Category Archives: VARIOUS

St. Augustine, Florida and vicinity – photo hints

August 10, 2013INSIDE FLORIDA, Marineland Beach, Must do list, St. Augustinebeach, boat, cloud, coquina, door, fort, landscape, lighthouse, long exposure, panorama, people, street, sunrise, sunsetEd Rosack

Lynn was out-of-town last week at the Pressing Iron & Trivet Collectors of America Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. I talked her into letting me out of my spousal support services subcontract, so I had a chance to sneak in a few days of photography while she was away. I spent the time in St. Augustine, Florida, which is “the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement and port in the continental United States”. I’ve written about it many times (see this link) and it’s one of my favorite places to photograph. Photo ops abound and include landscapes, architecture, street scenes, beaches, historic landmarks, wildlife, and much more. It’s hard to go anywhere in the area and not come back with a photo! Here are some of mine along with hints on how I made them.
There are some wonderful sunrise and sunset spots. Friends told me about Marineland Beach (thanks Kevin M. and JT) which is just a little south of St. Augustine. It’s now one of my new favorites. The coquina rocks there worked really well as foreground objects in my photos.

Long exposure sunrise – Marineland Beach, Florida

This is a single exposure, made through a Hoya ND400 filter right after sunrise. The waves were coming in around me, but I stood my tripod on one of the rocks to keep us dry. I used my lowest ISO setting (50) and even with the sun in the frame, the 8 2/3 stop ND filter gave me a 14 second exposure at f/8 . The long shutter speed makes the water surface contrast nicely with the rock texture.

One thing you’ll run into in Florida on summer mornings is condensation. It’s so humid that if you take your camera gear directly from your air-conditioned room or car out into the moist air, you can expect 15 to 30 minutes of fog before they clear. You can decrease this by not running your car’s AC on the way. You can also seal your camera and lens in a plastic bag with as much air removed as possible until it warms up. And it’s a good idea to bring along a micro-fiber cloth to remove condensation if needed. The larger your camera / lens is, the longer it will take to warm up. This is one time that good glass works against you – at least until the temperature equalizes. One more point: try not to change lenses under these conditions. If water condenses on your sensor, it can be hard to remove and may cause dust to adhere to the surface.

The harbor and fort (Castillo de San Marcos) also provide interesting detail for sunrise or sunset and landscapes in general.

A calm morning in the St. Augustine harbor: Clouds to the north over the Castillo de San Marcos and the quarter Moon above the Bridge of Lions add interesting detail to this image.

This photo and the next were both multi-shot panoramas made with the techniques I described last week. Images like the harbor scene can be tough to blend due to smooth gradients in the sky and water. Be sure you check carefully and correct any glitches.

Another thing about summer in Florida: We have awesome afternoon thunderstorms. Clouds add a lot of drama to photos, but the storms were so bad on two of the days I was there that I couldn’t go out for sunset. Plan accordingly.

St. Augustine Sunset behind the Castillo de San Marcos

On this evening at the fort, there was a large thunder-storm to the west. The sky wasn’t colorful at all until the sun moved down below the thunder head, resulting in these shadows and rays. One big advantage of sunset photography vs. sunrise is that you can wait to see what develops. At sunrise, you need to be in place extremely early to see all the variations happen.

I had a great time walking around the fort at sunset with my large tripod and big DSLR camera. Most people were oblivious and walked right through my photos (I don’t blame them – I don’t own the place). I’d wait for a clear spot in the traffic and make another exposure. Other folks stood next to me since they thought wherever someone with a big camera is has to be a good spot. At one point, a tour guide in a pirate costume leading a group of 20 or so people saw me and stopped his group from walking in front of me until I finished my exposure. It turned out he’s a photographer too.

I wanted to try a night photo of the lighthouse. I also wanted to capture the look of the beam coming out of the light. This turned out to be a tough assignment. The contrast range is huge and there’s a lot of glare from the lights in the scene.

