Category Archives: Cameras and Photography

One way to improve your photography

March 1, 2015Cameras and Photography, VARIOUSAntiques, black and white, Keb Mo, music, people, reflection, still life, telephoneEd Rosack

If you want to get better at photography, you can find a lot of free advice on the inter webs. Buy a new camera or lens, use new software, travel to an exotic location, take a workshop or a course, read books, study the masters, etc.

My free advice isn’t any of the above and it won’t cost you as much money as some of those things will. And I don’t see it come up very often on-line. Take my advice and not only will you learn new things – you’ll be exposed to different genres of photography, and you’ll be able to practice what you’ve been exposed to. What’s the secret?

Join your local camera club.

The weather’s been gloomy around Central Florida recently. solid grey clouds, rain and drizzle, and not much light to make photographs with. So I was happy that there was a Still Life Event at the Orlando Camera Club meeting last Monday. They brought in interesting items to photograph and had tables, lighting, and backdrops to use for set up. I brought a camera, tripod and flash (although with my tripod, I ended up not needing the flash). It was a lot of fun to choose items and arrange compositions. It’s something I don’t usually do – but that’s a good thing. Here are three photos from that evening.

Telephone

Keb Mo blues – Playing around with compositing: I made the foreground shot of the guitar & Blues sign at the Still Life event. I added the background photo of Keb Mo that I made at his concert in the Plaza Theater in Orlando on Feb. 1 2012.

Wrench, bolt, and lock

I belong to the Orlando Camera Club (http://orlandocameraclub.com). I’ve also attended meetings at the Port Orange Camera Club and the Oviedo Photo Club. Membership in any of these will benefit your photography. Some things most clubs offer:

Photo competitions in different genres with feedback
Events (like the still life one I went to)
Guest speakers on many related topics
Workshops (free or inexpensive) about many subjects
Field trips to local photo ops
Libraries of photo books that you can borrow for free
And other people with similar (and diverse) interests to share your passion with

I’m sure that wherever you are, there’s a camera club that you can join too.

Here’s one other post I’ve written on still life photography, and you can see some of my other still life photographs in this set on Flickr

Update on the blog hosting change: It does look like the transition’s been successful. The email subscriptions seemed to go out ok last week and I haven’t received any problem reports. One issue I’m aware of is that the move appears to have broken RSS subscriptions. So If you’ve come here directly to find out why your Central Florida Photo Ops RSS feed isn’t working – I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do anything about it. You’ll have to re-subscribe.

And finally, I’m sure you heard that Leonard Nimoy passed away on Friday and will be buried today. Of course I didn’t know him, but I felt I knew his famous Mr. Spock character that saved the day (and even the universe) so many times over the years. May he rest in peace.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos! And live long and prosper.

Kayaking at Haulover Canal

December 7, 2013Cameras and Photography, Haulover Canal, INSIDE FLORIDA, Kayaking, Merritt Island NWR, Must do listbirds, Dolphin, kayak, landscape, manatee, Pelican, people, wildlifeEd Rosack

If you search the web for “Haulover Canal” you’ll get many hits on fishing and kayaking there. I haven’t tried the fishing, so I can’t really comment on that, but I see people (and dolphins!) fishing there all the time so it’s probably pretty good. I have kayaked there many times and it’s a wonderful place to paddle and to photograph too.

Haulover Canal is in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and it’s part of the Intracoastal Waterway. It connects Mosquito Lagoon with the Indian River. You can launch your Kayak at the Bairs Cove boat ramp on the south side of the canal, but we use a better spot on the north-west end of the canal. Heading north along the Courtenay Parkway, take the first left after the bridge and follow the dirt road to the end where there’s a sandy bottom put in. There’s a fee to launch from Bairs Cove, but not from the north side.

From the put in, you can paddle west and circle around Mullet Head Island where there are usually quite a few birds. We’ve seen Redish Egrets, Great Egrets, Tri-colored and Great Blue Herons, Pelicans, Cormorants, etc. there. It is a protected nesting area, though – so you’re not allowed to get too close.

Handsome Pelican: From my kayak, near Mullet Head Island (Olympus EM5)

We usually paddle east along the canal and stop back in Bairs Cove, where we’ve seen manatees every time we’ve been. They’re very docile and sometimes friendly. You’re not allowed to harass / approach them, but if you sit quietly in your kayak, sometimes they’ll harass you!

