Canaveral National Seashore

Canaveral Nat. Seashore, INSIDE FLORIDA, , , , , , ,

Intro / Description

Three of us from the Photographic Interest Group went over to the Canaveral National Seashore yesterday to explore. We entered at the north end near Turtle mound. We could only go about 2 or 3 miles into the park, the road was closed after that.
CNS_-1

CNS is a national park located on the east coast of Florida, south of New Smyrna Beach.  It’s a very scenic place and there are many activities available.  The surf was very high yesterday (due to Hurricane Bill?) and there were quite a few people out taking advantage of it.
CNS_-4

In the short time we were there, we also saw people fishing:
CNS_-2

and canoeing:
CNS_-3

There’s a lot of wildlife in the area, but the number of people here at certain times of the year (like yesterday), probably makes it difficult to see much of the animal population, unless you’re here when the people aren’t. We did see some wildlife – here’s a CNS Anole:
CNS_-9

And a sandpiper:
CNS_-10

We also stopped by the Eldora Statehouse, which is a historic example of earlier life along the Mosquito Lagoon.
CNS_-8

Speaking of mosquitoes, make sure you bring some bug spray – they were pretty vicious at times.

Photo Hints

Bring what you have. I don’t like to take my expensive DSLRs into the hot sun near the ocean for long periods of time, but you might if you’re careful. Shorebirds can be small (and fast) – so to get prize winning bird photos here, you’ll need to be lucky or a very dedicated and good photographer willing to forgo other activities. It might be a good place to practice "birds in flight" photos in your spare time – Pelicans often cruise down the shoreline. If the surfs up, that can be fun to watch / photograph too.

One non-photo hint:  Be careful where you park.  The rangers are rather zealous about enforcing the parking regulations.  Parking on the grass is not allowed – even when it isn’t specifically posted.

Summary

The beach is a nice place to take some photographs and CNS is a very nice beach. We originally went there to explore a new place as a bird photography location.  We didn’t find many birds, but we only stayed for a short time. I wonder if other times of the year would be more productive?  The surfing would have been an excellent photo opportunity if I had been prepared for it (beach clothes, longer lens, etc).

If you’re here to visit the beach, bring a camera – over the course of of your visit, interesting photo opportunities will present themselves.

I have a few additional photos of this visit posted on Flickr .

Website: http://www.nps.gov/CANA/index.htm
Address: Visitor’s Center
7611 S Atlantic Ave, New Smyrna Beach, Florida
(386) 428-3384
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating: Come for the beach – take some pictures too.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Photographic "Level of Detail"

Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando Wetlands, Technique, VARIOUS,

I haven’t seen this discussed in the photographic blogosphere so I thought I’d comment on it.  One reason may be that it is difficult to illustrate given the photo posting resolution that we often limit ourselves to on the web.

You can experience a very good example of what I’m trying to write about here when you visit an Ansel Adams print exhibition in person.  For instance, viewing his "Winter Sunrise " from across the room, the print looks well composed and shows the overall scene of some mountains with areas of light and dark.  Depending on how far away you are, most details are obscured by distance.  As you slowly come closer, the details start to emerge.  The closer you come, the greater the detail, until when you are standing right next to the print, you can see all sorts of things you didn’t see from across the room – subtle clouds, interesting light on the horse and trees, etc.  The emergence of detail draws you into his photographs.

This experience – the discovery and exploration of a photograph is quite interesting and pleasant and is hardly ever possible on the web.  On the web, we get one look at a photo – the low res "across the room look".  The high res, up close version, where the subtle details emerge, is saved away on our hard drives, mostly due to worries about theft of our copyrighted, intellectual property (photographs).

The "level of detail" effect is something we all should strive for in our captures, prints and displays.  When we do this well, there are a myriad of things for the viewer to discover as they view our prints.  And while it is easiest to observe in a well made print, we should also try to make it an interesting thing on the web.  When we achieve a good "level of detail" capture, how do we show it off?  Here’s a couple of recommendations:

1.  Study examples by the masters and and use them as we strive for this effect.  Use it to draw in our viewers and keep them coming in for more.  Print our work and hang it up where people can see it.

2.  When we have a nice photo with some good detail and want to present it on the web, present the normal low res web version, along with a high res detail insert or two, like this:
Gator - whole print
Gator photo: "Across the room view"

Gator - partial crop
Gator photo: "Middle of the room view"

Gator - close in detail
Gator photo: Close in detail view.