St. Augustine Light Station

I ended up merging two exposures. The first one was long (f/4 @ 3 seconds) at a low ISO (400) to decrease noise. The slow shutter blurred the light beam, so I made a second exposure (ISO 3200, f/4 @ 0.4 seconds) and this stopped the beam enough to highlight it. The second exposure had some noise, but was fine with a bit of post processing before I blended the two manually in Photoshop. I made this photo about an hour before sunrise. It was dark and there was no one around. One of my contacts on Flickr commented that spooky things happen in this area. I’m glad I didn’t notice any when I was there.

Tom M. met me up there on one of the days and we spent several hours just walking around. There were many interesting scenes, and I never saw any two doors alike.

Red door #33

We were walking down one street and saw someone in the distance photographing this house with his iPhone. He was really working it, making multiple photos / compositions and was still there when we arrived several minutes later. We waited for him to finish and when he looked up and noticed us he asked what kind of cameras we had. It turned out he’s a photographer too and was there on vacation, but forgot his Nikon D3S DSLR. He said using the iPhone was “very liberating”. Photo hint 101: If someone’s taking a picture, look at what he’s photographing – it might be interesting. Photo hint 102: Don’t forget your camera.

A little later, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this waiter zipping through traffic on the way to work. On a skate board. I managed to make a quick photo.

Morning commute – very eco-friendly

We also noticed this person reading on the bench. I really liked the symmetry of the columns and how they led my eye towards the subject. ~~Tom posted a different composition~~ (sorry – no longer available) that I think is really good too.

Reading.

By the way, if you have Lightroom 5, try out the “Upright” settings in the Lens Corrections panel on photos like the one above. It does a great job squaring things up.

Like I said, there’s a tremendous amount of photo-ops in the area. I didn’t make it by the St. Augustine Alligator Farm on this visit, but from March to June, it’s one of the best places in Florida to photograph a variety of wild birds nesting in the rookery there. I also didn’t get to Fort Matanzas. It’s a little south of the city and makes a nice side excursion. The Nombre de Dios Mission in the northern part of the city has a beautiful chapel and grounds as well as a view into the harbor. And I’m sure that there are a great many more photo ops that I still have to discover in this beautiful place.

You can see these photos larger if you click on them and I have many others from St. Augustine in this set on Flickr.

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

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!

Colorado: New vs. Familiar

July 20, 2013Colorado, Must do list, OUTSIDE FLORIDAbirds, black and white, Bristlecone Pine, Hummingbird, infrared, landscape, Mount Blue Sky, mount evans, mountain, panorama, reflection, treeEd Rosack

I was in Colorado last week and had a chance to go sightseeing in the mountains near Denver. Whenever I visit, I find it to be so scenic and photogenic that it overwhelms me. It’s different from what I normally see at home here in Florida and I want to make photos of everything.

Valley of sunbeams and shadows – Don’t miss Mount Evans if you ever get to Denver in the summer time. This is a four image panorama from near the summit, about 13,500 feet.

I find when I get back from a trip like this and go through my images, most don’t have the impact that I felt at the time. My “keeper” rate seems lower than from local trips. Maybe this is because I’ve photographed in Florida so much that I don’t see as many new things when I go out – so I make fewer photos. Luckily, I did end up with some that I really like from Colorado.

The Chapel on the Rock (Saint Catherine of Siena Chapel) – This is in Allenspark, Colorado, south along Route 7 out of Estes Park on the grounds of the Saint Malo Retreat. We didn’t know this was on our route. It’s wonderful to discover something unexpected like this while on a drive. Another 4 image pano.

I guess we humans are hardwired to find new and unfamiliar things more interesting. And familiarity can breed complacency. Do people in Colorado get used to the mountains and sleep in some days instead of getting up and out to see and photograph them? Like we sleep in here instead of getting up to go out into a world-class wildlife refuge like Merritt Island?

Bristlecone pine trees – Some of the trees in the Mount Goliath Natural Area are over 1,600 years old. I used my IR modified Olympus E-PL1 for this photo. Yes, it’s one more 4 image pano.

