Tag Archives: cloud

Lake Jesup’s South Shore

January 3, 2021Lake Jesupblack and white, cloud, landscape, spanish moss, treeEd Rosack

I doubt many landscape photographers have the south shore of Lake Jesup in Seminole County on their must do list. But local parks are a great resource and we should take advantage of them. At the very least, you can practice your landscape photo skills and maybe spot some wildlife too. I went for a very short drive last week and made three stops. Here are some photos from the trip.

This first one is in Central Winds park in Winter Springs, down past the playground and basketball court where there’s a short nature trail leading to the the lake and this view. I used a 16mm focal length (with a variable ND filter to lengthen the exposure and smooth the water) and made two frames (using this technique) to capture both the tree / sky in the distance (ISO 100, f/11, 1/4 second ) and the foreground (ISO 100, f/11, 1 second). Then I blended them by hand in Photoshop using layers.

Stop two is a little west, on the pier that you’ll get to when you turn in at the dog park and drive past it down to the lake. Two frames again with the same general approach as the first image. Sky at ISO 100, f/11, 1/6 second; Foreground at ISO 100, f/11, 1/2 second.

And stop three is east of the other two at Overlook Park in Oviedo. Also using the same general approach (although no ND filter for this one). Sky at ISO 100, f/11, 1/200 second; Foreground at ISO 100, f/11, 1/80 second.

Finally, this Oak tree caught my eye and I made one last photo on the walk back to my car:

I used my phone – 13mm equivalent focal length, ISO 25, f/2.4 at 1/240 sec.

Here’s a map image showing all three locations (yellow markers) to give you a better idea of where they are:

Note: If you clicked on any of the photos, you’ve noticed I’m trying a new way to embed Flickr photos. Starting with this post, a click on a photo will still take you to that image on Flickr, but now it will open in “Lightbox” mode and fill your browser widow. You can still click once (or twice) to enlarge it, and you can hit the escape key to return to the non-lightbox view. Then use your browser’s back button to return to the blog.

By the way, the tree in the center of the first photo has been on the blog twice before, here https://edrosack.com/2010/11/21/local-park-landscapes/ and here https://edrosack.com/2010/05/16/under-the-weather/. I think I like this latest version the best.

And you can review all my posts about Lake Jesup at this link: https://edrosack.com/category/photo-ops-in-florida/lake-jesup/.

Happy New Year! We’re all looking forward to better times in 2021! Lynn and I are waiting to get vaccinated so we can visit family and friends again and life can return toward normal. I hope that doesn’t take too long.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can – visit your local park and make some photos!

Sandford Sunrise Stroll

October 4, 2020Sanfordboats, cloud, landscape, moon, panorama, reflection, sunriseEd Rosack

I haven’t mentioned the Photography Interest Group in a long time. There hasn’t been much activity, and to be honest the expeditions have always been few and a little haphazard. But anyway Kevin K. organized an early morning photo excursion last Friday and we managed to gather five of us in one place.

We met in downtown Sanford, Florida at the Monroe Harbour Marina for a socially distanced photo walk. Kevin M., Mahesh S. and Lutfi S. joined us too. Here are a few of my photos from that morning.

I arrived a bit early and made this image while waiting for the others. Once I got home, I was curious about the very bright star above the moon and discovered it was the planet Mars.

Moon, Mars, and stars: before dawn at the marina

When everyone was there, we wandered around the area. Calm water and colorful skies made for a nice dawn image looking eastward through the moorings.

Sanford sunrise.

And westward, the Harvest Moon was setting along the river.

Setting moon and reflection

Zooming in searching for details, I discovered a Halloween themed sailboat:

Ghost ship

Masks, no handshakes (or even elbow bumps), and 6 foot distances made it seem a little strange. But ignoring that, it was almost like old times – seeing friends, catching up on each other’s lives, and making a few photos too. Definitely good for the soul.

On the way home, I drove by Marl Bed Flats again and the standing water there still looks pretty widespread. So no changes in this year’s sunflower forecast – sorry.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Stay safe, take care of yourselves, your friends, and your families. And if you can, make some photos – with your socially distanced friends!

A Storm and a Couple of Yard Birds

August 16, 2020INSIDE FLORIDAbirds, black and white, bluejay, circle of life, cloud, Hummingbird, infrared, landscape, mammatus, panorama, ruby-throated, wildlifeEd Rosack

Well once again, I didn’t “get out and make some new photos” last week. But I do have some new ones to show you that I made right here at home.