Manatee checks out Mary’s kayak (Olympus EM5)

You can paddle further east and go under the bridge to a manatee observation deck along the north shore. However, I’ve never once seen manatees there. Do you think the manatees enjoy the joke?

We frequently see Bottlenose Dolphins too and they’re often feeding. This one was near the launch point and made a fuss chasing fish before swimming off.

Mike & Sara watch a dolphin from their kayak (Olympus TG-2)

There are even a few landscape opportunities, although I haven’t made it over for sunrise or sunset yet. This group of struggling trees caught my eye.

Survivors : On the west side of Haulover Canal. (Olympus TG-2)

You’ll need to watch for boat traffic, but since it’s a no wake zone, it’s fairly safe for kayaks. If you haven’t kayaked before and want to have a little support when you make this trip, A Day Away Kayak Tours is close by and very helpful. They’ll take you on a guided tour or rent you a kayak so you can go on your own, too.

All the photos in this post were made on kayak trips using a variety of cameras. I now have enough experience with our boats that I’m confident in the water and not afraid of tipping, but splashes from paddles and waves are still a worry where camera gear is concerned. A dose of saltwater is not too healthy for most normal cameras. So I’ve been using an Olympus TG-2 and a GoPro Hero3 (both waterproof) on these trips.

Photographing birds near Mullet Head Island (GoPro and EM5)

It’s great not having to worry about water damage, but I do miss some of the higher end photo capabilities (e.g. RAW format, interchangeable and long lenses, etc.). So I’ve taken the higher end gear out once or twice. In the photo above I really photo-geeked and used the GoPro to make a photo of myself making a photo with the Olympus EM5.

Here’s some additional info on Kayaking at Haulover Canal from a couple other sites:

And you can find out more about Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in these posts.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos! And go for a paddle too!

A Panorama Workflow Example

August 4, 2013Cameras and Photography, Techniqueblend, lightroom, Mount Blue Sky, mount evans, panorama, photoshop, stitch, technique, workflowEd Rosack

Intro

I had a question recently about how I process panoramas – so I thought I’d document my workflow using a recent image as an example. This will be a bit geeky. Next week I should have a more normal post after I finish selecting / editing photos from a visit to St. Augustine.

I was up on Mount Evans near Denver, Colorado with an Olympus E-PL5 camera and a 24-100mm equivalent lens. This is a 16MP camera and the mountains and valley were just too large to fit through that lens and onto that sensor. I really wanted to capture something that would give viewers a sense of the scene. So how did I make a 46MP (9608×4804) wide-angle panorama with the gear I had? Read on.

Mount Evans panorama – the completed 46MP image (click to see larger on Flickr)

This is a multi-photo panorama. Many cameras have a panorama capability built-in. I’m not sure if the E-PL5 has it, because I never use it. Why? I like the flexibility, control, and quality I can achieve with a manual process. I don’t like letting the camera decide everything automatically. And I like the result – huge, rich files that I can print large, or even crop to yield several different compositions.

In this post, I’ll write about using the software that I have (Lightroom V5 and Photoshop CS6) but the concepts are similar no matter what software you have. You’ll need to interpret / apply this info to your own tools and workflow. There’s four main phases: 1) Capture, 2) Initial Adjustments in Lightroom, 3) Photoshop stitching and processing, and 4) Final Lightroom tweaks. I’ll give you some hints about each.

Capture:

Carefully capturing the input frames is extremely important to the end result. Input variations can be hard for software to handle, so try to minimize differences. You should use manual white balance, exposure, and focus.

For horizontal panoramas, shoot vertical frames and overlap them by thirty to fifty percent but not more. Too many frames means more seams, and this could add problems you’ll have to fix. If this happens, try removing a frame – it might not impact the final image.

I shoot either on my tripod or handheld. If there’s enough light, I’ve had good luck shooting handheld. I’m careful to keep the camera level and use a grid line or focus mark in the view finder aligned with the horizon as a guide.

I always shoot in RAW format, but the stitching will of course work with JPG input frames. It’s best to use a camera / lens supported by Lightroom so that you can correct lens distortions. If you don’t, the distortions can build up across the stitched images and look especially bad when there are straight lines in the scene.

Initial Adjustments in Lightroom:

I load the images into Lightroom and adjust them all identically. I aim for a neutral, low contrast setting across all images. I enable distortion correction and usually turn off sharpening / noise reduction (and deal with them in later steps).

Be conservative with the highlights – I’ve found that stitch software may blow out parts of the image when attempting to blend between frames. I’ll dial down highlights if I have any concern. If I didn’t use manual exposure, I may also try to match white and black points in all the histograms.