3.  I haven’t tried this, but another solution might be a video of the photo using a "Ken Burns" type of special effect.  A "zoom in" motion video seems like an ideal way to showcase this type of photo and protect the intellectual property that everyone seems so worried about losing.  Does anyone know of a ready made solution already out there?

P.S. There is also a very interesting inverse effect to what I’m talking about here.  You will really enjoy visiting an exhibition of Ansel Adams prints at the same gallery with paintings by Monet .  Monet understood the human mind’s ability to "fill in the details".  If you approach many of his paintings from across the room they will look very real at first and they gradually dissolve into impressions in the middle distance and paint strokes when you are very close!  This is a wonderful contrast to Ansel Adams prints, don’t you think?

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Return to Black Point

INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWR, , , , , , , , ,

The last time we were at Black Point Wildlife drive was back in May (https://edrosack.com/2009/05/16/birds-scarce-at-black-point-wildlife-drive-water-levels-down/) when water levels were down and there were very few birds anywhere around.

Yesterday, we made a return trip to see what the place is like after three months of almost daily rain in the Central Florida area.

We arrived right at sunrise, which was very pretty.
Sunrise reflections

Water levels are much improved: areas that were dry in May are once again filled.  However, we were disappointed by how few birds there were in the area.  My theory on this (which I didn’t come up with until the drive home) is that the severe drought in the area happened during nesting season and forced birds to build nests in other locations.  The nesting season lasts for several months and is just now ending, so it was premature for us to expect to see many birds back at Black Point until chicks have fledged.

I did manage to get nice photos of a green heron:
Green Heron in tree

And a Black-crowned night-heron:
Black-crowned Night-Heron

There were also some unusual flowers (1/14/2010 update – I think this is a “Spotted Bee Balm”):
Flower

And some very large (about 2 – 3 inches), horror show type spiders.  How would you like to walk through this web in the dark?
Wolf spider?

So, even without a large bird population it was still a nice trip with plenty to interest the Photography Interest Group.  And… there’s always Cracker Barrel on the way home!

Animal Kingdom Update – The Lodge

INSIDE FLORIDA, Theme Parks, , , , , , , ,

Intro / Description

You may remember my post from May about Disney’s Animal Kingdom .  Disney also has the Animal Kingdom Lodge co-located with the park.  It is an African style lodge / hotel with over 700 rooms and several restaurants.  Lynn and I enjoyed our visit to Animal Kingdom so much that when we heard about the Lodge, we decided to go to the Boma Restaurant there for brunch on our anniversary in mid June.

Rooms at the Lodge overlook an area modeled after an African savanna, where 30 animal species roam about.  There are also several viewing areas where guests can walk a short distance out into the savannas to  observe what’s going on.  When we were there, we saw Giraffes:
Giraffes

Zebras:
Zebras

Wildebeests:
Wildebeests

Gray Pelicans:
Pelicans

And African Spoonbills:
African Spoonbills

Photo Hints

For this "expedition, I traveled light, took only my Canon G9, and shot hand held. A little more reach would have been welcome. I think you could bring and use a tripod – I didn’t see any signs prohibiting their use. We were there in the heat of the morning – about 11 am. Most of the animals had more sense than us and were out of sight somewhere cool. If you go, take the weather into account, it will certainly affect the animal behavior, as well as your comfort.

Summary

The breakfast at the Boma Restaurant was delicious and enjoyable. We also had fun wandering around the grounds afterward.

The Animal Kingdom Lodge is a unique experience. There is no where else in Central Florida that you can stay in the middle of an African savanna. Is it worth the premium over other hotels in the area? Since we didn’t stay in the Lodge, you will have to decide that on your own.

Website: http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/resorts/animal-kingdom-lodge/
Address: 2901 Osceola Parkway, Bay Lake, FL 32830
Telephone number:407-938-3000
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating: Best food at a zoo.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Black-Bellied Whistling-Ducks at Orlando Wetlands Park

INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando Wetlands, , , , ,

Happy Independence Day !