These Florida clouds! We’ve had some especially awesome afternoon storms lately. This is an infrared image I made from our front lawn when Lynn told me she’d spotted some Mammatus clouds. And yes, it did start raining.

Cloudy with a chance of rain

We’ve seen hummingbirds here several times, but they seem very shy and hard to photograph. Even when I have a camera ready they skedaddle as soon as I open the patio door. We were eating lunch when Lynn called out this one, and I was able to get the camera and make some images from inside through a window before it left.

Yard bird 1: Ruby-throated Hummingbird

It’s been a tough time for lizards. Last week I told you about that Red-shouldered Hawk grabbing one off the screen. This week, we had a Bluejay hunting lizards in the back yard too. It was hard focusing on it through the tree leaves and by the time I made this image, that poor lizard was about gone.

Yard bird 2: Bluejay and the circle of life

So that’s how my photographic week went. I’m going to try even harder to “get out and make some new photos” next week. We’ll see.

Thanks to Lynn for once again being such an awesome spotter! I would’ve missed all three of these photos if she hadn’t pointed them out for me. Sometimes I get the feeling that there’s a lot more going on in our yard than I ever see. Maybe I should pay more attention!

And thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Hang in there, cherish your friends and loved ones, and take care of each other. And if you can – make some photos, even if they’re just in your yard!

Merritt Island – 4/3/19

April 7, 2019Haulover Canal, Merritt Island NWRbirds, black and white, BPWD, cloud, infrared, killdeer, landscape, manatee, panorama, sunrise, Tri-colored Heron, wildlifeEd Rosack

When I visit Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, I’m never sure what I’ll see. But almost every time there’s something new and interesting.

I hadn’t been to Gator Creek Rd. for sunrise in a while. This spot is at one of the curves where there’s a break in the mangroves so you can get down to water level. There weren’t many clouds. I used a low camera position for this photo to emphasize the foreground and made a 4 image panorama to get a wider field of view.

Gator Creek Morning.

Next, I drove up to the Bairs Cove Boat ramp. Manatees seem to like the area – I think I’ve seen them there every time I’ve been. Sure enough, I spotted several and debated whether to park and make a photo. I’ve made so many photos of their noses that more of that kind of shot isn’t very exciting . But since I was there, I got out of the car. I counted over a dozen as I walked quietly down to the dock. It wasn’t until I was right at the water that I saw three of them next to the wall. I’d only brought my long lens with me from the car, so after making several “Manatee Head Shots”, I pulled out my phone to get a photo of the group (https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/40566342263/in/dateposted/). When I left they were still there – calmly resting and taking occasional breaths.

Manatee head shot

I was heading back toward Black Point Wildlife Drive along Shiloh Rd. when I caught a glimpse of some water through a break in the trees. I stopped and walked over to make this infrared image in a spot I’d never noticed before.

By the Indian River

Things were fairly busy on Black Point – lots of birds and people too. I stayed at one small feeding frenzy for a while making images of the birds hunting for fish. This heron had just launched from the left.

Tricolored Heron in flight

I stopped next to another photographer who’d found this Killdeer close to the road in very nice light. I was careful not to disturb her bird as I quietly got out of my car to get this image.

Killdeer

I spotted our usual Herons and Egrets, Brown and White Pelicans, a few ducks (mostly Blue Wing Teals, Northern Shovelers, Coots, etc.), Ibis, Willets, Sandpipers, Cormorants, Anhingas, Roseate Spoonbills, Belted Kingfishers, Red-winged Blackbirds, Grackles, Turkey Vultures, Mocking Birds, Ground Doves, Black-necked Stilts, a few Killdeer, and one new life bird for me: a Whimbrel.

Another pleasant and interesting morning at MINWR!

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

Is Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge Shutdown?

January 6, 2019INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWRbirds, BPWD, cloud, Ibis, landscape, sun rays, sunrise, Tri-colored Heron, wildlifeEd Rosack

Kevin M. asked if I wanted to go photographing on Saturday and we decided to go over to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. I hadn’t been in a while and I wanted to see how it’s doing during the Government shutdown. We also invited Kevin K. to go along.

Sunrise by the causeway

We stopped at the Titusville Marina for a few sunrise snaps. A cold front was passing through and it was still overcast and a little dreary. But there was a small break in the clouds right at daybreak.

As far as the shutdown goes, this is what the MINWR website says:

“Where public access to refuge lands does not require the presence of a federal employee or contractor, activities on refuge lands will be allowed to continue on the same terms as before the appropriations lapse.”

