Category Archives: Cameras and Photography

Photo Location Block

August 1, 2010Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, St. Augustine, Techniquegraveyard, sunriseEd Rosack

This is a nice photo I made recently. I’d rate it a “2” meaning it’s good enough to show other people. But it’s not that good, and I keep thinking there was a better photo there and I just didn’t find it.

Crypts at dawn (click to view on Flickr)

I’ve been by this particular place several times. Each time I see it, I just know that there must be one or more great photographs lurking about. All I have to do is find them and push the shutter.

At many places it works out that way for me. I’m able to capture amazing images and come back with something special. Sometimes it doesn’t work. For some reason I can’t “find the photo”. I’m calling this “Location Block”. The location above has bothered me since I first saw it. I’ve tried several times and so far, I haven’t ever been really happy with any of the photos I’ve made there (including this one). Have you ever felt this way?

I’m still searching for a solution. Is it the time of day? Lighting? Clouds? Lens? Filters? Position? Random Luck? Am I mistaken in the first place and there really is no truly great photo there? I don’t know yet, but one of the very interesting things about photography is that there are rules of thumb and guide lines – but there’s no surefire formula. Sometimes you have to keep exploring. Each time you try something different you learn. And if you have to try a large number of things over a long time to get a great photo, it’s fun. You’ll learn a lot and when you finally do get the photo, the satisfaction will be immense.

At least that’s what I’m hoping.

Make use of wide angle lens perspective

July 18, 2010Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, St. Augustine, TechniqueCastillo de San Marco, equipment, fort, sunriseEd Rosack

In photography, wide angle lenses typically have a focal length that is much shorter than the diagonal dimension of the image sensor (or film). For a full frame 35mm digital camera, the diagonal measure of the sensor is about 50mm, and this is considered a “normal” focal length. Wide angle lenses have a focal length shorter than this (typically 12 – 35mm). It’s important to understand the characteristics of shorter focal length lenses so that you know how to use them in your photography.

Of course, wide angle lenses take in a wide field of view. They also have a larger depth of field when compared to normal or telephoto lenses. And they are also very good at helping you vary the perspective of your image. What’s perspective? It’s the relative scale of nearby and distant features. This is what I want to discuss today.

Take a look at the two photos below. Both have the same subject matter. They were both shot with similar focal lengths, but the perspective differs greatly. In the first photo, the nearest tree is only about 1/3 of the length of the fort in the distance. In the second, the same tree is almost as tall as the fort is long. This is a huge change in the relative size of the image elements.

How can you achieve a similar effect? Wide angle lenses exaggerate the size of things that are close, and make things farther away look smaller. The wider the lens, the greater this effect is. When you have a wide angle lens on your camera, you can move closer or farther away from things so that you can control the relative size of close image elements and those that are farther away.

I wasn’t happy with the composition of the first image. I made the second by moving in closer to the trees. Since they were nearby, and the fort was in the distance, the trees were enlarged much more than the fort. Simply adjusting where I placed the camera allowed me to vary the relative size of the trees and fort.

Castillo de San Marco at sunrise, 17mm focal length, f/4.0 @ 1/800 sec, ISO 200

Sunrise at Castillo de San Marcos #4, 16mm focal length, f/11 @ 1/13 sec, ISO 200

Now that you understand this basic principle of photography, you too can use it to control the relative size of the elements in your composition. I will leave a discussion of why wide angle lenses aren’t used for portrait photography very often as an exercise for the reader.

Alligator Farm Spoonbill Chicks Take Off!

July 6, 2010Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Must do list, St. Augustine, St. Augustine Alligator Farmbirds, Spoonbill, wildlifeEd Rosack

I’ve found that one of the pleasures of bird photography and bird watching in general is the repeated observation of locations over the course of a nesting season. When you return to a place regularly, you can watch the behavior of the parents over time as well as the young birds as they develop.

