Category Archives: VARIOUS

In the Back Garden…

July 23, 2017INSIDE FLORIDA, VARIOUSbee, bird, FlowersEd Rosack

Lynn’s been busy in our back garden and suddenly it’s even more photogenic. Lots of new plantings / flowers and they’ve attracted some interesting visitors. I’ve been keeping a camera at the ready so I can go out quickly and see what’s happening.

The Bird of Paradise plants are a new treat. They’re blooming and I couldn’t resist making some photos.

Bird of Paradise (partial)

This blue bit is the stamen – I like this composition more than one I made of the entire flower. I left a small piece of the rest of the bloom in the bottom left of the frame for context.

Bees and Butterflies seem as happy with the new garden as I am.

Bumblebee in flight (BIF) (Olympus E-M1 II Pro Capture mode)

Gulf Fritillary butterfly

I briefly spotted some Ruby-throated Hummingbirds too. But in my excitement to let Lynn know, I let go of the screen door too quickly and the noise was enough to drive them off. I’ll be more careful next time and hopefully get some photos of them as well.

I’m very lucky that Lynn has set up such nice photo ops for me! I can’t wait to see what else she arranges in front of my lens.

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

Casual Birding in New Mexico

July 16, 2017Must do list, New Mexico, Techniquebirds, Eagle, Hummingbird, life bird, quail, travel, wildlifeEd Rosack

The birds we saw in New Mexico varied from what we’re used to in Florida (of course). I saw 12 life birds while we were there. And this was really with just casual birding. I’m sure my more serious birding friends (thinking of you Kevin M.) would have found many more!

Gambel’s Quail – Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

MK wanted to visit White Sands National Monument. I did too, but I’d heard a lot about the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge so we agreed to get up early and stop by there on the way. I was really glad we did!

Black-chinned Hummingbirds and Broad-tailed Hummingbird (on the left) – Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

The volunteers at the Visitors Center were very helpful and pointed out where to look for the Golden Eagle. We would have missed it without their help. At first glance, I mistook it for a vulture! They also apologized since there were no Sand Hill Cranes (they migrate through in the winter). I assured them that we see plenty in Florida. Hopefully I can go back when it’s cold. Seeing huge flocks of cranes would be an experience!

Golden Eagle – Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

MK was an excellent spotter. We found the Caissin’s Kingbird when she stopped to look at a road side field on the way home from White Sands. She also found the Yellow Warbler at the top of Sandia Peak – thanks MK!

Caissin’s Kingbird – Carrizozo, NM

I’ve called myself a “beginning” birder for too long. Maybe it’s time to change this to “casual” birder. I like birding and enjoy finding / seeing new birds and figuring out what they are. But I mostly enjoy the photography and get a bit disappointed if my images are poor. So, from me to you, here are my…

Birding hints from a casual birder:

Take advantage of travel. New locations can be an easy way to add to your life list.
Consider going even if it’s a slow time of year. Bosque is well-known for its Festival of the Cranes in November. But we found lots to see even in the middle of summer.
Research the local hot spots and add some to your itinerary. Find and check local sightings or species lists so you’ll know what to look for. I read through the wildlife list on the Bosque web site before we went. It lists bird species by month observed and was a big help.
Try to look at the right times of day when birds are more active. We saw the Yellow Warbler near dusk on Sandia peak, and had good luck at Bosque early in the morning. I strongly doubt we’d have seen as much in mid-afternoon.
Stop by the Visitors Center and talk to other birders there. The volunteers at Bosque were very helpful.
Don’t let birds you’re familiar with fool you. I might have missed the Golden Eagle and the Neotropical Cormorants if I hadn’t been looking for them. They look similar to other birds I’m familiar with in Florida.
A second set of eyes is very helpful. With two of us looking, MK and I saw more than we would have by ourselves.
Birding friends are helpful too. I probably could have figured out what all the life birds were on my own, but it was faster with Kevin helping. And having a second opinion is good too.
Photograph everything you see and confirm later. I wasn’t sure about the Golden Eagle until I enlarged the image on the back of my camera.
If you think you might be birding, bring your long lens. I didn’t and regret that. Thinking back on it, I should have left my ultra-wide at home and taken my longest lens instead. You can always stitch multi-frame panoramas to get a wider field of view. But you can’t get a longer focal length in post processing without losing quality.