I was at Orlando Wetlands Park again this morning with a few friends and saw a bird that I hadn’t seen before, there or anywhere else that I remember.  Here’s a photograph:

Black-Bellied Whistling-Duck in flight

These birds were different from other ducks I’ve seen in that when we first saw them they were perched in trees.  Fortunately, I have a copy of iBird Plus loaded on my iPhone.  iBird is an interactive field guide to the birds of North America.  It has a search function and by entering the location (Florida), the shape (Duck-like) and the Color Primary (Brown) iBird presented me with a list of 16 possible birds out of the 914 birds in its North American Database that match these criteria.

Scrolling through the list, I read descriptions, and looked at drawings and three photos of the Black-Bellied Whistling-Duck that pretty much clinched the ID for me.  There’s also other info like range, similar birds, and links to Birdpedia.  If you are interested in birds or bird photography, you should take a look at this app.  I enjoy using it.

Here’s a few more photos from this morning.  First we had the bird, now here’s the bee:

Bee on flower

A spiderweb:

Spiderweb

And of course, what would Orlando Wetlands Park be without a gator photo:

Calm water gator

Copyright 2009, Ed Rosack.

Collectors News Uses my photo for their July 2009 cover!

Cameras and Photography, VARIOUS,

Unless you’ve investigated the links to Lynn’s blog and web page over on the right, you may not know that my lovely and intelligent wife is quite an expert and author on collectible trivets, stands, and sad irons. I was the "photographer in residence" for her A-Z Guide to Collecting Trivets published in 2004, and have helped her with various collectible photos since.  She has a second book in the works and I only have a few more photos that I owe her (although it seems that more trivets arrive in the mail all the time).

She has also written several articles in various other magazines that I’ve done the photos for, so I’ve had my photos published with her words several times before.

Recently, she was interviewed by Melody Amsel-Areili for the monthly magazine, Collectors News and the article appears as the July 2009 cover story.  You can download a PDF of the article from their site.  Lynn provided 8 of my photos for them to use with the article.  They used three, and I was very pleasantly surprised yesterday when she showed me her copy of the magazine with one more of my photos used as the cover image!

This particular photo is one that I took in February of 2003 with a Minolta DiMAGE 7H i camera.  In looking at it again after more than 6 years, I’m impressed by the quality of the output.  It does have quite a bit more noise than my modern cameras, but it’s easily handled in Lightroom.  I remember the 7Hi  very fondly: 5MP, with very SLR like controls, including a manual zoom ring and even raw output.  I tried using the raw files but the work flow tools were still pretty primitive back then, so I shot in jpg format.  I still have the camera, although I haven’t used it in quite a while.  This particular photo was of one of the walls in our home where Lynn had displayed a number of her trivets and stands.  We made it to include in her first book, but ended up using a different version that showed a larger portion of the wall.   I’m really glad this one eventually found such a nice use!

Here’s the photo used for the cover:
The Cover Photo

My disclosure statement – June 2009.

VARIOUS,

March 11, 2015 update:  Please see this page for an updated disclosure statement.

We interrupt our regular programming for a statement from the owner with regard to the Federal Trade Commission’s pending new guidelines concerning bloggers, endorsements, advertisements, and acceptance of compensation for opinions posted on blogs.

I would like to make the following public disclosure of my policies concerning this blog:

  1. The opinions, beliefs, findings, or experience stated on this blog are my own, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
  2. I accept no compensation of any kind in exchange for any of my work on this blog.
  3. I do not advertise or accept advertising of any kind.  If you see advertising in association with this blog, it was placed without my permission.
  4. Products, places, and services that I mention or review on this blog have been paid for by me at my own expense and not provided for review by anyone else.
  5. I do not identify myself before I review a product place or service – reviews are anonymous.
  6. I do not convey that my experiences are representative of what you will experience, only that they are what I experienced – your mileage may vary.
  7. I’m sorry that it is even necessary to say this.

We now return you to our (somewhat) regulary scheduled programming.

Three Letter Acronyms For Success (TAS), TAS #2: GAS

Cameras and Photography, Colorado, Technique, VARIOUS, ,

OK, gentle reader, our first TAS was HAC – Have a clue . So, once you have a clue, what’s next?

What’s the next thing you need to do to be successful in life and also in photography?  TAS #2 is GAS.  We’ll use the family friendly version here, which is GAH or “Give a Hoot”. In other words, care about your photography, be passionate, be motivated, take all the knowledge you’ve acquired and apply it.  Get out there and make some photographs!

