – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida

Masked Duck – uncommon in central Florida

I’m certain there are many more “snow” birds that I’ve yet to see in Central Florida. And that’s one reason to continue to look.

Happy New Year and thanks for looking at my blog.

Goodbye, Kodachrome – we'll miss you.

December 31, 2010Cameras and Photography, OUTSIDE FLORIDA, VARIOUSFlowers, Germany, Kodachrome, Madonna, MunichEd Rosack

Kodachrome slide made in Munich, Germany in May of 1980.

Kodak discontinued the manufacture of Kodachrome slide film in 2009 and yesterday, the last Kodachrome film processing machine in the world (at Dwayne’s Photo in Parson, Kansas) was shut down. You had to be careful with it – but when well exposed, Kodachrome rewarded us with wonderful, detailed slides that exploded onto projection screens.

Kodachrome is also known for its storage longevity. I re-scanned one of my Kodachrome slides today to see how well it’s held up since I made it over 30 years ago – quite well, I think. I don’t have many other things still around that I owned that long ago. Do you?

Madonna, Child, tulips

Universal's Islands of Adventure

December 28, 2010INSIDE FLORIDA, Theme Parksfood, Harry Potter, Islands of Adventure, reviews, shushiEd Rosack

Intro / Description

I apologize for not publishing a post last weekend. We’ve had a very busy week with family and the Christmas holiday. I’ll try to make up for it today with this Central Florida Photo Op review of Universal’s Islands of Adventure Theme park.

Dawn at Hogwarts Castle

Islands of Adventure is right next to Universal Studios and City Walk and is one of the newest theme parks in the Orlando area. It opened in 1998, and this year (2010), Universal added a new “island” to the park – The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This much awaited addition has been extremely popular and is a must see for Harry Potter fans.

Ollivander’s wand shop

The park also has a Port of Entry and 5 other “islands”: Marvel Super Hero Island; Toon Lagoon; Jurassic Park; The Lost Continent; and Suess Landing. Depending on your interests these will be more or less appealing to you.

Info for Photographers

Photo hints: The line to the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey winds through Hogwarts Castle and has many, many photo ops along the way. Be prepared so you don’t hold up people or lose your place. Most of the photo ops are at close range, so use your flash and fire away.

Tripod/Monopod: I did see one person using a tripod, but I think it’s very impractical. When you’re inside and need it, you won’t have time or space to use it because you’ll be in a ride queue. Outside you’ll have plenty of light, and the crowds will make setting up very difficult. And the less equipment you have to carry on the sometimes cramped rides, the better.

Lenses: Nothing too extreme is needed – a mid range zoom is enough to capture many fine images at this park. You can use a flash too, so you don’t have to worry too much about fast, heavy lenses.

Best time to visit: Winter is a great time to visit, since you’ll be blessed with fine Florida weather. If you time your visit right, you can even see some color in our trees.

Fall colors

Pick a day when no fronts are coming through and you’ll avoid the rain. If you’re a big Harry Potter fan, you’ll want to research strategies for the best ways to get in quickly to this area – it can get quite jammed with muggles. We arrived at the park before it opened, made straight for the area and did pretty well. Other people have had luck avoiding long lines by going late at night just before the park closes.

The muggles crowd in Hogsmeade Village

Other:

Several rides at Islands of Adventure will get you and possibly your photo gear wet. Take precautions when riding Popey & Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges, Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls, and Jurassic Park River Adventure. There are lockers where you can store your gear. I wasn’t comfortable taking expensive camera gear through wet rides or leaving it in lockers, so I made do with my small Canon S90 which I could protect in my pocket.

The Mythos restaurant in the Lost Continent area is rated very highly and has some of the best theme park food in the world. It’s also fairly reasonably priced. We very much enjoyed our meal.

Tempura Shrimp Sushi appetizer

Summary

You can click on any of the photos above to go to Flickr, where you can see a larger version. The link to the rest of my Islands of Adventure photos is right below. You can look at all of the photos from our Christmas holidays in this Flickr set. Thanks for stopping by.

