Tag Archives: panorama

Lake Jesup Conservation Area Wildflowers

October 10, 2009INSIDE FLORIDA, Lake Jesup, Lake Jesup Sunflowers, Sanfordcloud, Flowers, Marl Bed Flats, moon, panorama, Sanford Florida, storm, Sunflowers, sunriseEd Rosack

Intro / Description

I’ve posted once before about wildflowers on the north-west shore of Lake Jesup. They bloom this time of year and I’ve photographed them since 2006, mostly from the side of the road.

October 10, 2006: Lake Jesup Flowers and Sunrise. 4 shot panorama, assembled in Photoshop; Nikon Coolpix P1, ISO 50, 126mm eq. focal length, f/5.2 at 1/30 sec.

In 2008, the area was completely under water and there were no blooms.

August 31, 2008: Lake Jesup flood waters from tropical storm Fay; Nikon D80, ISO 100, Nikon 18-70 lens at 18mm, f/16, three exposures combined with Photomatix

All year, I really hoped that the flooding hadn’t killed the flowers permanently. Once the water receded, I did a little exploring and found a park and a path out into the blooms through the Lake Jesup Conservation Area. About two weeks ago, I revisited the park and made these photos. As you can see, the blooms came back from the flooding. If anything, there are more than ever. If you are into flower photography, you have to ask yourself why you’ve never explored this wonderful place in late September. Get ready for next year!

September 28, 2009: Lake Jesup flowers and moon; Nikon D700, ISO 200, Nikon 24-70 lens at 62mm, f/16 at 1/50 sec

Here’s a close in photo of one of the blooms. There are so many different types of wildflowers, that Identifying them isn’t easy (for me anyway). These are in the Aster family and resemble Black Eyed Susans, but are taller than the 14 – 36 inches my book says Black Eyed Susans should be. If you recognize them and can supply a positive ID, please let me know in the comments.

1/24/2010 update – These are most likely Narrowleaf Sunflowers, also called “Swamp Sunflowers”.

September 28, 2009: Lake Jesup flower closeup; Nikon D700, ISO 200, Nikon 24-70 lens at 70mm, f/4 at 1/500 sec

Photo Hints

This web page has directions on how to get to the Marl Bed Flats part of the conservation area, where I made these photos. It’s a short hike over flat ground from the parking area to where the flowers are.

The plants are fairly tall and the blooms range from a few feet off the ground to as high as 6 feet. A tall tripod will be helpful to get your camera above the vegetation. Bring a wide-angle lens to take in the incredible vista of so many flowers in one place. You might want to carry your macro lens too.

Get there early for calm winds. I was a little leery of walking out there in the dark, so I passed on sunrise shots this year.

If you plan to do this, you should scout the area and the time-line before hand. The blooms last a couple of weeks, but they are definitely better in the middle of the period than at either end.

Summary

Website:	http://www.sjrwmd.com/recreationguide/lakejesup/index.html
Address:	Off of Oakway loop Sanford, Florida
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating:	Nothing here until late September – then, WOW!

You can click on the photos in this post to go to Flickr, where you can look at a larger version. I’ve also posted several more photos in my Lake Jesup Wildflower set.

Our vacation – Ch. 3: Other Alaskan and Seattle photos

October 5, 2009Must do list, Techniqueastronomy, panorama, sunrise, travel, vacationEd Rosack

This is the third installment of our vacation adventure, where I’ll show you the some of the other things we saw, both in Alaska and Seattle. Chapter One is here and describes the wildlife we encountered on our trip. Chapter Two is here and is about the glaciers we visited.

I’ve finally gotten through the rest of the photos that I made. The only ones left to process are the “people pics”. When I finish these, the final part of my post processing will be to go through everything and then selecting a “best of all set” to try making into a photo book.

Before we get started, please note that the photos in this post are linked to my Flickr account and you can click on them to go to Flickr where you can see a higer res version.

First of all, here’s my favorite photo of me from the trip. It’s a picture of Lynn and I that Sully made. We spent a lot of time sightseeing from our balcony, and looking at this really brings back memories.

