If you’re planning a visit to Central Florida to do some birding during the nesting season, check out this post from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery blog.
Gen Anderson has posted a very handy Typical Rookery Schedule. You can get an idea of what the birds will be doing at the rookery when you stop by.
Check it out.
If you’re a photographer, one side benefit of romantic relationships can be residual bouquet photo ops. Just be careful to make sure your significant other doesn’t think too hard about why their arrangements are so photogenic. You are, of course getting the flowers for them.
Flowers are an easy photo op, although many of us don’t bother since so many flower photographs have already been made. But there are reasons to try: It’s good practice with your equipment and technique. Maybe you’ll come up with a different and beautiful approach. Maybe you can learn a new lighting or processing technique. And maybe it’s a convenient subject when you don’t have several hours to load up and go out in search of birds or other wildlife.
Tulip
I bought Lynn some tulips for Valentine’s Day and wanted to make a few photos while they were still looking good. Please don’t tell any Strobists out there, but I used a flashlight for illumination in these images. Using a constant illumination light source instead of a strobe, allows you to see exactly how the light looks on your subject before you make the photo. In this case, I was trying to “spotlight” the front tulip to isolate it, but at the same time leave the tulips in the background just visible. I tried various positions for my light and no one single position worked. The ones that looked best had blown highlights on either the right or left side of the front tulip. I ended up making two exposures, intending to spend some time blending them by hand in Photoshop. Here are portions of the two exposures showing the front tulip:
Source photos for image above
After loading them as layers in Photoshop, I made an attempt to blend them by hand without much success. Instead, I hit on the idea of changing the layer blending mode to “darken” instead of “normal”. The lead image in this post is the result, with no hand blending at all. I like the effect and I like the smooth, out of focus definition of the tulip in the background on the left.
I also wanted to try one more thing before these tulips had to be retired.
Tulip two
For this second shot, I wanted to make the flower look like it was illuminated from the inside by shining the light up from the bottom. I also wanted to make the stigma / stamens as sharply focused as possible to contrast them with the out of focus flower petals. The outline of the petals framing the inside was a bonus. I’ll let the reader figure out what other techniques I used in this image (hint: I’ve written about it before).
So – go ahead. Ask your significant other if you can borrow the bouquet.
© 2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.
You can read my previous blog entry about Ravine Gardens at this link. In that article, I recommended that you visit this unique state Park in Palatka, Florida in the spring time so you can see the many flowers there in bloom. January through April is supposed to be the peak blooming season and Lynn and I wanted to check and see what’s happening up there so far. We’d hate to miss the peak flower time.
Eastern Redbud Tree in bloom at Ravine Gardens
There are a few flowers and trees in bloom already. We noticed the very pretty tree above right away. Most azaleas had buds, but there were very few so far in bloom. The 15th annual Azalea Festival is planned for March 5th this year, and we think that the azaleas will be at the beginning of their peak about a week before then (end of February). So if you want to see this place at it’s best, start planing your visit!
Unusual two trunk palm tree at Ravine Gardens
© 2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.
This is another article on technique. It’s not so much a “how-to”. It is more of a defense or justification.
The Mayberry Cafe – Danville, Indiana (final B&W image)
We have a few people in our Photography Interest Group that are relatively new to high end DSLRs. They’re used to point & shoot cameras and one question I hear quite often is “why post process?”. Their argument seems to be that the photos “straight out of the camera” (SOOC) are much better than they were with their old cameras and they don’t understand why anyone should waste time learning about software and processing photos on their computers. I even have one friend that uses the “I’m feeling lucky” button whenever photos need some adjustment.
Now, I’ve been using Photoshop since sometime in the ’90s, so I really have to stop and think when someone questions why they should use photo software. My answer comes down to: Control, Quality, and Change.
Control: If you understand post processing, know what your software is capable of, and have the skills to use the software, then you can take control from your camera and choose how your photos will be processed and what their final appearance will be. You decide exposure curves, fill light, sharpening and noise reduction levels, etc. Or even color vs. black and white.
Quality: If you want the best results, post processing allows you to optimize things (e.g. selective noise reduction and sharpening, various filters). You also can try different approaches and use the one that works best.