I never expected to see so much – it was a great trip! Here’s what we saw:

Life birds: Golden Eagle, Gambel’s Quail, Black-chinned Hummingbird, Broad-billed Hummingbird, Ring-necked Pheasant, Neotropic Cormorants, Swainson’s Hawk, Cassin’s Kingbird, Say’s Phoebe, Black Phoebe, House Finch, Yellow Warbler

Other birds: Blue Grosbeaks (M & F), Crows, Common Ravens, Brown-headed Cowbirds, House Sparrows, Mockingbirds, Red-winged Blackbirds, Road Runner, Barn, Tree, and Cliff Swallows, Wild Turkeys, Canada Geese, Blue Wing Teals, American Coot, Pied-billed Grebe, Great Blue Herons, Turkey Vulture, Mourning Dove, Robin, Grackles, …

Other wildlife: Prairie Dogs, Snakes (no ID, although one roadkill might have been a Rattlesnake), Deer, Rabbit

You can see more of my New Mexico images here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/albums/72157685850604925

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

Three things

June 24, 2017INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWR, Technique, VARIOUSBPWD, equipment, landscapeEd Rosack

Three more or less unrelated things to discuss today…

1. Image Stabilization

I’ve used Olympus micro four thirds cameras for a while and I’ve watched their capabilities get better and better. Their latest image stabilization is truly amazing – Olympus claims five to six stops. This means that if you can normally shoot at 1/100 second handheld without inducing camera shake blur, then with IS, you may be able to shoot at 1/3 to 1/2 second. Truly a huge difference, as long as subject motion blur is not a problem.

Rapidan River – This is the view just behind President Herbert Hoover’s cabin at the Rapidan camp retreat in the Shenandoah Mountains.

The settings on this photo are: focal length equivalent of 28mm, ISO 64, f/8, at 0.5 seconds, handheld. Using the (1/focal length) rule of thumb, I should have exposed this at 1/30 sec to prevent camera shake. But I wanted to use a slower shutter speed to blur the moving water. With IS turned on in camera, I could hand hold at a half second and still keep all the non-moving rocks, etc. completely sharp in the frame. And I like the way the water looks.

It’s a nice option to have if you don’t bring your tripod.

2. Workflow Experiments

I recently bought an SSD (solid state device) disk. The main advantage of these is that they’re faster than spinning hard drives. I wanted to speed up my photo processing workflow. So I moved my 2017 image file directory and my Lightroom catalog to this drive and sure enough, Lightroom does seem faster.

But then it occurred to me that when I travel, I can take the SSD with me on the road and use it with my laptop. All I have to do is add a folder for the images from the trip. When I get home I can just move it back to my desktop computer and any work that I’ve done on the road will come across with the SSD. I won’t have to export / import, etc. This should definitely save time when I get back.

There are some things to be careful of. I’m backing up the SSD drive using Apple’s Time Machine in case there are any glitches with the SSD. And I’ve had to re-arrange the image folders across the different disks and tell Lightroom where everything is. I also need to make sure that preferences and presets are all accounted for.

After a week or so, it all seems to work ok. I’ll let you know if I discover any other gotchas. If you have questions about this setup, leave a comment and I’ll try to answer.

3. Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge update

You may remember this blog post from March: https://edrosack.com/2017/03/19/morning-glory/. I posted a photo then of cracked mud on the bottom of a dried out pool.

I haven’t been back recently, and when my friend Howard T. wanted to try out a new camera, we decided to see what’s going on over there. I’m happy to report that the water is back to normal (or even a bit high). I can’t really recommend it for wildlife photography yet – the birds and animals still seem to mostly be elsewhere. Maybe they’ll read this blog and return when they find out conditions have improved.

Black Point Wildlife Drive – The drought has eased – there was a lot of water there last week.

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

Memorial Day, 2017

May 28, 2017OUTSIDE FLORIDA, VARIOUSArlington National Cemetery, black and white, cemetery, memorial, Memorial Day, Pearl Harbor, submarineEd Rosack

Decorating soldiers’ graves with flowers is an ancient custom. We’ve done this in the United States since before the Civil War.

Decoration Day was officially established soon after the Civil War ended and observed on May 30 because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. Memorial Day became a national holiday in 1971 and moved to the last Monday in May.

A gray, cold day – It’s hard see the end of these graves, and more difficult to imagine the suffering. Arlington National Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 400,000 active duty service members, veterans and their families.

The USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – The resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on USS Arizona (BB-39) during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. It commemorates the events of that day. This photo ©MK Rosack, 2017, used with permission.

USS Bowfin (SS-287) Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Bowfin made WW II patrols and supported the Korean War. It’s open to the public as a museum and park and became a National Historic Landmark in 1986. This photo ©MK Rosack, 2017, used with permission.

More information:

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Please, take a few moments tomorrow to remember those who perished, and those they left behind. Heroes all.

Ten years? How'd that happen?

May 7, 2017VARIOUSEd Rosack

On May 4th 2007, I wrote this blog’s first post:

A wonderful trip!!! San Francisco and Muir Woods

I don’t remember why I decided to start. I think I was just playing around – excited about the trip and wanting to share. There was no plan to continue, much less for 482 more posts!

The blog’s evolved over time – and I developed a purpose that I try to fulfill (described in the introduction on the Contents / Index page). I hope people do find some photographically useful info in each entry. Although today might be an exception 🙂

You may not realize that this isn’t the most popular site on the internet. There are 218 email subscribers, 21 more via WordPress.com, and an unknown number of regular readers via RSS. About 30 – 60 more views per day come in outside of the subscriptions. If I were selling adds or something else, I’d worry about increasing views, but I’m not. So it’s a tiny corner of the web – and I’m very grateful for my regular readers and visitors and their interest.

Here’s a list of the posts / pages people viewed the most over the last year:

And here’s a list of the most common search terms leading to the blog over the past year:

photo opportunities in orlando fl
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images of great blue heron in flight
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Both of these seem to show that I’m coming close to meeting the blog’s purpose.

I enjoy the photography and writing. And the weekly posts motivate me to keep going out and exploring. I also enjoy occasionally reading old posts. I have no plans to retire Central Florida Photo Ops, although I don’t have any idea how much longer I’ll continue – I never imagined it would last this long! I think it does probably need some refreshing. If you have any ideas on that, let me know.

And just so we don’t have a post without a photo, here’s one from the archives. Is it a metaphor? A subtle message? Only the blog knows.

Road Narrows – On the way up to Mt. Evans, Colorado. July 2007.

As a reminder, you can use the “Archives” pulldown on the right (or in the menu on the mobile version) to browse older posts. You can use the “Categories” pulldown to filter on specific locations. And you can use the search box to find posts on any given subject.

Thank you so, so much for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

Photography related advice for April

April 1, 2017Cameras and Photography, VARIOUSapril fools day, humorEd Rosack

Now that it’s the first day of April, I thought I’d pass on some information I’ve collected on photography related subjects.

But first, every post must have a photo.

Wood Stork in Flight?

Feel free to use all of this advice and pass it on. Or not.

Cameras and Settings:

Don’t make photographs in a sandstorm. They’ll turn out grainy.
What’s wrong with most cameras that won’t take good pictures? The nut behind the viewfinder!
Military photography: Why is flying an F-16 better than flying an F-22? It’s one stop faster!
Street photography; Two photographers are walking down a street and pass a beggar. One keeps walking. The other stops. Later when they catch up with each other the first says to the second. “I saw you stop for that beggar. What did you give him?”. ”Oh” says the first, “1/125th at f5.6”.
How to tell if someone is a real photographer: Ask them this question. Suppose you’re walking through the woods and come to a clearing. In that clearing is a lake and in the lake is a man is obviously drowning. Now you only have time to do one of the following – save his life or take a photo. Here’s the question: Which lens should you use?
How to make a photo at the North Pole? Use a North Polaroid.
During the holidays: Shoot the kids, hang the family, and frame the wife.
What should Mozart do when his Olympus camera breaks? Borrow Pachelbel’s Canon.
Photographic spirits: A photojournalist was caught out in a rain shower when he saw a dark gloomy house. He was drying off in the house, heard scary sounds and saw a ghost coming towards him. He grabbed his camera to take pictures. The ghost asked him what he was doing, he said “I just want to take your picture for the newspaper.” The ghost was glad for the exposure and posed for the photographer. When his film was all done he thanked the ghost and rushed to his office to get the film developed. When he saw the results he was terribly disappointed: they all came out black – underexposed. The moral of the story is: The spirit was willing but the flash was weak.
How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change it, and 49 to say “I could have done that”.