Wildlife is different out there too. Some non-Florida species I saw included six new life birds (Steller’s Jay, Gray Jay, Common Raven, Black-billed Magpie, Dark-eyed Junco, and a Broad-tailed Hummingbird) as well as plenty of Mountain Goats, Marmots and Chipmunks.

Broad-tailed Hummingbird – Behind my Sister’s house in Littleton, Colorado. These birds look very similar to the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds we have in Florida, but the Broad-tailed doesn’t have a black chin. No, this is not a pano.

I wonder if Florida’s unique landscapes and wildlife are as interesting to people visiting here as Colorado’s are to me when I’m out there?

Here are two earlier posts about Mount Evans: Mt. Evans and Mt. Evans Redux. You can view other Mount Evans photos here on Flickr. And this set on Flickr has more Denver area photos.

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

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!

Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit – Kennedy Space Center

July 5, 2013INSIDE FLORIDA, Kennedy Space Center, Must do listAtlantis, Kennedy Space Center, launch, panorama, reviews, shuttle, spaceEd Rosack

At the end of the space shuttle program, four different locations received an orbiter from NASA: Kennedy Space Center, the California Science Center, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC, and the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in New York. KSC got the Atlantis, which was the last shuttle ever launched. The Atlantis Shuttle Experience grand opening ceremony was on Saturday, June 29, 2013. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the Visitor’s Center, so I decided to go over and see what it’s like.

Space Shuttle Atlantis side view panorama – It’s displayed as if in orbit, with the cargo doors open, a satellite in the bay and the robot arm deployed.

In short, this new exhibit is outstanding. At the entrance to the building, there’s a full size model of the solid rocket boosters and fuel tank assembly. You enter and walk up a ramp to a room with a movie about the history of the shuttle program. Then you move into a second room with another movie about the launches before you finally enter the exhibit hall itself. The Atlantis is suspended as though it’s in orbit and you’re free to walk all around it and explore on several levels. In places you’re almost within arms reach – close enough to see a lot of detail including re-entry marks on the tiles. The hall also has many other exhibits including satellites, a transport van, space suit, a space station mock-up your kids can run through, and a group of simulators you can try including several where you attempt to land (OK if you must know, I crashed my simulated shuttle – but not too hard).

Space Shuttle Atlantis – front view

To put this into perspective, I went back through my photo archives to see if I had any previous photos of Atlantis and found several. Here are two – you can see they’re not as close up as the new ones are:

Atlantis on the pad in October 2009 before the STS 129 mission – This is as close as I got to a shuttle while they were operational.

Atlantis launch on STS 117 in June of 2007, just after SRB separation (made from Orlando, ~50 miles away)

And finally, here’s one last photo from my trip this week. It shows the Astronaut’s Memorial. In the background on the left you can see the Solid Rocket Booster assembly that stands in front of the building housing the Atlantis.

Astronaut’s Memorial – also known as the Space Mirror Memorial. The Atlantis Experience entrance is behind and on the left.

Photo hints: The light inside the exhibit hall is mixed so be careful with your white balance or shoot in RAW so you can adjust it in post processing. The lighting is also a bit dim. I shot at ISOs between 800 and 1600 with an aperture of f/4 and a shutter speed between 1/15 and 1/60 sec. I didn’t use a tripod, but I did have vibration reduction / optical stabilization. Atlantis is large – a wide-angle lens will help you fit all of it in the frame. I used a 24 – 120mm zoom lens and it worked well for most photos. I did have to make a multi shot panorama for the horizontal view above.

Here’s a link to my previous post on Kennedy Space Center. Here’s a link to the entry for the Atlantis on Wikipedia. Boing Boing has a really good review of the exhibit at this link. And here are some other links to news about the Atlantis Exhibit opening:

~~Florida Today~~ (sorry, no longer available)

USA Today

Space.com

I’ve posted other Kennedy Space Center photos in this set on Flickr. Also, I’ve licensed the first photo above as Creative Commons. It’s free for non-commercial, no derivative use as long as you provide attribution. If you’d like to see / download a high-resolution version (~80MP), click it to go to Flickr. Then click on the “…” symbol at the bottom right of the photo and select “View all sizes”.

