I hadn’t been to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in a while and decided to head over last Monday. On the way in I stopped by the pier on the west side of the A. Max Brewer Memorial Bridge. When photographing a sunrise (or anything else!) I try to stay aware of things in other directions. Looking north just before sunrise, this sail boat caught my eye. I like the subject, colors and reflections:
A pretty place to anchor
Winter is such a wonderful time to visit MINWR. The variety of “snow birds” you could spot is amazing. Here are a few I found.
I haven’t seen a Snipe in a long time – the sun’s glare hid it pretty well, but the long beak gave it away:
Wilsons Snipe
These enormous waterbirds hang around all over Central Florida in the winter, but it’s still nice to see them. Every one I spotted was either far away or horribly back lit.
High Key White Pelican
Northern Shovelers show up each winter:
Her and Him
Northern Pintails show up too, although I don’t run across them as often:
Him and Her
And Willets and Lesser Yellowlegs are fairly common, although it’s unusual to see a choreographed pair and their reflections:
Passing by
Definitely worth a visit – I’m glad I went! Thanks for stopping by my blog. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, visit a wildlife refuge!
I spent a few moments before sunrise last Thursday morning at Scobie Park (just south of Veterans Memorial Park in Titusville), watching the pre-dawn clouds reflecting in the calm Indian River water. Oh, and I had a camera with me too – I made 6 frames to stitch together into this image:
The day begins
After that I wandered over to Black Point Wildlife Drive and one of the first things I saw was this:
Large numbers of birds were going after minnows concentrated in this small pond along Black Point Wildlife Drive.
These “feeding frenzies” don’t happen all the time, but when they do they can be great photo fun.
At first glance, they look like a photographer’s dream – all those birds in a confined area – taking off, landing, chasing minnows and each other, just waiting for you to snap the shutter.
It turns out it’s not so easy. They’re crowded together against a cluttered background. They move quickly, change directions unexpectedly, and in general make it hard to pick a subject and compose deliberately – especially if you’re looking through your viewfinder with a long lens on your camera. I often keep the camera away from my eyes so I can see what’s going on. Then I can sometimes anticipate the action and make a photo when they all decide to move at once:
Exodus
I also like to study the scene for a while and try different vantage points and lenses. I chose a spot where the wind was at my back and most of the birds were taking off and landing toward me. It helps to keep looking around so you can spot them as they’re coming in. I noticed this spoonbill a long way out. Since I knew where it was headed I could track it as it approached and make several frames when it landed. This side lit one is my favorite:
Landing Spoonbill
There were lots of Roseate Spoonbills around. The header image at the top of the post on the web is another one I like from the trip. That pair was wading in a less busy part of the drive.
I also had some good luck with this female Belted Kingfisher. She ignored me and kept gazing out over the water as I crept closer. I stayed in the car, moved slowly and tried to be as quiet as possible so I wouldn’t bother her. Most of the time, they leave as soon as you point a camera at them, but she wasn’t concerned at all. This is one of the closest photos I’ve made of one (the EXIF data says I was about 19 meters away). She’s very pretty and quite regal, I think.
An Unusually Calm Kingfisher
It was a short visit, but a wonderful one. This is an excellent time of year to visit the refuge, get out in the midst of nature, and enjoy some of the things you can see there.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. I hope all of you are doing well and that you have a joyful holiday season with your family and friends. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, make a few photos!
It’s been a little over a month since my last post. I enjoyed writing this one after such a long break.
I went over to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge toward the end of August. I wasn’t expecting to see much, but I wanted to get out and photograph something. I’m glad I did, because the sunrise was one of the best I’ve ever watched.
Nature’s Gift
That photo’s from Veterans Memorial Park on the west side of the Indian River looking east toward MINWR and Kennedy Space Center. I was concentrating on the sunrise when I noticed several other folks had shown up. One was Pat H., who I’ve known for a while. I’m glad I ran into her since she was there to photograph the Artemis 1 SLS rocket on the pad at launch complex 39B. At the time, the planned launch was a couple days later. After we talked, I went and got my long lens to make a close up photo of it (the header image). You can see a higher res version on Flickr at this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/52311586034/in/dateposted-public/. I’d hoped to include a photo of the launch in today’s post too, but it’s been postponed. Hydrogen is tricky stuff!