Photography Safety

A photographer made a selfie in the park. Since it was dark, he used the built-in flash on his camera. He got arrested for flashing and exposing himself.
Two photographers are in the restroom. One uses Canon cameras and the other uses Nikon. Nikon finishes first and simply heads for the door. Canon says “Excuse me, Canon photographers wash our hands when we’re finished”.
Nikon replies: ” I understand, but Nikon photographers don’t pee on our hands”
Any photo of a chicken nibbling my butt has an unusual ass-pecked ratio.

Photography, business, and money:

The quickest way to make money at photography is to sell your camera.
How do you get a professional photographer off your front porch?
Pay for the pizza.
What’s the difference between a frog hopping down the street and a photographer walking down the street? The frog might be on the way to a job.
How do you make a small fortune in photography? Start with a large one.

Working with models:

If your model didn’t show up to the photo shoot because of acne…that’s a pore excuse.
Most photographers will pick a model with photographic mammaries.
Don’t pick these kind of models: Two new models are waiting as the photographer sets up equipment. One says to the other, ”What’s taking so long?”
The other replies: “The photographer’s getting ready to focus”.
To which the first model exclaims, ”FOCUS, we haven’t even been paid yet!”

April Fools! I’m sorry for the poor humor. I hope no one was too offended or groaned too much.

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

Followed by Rain Clouds

February 19, 2017Cruise Ships, OUTSIDE FLORIDAlandscape, rainbowEd Rosack

The weather was poor at times on our eastern Caribbean cruise late last year. We had strong winds and high seas on two days that kept us from doing things we wanted. And it seemed like clouds and rain followed us everywhere.

I didn’t mind. I’ve written before about the benefits of clouds in landscape photography – clear blue skies can be boring! And so I looked for interesting clouds and lighting:

Saba Island – Near the British Virgin Islands. 9 frame stitched panorama.

And started noticing rainbows too. You can’t have rainbows without rain clouds!

Double Rainbow at Saba Island – 4 frame, iPhone, RAW, stitched panorama.

We were in Road Town Harbor as squalls moved through, and saw this rainbow develop across from the ship. I looked for but didn’t see a pot of gold (or leprechaun) in the water at either end!

Rainbow in Road Town Harbor – 3 frame, iPhone, RAW, stitched panorama.

On another day in San Juan harbor we saw this:

Rainbows over the cruise ship, San Juan, Puerto Rico – single frame, iPhone, RAW

Cloudy skies add interest, and chasing rainbows is fun photography. I really didn’t mind being followed by rain clouds. You shouldn’t either – look for all the opportunities it creates.

You can see more photos from the trip in this album on Flickr.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Now, go make some cloudy sky photos!

Three Photography Observations

February 5, 2017Cameras and Photography, Cocoa, INSIDE FLORIDA, TechniqueHi-res, landscape, Olympus, sunriseEd Rosack

When I left to meet Kevin K. and Tom M. for some photography before dawn last Monday, the sky was clear, the stars were shining and I didn’t think the sunrise would be very good. If I hadn’t been meeting friends, I might have gone back to bed! Looking at the photos in this post, it’s easy to see I was wrong – the sunrise was beautiful.

Observation 1: Go. You can’t always anticipate what you’ll see when you’re out photographing. But if you stay home, you know you won’t see anything.

Calm Blue Hour. 14mm (equivalent), ISO 64, f/5.6, 10 sec., Hi-res mode.

We ended up at Cocoa Riverfront Park. The clouds were moving in and the light and colors changed as we watched. There were several interesting directions to point the camera.

Observation 2: Arrive early and stay for a while when photographing sunrise. Watch all directions. Bring several lenses to vary your exposure, composition, and perspective. Work the scene!

Fire in the sky. 70mm (equivalent), ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/50 sec., multi-frame stitched panorama

Photos 1 and 3 are from the Olympus E-M1 Mark II camera in hi-res mode. You may remember this post (https://edrosack.com/2015/08/09/thoughts-on-processing-olympus-om-d-e-m5-mark-ii-high-resolution-photos/) where I wrote about motion anomalies with E-M5 Mark II hi-res and how to manually fix them.

Observation 3: My conclusions from the earlier post are all still true – except for one. I’m happy to report that with the E-M1 Mark II camera, Olympus has made a great deal of progress with hi-res mode. I didn’t have to fix any motion anomalies in either of these photos. Well done Olympus.

Dew on the Boardwalk. 14mm (equivalent), ISO 64, f/5.6, 8 sec., Hi-res mode.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Now, go make some photos!

A Couple Composites

January 22, 2017Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando, Orlando Wetlandsbirds, Flowers, focus stacking, landscape, multiple exposure, panorama, techniqueEd Rosack

I went for another walk last week at Orlando Wetlands Park with Tom M. It was a pretty morning and in addition to the normal bird suspects, we also saw Soras, Purple Gallinules, and heard reports of Bald Eagles and many Black Crowned Night Herons.

In this post though, I want to discuss compositing. Wikipedia says:

“Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene.”

Multiple exposures are a subset of compositing, and are much easier to produce in today’s world of digital photography. In addition to creating an illusion, they can be used to show things that are difficult for a camera to capture in a single frame and better show reality. Examples are panoramas, focus stacking, HDR, etc.

There’s a lovely Pink Trumpet tree on the west side of the main path into the park. It’s in bloom and that morning the moon was setting behind the tree. This snap from my iPhone shows how the tree looked against the sky and moon.

I wanted to isolate one bloom with the moon and clouds behind it, but the depth of field with my telephoto lens was too shallow to show both in the same frame. So I made two, with one focused on the flower and the second on the clouds / moon. Then in Photoshop it was relatively easy to combine the two frames to show what I wanted.

Moon, clouds, and flower

Here’s a second example:

Ibis flight sequence

This one is from a sequence of a single White Ibis flying by in a little under 2 seconds. I brought all 25 frames into Photoshop on separate layers and aligned them. Then I used the focus select function to mask the birds from each layer into a single composite. I ended up having to omit every other frame to avoid overlapping birds.

If you’re willing to dive into Photoshop or any other image editing software that offers layers and masking, you can do the same sort of work. Think about techniques like these when you’re out photographing. If you capture the source frames you need when you’re out, then when you get back to your computer you can use them to solve problems and enhance your creativity.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Now, go make some multiple exposure photos!

Cruising Wildlife

December 31, 2016Cameras and Photography, Cruise Shipsbirds, Brown Booby, Magnificent Frigatebird, Masked Booby, travel, vacation, wildlifeEd Rosack

Lynn and I were fortunate to be able to cruise the Caribbean once again earlier this month. I love watching birds and wildlife and trying to make photographs of their behavior. On this trip we both saw something for the first time.

On more than one occasion, birds followed our ship and dove for fish right along side.

Brown Booby

There were mostly Brown Boobies with a few Masked Boobies mixed in.

Masked Booby

Flying Fish were also plentiful along our route and the ship’s wake seemed to scare them up as we passed.

Flying Fish

A closer look at the Flying Fish

Photographing the birds catching fish wasn’t easy. You have to track a bird (at high magnification) as it moves just above the water and focus / shoot continuously – then hope you catch the right moment before your camera buffer runs out. I managed to get a few frames although the quality is not high. This is probably the best one.

Just before the catch

I was using a new camera (Olympus E-M1 II) for the bird / fish photos. The frame rate and continuous focus capabilities really helped. There’s a new “Pro Capture” mode on this that I couldn’t use (didn’t have the right lens). It captures frames with the shutter button pressed half way and saves them with a final frame when fully pressed. It would have made this use case easier. I’m looking forward to seeing how the camera works in other situations.

We also saw Magnificent Frigatebirds. They seem pretty common in the Caribbean – mostly in the harbors. I’ve only seen a few here in Florida, along both coasts

Female Magnificent Frigatebird

Cruise directors plan interesting things for passengers to do while at sea but these may not appeal to everyone. It’s good to have an alternative activity available like wildlife observation and photography when you’re looking for something fun to do.

I’m collecting other photos from the trip in this album on Flickr. And I have several other blog posts that feature photography from cruise ships. If you’re interested, see this link: https://edrosack.com/category/photo-ops-categorized-by-place/cruise-ships/

By the way (no.1): I realize that some spam filters may reject the email for this post due to the names of the birds. If it happens to you, sorry. You can always read the latest content on the web at https://edrosack.com

By the way (no. 2): I think the search problem on the blog is resolved. If anyone still has issues, please let me know.

By the way (no. 3): Happy new year! I hope all of you have a great holiday and prosperous and delightful 2017!

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