Are you a “serious” photographer? I don’t mean serious as in don’t have any fun with it (quite the opposite).  I mean do you care about your photography? I suspect if you’re reading this blog you do.  That’s really all GAH is about.  It won’t make you a success all by itself, but it is necessary.  And it’s the motivation you need – and combined with the knowledge you acquire with HAC, you’ll be much more likely to be successful.

OK, so TAS #1 (HAC) is all about acquiring knowledge and TAS #2 (GAH) is all about applying it.  The more you apply your knowledge the more it becomes something you do instead of something you just know.  Practice builds the skills you need to get the shot when you don’t have the luxury to think things through.  This happens quite a lot in photography – the light or the situation changes quickly and you have to change quickly to capture it.  Big secret here:  I think most honest photographers would tell you that they have screwed up a photograph many times in the heat of battle.  You will too.  You need to try to minimize this.

GAH:

  • Carry a camera – use it. Always look for scenes / subjects that would make a good photo.  Make the shot.
  • Think about photography as much as possible.  Mental exercises – how would I shoot that: framing, composition, lenses, ISO, etc.  When you look at your finished photos, think about what you should have done different.  When you’re getting ready to take photos, think through how you’re going to do it. Look at other people’s photographs and try to understand how they made them.
  • Try a new photographic technique as often as possible
  • Show your work to people.  Accept feedback and use it constructively

There are the two photos that go with this post.  I used the second one in a prior post , but this is the first time I’ve posted the other one.  I think the pair together is a good illustration of TAS #2: GAH.  I was very motivated and passionate about this particular photograph and went to a good deal of effort to make the image, edit it, and print it.  It looks pretty good up on my wall.

This is the raw capture straight out of the camera:

Littleton, Colo. cabin (straight from camera)

And this is the processed image ready to print.  It took a lot of knowledge (HAC) and a lot of passion (GAH) for the final print to come out like this.

Littleton, Colo. cabin (post processed)

As your homework for this session, you can point out things that are different between the two images and how you think they got that way.  As before, I’ll grade your answers before I post TAS #3.  Oh, by the way, I’ve added a comment to TAS #1 explaining what I meant about the photo in that post.

Be passionate about your photography .  To help you with TAS #2 – Give a Hoot, and to help you stay motivated, here’s a few inspirational photo related links I’ve come across recently.  Please take the time to explore these.  They moved me, and if you’re at all interested in photography, I’m betting they will move you too.

Zack Arias – Transform Video http://www.zarias.com/?p=284
David duChemin – A question of definition (link no longer available)
Darwin Wiggett -Beyond the trophy http://darwinwiggett.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/beyond-the-trophy/
Paul Indigo – Do professional photographers love their jobs? http://paulindigo.blogspot.com/2009/06/do-professional-photographers-love.html
Scott Bourne – Taking the best photo you possibly can (link no longer available)
Rick Sammon – It’s “Have Kid Will Photograph” (link no longer available)

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Butterfly Rainforest – Gainsville, Florida

Butterfly Rainforest, INSIDE FLORIDA, , , ,

Description

I’ve been wanting to visit the landscape photography exhibit at the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art . I decided to go up yesterday, since it will only be there through the end of August. I very much enjoyed the photographs, which included several by Ansel Adams.
The Florida Museum of Natural History is right next door to the Harn Museum, and they have an excellent butterfly exhibit, called the Butterfly Rainforest .

Mary getting ready to enter the Butterfly Rainforest

Although I didn’t write about it at the time, I was there once before in 2007 with my daughter Mary, and I’ve wanted to document it as a Central Florida Photo Op ever since.

Butterfly on flower

The Museum is located on the University of Florida Campus in Gainesville, just off of I-75.  For visitors to Florida, it might make a very nice 2 or 3 hour stop along the way to Orlando or Tampa.  For Orlando area residents, it’s about a 2 hour drive.

Butterfly

The web sites above have directions and entry fee information.  You should consider the weather before you go.  When I went on June 20th, it was very, very hot and humid and this might be easier to put up with in the cooler times of the year.

Butterfly
There’s also quite a lot of pretty tropical and sub-tropical flowers to take photos of, which supply nectar to feed the butterflies.

Flower

And there are several smaller birds that are flying free within the exhibit.

Bird

So, as you can see – this is a target rich environment for the photo sharp shooter!