My Gallery / Flickr photo set:	http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/sets/72157625691192000/
Website:	http://www.universalorlando.com/Amusement_Parks/Islands_of_Adventure/islands_of_adventure.aspx
Address / Phone:	Parking Garage: 6000 Universal Boulevard Orlando, FL 32819 Main Number: 407-363-8000 Longitude: -81.46228 Latitude: 28.47399 View in Google Maps
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating:	Harry Potter fans can’t go wrong in this point and shoot paradise.

My Favorite Photos of 2010

December 19, 2010VARIOUSAlligator, beach, birds, Cormorant, Cypress, Fish, Flowers, Koi, lighthouse, panorama, star, sunrise, sunset, tree, wildlifeEd Rosack

I hope that all of you and your families and friends are having a joyful and happy holiday season!

The weather has been pretty gloomy here this weekend, so I didn’t get a chance to go out and make any new photos. I thought it would be a good time to jump the gun and put together my second annual “Favorite photos of the year” post.

One again, I’ve gone through the photos I made in the last 12 months. I use Lightroom to rate them from 0 through 5 stars. My rating system definitions are:

1 star – The photo is interesting
2 stars – The photo is worth showing to others
3 stars – The photo is the best of (or one of the best of ) any given photo shoot
4 stars – My favorite photo of a year
5 stars – My favorite photo (ever)

Photos without stars are seconds or not so good versions of other photos. I usually keep them, but they probably won’t get any more attention. I’ve used this system consistently, and it seems to work for me. Of course, this is all subjective and my opinion only. Feel free to disagree, but I hope you’ll enjoy looking at the ones I’ve chosen.

Again in 2010, I was really blessed with a huge number of photo opportunities. On my hard drive in my 2010 folder, I have about 11,700 files (not all are photos), taking up 145GB of space. Of these:

5997 of the 2010 images have been cataloged in Lightroom. Many of the rest are source images for multi-shot panoramas or HDRs, or high rate bursts that I selected from.
1139 are rated 1 star or higher
639 are 2 star or higher
88 are 3 star or higher
1 is 4 star, and
None are 5 star (I’m still not done taking photos yet!)

Of the 88 that are 3 star or higher, I’ve selected 10 images to include in a gallery of my favorite 2010 photos. You can click on each of these to go to Flickr, where you can see a larger version. One interesting difference from my 2009 Favorite Photos post is that all the ones this year were made in the Central Florida area.

So, here we go…

My #10 favorite 2010 photo is: Waving Gator. Gators always smile at you, but this one was even waving! No, I didn’t Photoshop the wave. The gator really did it all by itself. I have witnesses.

My #9 favorite 2010 photo is: Roadside Flowers. Wildflower photography is a little different in Central Florida than some other areas of the country. Some might say it’s more challenging here, and I doubt anyone comes to Central Florida specifically to photograph wildflowers. None the less, wildflower photo ops are around here too if you keep your eyes open. These are along the Florida Turnpike. I saw them while driving home from Gainesville, Florida and just had to stop and photograph them.

My #8 favorite 2010 photo is: Cattle Egret in Flight. For once, I was ready when this bird flew close by. Right lens, correct camera settings, and paying attention. I could almost feel my camera nail the shot. I wish I felt like that more often.

My #7 favorite 2010 photo is: One Second Koi or “One second, Koi” or “One second Koi?” I don’t usually make this sort of photo. On this occasion, I decided to experiment and I was very pleased with how it turned out.

My #6 favorite 2010 photo is: Sunrise, fog, palms, pond. This scene is close to the north-west shore of Lake Jessup. On this particular morning, the mist in the distance and the clouds on the horizon shaping the sunlight drew my attention.

My #5 favorite 2010 photo is: Burning waters @ Orlando Wetlands. We were at Orlando Wetlands Park back in late September before dawn. It was raining very softly, but not enough to discourage us from hiking out to Lake Searcy and capturing this scene. I like the light hitting the flowers on the left, the rain cloud in the distance, and the dawn colors in the sky.

My #4 favorite 2010 photo is: Grasshopper and Donuts perform photo-magic on the beach under the stars for an audience of three.

We have a local camera club and three of us decided to go over to the beach to try to photograph the Perseid meteor shower. My two friends went out on the beach while I stayed up on the boardwalk. At one point I looked down and could barely make out this scene in the dark. I like the way the camera’s LCD is lit up and draws the viewer’s eye to the two photographers. I also like how the three strangers (who were watching for meteors) look like they’re watching my friends.