Change: Especially if you use RAW format, you have the ability to modify many of your settings after you make the photo. And if you need to adjust some parameters (e.g. white balance, saturation, exposure) you can do so after the shot. Also, software constantly improves – witness how much better recent noise reduction algorithms are today than even a few years ago. As the software improves you can apply the updated versions to your existing photos to keep making them even better.
Here’s an example that might illustrate the possibilities. I like to make photos that are “timeless” in the sense that they could have been made a while ago, or don’t give away when they were made. I saw this dinner and old sheriff’s car as I drove through a small town in Indiana. I thought the scene might make a good photo and since I had my camera in the car, I went around the block and made this image hand held through the open window as I passed by a second time:
The Mayberry Cafe – Danville, Indiana (SOOC)
This copy above is SOOC – nice, but too much clutter, and kind of drab. I post-processed it to remove the clutter, selectively reduce noise in the clouds, adjust white balance and exposure, add saturation, etc. Here’s the result:
The Mayberry Cafe – Danville, Indiana (post processed)
This is a lot cleaner, the clouds and sky are brought out, and the colors and contrast are better. Could I have done this in the camera? Some of it. Would the results have been as good? I really doubt it. And if I want, I can keep reprocessing a photo whenever I learn a new technique or get some new software. Should you reprocess every photo? Of course not – if you did you wouldn’t have time to make any more photos. But you definitely need to make an effort when a photo shows some promise.
Finally, I thought this image would be more “timeless” as a black and white photo, so I converted the image above to get the result at the beginning of this post. If you’d only seen the B&W photo, when would you think it was made?
© 2007 & 2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.
Hello again, readers! I apologize for a somewhat lengthy post, but today I wanted to catch you up on photo related happenings over the last couple of weeks – so there are several topics worth mentioning.
A week ago (Saturday, 22 Jan), I returned to the Circle B Bar over in Lakeland Florida with the Photography Interest Group. The first time I wrote about this place, I said: “I’ve only been to the Circle B once, and need to go several more times to get an idea of how consistent the photo ops there are.” Well, the second visit lived up to the first, starting with a quite pretty dawn:
Dawn at the Circle B Bar Reserve
One of the highlights of this trip was seeing a Barred Owl and getting a relatively good photo of it. The owl was high in a tree and ended up attracting quite a crowd before it got tired of us and flew off. The lighting was a bit tough – I’m glad I had my flash and Better Beamer ready.
Barred Owl watches photographers
We also sighted Ospreys, Red Shouldered Hawks, a Red Bellied Woodpecker, Whistling Ducks, and many other birds. Unfortunately, the beautiful yellow sunflowers that were all over the place last time are no longer there. They are seasonal and to see them you’ll have to return around mid to late November next year. All in all, a very nice trip and the Circle B definitely lived up to its reputation once again. You can look at more of my photos from the Circle B in this set on Flickr.
Yesterday, I visited Black Point again. I’m not sure why, but this place seems to be really great for photos with reflections. Quite often the water is extremely calm and you can see scenes like these:
Clear day, calm water
Spoonbill and reflection
There was a lot of activity at Black Point. We spotted an otter, Hooded Mergansers, Belted Kingfishers, Hawks, and many other species. We also paused for a while to watch a pair of Ospreys fishing. They were too far away for good photos, and never came closer even though we had fish jumping out of the water right in front of us! You can look at more of my photos from Black Point in this set on Flickr.
A couple of weeks ago on Flickr, I saw some very nice photos of Florida Scrub Jays, made by “moonfloweryoli“. I commented on them and she mentioned a trail in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge where she saw them. This led us to an add a second expedition to yesterday’s Black Point visit. We wanted to try to observe this unique species that only lives here in Florida. To make a long story short, we tried hard, but we never saw any. We’ll have to go back and try again. Kevin K. did make this image to document our search:
“Wilbur” and “Donuts” looking for the hard to find Florida Scrub Jay (image courtesy of Kevin Krause); Your humble author is the one on the left.
A quick update for those of you looking for info on the St. Augustine Alligator Farm or Gatorland. I reported back in November that Gatorland was canceling its photographer early entry program. The Gatorland Blog hasn’t been updated since then, so it’s a bit hard to find out what’s going on at that park.