I’m fortunate to live relatively close to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Bird Rookery and I was able to visit four times recently. This was the first year that Roseate Spoonbills have nested there and the farthest north that they’ve been recorded nesting. In this post, I’ll show you a sequence of photographs made over about six weeks of the two easily seen Spoonbill nests at the Rookery. Nest 1 is on the right side of the boardwalk closest to the entrance. Nest 2 is the one you can see from the far end of the boardwalk close to the large tree.

This first photo was taken at the end of May and shows one Spoonbill above and to the right of nest 2. At the bottom left you can barely make out one of the very young and small Spoonbills. This is the first photo I managed to make of the chicks. Sorry about the quality. The chicks didn’t come out in the open at all when I was there that time.

Mother Spoonbill keeps an eye on chick, nest 2. May 30th, 2010

Here is the same nest (#2) two weeks later. The chicks have grown a bit, have some beginning feathers, and are more active.

Roseate Spoonbill Mom and chicks in nest 2, June 13th, 2010

And this photo shows how large the chicks had grown yesterday when I visited – quite a difference in only 16 days!

Roseate Spoonbill Mom and chicks near nest 1, July 5th, 2010

Several of the young Spoonbills have fledged and I was able to capture this photo of one of them trying its wings:

Juvenille Spoonbill tests its wings, July 5th, 2010

So you can see how fast these Spoonbills develop. From just hatched and barely moving to flying in about 6 weeks. I’ve enjoyed following their progress this year. What a wonderful opportunity!

The bad news for those of you that haven’t yet visited the Alligator Farm is that you’ve missed most of the nesting season. Make your plans for next year!

PIG Tales 1

June 26, 2010Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando Wetlands, Techniqueastronomy, landscape, moon, nightEd Rosack

I belong to a camera club called the Photography Interest Group (the “PIGs). Our members vary in their photographic background and experience (as well as in age, gender and cultural background, by the way). A couple of us have used SLRs since the film days. Some of the others in our group are beginners with their first Single Lens Reflex camera. But we all love photography.

The “senior PIGs” often get questions about why we do things a certain way, or how to do a specific thing. I think it might be interesting to others if I post the questions and answers. When a junior PIG want to know, others may want to know too. So this post is the first of what may become a series. We’ll see how it goes.

Q. How do you make photos at night?

One member of our club has a trip planned to Yosemite. He (let’s call him “Donuts”) wants to do something a little different and make photos after dark. Do you need special equipment? What settings do you use? How do you focus when you can’t see anything?

Now before we get started, we’re talking about outdoor, landscape and nature photos, not your regular dinner party photos. That would be a completely different post – somewhere else.

A. Slowly and carefully

I’ll write this for people with DSLR cameras. Most of the principles will apply if you have a point and shoot, but your camera may not have the controls or flexibility you’ll need. Still, you should experiment – you may discover some good work arounds with the equipment you have.

1. Night Landscapes

Night landscapes can be different and add some interest to your portfolio.

Moonrise at sunset, a pasture near Orlando Wetlands Park – Base exposure: f/8, 2 seconds, ISO 200. Second exposure (for moon): f/11, 1/25 sec, ISO 200.

