All posts by Ed Rosack

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).

Return to Seaworld

December 6, 2010INSIDE FLORIDA, Theme Parksbirds, Demoiselle Crane, Seaworld, Wood DuckEd Rosack

We went to Seaworld again at the invitation of the United Way group here in Orlando. They very graciously organize the visit each year to thank people that contribute to the charity. We almost didn’t go due to the weather.

The harbor area at Seaworld

There was a cold front coming through with a strong line of showers ahead of it. When we got out of bed, it was north of us but moving south fast. We decided we’d go anyway and timed our arrival for just after the rain came through. The park wasn’t very crowded. I think the weather discouraged many people from going. As you can see above, it cleared up nicely.

We’re not into roller coasters any more so we didn’t do many of the rides and spent most of our time just walking. I practiced with the D7000 and a wide angle lens. The photo above was made at an 8mm focal length – it’s a challenge to frame a scene with an 8mm lens and not have everything tilt in from the edges.

Here’s a couple more from yesterday.

Wood Duck

Demoiselle Crane

Seaworld is a pleasant place for a walk and offers a number of different photo opportunities. You can see other photos I’ve made at Seaworld in this set on Flickr.

You can read other posts I’ve written about Seaworld here: 2007, here: 2008, and here: 2009.

Circle B Bar Reserve – Lakeland, Florida

November 26, 2010Circle B Bar Reserve, INSIDE FLORIDA, Must do listbirds, Cormorant, Flowers, landscape, reviewsEd Rosack

Intro / Description

This nature wonderland in Lakeland, Florida is named after a cattle ranch that used to exist on the property. It was purchased by Polk County and the SW Florida Water Management District in late 2000. The area is 1,267 acres total and starting in 2005, 400 acres have undergone a marsh reclamation to recreate a natural habitat and food source for many kinds of resident and migrating birds and wildlife. The Circle B is also home to the Polk County Nature Discovery Center.

The western shore of Lake Hancock (from the Alligator Alley trail)

Circle B has a tremendous variety and number of birds. Alligators also inhabit Lake Hancock and can be seen from the trails in several places. There are a variety of different areas on the property including Oak hammock, freshwater marsh, hardwood swamp and the lake shore.

The Circle B has over 7 miles of marked trails for walking or biking. If you go, make sure you see at least the Alligator Alley and Marsh Rabbit Run trails. We hiked these as well as the Shady Oak, Windmill Whisper and portions of Wading Bird Way and Eagle Roost trails when we were there for a total hike of more than 5 miles.

Marsh Rabbit Run trail

In our one visit we saw Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Ibises, Cattle Egrets, Ospreys, Red Shoulder Hawks, Cormorants, Anhingas, Limpkins, Whistling Ducks, Alligators, Turtles, a very brave rabbit and some other things as well. One local photographer we spoke with told us about a Barred Owl in the area as well as some otters, but we never saw them. Next time!

Cormorant – These birds have been posing for me lately.

In addition to the wildlife, the scenery is quite beautiful and different from our normal areas near the coast. There were many types of trees and flowers, including this sunflower variety that was very abundant all over the property.

These sunflowers (?) were all over the Circle B Bar Reserve – very pretty. I wonder if they bloom all the time or if we just happened to be there when they’re in season?

Info for Photographers

Photo hints:

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. If you have the kind of experience we did, you’ll have lots of opportunity for photos of still as well as in-flight birds. If you’re quiet as you walk, you can avoid scaring off the nearby birds and get some better shots. They are somewhat used to people here, but not overly tolerant. Make sure you look all around as you hike (especially up) and take an occasional glance behind to see if you’ve missed anything.

In addition to my photo set from the Circle B, visit the Circle B bar group on Flickr to see what others are photographing there and to read up on discussions about the reserve.

Tripod/Monopod:

Allowed, of course. Tripods would be very handy for landscape photos or (with a gimbal head) for birds. You’ll have to decide how much gear you’re willing to carry on your hike. Since this was a scouting trip, we traveled light and I wished several times that I’d brought my tripod.