After that I went through Gator Creek Road, Black Point Wildlife Drive, and also stopped by the Bairs Cove boat ramp. This kayaker had gotten up very early to go fishing. I didn’t see him catch anything while I was there though.
A fine morning for fishing
I was happy to find this pretty, young Roseate Spoonbill and its reflection at one of the first corners on Gator Creek.
Spoonie!
Other birds were a bit scarce, but this Loggerhead Shrike flew right in front of my car and landed in a mangrove. I quickly rolled down the passenger window and pointed my lens at it. Auto focus is amazing now days. My camera locked on the bird in the middle of all those branches at the first shutter press (no – that doesn’t happen all the time!)
A Bird in the Bush (is worth two in the hand?)
I also saw some gators and a raccoon on Black Point, and 5 or more manatees at Bairs Cove – but didn’t get good photos of any of them.
Changing the subject, I was browsing my archives one day and found this image I’d never processed. It’s from one of my previous cameras (an IR converted Olympus E-PL5). I ran it through Lightroom’s enhance detail and the Topaz Sharpen AI plug in and it came out with an amazing amount of detail. I like the subject rendering and the background separation too.
IR Sunflower
A few days later, I ran across this blog post http://infraedd.blogspot.com/2014/03/cameras-fuji-x100-hoya-r72-filter.html. He talks about using an R72 filter on a Fuji X100 to make infrared photos. I’ve tried R72 filters before (a long time ago) but maybe I should take another look at them. It would be an inexpensive way to occasionally do a bit of IR photography.
In other news, we’d planned some travel but that got postponed while we dealt with a broken central air conditioner here in hot, humid Florida. Supply chain issues mean it takes a very long time to get a replacement compressor (and other parts). Hopefully that’s behind us now (I hope Murphy doesn’t read this). As a side note, I didn’t realize Portable ACs work as well as they do!
Sorry to ramble on for so long. I suspect that my posts will be longer since they’re less frequent now. I hope all of you are doing well. Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, make some photos!
The wind’s often calm before dawn (maybe this is why: https://www.chicagotribune.com/weather/ct-wea-1220-asktom-20151218-column.html). When you’re photographing around boats, even calm winds can move the mast tips (or the hulls) enough to blur them in a long exposure. But that wasn’t happening that morning at the Sanford Marina.
Glassy Harbor (24mm, f/5.6 @ 25s, ISO 100).
My weather app said the wind was 2 mph – about as calm as it gets. Very good for low light photography. Not so good for keeping biting insects away, but artists have to suffer, right?
Paddle wheel and yachts. I Like the juxtaposition of the aft end of the St. Johns Rivership Company’s Barbara Lee with the modern yachts. (34mm, f/11 at 15s, ISO 100)
If the wind’s smearing your subjects, you can try making an extra frame at a higher ISO value to increase your shutter speed. Then you can blend the water and sky from your long exposure frame with the faster shutter speed frame to reduce bluring. But it’s not ideal: the higher ISO may reduce image quality and blending can be tricky with moving subjects. I’m glad I didn’t have to do that for these – things were stock-still!
Peaceful Harbor (24mm, f/5.6 @ 25s, ISO 100).
By the way, I was going to call this “Minimal Motion Marina Morning” but that seemed like too much alliteration, even for me.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, make a motionless photo!
Since I hadn’t gone through my photos from that morning in Sanford, Florida, I used an iPhone image I like from under the bridge at Wayside Park for last week’s blog post. I’ve processed the others now and have several more that I’m partial to.
For comparison purposes, here’s another photo I made in almost the exact same spot back in 2013. There have been a few changes in the vegetation and the bridge structure. (And the photographer too!)
The old bridge over the St. John’s River (October 2013)
And finally, when I thought I was finished at this place, I walked to the end of the bridge to look around. For some reason I didn’t do that in 2013. I’m glad I did this time, because the scene was pretty pleasant!
A quiet morning on the St. Johns river. Looking South East toward Lake Monroe
For those of you viewing this on the web, the header image is a small portion enlarged so you can see the person fishing on the dock. They didn’t catch anything while I watched, but I’m guessing they still enjoyed the morning as much as I did!
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you think you’re done, walk a little farther – you might be pleasantly surprised and make a nice photo!
The entrance to Lake Monroe Wayside Park is on the right hand side of Highway 17-92 as you leave Sanford heading east. It’s just before the bridge over the St. Johns River and there’s a boat ramp and some interesting views there. I hadn’t been in a while and decided to go last Friday.