The seven source images in Lightroom after the initial adjustments

Photoshop stitching and processing:

Once I’ve got the frames adjusted in Lightroom, I open them as layers in Photoshop. This allows me to try different auto align algorithms (under the Edit / Auto-Align menu), undo them, and try again if there are issues. For the wide-angle shots I usually make, the cylindrical alignment method seems to work best. I check the result at 100%. Sometimes the software doesn’t line up the most important parts of the image perfectly and I’ll use the move tool to make small adjustments.

Seven source images opened as layers in Photoshop and auto aligned.

Next I’ll do the blending (Edit / Auto-Blend). Then I look for variations across the image (most often in smooth sky). You can see the leftmost frame above is a bit darker. If the auto blend hasn’t worked well enough, I’ll undo it and tweak the levels or curves in each layer and then re-blend.

Once I’m happy with the blend, I’ll flatten the layers, and then rotate and crop the image. I don’t do final cropping at this point – I save that for the later in Lightroom. It’s OK to leave a bit of white around the edges. In CS6, content aware fill can fix those for you. If you do use Content Aware Fill, review those areas at 100% for flaws. You might need to touch them up with the clone tool. This is also the time to do any other cloning the image needs.

In Photoshop after auto blend, merge layers and initial crop / straighten

Now do your noise reduction on a new layer. I use Topaz DeNoise 5, but other software works well too. I just like the user interface in this plug-in. Check the result at 100% again and decide whether to apply it to the whole image or selectively. Most of the time I add a layer mask to the noise layer and apply it to the sky and / or smoother parts of the image only. This preserves detail where the noise isn’t obvious (ground, trees, etc.).

Final Photoshop edit after content aware fill, noise reduction on the sky and a dose of Topaz Clarity

I’ll then merge the layers (shift-alt-command-E) and play around with various filters (Nik Color Effects Pro or HDR Efx, Topaz Clarity, etc.) to get to something close to what I want. Then I return to Lightroom.

Final Lightroom tweaks:

Final steps in Lightroom are sharpening, any tweaks to white balance, exposure, white and black points, cropping, etc.

Output in Lightroom after final adjustments (White Balance, exposure, sharpening, cropping, etc)

Conclusions

This workflow takes time. Is every scene worth all this? Nope – I only go through it if I think the final image will be worth it. Even so, sometimes I’ll start the process and stop when I realize that the composition didn’t turn out. You’ll have to decide whether it’s worth the time and effort to you.

I hope I’ve given you some insight. Try it yourself and please let me know how it turns out. Even if you don’t go through the whole thing, some of the info might be useful. I’d be happy to answer your questions. The best place to ask them is in the comments for this post so they’ll help others.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some really big photos!

Return to Shingle Creek

July 13, 2013Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Kayaking, Kissimmee, Shingle Creek, Techniqueblack and white, Cypress, kayak, landscape, reflection, treeEd Rosack

Mary and I took our kayaks to Shingle Creek last week. I wanted to post a few photos to show you again how pretty this area can be.

Winds are usually calm early in the morning – leading to scenes like this.

It was a calm morning, but the current was strong – probably because of all the rain we’ve had recently. Shingle Creek gets narrow in spots. If you go kayaking, watch for it and turn around before I did so it doesn’t knock you up against the cypress tree knees!

The reflections weren’t as pristine after Mary paddled through them – but the sunbeams made up for it.

I’m still building my kayaking skills and I’m not yet confident enough to take non-waterproof gear out with me. I made the top two photos using a GoPro camera mounted on the bow of the kayak. I set it to make a shot every few seconds and compose by positioning / pointing the kayak and selecting from the results. It’s a bit hit or miss, but I usually manage to get some I like.

The GoPro is super small, comes with a waterproof case and has a fixed, very wide-angle lens. I like all its built-in capability but it does have a couple of limitations. There’s no viewfinder, although there’s a model with wi-fi and an iPhone app that lets you control it and see the output. I don’t use my iPhone on the kayak, since I don’t want to drop it in the water either. Also, like most small sensor cameras, the dynamic range is limited (compared to larger sensors and shooting in RAW format) – so highlights have a tendency to overexpose. But if you work within its capabilities you can capture great images. You can also try the old Black and White trick to hide any blown highlights.