Meanwhile, the St. Augustine Alligator Farm announced they would continue their photographer early entry program. They’ve been running a mailing list on Yahoo where you could find information, and last week they announced that they’ll be discontinuing this and starting a blog of their own. It’s now up and running, check it out.
Finally, here’s an equipment update. I’ve been doing much of my bird photography since early last year with a Sigma 150 – 500 OS lens. I’ve been very happy with it and one of my few complaints was that the Optical Stabilization was a bit noisy. Lately, it’s developed a “chatter” where it sounds like the OS motor is vibrating back and forth. While it does this, you can see the image vibrating through the viewfinder. I called Sigma and they said to send it back. So I’ll be without it for a while. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
That’s all for today. Thanks for stopping by.
© 2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.
It’s been a while since I posted an in depth technique article, so I thought I’d do another one. Warning: Major photo geek out ahead. If you’re not into HDR, panoramas, post processing, etc. please move along.
…
OK, now that it’s just us photo nerds left, wanna see some sausage made? Let’s get started.
My question to you: What if you want more pixels in your final image, more dynamic range in both highlights and shadows, and better depth of field, all by using a much simpler technique than you might normally use? How would you go about it? I’ll explain one approach I used recently to make this lead photo from my previous post:
Finished image (click to view on Flickr)
I made this with a 12 megapixel Nikon D700, but my final image file is 4238 pixels wide by 5776 pixels tall (about 24.5 Megapixels). It has good depth of field with objects from very close out to the horizon in focus. It also has good dynamic range with both the ground and the sunrise & clouds well exposed.
If you were going to create an image like this using conventional techniques, it could require 6 or more exposures. You’d mount your camera on a tripod and manual focus. You might analyze the scene to decide on an optimum exposure. Then you’d make three bracketed exposures around that, first of the lower portion of the image, then shifting your camera viewpoint up toward the clouds – three more bracketed exposures. Then you’d use panorama software to combine the three pairs of images at each exposure value, followed by HDR software to combine the three resulting panoramas into an HDR file and tone map it. You might have to play with the result quite a bit to eliminate noise, ghosting, etc. introduced by the HDR software. And if you wanted to stretch the depth of field, you might go through this twice with different focus points, and combine them too. In some situations, you could also try using graduated neutral density filters to control dynamic range.
Whew – that could be a whole lot of work! I didn’t do all that. Instead, I used a much simpler idea. Basically, I just combined two images manually in Photoshop.
If you’re still with me, read on (it might look complicated, but it’s actually harder to read about than do). Here are the details.
Once you go through this a few times, it’ll be easier and you can, of course vary some of these steps based on your own preferences.
I think this “Two Image Pano / HDR / Focus Stacking” technique can be really useful and it has several advantages over standard approaches normally used for this kind of image.
This technique is situation dependent: It’ll only produce portrait or perhaps square orientation output images (although you’ll have lots of pixels to crop to other formats). It only works where the scene is easily divided into two portions where the brightness varies vertically. Also,the dynamic range increase available from just two images may not be enough in all situations.
Why not? Under the right conditions, it can generate very good results with minimal effort. Now that you’ve heard about this technique, you can watch for scenes where you may be able to use it.
Then you can try it – and please let me know how it works for you.
© 2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.
Although it was very tempting to sleep in this morning, I was up early and made it over to Viera Wetlands in time to witness another one of nature’s shows. The clouds cooperated and did their part, the sun and calm water pitched in, a couple of coots made just the right ripples, and all I had to do was snap the shutter.
Sunrise at Viera Wetlands
Once the sun was up, we parked the cars and walked for a while, thinking that the slow deliberate approach would yield better photos than the quick drive method. It didn’t – we failed to find much of interest on foot. The light wasn’t very good either – due to the clouds that made the sunrise so nice. We ended up getting back in the cars and using them to find things of interest. And after a while, the clouds cleared and we had better light for bird photography.
Last week we saw several Snipes, but couldn’t get good photos since they took off and flew fast and erratic as soon as we got close. This week our luck was better (or this bird was a bit tired). He stayed still for us to make his portrait.