So facilities at MINWR are closed and locked, but the trails we tried were open (Gator Creek road and Black Point). We didn’t see any rangers, but the wildlife is still showing up.

Note: Jim Boland reports that Cape Canaveral National Seashore (Playalinda) and Biolab Road are closed.

Some of what we saw: a Bald Eagle, Ospreys, a Northern Harrier, Belted Kingfishers, a Reddish Egret, Coots, Common Gallinules, Northern Shovelers, Blue-Wing Teals, Hooded Mergansers, Pie Billed Grebes, White Pelicans, Roseate Spoonbills, Great and Snowy Egrets, Great and Little Blue Herons, Tri-colored Herons, White Ibis, and Alligators.

Tricolored Heron

The birds were fairly abundant, but I struggled to get good images. The light was dim under the clouds and the birds were a little too far away. We even came up on a feeding frenzy. But it was in a small pond behind some thick mangroves that were just about impossible to photograph through. Here’s my best shot of that – this Ibis was diving back in to get another snack:

Launching Ibis

The sun broke through one other time before we left:

Sunbeams in the swamp

All in all, a pretty nice photo expedition. So don’t use the government shutdown as an excuse. – you can still go out and enjoy our natural resources.

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

Lessons from a photogenic place (repost)

September 30, 2018Marineland Beach, Repost, Techniquecloud, landscape, sunriseEd Rosack

Good morning! We were traveling last weekend and I started coming down with a cold on the flight back. So I haven’t been out much since and I don’t have any new material for you. Instead, I’ll repost this write-up from back in April, 2014 – it’s one of my favorites. And it reminds me I need to go back over there and see what’s changed! You can also look at this post for more info on the location: https://edrosack.com/2014/01/04/marineland-beach/

There were a few lights in the parking lot way back behind the sand dunes and the clouds were thick and low, making it so very dark on Marineland Beach south of St. Augustine, Florida that my first few exposures didn’t even register on the sensor. I kept raising exposure times and ISO until I was able to capture this:

99 seconds in the dark – ISO 400, 99 seconds @ f/8; Marineland Beach, about 45 minutes before sunrise.

It sure didn’t look this way to my eyes. I couldn’t see much at all and had to use my head lamp to compose and focus.

When I got home and processed the photos, they reminded me of some things that might be useful to others.

Pre-visualize before, during, and after you press the shutter

You should always try to pre-visualize the photo you’re making before you compose and shoot – and it’s a delightful feeling when the image turns out just like you imagined. But this is often harder than it sounds. Especially if you can’t see what you’re photographing. There’s nothing wrong with adjusting your vision as you go. This is a wonderful advantage of digital cameras that we’d be foolish to ignore. Check your results on the LCD during the shoot and adapt as necessary. In this case, I knew exactly what I needed to change when I first looked at my (black) LCD. I needed more exposure!

Pre visualization is great, but there’s also nothing wrong with post visualization. What I mean is to try as many things as you can think of while you’re there and sort it out later when you get home. Try HDR, panoramas, high tripod, low tripod, and focus stacking. Use different focal lengths, shutter / aperture combinations, and positions / directions. Exploit changing weather / light as time goes on. Capture them all and give yourself a better chance to come out with something you like.

Shutter speed

Shutter speed is a critical variable when photographing moving water. The 99 second exposure above gave me very smooth and milky looking water, nicely outlining the rocks. A 1/1000th second (or faster) exposure can freeze drops of water. In between, you can find other speeds that look very different from the extremes. Capture the scene with different shutter speeds when possible. In this 1 second exposure, I like the added interest from the flow patterns in the water.

Marineland Beach and coquina rocks – ISO 100, 1 second @ f/4 with 8 2/3 stop neutral density filter, ~30 minutes after sunrise.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) processing and ghost removal

There are so many controls and sliders in HDR software that it’s hard to know which ones to change. Most HDR software has an option for removing “ghosts” (differences between multiple frames for anything moving in the image) and I think it’s a critical setting. HDR Efex allows me to select the baseline frame I want to use as well as the amount of ghost removal to apply. I like to experiment with these and select the combination that looks best. In the image below, there was only one setting that showed the breaking wave. And I think the wave definitely adds to the image.

Golden rocks and sand – 5 image bracket (-4 to +4 stops), almost an hour after sunrise.

Don’t leave too soon

I made these three images (and more!) over a period of 90 minutes. The changing light provided different looks and opportunities to photograph this place. It’s worth getting there early and staying for a while.