Lenses:

Telephoto for birds / wildlife and and wide-angle for landscapes. You’ll need a good range of lenses to cover everything here, but you’ll be able to get some good photos no matter which lens you have with you.

Best time to visit:

As for any place when looking for birds and wildlife, early in the day (or late) is best. I’m not yet sure what times of year are the best here, but mid to late November is definitely worth a visit.

Other:

You’ll be walking a good bit. Make sure you wear comfortable shoes and bring some water with you.

Summary

You can click on any of the photos above to view them on Flickr, where you can also see a larger version.

My Gallery / Flickr photo set:	http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/sets/72157625343566505/
Website:	http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/recreation/areas/circlebbarreserve.html
Address / Phone:	4399 Winter Lake Road (SR 540) Lakeland, FL 33803 (View in Google maps)
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating:	Another CFl Photo Op must do!

Local Park Landscapes

November 21, 2010INSIDE FLORIDA, Lake JesupCypress, sunrise, sunset, treeEd Rosack

Just a short post today with an idea for local photo-ops: How about the parks in your own neighborhood?

I wanted to try out the D7000 on some landscape photos, but didn’t really have time to go anywhere special. Instead, I went out to three local parks and made the photos below.

You’ve seen this tree before – it’s along the shore of Lake Jesup in Central Winds Park. I like this more complete composition, since it includes the cyprus knees.

Cyprus tree and knees

This next one was made at Lake Marie in Trotwood Park. There are almost always at least a few birds in this small lake and last night was no exception.

The geese aren’t watching the sunset

And finally, here’s one from this morning at Sam Smith Park. It was very quiet – almost no wind, which helps wonderfully with reflections in water. The cyprus trees here in Florida do change colors for the winter – the one on the left is starting to turn.

Sunrise and Cyprus

Visit your local parks and make some photos.

Gatorland cancels early entry program

November 15, 2010Gatorland, INSIDE FLORIDA, St. Augustine Alligator Farm, VARIOUSreviewsEd Rosack

Update (1/8/2012): Gatorland has re-instated their photo pass. See their blog post here.

Gatorland in Orlando announced on their Blog that they’re canceling the 2011 Photographers Pass Program. This is very unfortunate for bird photographers, since the early entry / stay late times are during the best light of the day and when there are no “civilian” crowds.

The Alligator Farm in St. Augustine has issued an announcement in response on their mailing list saying that they will continue their Photo Pass / early entry program.

I’ve updated my post comparing Gatorland to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm as I think having a photo pass gives the Alligator Farm a strong advantage for photography.

There’s some discussion of this on Flickr in the Gatorland Group (this discussion has since been deleted).

Sunrise, Otter, Eagle, Cormorants, Raccoon – a nice morning at Viera Wetlands

November 14, 2010Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera Wetlandsbirds, Cormorant, d7000, Eagle, Otter, Raccoon, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

I’m coming down with another cold and wasn’t very enthusiastic about going to Viera Wetlands yesterday. Actually, “not very enthusiastic” is a big understatement. I almost didn’t get out of bed – but now I’m glad I did.

We had to leave at “O dark thirty” to get to the west side of the wetlands just before sunrise. I wanted to try the D7000 out on landscapes and it performed very well. The image below is a single exposure of the sunrise. I don’t care too much for silhouettes – I like to have some detail and color in the shadows. For this one, I exposed at -2 EV to prevent blowing out the sky and then brought up the shadows in post processing. The D7000 recorded a very broad dynamic range and has remarkably little noise in the shadows at base ISO, even when under exposed. This real world example, along with the the results from the recent DxOMark test of the D7000 indicate it’s going to be a very fine landscape camera. The only problem is that I don’t have a very wide lens for it.

Sunrise at Viera Wetlands, D7000, ISO 100, 1/100 sec. @ f/11, 16 mm

As we were photographing the sunrise, an otter swam by right in front of us just past those reeds (about 8 – 10 feet away). That’s the closest one’s ever come to me in the wild. Of course, I didn’t have the right camera set up so I didn’t get a photo. I think the otter knew that, and swam by just to tease us. We saw it a couple more times but could never get a shot off. Those things are quick. And black. And hard to photograph.