Living in Central Florida for so long, I feel a personal connection to the space program and I was extremely impressed with the Atlantis Exhibit. This vehicle flew 33 separate missions between October 1985 and July 2011 covering hundreds of orbits and over 126 million miles. It’s awesome to see something like this up close and I’m very grateful it’s nearby. But at the same time, it makes me a little sad. The shuttle program was wonderful, but it’s over now. With all the other competing priorities, will we ever have an ambitious space program again? I hope so.

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

Some Blog Housekeeping Info

June 30, 2013Blogging, INSIDE FLORIDA, Melbourne Beach, VARIOUSblog info, sunriseEd Rosack

Today’s entry is just a few notes about the blog. First: A photo. This is unrelated really to the subject of this post, but we can’t have a post without a photo – can we? This is from Melbourne Beach, Florida on the morning after the Turtle walk.

Smell the sea, sense the sand, and see the sun rise

Second: If you’re reading the blog using Google’s Reader RSS service or an app or web page that uses it to sync, then you should know that Google is stopping Reader as of tomorrow. There are several alternatives. You can subscribe via email (use the button at the top right), visit using your browser once or twice a week, or adopt a new RSS reader. I’m trying out “The Old Reader“. There’s an IOS app called “Feeddler” that can sync with it. Several others are available too and will come up if you Google “Google Reader alternatives”.

Third: I’ve been behind updating the blog’s Table of Contents page, but I’ve caught up now. If you’ve never looked at it, please check it out. I think it’s a great resource on Central Florida (and other) Photo Ops.

Fourth: I’ve also been very behind keeping my Birding life list up to date. I still haven’t caught up on this, but it should be done later this week. It’ll have a few new (for me) birds from earlier this year and will be re-organized and sorted to align with the ABA bird checklist.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Melbourne Beach Turtle Walk

June 25, 2013INSIDE FLORIDA, Melbourne Beach, Must do list, Techniquebeach, loggerhead turtle, moon, nest, night, sea turtle, turtleEd Rosack

I didn’t put much effort into this photo of last Saturday’s super moon – so the result isn’t that exciting.

Super moon over Melbourne Beach – The full moon and sparse clouds helped get our shutter speeds up just a little during the turtle walk.

What did excite me was what the super moon illuminated. Kevin M. and I attended a turtle walk led by the Sea Turtle Preservation Society in Melbourne Beach, Florida – what an incredibly awesome experience! NOTE: this was an FWC Permitted activity that should not be attempted personally.

Loggerhead sea turtles are endangered in the US and many other countries. They seem to be making a comeback recently since “turtle excluder devices” were required on fishing nets starting in the late 1980s. They’re found over most of the world, although the east coast of Florida is a prime nesting area. Nesting season peaks here June and July. Last year, Florida recorded 58,000 nests with many of them in Brevard County.

I’ve spotted sea turtles off shore on the surface before, but until Saturday I’d never seen one on the beach. Since they’re endangered, it’s illegal to approach or harass them in any way. But there is a way to see them up close on shore. The Sea Turtle Preservation Society has a Florida State permit to conduct Turtle Walks for the public several nights a week during nesting season at three different locations in South Brevard County. They give a presentation with lots of good background on sea turtles. During the presentation, people from the organization scout the beach looking for a nesting Loggerhead. When they find one, they lead the group out to observe.

Loggerhead sea turtle laying eggs – The guides keep everyone behind the turtle where she can’t see them and put a small red light in the nest to illuminate the eggs.