Shingle Creek is wonderfully scenic. There’s not as much wildlife as we see at other sites, but there are plenty of birds, turtles, fish, and I’ve heard reports of alligators and otters. If you want to see more, there are other Shingle Creek photos in this set, and kayaking photos in this set on Flickr,

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

Cracker Christmas at Fort Christmas, Florida

December 3, 2012Cameras and Photography, Fort Christmas, INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando, VARIOUSblack and white, Civil War, Fort Christmas, people, view cameraEd Rosack

Sorry this week’s post is a little late – we were pretty busy all weekend. So just a short entry this morning. Yesterday I went over to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge with Lynn, Mary, and Mary’s friend Monette. Lots and lots of birds (a story for another day).

On the way home, we stopped by the Fort Christmas Historical Park in Christmas, Florida. They were having their 35th annual “Cracker Christmas” event. Along with tours of the permanent structures at the park, there were demonstrations of early settler life in Florida and many booths selling crafts. There were also some Civil War reenactments going on. When I saw this group posing in front of an old view camera, I just had to make a photo.

Civil War group portrait: A group of Civil War reenactors pose in front of a view camera during the 2012 annual “Cracker Christmas” event at the Fort Christmas Historical Park and Museum.

It was quite crowded, but definitely worth the time to stop by. To satisfy your photographic curiosity, here’s the “before” version of this photo:

Civil War group portrait: Straight out of the camera, before a few tweaks in Lightroom and Photoshop

I cloned out some distractions, leveled and cropped, tweaked the color, contrast, sharpening, and then converted to a sepia toned B&W. I like the “after” version better. How about you?

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

Blog Maintenance (and another camera)

October 28, 2012Cameras and Photography, VARIOUSAntiques, camera, equipment, LeicaEd Rosack

Just a short entry to let you know that I’m working behind the scenes to re-organize Categories and Tags used on the blog. Since I started writing “Central Florida Photo Ops” in May of 2007 they’ve grown a bit too haphazardly, and now it’s time for me to get organized and efficient.

So I’m restructuring the Categories to serve as a Table of Contents. The main ones are location-based so that a visitor can quickly see all the entries about a given place. You can reach the Categories from the pull down widget on the right.

The tags will function like the index in a book. For instance, when I’m done, you’ll be able to click on “Bird” in the tag cloud on the right and see a listing of all posts that mention various kinds of birds.

I’ve already started working on this, although it’ll take me a while to go through all 236 published posts and update / correct each one. But as I work on it, it’ll gradually improve and when I’m finished it’ll be better than it was. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

And just so we don’t have a blog entry without a photo, here’s a couple of images of another camera acquisition. It’s a somewhat well used, Leica IIIc 35mm camera made in the late 1940s. I need to clean it up a bit, but I’ve already run some film through it and it works pretty well.

Leica IIIc 35mm rangefinder camera: front view

Leica IIIc 35mm rangefinder camera: top view

NOTE: Added in Jan. 2021 (and Dec. 2023). This site has a serial number reference for these cameras: https://www.cameraquest.com/ltmnum.htm and shows this one was made in 1946/7. You can find other sites with serial number lookups for both camera and lenses if you search the web (e.g https://reddotcamera.net/leica/serial-number-tool/). My lens is a Summar 50mm f/2, built in 1937.

You can see other photos of collectible cameras in this set on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

Rectaflex Italian 35mm SLR Camera

January 15, 2012Cameras and PhotographyAntiques, camera, equipment, film, RectaflexEd Rosack

NOTE: I’ve posted updated info about this at this link: https://edrosack.com/2015/12/20/rectaflex-update/

Italian Rectaflex 35mm SLR film camera and lens, front view

You don’t see Italian cameras and especially Italian Single Lens Reflex cameras very often. We inherited this Rectaflex 35mm SLR film camera from Lynn’s Grandfather. Camerapedia has some information on the brand. They were introduced in 1949, and the company went out of business by 1955. It was one of the first SLRs to have a pentaprism.

Italian Rectaflex 35mm SLR film camera and lens, top view

Judging by the serial number, this particular one was probably made in 1953 or 4. It came to us in a leather case with accessories including extra lenses, extension tubes, and a flash unit.

Italian Rectaflex 35mm film camera lenses, extension tubes, cases

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to run any film through it. The shutter’s inoperative and repairing it would probably be an expensive custom rebuild job. But it looks good sitting on the shelf!

I think it’s fascinating to look at these older cameras to see how things worked WBD (way before digital).