Don’t get overwhelmed

When you visit a beautiful place, especially for the first time – it’s easy to be overwhelmed and forget about everything except pressing the shutter button. It helps to visit multiple times. The first time, it’s hard to see all the possible compositions until you get over the novelty and excitement. When you can relax and enjoy the experience you can open your mind and get in the zone. Then you’ll make images you’ll be happy to share with others.

You can see more of my photos from Marineland in this set on Flickr.

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

Sunrise movement

August 19, 2018Merritt Island NWRbirds, BPWD, cloud, Gator Creek Road, Great Blue Heron, landscape, Osprey, sunrise, wildlife, yellowlegsEd Rosack

The best colors at dawn are often before sunrise – sometimes well before. But a couple of minutes after sunrise last Wednesday, I was getting ready to move on when I noticed how colorful the horizon had become. So I decided to make one more photo. I was lucky I had my 24 – 200mm equivalent lens on and I zoomed all the way in. As the image flashed in my viewfinder, I saw a large bird close to the sun. When I recognized how many there were – all flying north (right to left), I made several more exposures.

Morning Movement

By the way, this would have been a great time to switch to video, but I’m never able to think of that when I should.

Anyway, I ended up with 7 frames spread over 9 seconds. I brought them all into layers in Photoshop, aligned them, used curves to manually adjust each one so the exposures are the same and then blended birds from each frame into one composite image. I guess that’s cheating – but I think it’s a better representation of what I saw than any single frame I made.

I like images that reveal more the longer / closer you look at them. and this one does. Please click on it to see it larger.

Here are a few more photos from that morning. All were made at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Osprey

Itchy bird

Yellowlegs

Birds usually don’t sleep in. I’ve often seen them take off right at sunrise and head out to start their day. It’s fun to watch. Next time I’m going to try to remember to make a video!

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

A Marvelous Morning

January 21, 2018INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera WetlandsAmerican Bittern, beach, Belted Kingfisher, birds, cloud, landscape, sunrise, wildlife, Wilson's SnipeEd Rosack

We organized a photo expedition to Viera Wetlands yesterday. I went with Kevin K., Kevin M., and Tom M. We tried a new sunrise location, Alan Shepard Park, right on the beach in Cocoa where SR 520 ends. Even though we got blocked by a train stuck on the tracks and a closed parking lot, we made it in time for the show. I was also worried that there wouldn’t be much color, but Mother Nature rewarded our efforts.

On the beach

There were a lot of shore birds on the beach with us. I have several more images to process with them in the foreground.

Our next stop was the wetlands, and this trip demonstrated the advantages of having extra eyeballs to help search for things. We went right by this Bittern until Tom saw it and got us to stop. They’re pretty reliable in the winter at Viera, but they’re hard to see sometimes. Their standard behavior is to freeze in the grass / reeds and try to blend in. They don’t spook very easy, so you can get fairly close without bothering them.

American Bittern in the grass

A little further on, Kevin M. called out a Snipe he spotted. It was on the opposite side of the car, so I got out quietly and snuck around. It took me a bit to see it even though it was only a few feet away. This one was pretty calm and let us photograph for several minutes. They’re small and usually skittish. And they fly erratically, so they’re usually hard to photograph. Again, though they seem to like to stop by Viera in the winter.

Wilson’s Snipe in the grass

Belted Kingfishers are also common around Florida in the winter. If you’ve ever seen one of these, you know how hard it can be to photograph them. You’ll see them perched on a branch and as soon as you try to get closer or even point your lens toward them, they take off and move further away. This one was more tolerant than usual and I was able to get set for it to leave. But I was over conservative with my zoom and left too much room in the frame. I did catch it, and even though it’s a little small, it’s one of my best flight shots of one. But I’ll have to keep trying.

Belted Kingfisher in flight

We spotted Red-winged Blackbirds, Black Crowned Night Herons, Little Blue Herons, Tri-colored Herons, Green Herons, Egrets, a hawk, Grebes, Morehens, a juvenile Purple Galinule, and Ring Necked Ducks. And Kevin M. also called out a Ruddy Duck – which was a life bird for me but in very poor light, so I won’t post it here. Kevin K. was the first to spot a herd of deer (well four of them at least) – which I don’t see very often there. Great Blue Herons, Anhingas, Sand Hill Cranes, and Cormorants are all nesting now too.

So it was a marvelous morning. Great weather, scenery, bird watching, photography, and friends. Much better than sleeping in!

Please click on the images above to see a larger version on Flickr. And you can see many more of my photos from Viera Wetlands in this Flickr album.

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