Category Archives: VARIOUS

Merritt Island & Blog Status

January 14, 2018Merritt Island NWR, VARIOUSbirds, black and white, BPWD, cloud, landscape, panorama, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

First an announcement: If you’re here because you didn’t get an email from the blog this week, please see the very last bullet at the bottom of this post.

And for those interested, you can read much more about other blog tech details / status / news following the Merritt Island photo update.

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

Late Thursday, Kevin K. asked if I wanted to go photographing Friday morning. I did and we decided to meet early and visit Merritt Island. We arrived way before sunrise, so we stopped first at the Titusville Municipal Marina for a quick photo in the dark.

Pre-dawn at the marina – Titusville. Olympus high res mode, two frame panorama

Next we went by the fishing pier on the North west side of the causeway. From there you can shoot through the bridge toward sunrise. I liked the viewpoint, but I wish the sunrise color had been better.

Dawn through the bridge. Olympus high res mode, two frame panorama

After this we headed to Black Point Wildlife Drive. There were a lot of birds there and we ended up going around twice. I was worried that it would be dull and overcast, but we actually had some very pretty light for most of the morning.

Roseate Spoonbil feeding in the shallows

Hooded Merganser (female)

We also saw (among others): American Robins, Great snowy and Reddish Egrets, Great Blue and Tri-Colored Herons, White and Glossy Ibis, Norther Shoveler and Pintail ducks, Belted Kingfishers, gulls, terns, Osprey, Vultures, and more. We were hoping to spot some White Pelicans, but didn’t we couldn’t find any on this trip.

Enough of the pleasant content. Now on to the agonizing stuff.

Blog status / news

It’s been a very tough week at Central Florida Photo Ops HQ. Our head of tech support (me) along with Google search, and two different hosting provider customer support lines struggled mightily to get the blog transferred and back up and running again.

There’s good and bad news. Good news: The blog is mostly back up. And the head of tech support probably won’t get fired since there’s no one to replace him. Bad news: He’s not getting a raise anytime soon.

I started looking for a new hosting provider over the Christmas break since my agreement with GoDaddy is almost up . My blog’s been responding a little slow and GoDaddy’s renewal fees and their SSL (https) offerings were expensive. And even though Bob Parsons is no longer CEO, there’s the whole GoDaddy Elephant thing.

I did some online research and discovered that inMotion hosting is highly rated and has some inexpensive plans. Since this is a non-commercial, personal blog, I don’t feel I need a high end hosting plan and decided to go with them.

It was very easy to open an account and purchase their WPS500S plan. The rest of the process wasn’t as easy. Here are some of the issues I ran into:

Since I purchased a WordPress specific hosting plan, I thought InMotion would automatically install WordPress for me. They didn’t. I could have installed it myself through their cPanel interface, but I wasn’t familiar enough with their software and what to expect. A call to their tech support took care of this right away.
Next, I requested that InMotion transfer my content from GoDaddy. I gave them my login credentials, but for some reason they couldn’t access the old account. I ended up doing this myself by FTPing into GoDaddy and copying my content files first to my computer (for backup) and then uploading them to InMotion.
Next I initiated the domain transfer to move edrosack.com from GoDaddy servers to inMotion servers. This was probably a timing mistake (see the bullet below about follower migration). The domain transfer happened relatively quickly and I could see the new edrosack.com on the web.
Next I turned on inMotion’s included SSL capability. This was easy and I now have an https connection. My blog readers don’t do any business through my site and don’t sign in, so this probably isn’t strictly necessary for them. But Google factors this into search rankings so it’s good to have.
I then went about configuring WordPress to make it match the old installation. I had lots of problems with the Jetpack plugin. It turns out that InMotion enables the Mod Security firewall by default and the WPS500 hosting plan doesn’t allow customizing this. Jetpack relies on access to the site xmlrpc file to work and Mod Security blocks this by default. I was able to resolve this with another call to InMotion tech support.
Since I was now worried about security on the new site, I spent some time installing firewall / security plugins and testing / configuring them. In the process, I managed to lock myself out of edrosack.com at least once. Fortunately, I could still get to the site file system so I could nuke the security software and then reinstall / reconfigure it. Whew! It would have been embarrassing to have to call inMotion on my second day with them to get that fixed.
Most of my content transferred ok, but I couldn’t get the NexGen gallery plugin to display my Portfolio without re-setting it and starting over. In the end, I decided to use the gallery provisions included with Jetpack and re-did my portfolio pages. I needed to update them anyway and now they reflect some of my more recent work. Please check them out if you get a chance!
And late on Saturday as I was finally getting things fixed, my cable internet here at home went down for the first time in months! This stuff is just too hard!
The final problem (that I know of) and one that I haven’t resolved yet is that since I couldn’t connect WordPress.com to both my old and new providers at the same time, I was unable to use Jetpack’s subscriber migration tool. So for now, I’m waiting on Jetpack to respond to a support request. Once I hear from them, I’ll know how to proceed. If they can’t re-instate my subscribers, I’ll have to send out an email and request that folks re-subscribe. Stay tuned on this and I’ll let you know what happens.