Wilson’s (Common) Snipe
We saw the usual Heron and Egret suspects, along with Anhingas, Hawks, Black Crowned Night Herons, American Bitterns, Savannah Sparrows, Northern Shovelers, and Sandhill Cranes. I was able to photograph two new (for me) species – Ring Neck Ducks, and Lesser Scaups.
We also took a turn ’round the click ponds and there was a great deal of activity there. This Cormorant surprised me when he came up with his breakfast.
Cormorant with fish
We had a great time. Clicking on these photos will open them on Flickr, where you can view larger versions. You can also visit my Viera Wetlands set on Flickr to see other photos I’ve made there.
© 2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.
Since 2007, Jim Goldstein has been organizing a “your best photos” project among the readers of his blog. I participated last year and this year, and I’m grateful to Jim for organizing this.
The 2010 results were published today, and the images from all of these photographers are outstanding and well worth a look. You can read more on Jim’s blog here: Best Photos of 2010 by JMG-Galleries Blog Readers
NOTE: Maintaining links this old has gotten hard as of 2019. So I’ve had to delete the web references. Sorry for the inconvenience.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
via JMG-Galleries and Borrowlenses.com
Our local photography club organized an expedition to Viera Wetlands yesterday. It was one of our larger outings, with 8 people from the group there, including one new member. We arrived just after sunrise and spent a little over 2 hours exploring the main site, and also took a quick tour of the click ponds.
Great Blue Heron: These birds aren’t nesting yet, but they do seem to be reserving their spots.
Wow – what a day for avian variety and nature lovers! The weather was quite nice too – sunny with temperatures in the 50s. There isn’t much nesting going on yet, but we did see an amazing number of both year-round and winter visitor species. Several of these birds are difficult to spot and / or photograph well and it helps to make multiple circuits of the wetlands. It also really helps to have multiple sets of eyes watching for and pointing out interesting things. About the only thing we struck out on was the River Otters, but we did hear others talking about them – so they were around somewhere.
Belted Kingfisher: There were several of these at Viera Wetlands yesterday. They generally stayed out in the middle of the cells and so were hard to photograph.
Here’s a list of birds we spotted: American Bittern, Anhinga, Belted Kingfisher, Blue Wing Teal, Coot, Double Crested Cormorant, Glossy Ibis, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Green Wing Teal, Little Blue Heron, Little Egret, Hooded Merganser, Common Moorhen, Northern Harrier, Northern Shoveler, Red Shouldered Hawk, Gulls, Snowy Egret, Tricolored Heron, Wilson’s (or Common?) Snipe, White Ibis, Wood Stork, and others that I probably forgot or that we still have to identify.
Anhinga
If you haven’t been to Viera Wetlands recently, you really ought to check it out.
You can click on these photos to go to Flickr where you can look at larger versions. You can see more of my photos from Viera Wetlands in this set on Flickr. You can also visit our photography club’s group photo pool on Flickr here.
© 2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.
If you enjoy birding and / or bird photography – Central Florida offers many opportunities. The winter months especially can be quite rewarding. Insects and heat are much less of a bother, and many species that aren’t here year round, do visit. This allows us to expand our observation beyond the birds we typically see. Also, with less vegetation cover, some smaller birds are easier to spot.
I visited both Viera Wetlands and Black Point Wildlife drive over the past week and here are some of the less common (at least for me) birds that I saw:
Belted Kingfisher, Black Point – Winter, non-breeding (in central Florida; they are year round in north Florida)
Hooded Merganser, Black Point and Viera – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida
Killdeer, Black Point and Viera – Year round, but easier to observe in the winter
Loggerhead Shrike, Viera – Year round, but easier to observe in the winter
Northern Harrier, Black Point – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida
Savannah Sparrow, Viera – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida
White Pelicans, Black Point – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida
Last winter, I also saw these at Viera:
American Bittern – Winter, non-breeding in Central Florida
Masked Duck – uncommon in central Florida
I’m certain there are many more “snow” birds that I’ve yet to see in Central Florida. And that’s one reason to continue to look.
Happy New Year and thanks for looking at my blog.
© 2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.