After the sun was up, we drove around the wetlands and came up on this:

Bald Eagle on dead tree, D7000, ISO 320, 1/500sec. @ f/8, 500 mm

This eagle was just surveying the area. I did get a few images when it flew off, but none blog worthy. I need more Birds in Flight practice, especially at 500mm!

The sun was up, but still low in the sky as we saw some cormorants sitting on a viewing platform. The light was hitting this one just right to show off the detail in his dark feathers.

Cormorant, D7000, ISO 220, 1/500 sec. @ f/8, 500 mm

Here’s one more photo I want to show you. This little fellow was digging around in the reeds along with several birds. I’m not sure what they were after, but it might have been snails – we saw a lot of them yesterday. This image is a good example of the D7000 at ISO 1600. Very usable with minimal noise.

Rocky Raccoon, D7000, ISO 1600, 1/500sec. @ f/9, 500 mm

Today I feel a bit worse, so I’m glad I went out yesterday. Hopefully I’ll start feeling better tomorrow.

Note: you can click on any of these to go to Flickr where you can see a larger version. You can see more of my Viera Wetlands photos in this set.

Macro photography – D7000 or D700?

November 7, 2010Cameras and Photography, Techniqued700, d7000, equipment, Flowers, macro, reviewsEd Rosack

There are many kinds of photography. I tend towards landscapes, birds & wildlife, and sometimes macro. When I was using a Nikon D90 and a D700, it was pretty easy to decide which camera to use for what. They had roughly the same number of pixels and well known ISO performance. I would use the D90 as my primary bird and wildlife photography body (especially in good light), and the D700 for almost everything else.

Now that I’ve swapped the D90 for a D7000, these questions have become a little harder to answer. The D7000 has better ISO performance than the D90, and more pixels than the D90 or the D700. Clearly, the D7000 is still a very good first choice for bird & wildlife (unless they’re especially cooperative and close), even more so than the D90 because of its improved autofocus and resolution. And in dim light, the D7000’s ISO performance should make it even more useful than the D90, although not as good as the D700. Using the camera now for a couple of weeks has confirmed all this.

But what about landscape photography and macros? This isn’t as easy a question. They’re most often done with a tripod and therefore ISO performance isn’t a factor, so you can use the camera’s base / optimum ISO (D7000 @ ISO 100, D700 @ ISO 200). Which body to use probably comes down to magnification and depth of field vs. diffraction. I hadn’t had a chance to explore using the D7000 for macros, so I decided to do a little experiment today.

My subject is a rosebud from our front garden (by the way, if you know what kind of bugs those are on our rose bush, let me know). The setup was fairly simple: Tripod mounted camera, using the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR macro, and a Neewer LED ring light with the rose against a black background. I used matrix metering, with an exposure bias of -3EV to avoid blowing out the red channel (every digital camera I’ve owned – including the D7000, has overexposed red roses). I tried to keep the positions / setup as close as possible but unfortunately, I had to go back and re-take the D700 photo and it isn’t exactly positioned the same. I used an aperture of f/11 with the D7000 and f/16 with the D700, since those values should give the most depth of field without any degradation due to diffraction. I also used the cameras’ base ISO settings. I then ran the two photos through Capture NX2 with the exact same adjustments ( daylight White Balance, vivid Color Control, Noise Reduction off, and Unsharp Mask set to 30/5/2) and created a .jpg of each.

Rosebud: D7000, ISO 100, Nikon 105mm macro, 1/20 sec @ f/11

Rosebud: D700, ISO 200, Nikon 105mm macro, 1/13 sec @ f/16

So what conclusions did I draw from this? With a sharp lens, using base ISO, the D7000 makes full use of all of it’s pixels and therefore has very good resolution when compared to the D700. For macro photography, the extra magnification, pixels, and increased apparent depth of field will almost always be an advantage. So my first choice for macro photography now will be the D7000.

What about landscapes? That adds a couple more things to consider (e.g. dynamic range, field of view), so it needs some additional thought and experimentation. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Note: A click on the photos above, will take you to Flickr where you can select Actions / View all sizes to see full resolution JPGs.