Use a tripod to steady your camera. Hand holding a camera at night just won’t work — unless you’re only trying to make sunset silhouettes.
Compose carefully. All the normal landscape concepts still count for night photography. Composition (e.g. the rule of thirds), and having something of interest in the foreground as well as the middle and far distance will help your photo. You might want to use a bubble level in your camera’s hot shoe so that you can make sure your shot is level.
Focus carefully. The light level might be too low for your camera to focus automatically. If your camera has a live view mode, it can be a great help for manual focus at night, since you can zoom in to see detail. If not, you can estimate distance and set your lens manually. If you’re using a wide-angle lens, depth of field will help you. You can also stop your lens down to give more depth of field (f/11 or f/16) and make the focus less critical. Try focusing 1/3 of the distance into the frame if the main subject is close to the camera, and 2/3 in if the main subject is far away. Again, you may want to set your camera / lens to manual focus after you get it adjusted properly.
You’ll need a remote release too so you can avoid shaking the camera when you press the shutter release. For many exposures, the light may call for an exposure longer than your camera’s longest shutter speed (typically 30 seconds). In this case you’ll need to put your camera in Bulb mode and use the remote release to time the exposure by hand (more on this later).
Exposure is tricky. Your camera’s auto exposure mode may work, but will probably make the scene too bright. You can adjust this a bit in post processing to make it look more like a night scene. You can also chimp your shots to make sure you’re in the ball park and the result is close to what you want. If not, use your exposure compensation – usually to dial in a bit less light.
Here’s one trick to try for determining proper exposure for very low light situations: Set your camera’s ISO as high as it will go and make a photo. Chimp the shot to see if it’s exposed the way you want. Then set your ISO back to its base value to get the highest quality photo and slow down the shutter speed by the same ratio as the ISO change. For example, if your exposure looks correct at f/8, 4 sec. @ ISO 3200, then it should also be correct at f/8, 64 sec @ ISO 200 (4*3200/200 = 64).
Many DSLRs limit the slowest shutter speed to 30 second. How do you make an exposure of 64 seconds? Use manual mode. Set your aperture, and use Bulb for the shutter speed. Hold the shutter open with your remote release and manually time the exposure.
Long exposure noise reduction: With any exposures over a second or two, sensor noise will probably be an issue. I use Nikon’s long exposure noise reduction in these situations. When turned on, the camera will take a second exposure with the shutter closed to measure noise and then subtract the noise out from the first exposure. Try it on your camera – it works well on mine
For more advanced projects, stars (and the moon) will leave trails in any exposures longer than a few seconds. One nice effect is to scout a good landscape scene to the north and make a very long exposure. The circular star trails will be centered around the north star. You can also make spectacular photos under a dark sky by placing your camera on an equatorial mount so that the camera follows the earth’s motion. I’ve seen beautiful photos of the Milky Way behind spectacular scenery made this way.

2. Shooting the moon

The moon is interesting and one of the easiest astronomical objects to photograph. But it isn’t easy. You’ll need to set up carefully, expose correctly and have your camera as still as possible. Your photographs will benefit from as much magnification as you can get.

The Earth’s satellite – f/11, 1/50 sec, ISO 200 (click the photo to go to Flickr, where I’ve uploaded the full res, uncropped version).

Use a tripod to steady your camera. Hand holding a camera to make a photo of the moon might work if you have very good image stabilization in your camera or lens. But with a high zoom ratio, hand-held photos will hardly every work out, especially when you zoom in so you can see some detail.
Zoom in so you can see some detail. A 300mm lens on a crop sensor camera (~450mm equivalent) should allow you to make a decent photo. Much smaller than that and you’ll need to crop the result a bit – which will lower the quality. I made the photo above with my Sigma 150-500mm zoom at 500mm (750mm equivalent) on a Nikon D90. It’s uncropped and doesn’t fill the frame, but this combination does yield some nice detail.
Focus carefully. You might want to set your camera / lens to manual focus after you get it adjusted properly. Don’t bump it later, and don’t forget to put it back in auto focus mode when you’re done.
Your camera most likely will not expose the moon correctly. With a lot of dark sky in the frame, the moon will probably come out way over exposed. For your exposure, use your camera’s spot metering function and then set your exposure compensation to about -1 EV. Chimp the result and adjust as necessary. If you don’t have a spot meter, then try using the “sunny 16” rule in manual exposure mode and adjust from there. For those of you that haven’t ever shot with slide film and a manual exposure camera, this rule of thumb says that for bright sunlight, your exposure should be f/16 at a shutter speed of 1/ISO. Since the moon is lit by the sun, this rule of thumb will get you close to a good exposure.
You can do even better if you have access to a telescope. It’s relatively easy to use a point and shoot camera to take a photo through the eyepiece of a telescope like I did below. If anyone is interested in this, I can provide more information.

ETX-125 Moon — Hand held, autoexposure, Nikon Coolpix P1 through the telescope eyepiece

I’m sure you’ll come up with more ideas as you practice this. Good luck, Donuts. And don’t forget your flashlight and bug spray.