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

My "New" Olympus Pen Camera

August 27, 2011Cameras and PhotographyAntiques, equipmentEd Rosack

I acquired another “new” camera. This one is an Olympus Pen FT, from the late 1960s. These cameras are “half frame” meaning they use standard 35mm film, but make two exposures in the space of a single 35mm frame. Modern Olympus micro 4/3 digital cameras are also half frame (actually the 4/3 sensor size is ~1/4 of a full frame camera). You can buy adapters to use lenses like the 40mm f/1.4 that came with this camera on digital 4/3 system cameras. They’ll be manual focus and there’s no electronic coupling with the body. But f/1.4 is nice.

Olympus Pen FT camera with Olympus G.Zuiko 40mm f1:1.4 lens

Aside from a few scratches on the body, this camera’s in pretty good shape. The lens is clear and the focus and diaphragm work correctly. The body is relatively clean too and the shutter and exposure counter work. The self timer is a bit dodgy, but that’s OK. The FT model has a built-in light meter, but it uses a mercury based battery which is supposed to be hard to get in the US. I haven’t even tried to get a battery, so I don’t know if the meter works or not. It’s surprisingly heavy (all metal construction) and very well made – it lasted for 45 years so far and still works. Do you think today’s cameras will still work in 2056?

I did run some black and white film through it. And I re-discovered that manual focus can be a bit tricky, especially if you shoot at f/1.4 with a relatively dim view finder, like this one. Here’s a couple of sample images:

Metalwork: Pen FT, 40mm f1:1.4 lens, Kodak BW400CN film

Figure, Pen FT, 40mm f1:1.4 lens, Kodak BW400CN film

My first photography teacher – Mr. Dove, had an Olympus Pen. I don’t remember if it was an F or an FT model. Someone stole it from him while he was teaching us and he really missed it. I wonder if he ever recovered it or replaced it.

An HDR photo and some tips

August 20, 2011Cameras and Photography, Circle B Bar Reserve, INSIDE FLORIDA, Techniquelandscape, sunriseEd Rosack

Here’s another photo from our trip last week to the Circle B Bar Reserve:

Sunrise marsh: Early morning at the Circle B Bar Reserve near Lakeland, Florida

The dynamic range of the light in a scene like this is extreme – a perfect opportunity to try your hand at High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. I won’t get into the details on how to do HDR. You can find an excellent tutorial on Trey Ratcliff’s site. But I wanted to offer a some hints.

For sunrise / sunset images such as this, I usually bracket 9 frames at 1 EV apart. This allows me to capture the very bright sun, details in the sky, and even details in the shadows. You may want to consider biasing your overall exposure to underexpose slightly since it’s usually the sun’s brightness that is hard to capture.
When you process your images, select only the ones you need. I look at the image and histogram in Lightroom and use that to pick which ones to use. In this example, I didn’t process the brightest exposures. The reason for this is that as you use more and more exposures, you increase the chances of introducing noise and ghosting into your final output.
If you can afford it, try different software to process your image. Photoshop, Photomatix, and HDR Efx Pro (and others) all have their strengths and weaknesses and one may work better on any given image than the others.

Comparing landscape and wildlife photography

July 2, 2011Cameras and Photography, Lake Jesup, Techniquebirds, Great Blue Heron, landscapeEd Rosack

I enjoy both nature/landscape photography and wildlife photography. I was thinking about this recently and it occurred to me that these can be quite different from an equipment, skills, and approach perspective.

Landscape: Lake Jesup flood waters after Tropical Storm Fay

Birding: Great Blue Heron profile

Here are some of the things I think are different about the two:

Landscapes	Birding / Wildlife
The quality of light is important (e.g. “Golden hour”). The amount of light isn’t too important: You can make long exposures from your tripod.	The amount of light is important. You need lots of light to get your shutter speed up.
You need to know the location, and figure out sun timing and position. May still be hit or miss depending on the weather.	You need to know about the animal and its habits, and where you might find them. May still be hit or miss depending on the animals (and maybe the weather).
1. Composition, 2. Exposure, 3. Focus	1. Focus, 2. Exposure, 3. Composition
Probably better by yourself: Your location, your vision.	Can be better in groups. Many eyes can help spot things one person will miss.
Good tripod with good ball head. Wide angle lens, small aperture for greater depth of field, long exposure. Frame rate not too important.	Very long lens, large aperture for a fast shutter speed. High frame rate body. Maybe a tripod with a gimbal head.
Not as expensive	Can be very expensive
HDR	no HDR

Have I missed anything? What else is different about these two types of photography?