Ed on vacation with three cameras. Lynn on vacation with two glasses of wine.; Canon PowerShot A700,11.546 mm,1/80 sec at f / 3.5,, Dimensions are 2816 x 2112, Photo by Marin Sullivan

There were quite a few impressive sunrise and sunset opportunities. I often shot in “panorama mode”. Most of these I took hand held and they seem to have worked out quite well. I was careful to line up the horizon or another feature in the terrain with one of the marks in the viewfinder, and this really helps when you stitch. I’ve also found that running Nikon images through CaptureNX before I stitch them in Photoshop really improves the final image quality. The key is to use the CaptureNX function that corrects lens distortion. Here’s a sunrise from our final morning on the ship. It’s composed of 4 images stitched together vertically. In the full res version, you can see the planet Mars (if my astronomy software is correct) underneath the moon!

Seattle sunrise panorama with moon and Mars(?); NIKON D700,48 mm,1/50 sec at f / 2.8,ISO 800, Dimensions are 4312 x 7619

Here’s another one I really like. I took this in Juneau, when Lynn and I went gold panning. I had just my Canon G9 with me (in a pocket most of the time – it was raining), and I used a flat rock in the creek as a tripod. By the way, Lynn and I both found flakes of gold in this creek!

Juneau, Alaska – gold panning creek; Canon PowerShot G9,7.4 mm,1.0 sec at f / 8.0,ISO 80, Dimensions are 4000 x 3000

And here’s one last photo for the blog of some trees at the Lake Washington Ship Canal. I’m not sure what this tree was and whether it was turning already for fall, but I really liked the color contrasts.

Trees; NIKON D90,19 mm,1/50 sec at f / 3.8,ISO 100, Dimensions are 2848 x 4288

As before, I’ve posted the rest of the photos for this blog entry in two ways. I added a set of “other” photos here to my photo galleries. You can also look at our Alaska photos together in a single time ordered set of 72 photographs here on Flickr. Clicking on one of the photos above will also take you to Flickr, where if you click on the “all sizes” button, you can see the photo in a higher res version.

Our Alaskan vacation – Ch. 2: Glaciers

September 27, 2009Alaska, Cameras and Photography, Cruise Ships, Must do listglacier, Glacier Bay, landscape, panorama, sunrise, travel, vacationEd Rosack

This is the second installment of our Alaskan adventure, where I’ll show you the glaciers we visited. Chapter One is here and describes the wildlife we saw on our trip.

Our ship, the MS Westerdam left Seattle on Sunday, September 6th and headed north to Glacier Bay National Park where we arrived on Tuesday. Glacier Bay was one of the main reasons that we picked this itinerary and we were looking forward to seeing it. The morning started out beautifully, with a very nice sunrise.

While cruising in Glacier Bay, we visited Lamplugh, Johns Hopkins, and Marjorie glaciers. Several cruise ships had been unable to reach the Johns Hopkins glacier this season due to ice, so apparently we were lucky. Here’s a panorama I made from the 4th deck of the Westerdam at Johns Hopkins glacier.

One of the first things we noticed is that the color of the water close to the glaciers is a very distinct greenish blue. According to ~~this article~~ (sorry – no longer available) on wired.com (which also has some stunning photos of glaciers taken from space) the color is due to the very fine silt that is ground away from the valley walls by the glacier and deposited in the water. This “glacial flour” can be very reflective and turns the water this color.

At Marjorie glacier, I was in the right place at the right time to photograph the ice calving. Here’s the middle photo of a three photo sequence (you can see the others when you visit the gallery for this post).

When we exited Glacier Bay, we headed for Juneau where we also visited Mendenhal Glacier, among other things.