Photo hints

Tripod/Monopod :  They have a pretty strict policy on what you can bring in.  Tripods and monopods are not allowed.  The pathways are narrow and restricted.  You also have to check strollers and bags (including camera bags) so plan ahead.  I brought a single camera on a strap, a filter case in one pocket and a flash in my other pocket.

Lenses :  Without a tripod or monopod, vibration reduction is pretty important.   Since you’re restricted to the paths and you can’t bring a camera bag in to switch lenses, a zoom lens is a necessity. Maybe you could wear a photo vest with some lenses in it (although I don’t know if they’d let you bring it in).

I used my 70 – 300 VR zoom on my Nikon D700 and also used a close up filter at times. This seemed to work out pretty well.

Other :  Some of the butterflies will be still for you and some won’t.  Most don’t seem to mind the people.  In fact some of them will land on you!

My SB-600 flash came in handy at times to fill in shadows.  The light was variable.  There’s a lot of shadows from vegetation and the cloud cover can also make a big difference in a small amount of time.

The museum also has a page that can help you identify Florida wildflowers and Butterflies .

Summary

The Butterfly Rainforest has a lot of photos waiting to be made.  The conditions are a bit challenging, especially in the summer.  But if you can put up with the heat or go by in the cooler part of the year and deal with the lighting conditions, then this is a good place to visit.

My Gallery (34 total photos): https://edrosack.com/090620_Butterfly/
Website: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/butterflies/rainforest.htm
Address: University of Florida Cultural Plaza
SW 34th Street and Hull Road
PO Box 112710
Gainesville, FL 32611-2710
(352) 846-2000
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating: Hot! Humid! Lots of Photos!

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Three-letter Acronyms for Success (TAS), TAS#1: HAC

Cameras and Photography, Technique, VARIOUS,

Well, gentle reader, here’s the grand challenge in front of us…

Can I come up with a series of three letter acronyms for key ideas on how to be generally successful in life, apply them to photography, explain them in a way to make them interesting, and illustrate each with a photograph?  If I do this, will you visit this blog and read about it?

I guess we’ll find out the answer together. This series of posts will be somewhat sporadic and I’ll be using them as a filler when I don’t have a photo expedition type of blog entry to post.

Here’s the image that goes with this post – it’s a Christmas cactus bloom:
Christmas cactus bloom

OK, so let’s get started with TAS # 1.  HAC stands for “Have A Clue”.  To be successful in life and in photography too, you need to have a clue about what you’re doing.  Oh, sure, you can buy a point and shoot camera and take some good pictures, but can you do that under all conditions?  Can you do that when you need to, every time?  When one of your photos doesn’t come out, will you be able to figure out why and then do better the next time? When you’re in a football stadium or a concert will you be one of the people trying to take pictures with your point and shoot flash going off?

How do you get a clue?  How do you know what you don’t know?  Take a course or workshop, read books or magazines, talk to someone knowledgeable, join a photography club and ask questions, do research on line, read photo blogs.  Try things and see how they come out and then try variations when they don’t work.  Learn about the basics of exposure, composition, depth of field.  Keep trying and keep learning and don’t give up and don’t expect to get all the answers given to you in 5 minutes.

Once you have a clue, you still need to keep getting more and revising the ones you have, because things change.  If you thought you knew photography 5 or 10 years ago, guess what … it’s a lot different now.  You have to keep learning.  All of your clues are a good foundation for continued learning, but learn you must.  For example, if you grew up with film your brain might be conditioned to think of exposure as aperture and shutter speed – film speed was fixed for the whole role of film.  Well guess what, now days it’s aperture, shutter speed, and ISO – we can vary the ISO sensitivity for each exposure.  You have to keep learning or you might not think about things like changing the ISO.

OK, is that enough words on this?  The point is, to be successful you have to have a basic knowledge of what you’re doing and then you have to keep building on that knowledge.

Now, back to the related image at the top of the post.  See if you have a clue about what’s going on with depth of field in this image.  If you think you know the answer, post a comment.  I’ll grade your answers after the TAS #2 blog entry goes up.

To help you get started gathering your clues, here are some photo blogs where you can learn about photography:

Digital Photography School http://digital-photography-school.com/
Luminous Landscape http://www.luminous-landscape.com/
Photofocus (link no longer available)
Nature Photographer magazine (link no longer available)
Naturescapes.net http://www.naturescapes.net/docs/
Thom Hogan http://bythom.com/

©2009, Ed Rosack.  All rights reserved.