The river was like a mirror and the early morning sky was pretty too. This was what it looked like under the highway:
I suppose the point of this story is that we should occasionally revisit places. They might be worth photographing again.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, revisit a spot and make some photos – you might like them even even better than the last time.
It was hard to keep track of all of the activity. Whenever I looked at this nest on the right side at the top of the tree, there were always two or three of the juvenile herons there. So I’m not sure if they were taking turns or only one of them has fledged so far. Anyway, I was fortunate to catch this moment about halfway through our stay:
Look at that! Should we try?
It really looks like only one of three siblings has fledged and the other two seem to be watching in astonishment. Or envy. Or admiration.
Or maybe the two in the nest are just worried about a crash landing!
Thanks for stopping by my blog. Your visits, comments, and likes are always welcome and a big motivator for me. Stay positive, be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, hang around a nesting tree – and make some photos!
I like it and the Flickr folks seemed to like it too. It’s a two frame composite blended from these images:
Image 1, exposed for the water: ISO 100, 16mm, f/11, 13sImage 2 – exposed for the sky: ISO 100, 16mm, f/11, 2.5s
I think the the subject and composition are nice, but the mixed natural light and bridge lighting are too different. I could have tried to use selective white balance (see: https://edrosack.com/2011/10/30/using-selective-white-balance-to-fix-problem-photos/) to fix this, but I think it would have been hard in areas where the colors overlap.
Anyway, today’s secret is that wild lighting can look a lot better in B&W. The Lightroom B&W conversion tool has sliders to adjust the intensity of eight different colors in an image. Wide color differences in the photo combined with all that control gives you a lot of variability and choice when converting to B&W. To me, the B&W lighting in the finished version is much more attractive than the original colors.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Your visits, comments, and likes are always very welcome and a big motivator for me. Be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if the light is wild, make some B&W photos.
The light was unusual about 15 minutes before sunrise . I don’t think I’ve encountered anything like it before.
Strange light at dawn by the dock (3)
There were only a few clouds near the horizon. The sky was much brighter than the river and things on it. So bright that I knew it would be hard to capture the dynamic range in the scene. I went ahead and started photographing anyway.
Strange light at dawn by the dock (1)
That light lasted about fifteen minutes. I tried single frames, bracketing, and hi / low panoramas to capture it. When I got home and looked at the files, nothing had recorded the whole dynamic range. In hindsight, maybe I could have done a little better by bracketing with a wider set of exposures, or using exposure compensation to lower the overall brightness of the brackets. But I didn’t think of doing that then. I hope I remember next time.
It seems that my frames wanted to be high key, so I processed them for detail in the foreground and let the sky blow out. In the end, I like how they look.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Your visits, comments, and likes are always very welcome and a big motivator for me. Be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And make some photos – even in strange light.
I really enjoyed my first visit of the year to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge a few weeks ago. Here are some more of those photos that haven’t been on the blog before.
The view that morning looking south east from under the Max Brewer Memorial Causeway bridge was lovely. I made several frames – the one below is my favorite. The header image is part of a similar one from five minutes later .
Three boats on the river
The low, warm, side light on this group of American White Pelicans made them even more attractive when I found them moments after sunrise.
A small pod of pelicans
It’s always nice to encounter Roseate Spoonbills and they were in several spots along Black Point Wildlife Drive. This one flew almost directly over me.
Flight of the Spoonbill
Cinnamon Teals are a rarity in Central Florida. This one seems to winter every year in MINWR. I found it again in the same spot along the Wild Birds Unlimited Trail that begins at stop 4 on the BPWD. It likes to hang out there with the other ducks. The birds were so harshly back lit that I had trouble seeing colors to ID it. I’m pretty amazed at how well this photo turned out.
Cinnamon Teal
I got a fairly good view of this Kingfisher and he stayed still for a moment while I made a photo:
Male Belted Kingfisher
The ranger says the duck population is down this year, and it does look like they’re less numerous. But I did see a good variety including Blue-winged Teals, Northern Shovelers, Mottled Ducks, Ring-necked Ducks, and maybe a few Lesser Scaups. And all of our common birds were around too. Definately well worth a visit.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Your visits, comments, and likes are very welcome and a big motivator for me. Be kind, take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, make some photos!
Wilsons Snipe
High Key White Pelican
Her and Him
Him and Her
Passing by