Ravine Gardens State Park

June 22, 2010Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Ravine GardensAzalea, Dogwood, Dragonfly, Flowers, landscape, reviews, travelEd Rosack

Dogwood blossom in front of azaleas

Intro / Description

I had never heard of Ravine Gardens State Park until Lynn mentioned it to me after reading about it in our Florida guidebook in the St. Augustine section. The ~185 acre park is in Palatka, about 35 miles south west of St. Augustine and about 90 miles north east of the Orlando area.

This is a steephead ravine formed by ground water leaking through porous sand onto a sloping surface. The sand is eroded from the bottom causing sand above to collapse and be carved away by the stream. It’s from 70 to 120 foot deep.

It became a state park in 1933 when the Works Progress Administration began construction and also landscaped it with 95,000 azaleas including 64 varieties. They also planted 11,000 palm trees and more than 250,000 ornamental plants. There’s a multi-tiered rose garden with a fountain at its center. You can drive a 1.8 mile loop around the ravine and hiking paths and jogging trails also wind throughout the park, including one over a suspension bridge across the ravine.

Lily pond and suspension bridge

There’s also a playground or two and picnic tables if you want to eat lunch there.

Info for Photographers

Photo hints: The azaleas are a main attraction at this park. There’s other things to see too, including the abandoned water plant, the suspension bridge, and ponds. For photography, of course, early or late in the day would be the best time to get there. If you try to photograph during midday, you’ll be bothered by harsh sunlight and high contrast with the dark forest. Capturing a scene with this much dynamic range practically begs for RAW mode and HDR techniques. You might also want to bring a polarizing filter to help cut down on reflections from leaves.

Tripod/Monopod: Definitely allowed, and you’ll need it for any HDR work.

Lenses: A wide angle lens will be useful to try to capture the feeling of the change in elevation. We saw butterflies and dragonflies when we were there, so a macro capability might also be handy.

I believe this is an Ebony Jewelwing dragonfly

Best time to visit: Spring time is a wonderful time in Central Florida. The Azelea festival is usually one weekend in the beginning of March, however they bloom over several weeks, so you have plenty of time to visit.

Several varieties of azaleas in bloom

Other: Like most state parks, the entrance fee is a bargain at $5 per car. You’ll need to occasionally park and walk short distances to see all the views, but you can see most of the park from your car. Wear good shoes if you intend to do any hiking.

Summary

This park doesn’t seem to be very well known and it’s a wonderful surprise when you discover it. The elevation changes are interesting and very different for Central Florida. It’s fairly close to Orlando and worth a visit. Go in the spring time (March) so you can view the multitude of flowers.

Vine covered trellis.

My Flickr photo set:	http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/sets/72157624336756372/
Website:	https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/ravine-gardens-state-park
Address / Phone:	1600 Twigg StreetPalatka, Florida 32177 (386) 329-3721 View in Google Maps
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating:	Ravines in Central Florida?! Check it out at azalea time – in March.

Note: This post was updated on March 12, 2011 after an additional visit to Ravine Gardens, while the Azaleas were in bloom.

Red buds and blue spring sky

March 5, 2010Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDAFlowers, treeEd Rosack

High above against the blue spring sky, mighty trees carry out their life purpose.

A photographer should notice and share.

Epson R 1900 printer and Exhibition Fiber paper

February 3, 2010Cameras and Photography, VARIOUSEpson printer, equipmentEd Rosack

For your information:

A friend told me about Epson Exhibition Fiber paper and since it was on sale at Atlex (no longer on. line), I bought a box to try. Unfortunately, I just assumed that Epson would have a profile for using this paper with my Epson R1900 printer.

They don’t. But I went ahead anyway and got pretty good results with it by printing with the Premium Photo Paper Semi-Gloss profile. YMMV.