Well, that’s much longer than a normal blog post, so I’ll sign off now.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos! And if you’re having issues with your server, don’t call me!

Web Host Update

January 9, 2018Blogging, VARIOUSblog info, hostingEd Rosack

Hello folks.

Please be aware that we’ll be moving https://edrosack.com (this blog) to a different hosting provider over the next few days. I’ll try to minimize downtime.

I’m sorry for any inconvenience and hopefully everything will be back up and running better than ever before next weekend’s regular post.

Santa sighting!

December 23, 2017Cruise Ships, VARIOUSChristmas, holiday, people, santaEd Rosack

While on our cruise a couple of weeks ago, we spotted Santa testing out some alternate transportation. I really like the color scheme, but I’m worried he’ll get tired pedaling this all around the world. Hopefully the elves can talk him into using his sleigh and reindeer.

Santa Sighting!!

I hope all of you have a joyous and happy holiday season and a wonderful new year! I really appreciate you following my blog again this year.

Thanks for stopping by. Now – go enjoy spending time with family and friends. And make some photos!

Home for the Holidays

December 17, 2017Must do list, VARIOUSblack and white, Christmas, family, holiday, peopleEd Rosack

It’s getting chilly outside, presents are starting to show up, and we’re hearing carols on the radio. Family and friends are arriving soon and before we know it, It’s a Wonderful Life will be on TV around the clock. Whether you celebrate Christmas or another winter holiday, family gatherings are the greatest photo-op of the year!

Mom, me, Dad – Christmas, 1955

Gather folks up and make photos and maybe even some video. Include everyone and make sure you get yourself into a few. Don’t put it off and don’t take no for an answer. Technical perfection isn’t even required. You and people you love will cherish the photos anyway.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some family photos! And share them – someone will be very glad you did!

A day in Nassau

December 10, 2017Cruise Shipsastronomy, birds, black and white, landscape, reviews, sunrise, sunset, travelEd Rosack

Lynn and I took a short cruise on Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam starting last weekend. One highlight was a full day spent in Nassau.

This is an image heavy post, so I apologize if you’re on a slow connection. I’ll let the photos and captions tell the story.

Sunrise arrival: Docking at 8am made for a nice view as we pulled in.

The Dec. 4th super moon was still around the next morning.

Lynn booked us on the Bites of Nassau Food Tasting & Cultural Walking Tour. (please click on their link for details).

We met the tour a short distance from the ship, outside Christ Church Anglican Cathedral. It’s a lovely place – I liked the light and reflections in the polished floor.

Bahamian Cookin’ Restaurant & Bar – It was our second visit to this 3 generation, family owned business. This time we had conch fritters and a delicious light lunch.

Our guide Captain Ron, at the Talking Stick Bar in the Towne Hotel: Max the Macaw likes to steal straws and sample your drink!

Street art – there’s a lot of color in Nassau

News stand

Graycliff Hotel Dinning Room. According to Captain Ron, all the famous folks visiting Nassau stay here. Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) was there the week before we were.

Graycliff Cigar Factory – they roll their own and also sell Cuban cigars (for $75 and up – each!)

Street colors

Looking up from the Drawbridge Patisserie & Gelateria courtyard

Sunset view

Night departure – this is a high res image made from the deck after dark. Ships tied up at the dock can be a remarkably stable platform for long exposures.

Although I don’t have any more images to show you (thank goodness, right?), we also visited the Athena Cafe & Bar and the Tortuga Gift Shop & Rum Cake Bakery.

You might not consider Nassau a “Central Florida Photo Op”, but I do. It’s one of many places that are very accessible via cruise ports in our area. We left from Fort Lauderdale, but Tampa, Port Canaveral, Miami and other places offer cruises to many destinations. If you haven’t tried one, check it out.

We’ve been to Nassau several times and wouldn’t normally think of it as our favorite port. But this time we had a wonderful visit and got to see (and taste) a lot of new things. Highly recommended! I’ve embedded links to most of the places above. Please click on them for more info. And you can see more Bahamas images in this folder on Flickr.

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

More Computational Photography

November 26, 2017Cameras and Photography, Georgia, Techniquecomputation, iPhone, landscape, long exposure, waterfallEd Rosack

As an Electrical Engineer and a long time photographer, I’ve been interested in computational photography for a while. You can read some of my earlier posts on the subject at this link. Here’s Wikipedia’s definition:

…”digital image capture and processing techniques that use digital computation instead of optical processes.”