Overcoming shallow depth of field

October 31, 2010Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Techniquebirds, focus stacking, Great Egret, wildlifeEd Rosack

A pair of Great Egrets in the Lilly Pads

I was at Viera Wetlands yesterday and came up on this scene. The pair of birds was about 30 feet away and I was using a long telephoto lens (Sigma 150 – 500 OS, @ 500mm) and shooting hand held. To keep my shutter speed high (1/1000 sec), I had my aperture set to f/8.

Under these conditions, the depth of field (DOF) was so shallow (about 6 inches) that I couldn’t get both birds in focus at the same time. I could have stopped down to f/16, which would increase the DOF to about 12 inches, but that still might not have been enough – and the risk of motion blur would increase when the shutter speed slowed down.

So how can you overcome such shallow depth of field? Here’s how I did it:

Make two exposures, one focused on the front bird and one focused on the rear one.
In Lightroom, do your preliminary adjustments so the images’ appearance matches as closely as possible. You want to keep the background around the birds as similar as possible in the two images.
Open both in Photoshop, and move them into a single file as layers. Put the base image (the one with the front bird in focus) in the background layer. The top layer then has the rear bird in focus.
Select both layers and use the Edit/Auto-Align Layers to line things up.
Insert a Layer Mask (hide all) on the top layer.
Now you’re all set to paint the in focus rear bird into the image with the front one in focus. Select the layer mask and use a white brush color to paint the rear bird in. If you make a mistake or need to back something out you can change your brush color to black to erase the top layer. You can also play with the brush hardness and opacity to feather things in.
Once you’re happy with the result, flatten the image and make your final adjustments.

“But Ed,” you say “isn’t this cheating?” It depends. If you’re a photojournalist reporting on Great Egrets in Viera Wetlands and how close they often come to each other, then yes it might be. Journalists must meet ethical standards. On the artistic side, you’re trying to represent what your eyes (which have a greater DOF) or mind sees. So in this situation it isn’t cheating. You’re using the tools available to make the image you want.

“But Ed,” you say “this is too much work!” It depends. Some images are worth the effort and many are not. There’s software you can buy to automate this sort of thing for you. Photoshop can do it too. But the automated software requires very careful set up and in most cases a tripod, and many exposures with small changes in focus for each one. In this situation, I only needed two photos, one for each bird. Alignment between the images isn’t critical since I’m only using a small portion of the second one. So it’s fairly easy to show the pair of Egrets and not be distracted by having one out of focus.

You can see more of my Viera Wetlands photos in this set on Flickr.

For comparison, here’s the original photo straight out of the camera:

Original image, Straight out of the Camera

Quite a dramatic change, and for me worth the effort. What do you think?

High ISO performance of the Nikon D7000 vs. the D90 and the D700

October 25, 2010Cameras and Photographyd700, d7000, d90, equipment, reviewsEd Rosack

You’ll have to pardon me, but I’m going to take a short photo op break and geek out a little bit on camera gear.

Today, Adobe came out with a release candidate of Adobe Camera Raw that will process D7000 RAW files. I ran a quick test to see how this new camera compares with the D90 and the D700.

I’ve put together a composite image below, which shows roughly the same scene photographed with each camera. I kept everything as constant as possible (e.g camera position, light, lens). The D90 is on the top at ISO 3200. The D7000 is in the middle at ISO 6400. And the D700 is on the bottom, also at ISO 6400.

I processed all three images with a zero preset in ACR and then adjusted only the exposure / fill light and tone to make them look roughly similar. I left all sharpening and noise controls set to zero (off).

Judging by this pseudo-rigorous test, the ISO performance of the D7000 appears to be in between the D90 and the D700. It looks about the same at ISO 6400 as the D90 does at ISO 3200 (e.g. ~1 stop better). Noise is not as low as the D700, but resolution looks better.

I’ve put this and other D7000 images in this set on Flickr. All of them are in high resolution so that you can better judge the image / camera quality. You can also click on the image below to go directly to it on Flickr. For any of these, select “Actions / View All Sizes” to see much larger versions of the photos and judge for yourself.

Comparing the High ISO performance of the Nikon D7000 with the D90 and the D700