Going retro – or a recent experience with severe "film deja vu"

February 1, 2010Cameras and PhotographyAntiques, camera, equipment, film, Flowers, Orchid, reviews, RoseEd Rosack

A little bit of background. I’ve been seriously interested in photography for a long time. I owned several film SLRs before I switched to a digital camera at Christmas time in 2000. It took me a while to change over, since I wasn’t convinced that digital quality matched film. Once I did switch, I haven’t looked back (until now), and I’ve been happily shooting digital ever since.

When I used film, I always wanted a pro level Nikon camera and could never afford it. This started with my first SLR, which was a Yashica entry level model (I don’t remember which one). The best film camera I ever had was my last one, a Nikon 6006. I bought this sometime in the 1980s and it was a great camera, but it wasn’t a “pro” model.

So recently, I was browsing eBay and ran across a listing for a Nikon F4. This tank of a camera was introduced in 1988 and was Nikon’s top of the line film camera until maybe 1996 when the F5 was introduced. To make a long story short, I couldn’t resist.

This particular one is an F4S and is in great shape for a camera this old. It comes with an MB-21 auto-winder: can you imagine ripping through almost 6 frames of film a second with this puppy? A whole role of 36 gone in 6 seconds! Another feature that’s really nice is that this one can meter / focus with all Nikon lenses, including the newer G series (although you can’t control the aperture directly). For more information on the camera, you can look at the Nikonians website article on the F4 or visit Ken Rockwell’s site, where he talks about it. Also, a Google search will reveal several places on the web where you can download a PDF file of the camera manual.

After the frost. Tri-X film, Nikon F4S, 60mm f/2.8 macro lens

When the camera arrived, I went to my local drug store to buy some film. To my surprise, they carried Kodak Tri-x B&W ISO 400 film! This is the first film I ever used in my rangefinder and SLR cameras and I used to load my own 35mm photo canisters from 50ft. rolls of film and do all of my own development. So … of course I bought a roll to run through my “new” camera. 24 exposures later, I brought it back to get developed. “Do you develop Tri-X black and white film?” I asked. [Photo clerk looking at film canister] “Of course we do. Do you need it back in an hour?” “No, I said” [Thinking to myself – ‘this is amazing’], “I’ll come back later tonight to pick it up.” So I leave and on my way home, I get a call from the clerk: “Uh, sir, we can’t develop this film.” Apparently they can develop B&W film that’s designed for color print film chemistry, but not good old Tri-X. Anyway, my local camera store (Colonial Photo and Hobby) does develop Tri-X and can also scan it to CD for you as part of the process. I also ran some color print film through the camera, and ended up shooting a total of three rolls.

Weeds. Kodak Ultra Max Color Print film, Nikon F4S, 60mm f/2.8 macro lens

The camera works pretty well. The focus and exposure seem good. So what else did my tests reveal? How was the experience? What impressions did the Nikon F4S make? Did I finally fulfill my desire for a pro film camera? Will I give up digital and go back to film?

First of all, the controls were very familiar, so I didn’t have any problem using the camera. The locks were annoying to me – I’m not used to having to unlock the on/off switch. One thing that using the F4 emphasized is that film cameras are simpler to operate than modern digital cameras. Most of this is because on a digital camera, you not only have to control the camera, you also have to control / adjust the sensor response. Loading your film into a film camera determines the white balance, ISO, color profile, etc. for you.

Second, this is the heaviest camera I’ve ever used. An F4S weighs 45 oz. vs 37 oz. for a D700 or 25 oz. for a D90. That’s a big difference. Maybe I’m glad I didn’t have to carry this around all the time.

Third, I shot three different kinds of ISO 400 film: Tri-X, Ultra Max, and Black and White (CN 400). Grain is apparent in all of the shots although much less so in the CN 400. In fact, the grain is much more apparent than noise in either a D-90 or D-700 shot at ISO 400.

Orchid. Kodak Black and White (CN 400) film, Nikon F4S, 60mm f/2.8 macro lens

Fourth, having 24 or 36 exposures to work with instead of hundreds is quite different too. There’s much less experimentation and more ‘get it right the first time’. Even though I was only testing this camera and not on a serious shoot, I still found myself conserving film instead of shooting with abandon.