I’d change this slightly from”instead of” to “instead of or in addition to”, but that’s a small quibble.

Moore’s law keeps driving the computing capabilities in phones and cameras ever higher and it’s fascinating to see what companies do with the extra potential.

Towalga River below High Falls, Georgia. Composite – iPhone default live view and Long Exposure, merged in Photoshop

I made the image above on our recent trip using an iPhone 8+ and Apple’s “Live Photo” mode. After I made the photo, I edited it on the phone and enabled the “Long Exposure” effect. The Long Exposure effect of blurring the moving water is computed from ~3 seconds worth of frames that Live Photo captures. This is Apple’s web page explaining the feature. Here’s what it looked like before I changed the mode – it’s not nearly as photogenic:

Default iPhone live view

Until iOS 11 added this feature, I wasn’t too interested in Live Photos. Now, I’m watching for places to use it. You can get a better image with your high-end camera and traditional optical techniques, but this is easier and a lot of fun to play with.

Here are some hints:

Pick a suitable subject: moving water, traffic on a road, blurring people in a crowd, etc.
Motion blur with a traditional optical approach requires a slow shutter speed – either low light or using filters. Since computational methods works by processing multiple frames, you can use it in bright light without filters.
Apple says it works on their newer phones (6+ and later). You’ll need to have iOS 11 (or later) installed.
The Long Exposure effect has to align Individual frames and then crop where there’s no overlap so you’ll lose pixels around the edges. Ideally, use a tripod – but that sort of defeats the idea of pulling your phone out of your pocket, doesn’t it? Just hold the phone as steady as you can to minimize cropping.
Make several exposures and pick the best one later.
Long Exposure resolution seems to be lower than default iPhone photos. This isn’t a huge problem for the moving parts of the frame – they’re supposed to be blurry. For the static portions, you can load both versions into layers in Photoshop and use masking to paint in higher resolution where you want it. I did this for the first photo above.
You can set a Long Exposure photo as your wallpaper. You’ll see the static Long Exposure version until you press on it from the lock screen. Then it changes to show the three-second animation – cool!

I hope Apple enhances this in future updates. It’d be good to have some control over the blur effect. 3 seconds is nice, but some subjects will look better with less (or more?).

iOS 11 includes other updated computation photo capabilities (e.g. portrait lighting) – but that’s a subject for another day.

Photography’s changing fast – it’s a wonderful time to be a photographer, isn’t it? In today’s digital world, many advances are likely to be computational and not optical. Keep up – don’t be left behind!

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

Veterans Day 2017

November 10, 2017VARIOUS, Washington D.C.veteransEd Rosack

The Armistice ending World War 1 was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. In the United States, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Armistice Day for November 11, 1919 to commemorate. President Dwight Eisenhower signed legislation in 1953 renaming it Veterans Day and extending the holiday to honor all veterans. It’s a day to thank veterans for their dedication – a day to honor all those that place their country above themselves.

The World War II Memorial and Washington Monument

“It’s about how we treat our veterans every single day of the year. It’s about making sure they have the care they need and the benefits that they’ve earned when they come home. It’s about serving all of you as well as you’ve served the United States of America. Freedom is never free.” President Barack Obama

Vietnam War Display, Smithsonian American History Museum

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” President John F. Kennedy

Marine Corps Memorial, Arlington VA

“I don’t have to tell you how fragile this precious gift of freedom is. Every time we hear, watch or read the news, we are reminded that liberty is a rare commodity in this world.” … “We owe this freedom of choice and action to those men and women in uniform who have served this nation and its interests in time of need. In particular, we are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free.” President Ronald Regan

Thanks to all active duty service members and veterans. And thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – you go out and thank a veteran too!

Indian Springs State Park, Georgia

November 4, 2017Georgia, Must do list, OUTSIDE FLORIDAbirds, black and white, cemetery, infrared, sunrise, travel, treeEd Rosack

Indian Springs is about six hours by car from Central Florida. It’s east of I-75 between Macon and Atlanta and well worth the drive. Lynn discovered they have cabins and suggested that we go up for a few days to see if any leaves are changing. They definitely are!

Color

I think peak color will be in a week or so. We get very little fall color in Florida – so it was a treat to see.

The cabins are nice – some of the best we’ve stayed in. They must have been refurbished not long ago. They have two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, a screened porch, and are fully furnished. And the location on a gorgeous lake was wonderful. This was the view just a few steps from the back porch:

Good morning (three Frame vertical panorama)

There were other things to see in the park too. This creek runs along the road by the entrance.

Big Sandy Creek (using the new iPhone “Live Long Exposure” mode)

And we spotted this cemetery from the 1800s along the road to the cabins.