When we were back on board in Juneau, the captain made an announcement about gale force winds and 40 foot seas that were expected off of Sitka, which was supposed to be our next stop. To avoid this weather he decided instead to cruise through Tracy Arm fjord, where we spent all of the next day (Thursday, September 10th). Tracy Arm is a truly spectacular place that isn’t often visited by cruise ships as large as the MS Westerdam. We were able to get in there since our Alaskan waters pilot was very familiar with the place. It was amazing to watch the ship maneuver in such tight waters — at times we were within 30 yards or so of cliff walls and we must have seen hundreds of waterfalls. There was quite a bit of fog and haze, which made photography difficult, but I did manage to get some good shots. Here’s one example of the scenery:

I also put my Canon G9 on a Gorillapod, mounted it to the balcony rail and made some movies. Here’s a time lapse video (one frame per second) that I made in Tracy Arm. It has a sequence of clouds forming and moving along with the ship. We saw this same phenomenon several times that day. Was it perhaps the great spirit of the northwest accompanying us on our tour?

That night after exiting Tracy Arm fjord, our course carried us back into the Pacific Ocean in order to get to Ketchikan. It was still pretty rough with about 25 foot seas. We had a great view of the ocean from the second deck during dinner. It was like eating on a roller coaster! The next morning, when we arrived in Ketchikan, we had seaweed on our 6th deck balcony!

You can view the rest of my glacier photos in two places. I added a set of glacier photos here in my photo galleries. You can also look at all of our Alaska photos together in a single time ordered set here on Flickr. Clicking on one of the photos above will also take you to Flickr, where if you click on the “all sizes” button, you can see the photo in a higher res version.

Coming next: “North to Alaska, Ch. 3: Miscellaneous photos. I’ll also probably wrap up with a Chapter 4: Photo hints.

Back home from Alaska

September 14, 2009Alaska, Cruise Shipspanorama, rainbow, travel, vacationEd Rosack

Lynn and I are so fortunate. We’re home again after a wonderful vacation! Round trip, we traveled 5,092 statute miles by air to / from Seattle and 1930 nautical miles by ship, as far as Glacier Bay, Alaska.

Along the way we visited our good friends, the Sullivans. We saw beautiful sunsets and sunrises, glaciers, mountain vistas, humpback and killer whales, sea lions, harbor seals, otters, many birds including bald eagles, a bear blob, and several types of fish including spawning salmon. We saw the sites and shopped in Seattle, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Victoria, panned for gold and went to salmon bake dinners. The Holland America MS Westerdam is a superb ship, with a fine crew, although we were also thrilled by roller coaster like rides through gale force winds and 25+ foot seas.

Photography wise, it was a target rich environment, but the weather was mostly overcast with fog, low clouds and frequent rain. I took too much photo gear, but since I had it with me, I used most of it. I made thousands of photographs and my friend Sully made thousands more. Many of these are bracketed or panorama sets. I plan to go through them, choose the selects, and post process them as time permits. Hopefully there will be a few that are worth sharing here on this blog and in some galleries. I think that the next three or four of my posts will all be Alaska related. I also want to go through and create a photo book about our trip.

But we just got home, we’re tired, and we have to go to work tomorrow. For now, here’s one photo I really like. We saw this rainbow on our first day at sea, about an hour after leaving Seattle.

Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, and Waterton Canyon near Denver

March 15, 2009Coloradoblack and white, Garden of the Gods, landscape, night, panorama, people, travel, vacationEd Rosack

I was lucky enough to go on a business trip to Denver last week. I stayed with my Mom and got to visit a bit with her and her friends. I also got to see my sister LaDonna and brother Jim and their families in Denver and my brother Rob and his family in Colorado Springs.

On the way to Rob’s, I stopped by the Garden of the Gods for a couple of hours. (Note: you can click on any of these photos for a larger version).

The Garden of the Gods park is run by the city of Colorado Springs and is about an hour south of Denver. You take I-25 south and exit right onto Garden of the Gods road. I hadn’t been there before. The rock formations are spectacular and unlike anything we see in Florida. If you go, early morning probably has the best light. I wasn’t able to arrive until around 10 am and by then the lighting was pretty harsh. I wish I had been there earlier or that there had been some nice clouds in the sky to work with, but you take what you get and I was happy to be able to see it. I did some bracketed exposures to work with in HDR and converted some photos to black and white. I like the way they turned out.

Rock climbing is allowed and I made a few photos of a couple of climbers.