Fifth: Chimping is really handy! With a film camera, you can’t tell if you got the shot until much later. There’s a lot more “trust the camera” and “trust your skills” involved. I remember a trip to Germany in the early ’80s with many rolls of slide film and its narrow exposure range. I felt a lot of anxiety then until I got the processed slides back.

So, am I going to abandon my digital tools and revert to the good old days of Film? Absolutely not. It was fun to play with the camera and it brought back a lot of memories. But we’ve come a long way and the F4S is going on my shelf to look at. I won’t be looking through it too often.

You can click on any of the photos above to view them on Flickr. You can see the rest of my test shots here.

A Focus bracketing / stacking experiment

January 24, 2010Cameras and Photography, TechniqueFlowers, Helicon Focus, macro, Orchid, reviewsEd Rosack

This post is not my usual Central Florida Photo Op entry. Instead I want to cover a technique and some software I’ve been experimenting with.

One macro photography challenge is to get the desired portions of the subject in focus without using such a small aperture that the image quality is degraded by diffraction effects. One solution is to combine multiple images focused at different depths within the frame to extend depth of field. In this post I’ll talk about how to do this, including software that can be used to automate the process. I’ve posted one focus bracket image before in this blog. That image was created manually. Using software to help is much easier.

Note: double click any of these images to view them on Flickr, where there is a larger version available. You can also visit the entire set at this link or view a slide show at this link.

Back-lit Orchid – 15 separate captures at f/8.

As with all macro photography, good technique remains important. Focus bracketing will not make up for poor composition and exposure or sloppy camera handling. But for stationary subjects focus bracketing can give the photographer complete control over depth of field, background appearance / bokeh, and help optimize image quality. I used a program called Helicon Focus for this experiment. I think you can accomplish the same thing using Photoshop CS4, but I don’t have this latest version, so I haven’t tried. Helicon Focus is available as a fully functional 30 day trial download, so you can experiment with it too.

The Helicon Focus web site has a lot of information on how to use their software. To learn more, browse these links:

Here are some of my additional hints based on what I learned while evaluating the software.

Use good macro and general technique
- As for any type of bracketing, a sturdy tripod will help make sure all images are aligned.
- Use a cable release or remote so you don’t jar the camera.
- Use the mirror lock up function on your camera with low shutter speeds
- Know your lens and camera.
  - Which aperture has the best image quality? (Usually ~ 2 stops down from wide open)
  - Make several test images at a different apertures. Use them to select the aperture to use with the focus bracket series. You can also use one of these later if you like the background bokeh better than in the focus bracket result.
  - Where does diffraction start to affect the image quality? (About f/11 for full frame cameras and ~f/8 for APS C size sensors
  - Don’t forget about composition.
    - Eliminate unnecessary image content
    - Remember (or not) the Rule of Thirds
    - Isolate the subject and make sure the background isn’t distracting (e.g. bright spots)
When you’re ready to start the focus bracket capture, set your camera in manual focus and exposure modes. Also set your camera to a manual white balance, or do this post capture if you use RAW.
Make a series of captures working from far to near and varying the focus slightly closer for each one. I found that the smallest movement of the focus ring that I could make worked best.
I saved the images in RAW format and processed them through Capture NX2 in batch mode to apply the same pre-processing edits (overall lighting adjustment, some highlight recovery, a little dodging and burning and some basic sharpening) to each photo. I also used NX2 to convert the RAW images to TIFF format.
Then I ran the TIFF images through Helicon Focus. By the way, it is Intel i7 aware and so it runs pretty fast on my iMac. The only change I made to the default settings was selecting Lancos8 resample quality.
My resulting composite image had a few areas that could be improved by cloning from one of the source images. Helicon Focus supports this with a “resampling” mode which allows you to clone from any of the source files into the final before saving.
Once I had the final composite output saved, I opened it in Photoshop. Since I liked the bokeh of the f/36 image, I cloned from that background into the composite – and I was done, except for importing into Lightroom where I added some clarity and adjusted contrast.