At rest in the wood (Infrared)

We saw a few deer and although I didn’t put much effort in, several kinds of birds. We had some fun watching (and listening) to Canada Geese on the lake. I managed to make this video one morning around sunrise. The flock took off just as the sun started to hit the lake.

There are several other places to see in the area. High Falls State Park is just to the east and Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge is to the west. We’ve explored several state parks in Florida, but after this experience, we’re going to expand our target zone! And Indian Springs is definitely on our “go back” list.

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

Photography’s not important. Yes it is!

September 30, 2017INSIDE FLORIDA, Maitland, VARIOUSbald eagle, barn owl, Barred Owl, birds, black and white, FlowersEd Rosack

Sorry about the glitch last Thursday – I didn’t mean for this post to go out then. Hitting the wrong button in WordPress is embarrassing, but at least my email subscribers got to see an example of how my posts usually begin – as just a few words jotted down to expand on later. Here’s the rest of it.

Blooming

In the grand scheme of life, photography isn’t required. We managed for most of our history without photos. And even today, with cameras in every cell phone, many people never make a photo. So is photography important?

Barred Owl Pair

The world is awash in geo-political problems. World leaders with nuclear weapons call each other names and threaten annihilation. Scientists say global warming is going to drown our coast lines. Storms and earthquakes cause massive destruction and loss of life. Watching the evening news is overwhelming and sometimes even depressing. In this world, how important is an activity like photography?

Bald Eagle

Images and video play an increasing role in documenting problems and news in our society. Ubiquitous cell phone cameras give us a look into life as it happens, views that were less likely to be seen in the past. Is that a good thing? In general I think so, even though what we now see all the time is often uncomfortable.

Barn Owl

Photography is also a tool. It lets us explore and comprehend things we can’t view with our own eyes. Just look at the incredible images that the Cassini probe has sent back from Saturn. This is extremely important data leading to a better understanding of our universe. Vital? Maybe not, but it is important.

What about photos like the ones in this post? Are they important? Maybe not to you, but to me they are. When I’m out photographing I can forget all about many worrisome things and concentrate on an activity I enjoy. If I’m lucky I become completely absorbed in the process – “in the zone”. Worries drop away – at least for a time. And sharing the results may not be crucial, but I do think it’s worthwhile. Allowing others to see what I can and they can’t is an activity worth doing. The photos don’t have to worthy of the Louvre. But’s it’s nice to get one every once in a while that goes up on my wall.

These photos were all made at the Audubon Birds of Prey Center in Maitland Florida. They take in injured raptors, treat them, and (if they’re well enough) return them back to the wild. They’re able to release just over 40% of their raptor patients. Some birds (like the ones pictured here are too severely injured, so they become permanent residents that we can photograph when we visit.

The images don’t have a lot to do with the ideas in the post. But they’re good examples. The act of making them got me out of the house to meet a friend. We enjoyed seeing the birds, and our donations will help the Audubon society to continue to help injured raptors.

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

Counting our Blessings

September 16, 2017VARIOUShurricane, rainbow, sunflowerEd Rosack

Hurricane news has dominated this week, and it’s been hard to think much about photo ops. Irma’s path through the Caribbean and Florida left huge swaths of devastation – destroying lives, homes, livelihoods, and infrastructure. The Keys are especially hard hit. I’m sure you’ve seen reports so I won’t repeat them here.

I will let you know that our family is counting our blessings. We have some roof damage, and we’re dealing with a few other repairs (and damage from the Equifax leaks too!) but all of our utilities are working. There are many places close-by that are still without power. It seems like most businesses in Central Florida are gradually re-stocking and re-opening – so unlike some, we’re able to get groceries and gas.

Bright Double Rainbow after Hurricane Irma – Our daughter MK (and her cat Milo) stayed with us during the storm and when the Orange County Florida curfew ended on Monday night, we drove her back to her place. On the way home, we saw this incredibly bright double rainbow and stopped in the empty McDonald’s parking lot to make a photo with my iPhone. The skies were clearing and hopefully it’s a sign that everyone affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are on the way back to recovery.

There’s still a lot of flooding in Florida and more is forecast. In our area, Lake Jesup is over its banks and may go higher. I’m guessing that the flood waters will drown the late September / early October sunflower fields along the north side of the lake this year, similar to what happened in 2008 after Tropical Storm Fay. Even if they do bloom, getting out to them will be a soggy mess at best. We’ll probably have to wait for next year. Hopefully then we’ll be wondering about photo ops again instead of storms.

To everyone suffering from the effects of the recent hurricanes, our hearts go out to you. For the rest of us that haven’t suffered as much – take time to remember how lucky we are and what’s really important.