I was using ISO 1600 and my “nifty 50” 50mm lens at f/1.8 to keep exposures as short as possible (I was trying to prevent the stars from trailing), and I had focused manually at infinity. All I had to do was switch on live-view, re-compose, and zoom in on my friend’s white shirt to manually re-focus. Fortunately no one moved very much during the 4 second exposure. It’s really amazing how modern cameras can capture scenes that are barely visible to our eyes! And yes, we did get a few meteor photos. (Grasshopper and Donuts are nicknames for the two photographers in the scene).

My #3 favorite 2010 photo is: Cyprus tree and knees. I wanted to try the Nikon D7000 on some landscape photos, but didn’t really have time to go anywhere special. This tree is very close to my home – along the shore of Lake Jessup in Central Winds Park. Cypress trees make very good photo subjects since they can provide both near and middle distance content for a scene.

My #2 favorite 2010 photo is: Cormorant at the Circle Bar B. These birds have been posing for me lately. I think it’s amazing how pretty they look in the right light.

And … my #1 favorite photo of the year 2010 is: Ponce Inlet light, sunset, bird. Imagine if you will, a perfect dusk scene with sunset colors drifting up from beyond the horizon. In the distance is a photogenic lighthouse that’s illuminated just enough to make it stand out against the bright sky. Beneath your feet, slow-moving Atlantic Ocean surf rolls up on rocks. You spot a bird in the surf and hope it will be still while your shutter remains open for the seconds necessary to record the image as your mind’s eye sees it – tack sharp from foreground rocks all the way to the distant lighthouse, with silky smooth water reflecting the dusk sky. Imagine coming home and seeing the image that you imagined right there on your computer screen in all it’s glory. That’s what happened to me last August.

I’ve uploaded these photos to this Flickr set, and you can click this link to watch a slide show. When you watch the show, you might want to click the “show info” link.

Thanks for looking.

Correcting blur with Topaz InFocus

December 12, 2010Techniquebirds, reviewsEd Rosack

3/19/19 NOTE: This post is no longer current. As of March 2019, Topaz has a new product – Sharpen AI They’re offering a free upgrade for owners of Topaz InFocus, although I’m not sure how long this offer will last.

Introduction

Topaz Labs recently introduced their InFocus plug-in to refine detail, increase clarity, and rescue blurred images. It uses deconvolution and micro texture in addition to the more common unsharp mask algorithm. If you go to the Topaz website, you can read much more about this and their other plug-ins, download the manual as well as a free 30 day trial, and also examine some very impressive examples of this software at work.

So, how well does the plug-in actually work with a real world example? I decided to give it a try. I selected a photo of a hawk that I made recently. You can see the full image here on Flickr. I was happy with the original photo and most of it is sharp, but the bird’s feet are blurred – I think it was shifting positions when I made the photo.

Here’s a crop showing the appearance before I used Topaz InFocus:

Blurred Hawk Feet (_DSC7567) — A portion of the image showing the hawk’s blurry feet.

And this second crop shows the improvement after processing with InFocus:

Not so blurry hawk feet — The same portion of the image, showing the improvement after processing with InFocus

Conclusions and recommendations

InFocus helped me remove a great deal of the blur in this photo. The improvement is good, but not perfect and not quite as dramatic as some of the samples on the Topaz site. It’s very possible that a more experienced / knowledgeable user could do more with this image. I’ll be looking for other examples to try it on and re-reading the manual / watching the tutorial videos to make sure I know how best to use it.

One thing I did notice while playing with the software: The InFocus settings needed to de-blur the hawk’s feet couldn’t be applied to the whole photo without introducing artifacts. I ran a duplicate layer through InFocus and then selectively painted it onto the bird’s feet in Photoshop. You may need to do this too to get the best results.

Should you get a copy of this software? Well I bought one. It seems to work better at de-blurring than I’ve ever been able to do with Photoshop’s built in tools. It’s also quite handy for capture sharpening, even when a photo isn’t obviously blurry.

If you do buy it, spend the time to learn it so you can get good results. You can find the manual and tutorials ~~here~~ (sorry – no longer available).