Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park

Bulow Plantation, INSIDE FLORIDA, ,

Tom M. and I went over to Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park in Flagler Beach, Florida.  The buildings there were built out of the local coquina rock starting in 1821.  It was thriving in 1831 when John James Audubon visited.   It’s been abandoned since the Second Seminole War and was burned by Seminole Indians in 1836.  The walls and chimneys of the sugar mill on the site remain standing today and are listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Bulow Plantation Ruins
Bulow Plantation Ruins

The park has a hiking trail, a boat ramp, screened picnic pavilion, and a park interpretive center with original artifacts and exhibits.  The boat ramp is on Bulow Creek, which is a designated Florida State Canoe Trail.  It’s open 9 – 5, Thursday through Monday, and there’s a $4 / car entry fee.

Bulow Plantation Ruins
Bulow Plantation Ruins (665nm Infrared, toned B&W)

We didn’t expect such bad weather – it was quite different on the coast.  The rain and clouds made the light rather poor.  I think we’ll need to go back for better photos.

The dirt road leading out of Bulow Creek Plantation.
The view down the dirt road leading out of Bulow Creek Plantation (665nm false color Infrared)

This is a fascinating place where you can look back into Florida history.  It’s well worth a visit.

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

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Panoramic alternatives – iPhones and more

California, Chicago, INSIDE FLORIDA, Italy, St. Johns River, Technique, , , , ,

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I like panoramic photos.  We’ve all been to many places where the view is so grand it doesn’t fit into a single frame.  Sometimes you can’t capture what your eyes see with one camera exposure.  So I started stitching panoramas together.  My first few were way back in the film era (1999 or 2000).  When I started using digital cameras, panoramas became easier and I’ve made many more since then.   They help me avoid “tunnel vision” and show more of a scene.  They’re also an excellent way to capture an image with a huge number of pixels – which allows for very large prints.

I often include panos in this blog.  When I checked today, there are 33 different posts (over 10%) that are tagged “panorama”, including my very first one from May of 2007.  For some panorama examples, look at this set of over 100 images on Flickr.

San Francisco panorama from Twin Peaks

May 2007:  View of San Francisco from Twin Peaks (6389 x 3110 pixels)

I’ve learned quite a bit about how to make panos, and in August of this year, I shared info on how I usually process them.  That was a description of the detailed workflow I use to make the best quality image I can.  It can be time consuming and requires care in capture as well as post processing.  But if you put in the effort, the results are very good – and the files are much bigger than from a single frame.  Here’s a recent example:

City at twilight
September 2013: Chicago skyline at twilight (11,175 x 4706 pixels)

But it turns out that my way isn’t the only way to make panos.  There’s a much easier way to make them – here’s an example:

Underneath the bridge over the St. John's River by the old bridge and railroad trestle
October 2013: Underneath the bridge over the St. John’s River by the old bridge and railroad trestle (7908 x 2692 pixels)

I made this pano with my phone.  It’s not as large (2692 pixels on the short side compared to 4706), but you probably couldn’t tell much of a difference in quality unless you pixel peep.  Using my phone is easier and if something is easier, people will do more of it – and more panos means better memories.

iPhones have had a built-in panorama mode for a while, and the latest versions bring a lot of processing power into it.  The iPhone 5S does automagic adjustment of exposure across the frame, and stitches the results together in real-time as you sweep your phone.  The results are fairly large files, and the quality is surprisingly good.

Here’s one more recent iPhone panorama example and proof of the saying that the best camera is the one you have with you:

Interior panorame of the Roman Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre)

November 2013:  Interior panorama of the Roman Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre) – Photo by MK Rosack (used with permission)

Lets compare making panoramas on a phone with a multi-photo approach.  I’ll use the iPhone 5S for this – your phone may be different.

iPhone 5S Multi-Photo
Capture convenience Very high – you always have it with you Low – You need to plan for it and carry your gear
Quickness High – End result available very quickly.  And can post right from the phone. Low – Need to get home and run your software
Processing flexibility Low – Done by the camera; Can adjust jpg result High – Adjustments can be made throughout each processing step
Processing difficulty Low – Done by the camera;  Some amount of touch up may be needed May be High, depending on software and source images
Raw capture No – jpg only Yes
Output size Medium – Short dimension a max of 2448 pixels High – DSLRs typically higher resolution than iPhone and you can make multiple rows if desired

So, should you use your phone for panoramas?  Yes!