Here’s a series of images to illustrate.

Wet Back-lit Orchid at f/5.6. At this aperture (2 stops from wide open) the lens optical quality is very good, but the depth of field is shallow. Parts of the flower and the stem are not in focus. The background is completely blurred out.

Wet Back-lit Orchid at f/36. At this very narrow aperture, the depth of field is maximized. The out of focus leaves and background are pleasing. But the small aperture is causing diffraction to degrade the optical quality of the capture.

Wet Backlit Orchid – focus bracket. In this composite photo made using the Helicon Focus program and 16 individual captures at f/5.6, the depth of field covers the entire flower and stem and the background is completely blurred. The optical quality is improved since the wider aperture does not suffer from diffraction.

The final image: Wet Back-lit Orchid – focus bracket with small aperture background. You can completely control the background. If you prefer the bokeh / background of the f/36 image, selectively clone it into the focus bracket image.

Conclusions: Focus bracketing is a useful technique that can give photographers a tremendous degree of control over depth of field in situations where the subject matter is still and there is time to set up, capture and process for it. If you add a manual step to the final output, you can selectively enhance the bokeh. Helicon Focus runs well and does what it is supposed to – make this process easier.

Gatorland in Kissimmee, Florida

January 9, 2010Cameras and Photography, Gatorland, INSIDE FLORIDA, OrlandoAlligator, birds, Great Blue Heron, reviews, wildlife, Wood StorkEd Rosack

Intro / Description

Great Blue Heron portrait

Note: you can click on any of these photos to go to my Flickr photo stream and view a larger version (click on the magnifying glass icon at the top). There’s also links at the end of this entry to the entire set and a slide show version of the photos.

In a “ToDo” post last year, I promised to visit and report on Gatorland and to compare it to the St. Augustine Alligator farm for you. I was finally able to go and this post is the basic review. I’ll follow-up with a comparison to the Alligator Farm shortly. Gatorland is a vintage, Florida, roadside attraction (started in 1949) and has grown into a 110-acre, photographer friendly theme park featuring some great shows with many kinds of animals on display. Although there are a lot of things to do in the park, the two that may attract nature and wildlife photographers more than others are:

The Bird Rookery: Created in 1991 as a natural breeding area for the gators, the 10 acre Breeding Marsh has over 100 adult alligators and is a completely natural environment. It attracts wild birds,which tend to nest above the alligators, since they provide protection against some of the bird predators such as raccoons and snakes.

The bird rookery and breeding marsh

The Swamp Walk: This is located at the southern end of the park and is a self guided tour on a raised wooden walkway through a Cypress Swamp and affords visitors a rare look back into what much of Central Florida looked like before development.

There is also quite a bit for the non-photo family members to do, including shows, a small water park, a petting zoo, and displays of other captive animals.

The gator jumparoo show

Photo hints: Gatorland reinstated its photo pass in 2012. It allows entry at 7:30 and lets you stay inside until dusk. Quite an advantage for bird photography.

Tripod/Monopod : Gatorland is a photographer friendly place. You can bring all of your equipment, including a tripod or monopod and there is ample room to use them as long as you are courteous.

Lenses: Of course, long lenses are a must for most bird photography and they will certainly help you at Gatorland. But since many of the birds are so used to people you can get very close to some of them, so very good shots with not so long lenses are possible.

Wood Stork and Alligator bokeh

Best time to visit : Early February through June (nesting season) where the weather is also not as hot.

Other : Normal hours are 10:00am – 5:00pm. Be sure to ask about Senior Citizen and Florida Resident discounts.

Summary

Families will find lots to interest them at Gatorland. It’s a good value in today’s overpriced theme park environment. And photographers will enjoy visiting this park multiple times.

My Gatorland photo set on Flickr:	The set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/sets/72157623039154783/A slide show version: http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/sets/72157623039154783/show/
Website:	http://www.gatorland.com/
Address:	14501 S Orange Blossom Trail Orlando, FL 32837 (407) 855-5496
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating:	Birds and gators galore – family fun too!