There are some rules for the walk:

Stay with and obey the guides. They’ll lead you to the nest along the water line after she starts laying eggs.
No lights at all are allowed, including cell phones and especially flash photography.
No noise.
Everyone is kept behind the turtle out of her line of sight.
When she’s done, the guides will move the group to one side away from her path back to the ocean.
Stay off the outgoing turtle tracks. Researchers use them the next morning to count nests.
If you go, check with your group for their rules. They may be different.

This is very tough photography assignment. In fact it’s much more of a Central Florida Nature Op than a Central Florida Photo Op. But if you want to try to make some photos, here are some hints:

The group we went with says they see turtles on 90% of their walks. I’m not sure what it’s like with other groups. You might want to ask before you go.
Check with the leaders of the group you’re going with about photography. Rules seem to vary and some groups don’t allow any photography at all.
Schedule your walk to take advantage of conditions. The beach is very dark. Hotels and homes in the area are even required to keep their lights off during nesting season. You’ll have a bit more light if you go during a full moon and when there’s minimum cloud cover. Also, The turtles seem to prefer coming ashore at high tide. Our walk was just after. We were also fortunate to have a 10 mph east wind that kept us very comfortable and insect free. I wasn’t even sweating at the end of the walk – and this is Florida – in late June! But if the wind is too strong, you’ll have to watch out for tripod vibrations.
Other than the small flashlight in the photo above, all the other photos in this post were made with just ambient light well after sunset. You’ll need a tripod and fast lens.
Be careful with your tripod. The group was pretty large the night we went and I worried about hitting or tripping someone in the dark (I didn’t).
Bring a fast lens. Kevin and I both used 50mm f/1.8 lenses and shot with them wide open. This was a pretty good focal length for the subject distances.
The moon was very bright – I shot at ISO 800, f/1.8 and my shutter speed varied around 1 second. If you go at another time of the month, your shutter speeds may be even slower.
Your tripod will help stop camera motion, but you’ll need to time your shots to minimize turtle motion.
The crowd was pretty large and I had to maneuver to get a clear view with my camera. Be courteous.
Make sure you can work your camera controls in the dark. You need to know how to at least change to manual focus and adjust the ISO without a flashlight.
Turn off your auto focus assist light and auto photo review – no lights, remember?
Auto focus was very difficult. The only time it worked at all was on the guide’s red flashlight in the nest. The rest of the time, I used manual focus and guessed since it was so dark. You’ll need to take your chances and hope for some sharp shots. Since it was so dim, I found the optical view finder on my Nikon easier to use than the EVF on my Olympus. Your mileage may vary.
Depth of field will be very shallow. Try to focus on the middle distance of your subject and if possible compose with the long axis of your subject parallel to the camera.
Surprisingly, shadows can be an issue. There were times when people blocked the moon and shadows on the turtle were pretty dark. Move around to find a better point of view.

Turtle walk crowd

When she’s done laying her eggs, she buries them and disguises the nest.

Loggerhead sea turtle covering nest

And then heads back out to sea.

The Epic Journey Continues – Loggerhead Turtle returning to the ocean. Photo by Kevin McKinney (used with permission).

As you can probably tell from my write-up, I really enjoyed this outing. It was wonderful to witness a natural event that’s been on going for 165 million years. A big shout out and thank you to Kevin’s wife Traci. She’s the one that recommended we go on the turtle walk. And thanks to Kevin for scheduling it on the perfect night.

If you want to know more, here’s a couple of links to recent sea turtle news:

~~http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20130624/NEWS01/130624007~~ (sorry – no longer available)

~~http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-loggerhead-turtles-thriving-20130623,0,6384714.story~~ (sorry – no longer available)

As usual, you can see a few other photos from the trip in my set on Flickr, and in Kevin’s set.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go witness some nature, and (if you can) make some photos!

Central Florida Summer Sights

June 21, 2013INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWR, Orlando, Orlando Wetlands, VARIOUSbirds, black and white, dock, Dolphin, kayak, killdeer, landscape, parhelion, sundog, sunriseEd Rosack

One of the great things about photography is that it gets you up and out there. You may not see anything if you go – but if you don’t go you definitely won’t ever see anything. Here are a few photos of what I saw around Central Florida this week.