Should you always use your phone for panoramas? Not quite yet.

Phones are getting better all the time.  And they’re getting better faster than cameras are getting better.  Sooner or later, most people won’t want or need a dedicated camera.  Right now I think phones are “good enough” in many cases, especially if you think about the trade-off between output quality and ease of use.   For panoramas, the ease of use and convenience allows many people to make photos they otherwise wouldn’t.  In my case, if I don’t have any other camera with me, I’m sure going to use my phone.  But if I want the best quality image possible, I’ll still use my stand alone cameras when possible.  Check again in a few years – the answers may be different.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some panoramas!  And don’t forget your phone!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Partial Solar Eclipse at Sunrise

Cocoa, Cocoa Beach Pier, INSIDE FLORIDA, , , , ,

I hadn’t been paying enough attention to astronomy news. Luckily my loyal Sherpa was (thank you Lynn!), and she mentioned that a partial solar eclipse would  be visible along the US east coast at sunrise on November 3rd.  So I took off for Cocoa Beach where I knew I could get a clear view of the horizon.  This was the scene a little before sunrise.

Mai Tiki Bar
Mai Tiki – before sunrise

Normally clouds are a great thing for sunrise photos.  In this case, though, the eclipse would last only a few minutes, so I worried that the band of clouds low on the horizon would block the view.  But the sun and moon finally did break through so we could watch the last part of the event.

Partial eclipse of the sun

Partial Eclipse of the Sun – As seen from the base of the Cocoa Beach Pier

I wanted to clearly show the sun’s disc so I used my “bird” lens for this photo zoomed in to 400mm.  I was happy that these three people were watching from the end of the pier so I could place  them in the frame.  The sun was extremely bright and I was careful not to burn anything in my camera (or my eyes!).  It was tough to compose since I kept my lens pointed away from the sun most of the time and only glanced briefly through the viewfinder to make images.

I like the way this one turned out.  It was definitely a unique sunrise and well worth the drive over.

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

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Chicago, Ill. Sept. 2013

Chicago, OUTSIDE FLORIDA, , , , , , ,

I’ve always wanted to see Chicago.  It’s my birthplace – but we moved away shortly after I was born.  For some reason, I never made it back until this year.  I spent a few days exploring at the end of September.  My daughter had a business trip there and some spare frequent flyer points, so she gave me a ticket.  Thanks, MK!!!

Chicago and Lake Michigan from the air
Chicago and Lake Michigan from the air – my first photo of the trip.  It was wonderfully clear as we approached the city.  You can really see how large Lake Michigan is.

Mary was busy, so I booked a hotel downtown and spent the first afternoon and evening wandering around by the lake shore.  Unfortunately, this turned out to be a bit of a problem.  I wasn’t used to all that walking and ended up with sore feet and blisters.  Which didn’t help me to walk around on the following days – but I still managed to get a few photos.

I did some research online and asked a few questions about places to photograph.  One of my Flickr contacts (Brian Koprowski) lives in the area and gave me several good hints.  Thanks to him, I ended up  at the Adler Planetarium on the first evening.  The sunset wasn’t that exciting, but I thought the city across the water at twilight was pretty.

City at twilight
City at twilight

I also liked this fisheye view of the Field Museum that I made on my way back to the hotel.  It reminded me of the movie “Night at the Museum“, although that wasn’t filmed here.

Night at the museum
Night at the museum – Field Museum

The next day I again walked the city (and made my feet worse).  My first stop was the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), where there’s a view from the glass balcony observation deck on the 103rd floor.  A wonderful place for a fisheye lens!

From the top of Chicago
From the top of Chicago – Another fisheye view.  This one is from the Willis Tower observation deck, 1353 feet above the city

There’s a lot to see around the city including a great deal of sculpture and artwork.  And glass on the buildings creates many compositional opportunities.  In this image, I waited for the photographer on the near right to get into place so I could finish my photo – I had hoped she’d move a bit more to the left, but oh well.