While in Denver, I also took a walk through Waterton Canyon and made a few photos.

And one night, my nephew Jared and I made this panorama of the night-time skyline visible from my Mom’s place.

My other photos for this post are here

Photographic Perils – Stingrays try to eat my camera!

November 23, 2008Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando, Theme Parkspanorama, Seaworld, Sting Ray, wildlifeEd Rosack

Seaworld again graciously hosted the annual United Way Leadership Appreciation Event yesterday and Lynn and I enjoyed a few hours at the park. It was a very pleasant day full of sunshine starting in the high 40s, and warming into the 60s after lunch. Seaworld is a favorite of ours and there are lots of good photos there.

This year, I carried a quite a bit more photo gear, although I didn’t use everything. The equipment I enjoyed using the most was my Canon G9 inside the WP-DC21 waterproof housing. I brought this out at the stingray lagoon. The rays in this pool are used to people and will come right up to you when you put your hands in the water. This first picture is a close up of an approaching stingray.

And click on the link below to see a short underwater video of the stingrays swimming by and then trying to eat my camera!
Stingrays eat my camera!!!

I will post the rest of my photographs from yesterday on my website as soon as I finish editing them (hopefully later today – I want to try to process a 360 degree panorama). They will be at this link: https://edrosack.com/seaworld2008/

A walk from Ohio to Kentucky (and back)

September 29, 2008OhioCincinnati, Flowers, landscape, panorama, sculptureEd Rosack

Mary bought us two tickets to see Swell Season last Monday in Columbus and flew me up to Cincinnati for a nice long weekend which just happened to coincide with their version of Oktoberfest . We also worked on chores around her condo all weekend. All in all, it made for a very nice visit. Oktoberfest was very crowded on Saturday night, The lines for beer were 40 – 50 deep at some of the stands – Cincinnati is a thirsty place! If you go, Sunday is much less crowded. This is a photo I made of the crowd with my iPhone (you can click on each of these images for larger versions).

One evening we went up on her roof and I made a couple of photos of churches that you can see from there. Here’s one of them:

Mary had to work Monday morning, so I was on my own. I took my Canon G9 and set off for a nice stroll through downtown Cincinnati in search of photo ops.

Garfield Place has a little park with a statue of him.

Fountain Square is interesting, but I had to struggle for something photogenic due to the lighting and crowds.

For $2 you can go to the observation deck at the top of the Carew Tower, which is Cincinnati’s tallest building. Mary and I did that Sunday evening and I made this panorama. You can see that the crowds are a lot thinner than they were on Saturday, although this was taken quite a bit earlier in the evening.

The Roebling Suspension Bridge was built in the 1860s and spans the Ohio river between Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky. When I saw that it has a pedestrian lane, I decided to walk across since it would make such a great title for a blog post and might even have a few photos hidden away somewhere. Here’s a two shot vertical panorama I made from the Kentucky side looking back toward Cincinnati.

Quite a pleasant Monday morning. When Mary got back from work, she made me walk to lunch! The rest of my photos for this post are here.

A wonderful trip!!! San Francisco and Muir Woods

May 4, 2007California, Must do listlandscape, panorama, San Francisco, Sea Lion, vacation, wildlifeEd Rosack

So what if you could take a long weekend, fly free to San Francisco, take pictures of scenic locations there, then also go to Muir Woods and Yosemite to explore the photographic opportunities? What if someone bought you your plane ticket? Would you think that life is being too good to you and sooner or later the odds would have to even out? Me too. Here’s hoping that it takes a while for my luck to catch up with me.

I met Mary in Cincinnati on Thursday night and we flew out to SF together. Friday, we ran some errands and then went to Muir Woods National Monument . Saturday was Yosemite. Sunday was more errands and then tourist locations around SF, including Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39. And on Monday, I flew home.

There is a really good overlook in SF called Twin Peaks . On a clear day like we had, you can see quite a bit. I played around with my point and shoot and took several panorama sequences.

Here are my photo galleries of the trip:
San Francisco
Muir Woods
Yosemite