I made this first one about a half hour before dawn along Gator Creek Road in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The low tide had uncovered these rocks, so I used my ultra wide-angle, rectilinear lens and lowered my tripod to emphasize them. This is a single exposure, processed in Lightroom and Photoshop. I also tried out the new Topaz Clarity filter. It seems to do a good job enhancing contrast without introducing halos.

Quiet morning

The word “parhelion” comes from the Greek for “beside the sun”. They’re also called sundogs and are always 22 degrees away from and at the same elevation as the sun. They’re most visible when the sun is low and the sky is darker – dawn or dusk. I like to watch for them and I thought it was nice of this kayaker to pose with one for me. I was lucky that I’d already shifted to my long lens to make bird photos. I needed the reach for this composition.

Early start – Kayak fisherman paddling underneath a sundog.

There were several dolphins also fishing in this area. I could see the fish jumping and the dolphins seemed to catch a lot of them.

Fishing Dolphin

I stopped by Orlando Wetlands Park briefly and it was very scenic despite the cloud cover. I liked the pathways the birds made through the vegetation in this scene.

Morning marsh – A cloudy morning in Orlando Wetlands, just after dawn

This time of year, there’s not as much bird activity as in the spring. Orlando Wetlands was pretty quiet and so was MINWR. But there are still some regulars around and it’s nice to watch their antics.

Killdeer nest on the ground. When a predator gets close, they pretend to have a broken wing and try to draw the predator away from the nest. I watched this one perform and when it finished it turned around to peek back at me and check if it was working. It did – I didn’t bother its nest.

Killdeer checks me out

I don’t know how many times I’ve driven by the remains of this dock on the right side of the causeway leading into MINWR – but I never noticed it before. When I was leaving the other day, I finally saw it. It was a quick thing, almost subconscious. I actually drove on by before I processed what I saw and turned around. I’m very glad I stopped – it doesn’t look like it will last much longer. By the time I made this photo, the light was pretty bright. I used a neutral density filter to slow down my shutter speed and tried several focal lengths / compositions. I like this one the best. A B&W conversion using Nik Silver Effects seemed to fit the scene. In the future, I need to be more observant. What else is out there I’ve missed?

Old dock

You can click on these photos to see larger versions on Flickr. And you can see more from Merritt Island in this set on Flickr, and from Orlando Wetlands in this set.

Florida Waterfalls?

June 15, 2013Falling Waters, INSIDE FLORIDA, Rainbow Springs, TechniquewaterfallEd Rosack

So you’re in Florida and you want to make some waterfall photos. I hope you’ve got other plans too – because waterfalls are a tough assignment in the sunshine state. We have plenty of water (well, most of the time), but we’re one of the flattest states in the US – so we tend to come up short on the “falls” part. You can photograph waterfalls here – not the grand vista kind you’d see in other places like Yosemite or Alaska – but still scenic and worthwhile.

Yosemite National Park, California: Bridalveil Falls through blooming Pacific dogwood tree. Sorry, not in Florida.

Where in Florida can you photograph waterfalls? If you look at the Wikipedia article on waterfalls of the world, you’ll see that the Florida section lists just one: Falling Waters State Park is in Chipley just south of I-10 in the Florida panhandle.

Falling Waters State Park sinkhole – When it’s a waterfall, this is Florida’s tallest one. If the stream at the top is flowing, it falls 73 feet down into this 100 foot deep, 20 foot wide sinkhole and disappears into the Florida aquifer.

This park has some unique geology. Sinkholes line the boardwalk and you can descend part way into the main one pictured above. When the small creek that feeds the falls is flowing during the wet season, the waterfall can be quite impressive. It wasn’t on the day I visited :-(. Check with the park before you go – you can reach them at 850-638-6130.

If you do some Googling, you’ll find a couple other Florida waterfalls mentioned. Falling Creek falls is a small (~5 foot) waterfall in north Florida near the intersection of US 41 and I-75. Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park is near Gainesville. Similar to Falling Waters, it’s a bowl-shaped sinkhole over 120 feet deep and 500 foot across. You can follow a trail and see streams falling into the sink and the resulting small waterfalls. You can also descend into this sinkhole to view the inside. The tiny waterfalls here trickle down the embankment before they too disappear into the Florida Aquifer.

Rainbow Springs State Park is the home of Florida’s 4th largest spring. It was a privately owned commercial attraction up until the 1970s. It’s now a state park and in addition to the spring, has some very pretty gardens and several man-made waterfalls fed by water pumped from the spring.

Waterfall at Rainbow Springs State Park, Dunnellon, Florida

Rainbow Springs is a very pretty place. The Rainbow River is one of the clearest waters anywhere. The falls too are pretty. The morning I was there, only one had any water flow at first. Before I left, they’d turned on the others and I was able to photograph them too.

There are also other man-made waterfalls you can photograph. These are too many to list, but here’s one example from the Gaylord Palms hotel in Orlando:

Gaylord Palms Resort, Orlando, Florida – A waterfall in the Everglades portion of the Atrium

To close out this post, here are a few hints on waterfall photography:

If you want to show the water motion as a silky smooth stream, you’ll need to use a slow shutter speed. This depends to some extent on how fast the water is moving, but a good starting point might be 1/2 second or so. Experiment with different shutter speed settings to see which ones you like best.
You’ll need a tripod for slow shutter speeds, so bring yours.
If you have too much light to get the slow shutter speed you want, try using a polarizing filter or a neutral density filter.
The polarizing filter will also help reduce reflections on vegetation and the water’s surface
Be careful with your exposure. It’s easy to over expose the water since there’s often a large contrast range between it and the surrounding area. Make sure to check your histogram and think about bracketing your exposure.

Do you have any other waterfall photography hints to share? Do you know of any other Florida waterfall locations? If so, please let me and others know in the comments.

I have a couple more photos from Falling Waters in this set on Flickr. You can see photos of the other Rainbow Springs waterfalls in this set. And finally, this one has some of my other waterfall photos.

Viera Wetlands update, 5/18/13

May 19, 2013Cocoa, Cruise Ships, INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera Wetlandsbirds, black and white, Black Crowned Night Heron, bridge, cruise ship, long exposure, sunriseEd Rosack

I went over to the coast yesterday with Kevin M., Kevin K., Lutfi E.

Sunrise sure is happening really early again! We started out on the 520 Causeway near Port Canaveral – Kevin M. wanted to make a sunrise photo with a lit up cruise ship in the scene. Here’s how my version turned out:

Disney cruise ship at dawn – Port Canaveral, Florida

We also moved around looking for other compositions and I think each of us also made an image of this:

Beneath the Bridge – 520 Causeway looking east

After sunrise we moved down A1A to explore Lori Wilson Park and the boardwalk there. It’s very nice and located right on the beach. Migratory birds have been reported there, but we didn’t find any on Saturday.

Our last stop was Viera Wetlands. We wanted to check on it because we hadn’t been by since February. We saw a few of the common wading birds, some juvenile Anhingas, Ospreys, Coots, Glossy Ibis (that we hoped were White Faced Ibis – but weren’t), lots of Grackles, and a few other species. We also took a turn around the Click Ponds where we found a relatively uncommon Black Crowned Night Heron. Kevin M. managed a good photo when it came out of the reeds for a few seconds.

Black Crowned Night Heron (Photo by Kevin McKinney, used with permission)

This wasn’t our most productive or exciting trip ever, but we did have a good time. The activity was slow – I think we’re starting to get into the summer birding slow down here in Central Florida. We may need to look for a few different photo ops for the next few months.

You can read other Central Florida Photo Ops blog posts about Viera Wetlands from this link. And I’ve collected other photos from there in this set on Flickr.

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