Flamingo
Flamingo – This artwork by Alexander Calder is in the Federal Plaza

Here’s another rather strange piece of street art. I couldn’t resist adding a little “digital makeup” in Photoshop.

Planter head
Planter head

Later that evening I ended up in Millennium Park where the Cloud Gate sculpture is located.  I liked the scene – with all the people contrasting with the buildings and sculpture.

Cloud Gate (AKA "the bean")
Cloud Gate (AKA “the bean”)

My son Mike drove down to meet us and we spent the next morning riding the “L” train, bicycling along the lake shore, and visiting Portillo’s Delli for a Chicago Dog.  When Mary joined us that afternoon we took a boat tour on the Chicago River and ate some very good Chicago deep dish pizza for dinner.  The final morning before our flight back to Orlando we toured the Museum of Science and Technology and drove by Mercy Hospital where I was born.  I was only a little disappointed that there was no “Welcome Back Ed!” banner above the hospital entrance.

I enjoyed my short visit and definitely felt a kinship with this wonderful city.  I want to go back again and see more.  It’s so diverse that no trip as short as this could possible do it justice.

You can see larger versions of these photos and some others from our Chicago trip in this set on Flickr.

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

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Oviedo and Port Orange Camera Clubs

INSIDE FLORIDA, Technique, VARIOUS, Winter Park,

Just a quick post this week (a schedule update and one recent photo).

I’ve been invited to speak at both the Oviedo and Port Orange Camera Clubs next month.  I’ll talk about “Winter Photo Ops in Central Florida” and recommend things / places to photograph in our area this winter along with sample images.  Depending on interest and time, we may go a bit further and talk about other times of year too, or we may also discuss tools and techniques for any of the photos I show.   Questions on anything else presented are also welcome.

The Oviedo Photo Club meeting is on November 4th at 7PM in the Memorial Building in Oviedo (38 South Central Avenue, Oviedo FL 32765).

The Port Orange Camera Club meeting is on November 13th at 7PM in the Port Orange Adult Center (4790 South Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange FL 32127)

If any of you are at one of these meetings, please say hello – I love to meet readers!

And since we can’t have a blog post without a photo, here’s one I made at the beginning of October in Winter Park, Florida.

Stationary water
Stationary water

I liked this fountain, but wanted to make the photo look a bit different.  My normal approach might have been to use a very slow shutter speed to make the water silky smooth.  This time, I decided to use as fast a shutter speed as possible to “freeze” the water.  So I opened my aperture and ended up with a 1/8000 sec shutter speed.  The wide aperture also helped to blur the background and isolate the subject.  I don’t think you can make a photo like this with your cell phone!

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos – and go to a camera club meeting!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Is photography a group or solo activity?

INSIDE FLORIDA, Technique, Viera Wetlands, , , , , , ,

Four of us from the Photography Interest Group went to Viera Wetlands last Saturday.  On the way, we stopped by Riverfront Park on the Indian River at SR 520 in Cocoa for sunrise.

Old boat by a bridge
Old boat by a bridge

There weren’t many clouds, but with a longer lens than I normally use (120mm equivalent instead of an ultra wide-angle), I managed to place this boat in the frame against a background of clouds and the causeway bridge.  The colors on the water are nice and I was happy with the result.

As we left, I saw what looked like a sunken boat out of the corner of my eye to the south of where we’d been photographing. Since the good light was fading, and everyone else was ready to leave for Viera, I didn’t get a chance to check it out at the time.

For some reason, sunken / abandoned boats really appeal to me as photographic subjects. Maybe it’s because I spent time in the Navy. They seem sad and make me wonder what happened and why. This one nagged at me, and I really wanted to explore it so I decided to drive back over on Wednesday to see what I’d missed.  Many times the boat gets salvaged – so if you don’t photograph it when you find it, you may not get a second chance.

A dream, gone
A dream, gone – in the harbor at dawn.

Luckily the boat was still right where I’d seen it.  I found a spot where I could use the sailboat mast reflections to outline the sunken hull and place it between the blue and orange colors mirrored on the water.  I like the first photo, but I think this second one is stronger.

If we’d taken the time to explore this on our first visit, would I have gotten as strong a photo?  Did I get a better photo on my second trip because I was by myself?  Is photography essentially a solo activity?

Cue the standard photography answer:  “It depends.”   I believe you need to be “in the zone” to make great photos.  Distractions and / or fellow photographers can hinder concentration – or they can point you in the right direction.  When you’re with a group you also have to compromise and go along – you can’t do everything you want and force everyone else to do it too.  If you’re mainly a landscape photographer, going photographing with someone really into bird photography may not help your landscape images.  Or it might – birds hang out in some beautiful places.

If you go with people more experienced / knowledgable than you are,  you may learn a bit and make better images as a result.  Or you may find out about new places that they know but you don’t.  Or you might even open your eyes to a different way of seeing something.  If you’ve ever been out photographing with a group, you know there will be many similar images.  But there will also be some that look completely different even though two photographers stand right next to each other.

I looked through my most interesting images (according to Flickr, anyway).  Of the first 20, 10 were when I was by myself and 10 when I was with other photographers.  Conclusive numerical evidence, eh?

So to answer the question in the title of this post:  Is photography a solo or a group activity?  Yes.  You’ll be a better photographer if you go photographing both by yourself and in groups.  Mix it up and take advantage of both ways to enjoy and improve your photography.

By the way, we did make it to Viera Wetlands.  We saw many of the usual animals in the main area including Hawks, Ospreys, Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, Green Herons, Snowy and Great Egrets, Grebes, Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, Alligators, Turtles, etc.  We saw a few more species in the Click Ponds:  White Pelicans, Sandpipers, Roseate Spoonbills, and Woodstorks.  A nice visit.

Sandpiper flock and reflections
Sandpiper flock and reflections

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

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Circle B Bar Reserve – October 5th, 2013

Circle B Bar Reserve, INSIDE FLORIDA, , , , , ,

Three of us from the Photography Interest Group visited the Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland, Florida last weekend.  The Circle B is about 1 hour and 20 minutes from where I live, but it’s well worth the drive.  I haven’t been over since last October – so I was eager to see what’s going on.  We managed to get there before sunrise and were greeted with this scene:

Before Sunrise
Before Sunrise

We saw a lot of the regular resident wildlife including:  Little Blue Herons, Great Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Ospreys, Red Shouldered Hawks, Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, Blue-Grey Gnatcatchers, Red Winged Blackbirds, Ibis, a few Alligators, lots of Apple Snails and eggs, lots of Dragon Flies, lots of Spiders, and a horde of hungry mosquitos!  OK, I didn’t actually see the mosquitos – but I sure knew they were there!  There were also a great many Limpkins, probably due to the abundance of Apple Snails.

Strolling Limpkin
Strolling Limpkin – I loved the light on this bird and the background.  If she’d only turned her head just a bit more toward the camera. I guess some models are still learning “the moves”.

I was surprised to see baby Limpkins too.  I didn’t realize that they breed year round.  It was a treat to watch Mom feeding her chicks and see the chicks moving around trying to find snails for themselves.

Limpkin Chick
Limpkin Chick – This little one climbed up on the reed and then had a hard time getting back down. The other three chicks stuck close to Mom. I think this one will be trouble.

In the not so usual category of wildlife, we saw a pair of Bald Eagles, a Fox (darn, too dark for a photo!), White Pelicans (they apparently stayed through the  summer), and many small hard to ID Warblers (passing through on migration?).

It was a good visit.  Much better than the foggy one last year when I hurt my foot.  Now that cooler weather is starting to come through Florida we’ll have to go back more often.

You can read other posts I’ve written about the Circle B here.  And you can see more photos from the Circle B Bar in this set on Flickr,

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

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Lake Jesup Flowers – 2013

INSIDE FLORIDA, Lake Jesup, Lake Jesup Sunflowers,

An update on the Lake Jesup Flowers – they are indeed back in full force.

Tom M. and I went over last Wednesday morning to check on them.  They seemed to me to still be a little before the peak.  I think they’ll get a bit higher and fuller before they start fading away in the next several days.  If you want to see them this year, you don’t have much time left.

The Marl Bed Flats are a little soggy.  There were places that were dry, but a large part of the area away from the woods had an inch or two of standing water.  The sky was incredibly clear and there was a soft wind blowing too – not ideal conditions for flower photography, but we looked for interesting compositions anyway.

Swamp Sunflower fields pano

With the sun so low, it was hard to keep myself out of this shot – hence the photographer shaped shadow in the middle bottom

Swamp Sunflowers

Finding flowers that reach above their neighbors is one way to isolate subjects

Swamp Sunflower

The light was very pretty in spots. This blossom was sheltered in a pocket of calm along the path out to the fields.  With a nice dark background, it called out for a close up.

For a different perspective and an example of how diverse the view here can be, look at this blog post from Jeff Stamer.  Jeff timed his visit better than we did and hiked out before sunrise on Thursday when the sky was beautiful.

Here are links to previous articles with more info:

And you can browse some of my photos of the area in this set on Flickr.  There’s also an article about the flowers in this month’s Orlando Magazine.

When you go, please be careful.  Stopping on the side of 417 is dangerous.  And the Lake Jesup Wilderness area is wild.  It’s also a bit of a hike from the parking area out to the flowers.  Bring water and use sun screen and bug spray.  Long pants and waterproof hiking boots are a good idea too.

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

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Hillsborough River State Park

Hillsborough River State Park, INSIDE FLORIDA, , , , , ,

For some reason, I’d never noticed Hillsborough River State Park until fellow Photography Interest Group member JT Smith asked me about it – thanks JT!  There are a lot of photos of the park on Flickr, many of them quite nice.  So I decided to go over on a scouting trip.  Flickr’s a great place to research new locations and I spent a while going through their search results as well as Google maps before my trip.

Dark river in the deep woods
Dark river in the deep woods.  A Hoya 8 2/3 stop neutral density filter let me stretch my exposure time to 25 seconds at f/8 and ISO 100 to smooth the water surface.

The park is about 20 miles north-east of Tampa and an hour and 40 minutes west of where I live.  Not too long a trip.  With all the rain we’ve had recently,  added water’s made the current look pretty fast through the rapids.  My kayak would get a few scrapes paddling through this.

Hillsborough River rapids
Hillsborough River rapids.  I’m a sucker for Cypress Knees and it was a treat to find some by the rapids to use as foreground.  Since the wind was blowing a bit, I made two exposures.  A slow one (30 seconds with the ND filter), and another not so slow one (no filter, 1/13th second).  To eliminate the blurred leaves, I combined them in Photoshop using layers and masking the first for the water and second for the foliage.

I want to see what this looks like when we haven’t had so much rain.  I think a few more exposed rocks would be nice.  Here’s one last image from the trip:

Hillsborough River

Hillsborough River.  This is an Infrared, false color, three exposure panorama.  This place is near the kayak put-in.

I’m going to make a return trip and bring my kayak.  I think I’ll paddle the parts in the first and third photos and not the second.

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

And if you know of a good photo photo-op in Central Florida – please let me know.  I love to explore new places.

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

The flowers are coming! The flowers are coming!

INSIDE FLORIDA, Lake Jesup, Lake Jesup Sunflowers, Must do list,

Yes, it’s that time of year again.  Swamp Sunflowers (Helianthus angustifolius, also called Narrow Leaf Sunflowers) start blooming at the end of September in our area.  One of the largest concentrations is in the Marl Bed Flats in the Lake Jesup Conservation Area where the blooms stretch as far as you can see.

Lake Jesup Wildflowers
Swamp Sunflowers at the Lake Jesup Wilderness Area

This is a truly unique photo-op and worth checking out.  See these links for more info:

You can browse some of my photos of the area in this set on Flickr.  And here’s an article about the flowers in this month’s Orlando Magazine – featuring my photo!

When you go, please be careful.  Stopping on the side of 417 can be dangerous.  And the Lake Jesup Wilderness area is wild.  It’s also a bit of a hike from the parking area out to the flowers.  Bring water and use sun screen and bug spray.  Long pants and waterproof hiking boots are a good idea too.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some flower photos – maybe I’ll see you out there!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved