Tag Archives: storm

Ian update

October 2, 2022INSIDE FLORIDA, Miscellanious, Uncategorizedhurricane, stormEd Rosack

Hurricane Ian was a slow moving, high wind storm when it came ashore last Wednesday. The news and photos from the Fort Meyers area are horrific. By the time it passed through Winter Springs Wednesday and Thursday it had weakened, but we still had ~40 MPH sustained winds and gusts much stronger than that.

There are tree limbs and some whole trees down in our neighborhood, and we have what looks like minor damage to one place on our roof. We lost power, water, and internet on Thursday but power and internet came back after a little over 24 hours. Water pressure is back too, but we’re under a boil water notice due to water main breaks.

Winter Springs recorded more than 15 inched of rain and there’s widespread flooding in the Orlando area. Fortunately, our home is up on a slight ridge, so the flooding is not too close. We do have a couple of the major roads through our neighborhood blocked due to flood damage. The city has said some areas will need to be rebuilt so it may take a while to reopen them.

Flooding along Winter Springs Blvd.

Lynn and I have ben very lucky. I hope all of you are doing well. And if you’ve been impacted by this storm I hope your recovery efforts are well underway. Stay positive, be kind, and take care of yourselves and each other.

Header image: Flooding along Mitchell Hammock Road in Oviedo, Florida has completely covered this sod field. Photo by Lynn Rosack, used with permission.

Working a scene

August 15, 2021Cameras and Photography, St. Johns Riverclouds, landscape, panorama, reflection, storm, sunriseEd Rosack

Sometimes when I’m out photographing at dawn, I’ll see someone stop, hop out of their car, make a single photo, then get back in and leave. Will they get a good image? Maybe. But they’d have a better chance if they could invest some time trying different compositions and settings to see what works best.

Brewing Storm: 6:24 am, 20 mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, Blended exposures (2.5 and 0.8s)

On a recent morning at dawn, I photographed a photogenic thunderstorm from the St. Johns River boat ramp on SR 50 for about an hour. As the light changed, I tried different lenses and techniques and I’m pretty happy with the images I came home with.

Sunrise through a thunderhead: 6:52 am, 39 mm, ISO 100, f/11, Blended exposures (1/125 – 1/30s)

I thought you’d like to see these examples from that morning. In each caption, I’ve listed the time I made the photo and the settings I used. Maybe you can take away some ideas for your next dawn photo excursion. If you have any questions or want more details about what I did, please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer.

A storm across the river: 7:24 am, 160mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/320s exposure, 5 frame panorama

Header image: Thunderhead and mist over the marsh: 6:39 am, 105 mm, ISO 100, f/8, Blended exposures (1/4 – 1/60s). Full image at https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/51378599007/in/dateposted-public/

The light and colors varied tremendously while I was there. I enjoyed watching them evolve and using different settings / focal lengths to capture the changes and include or isolate parts of the scene.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Be careful out there and please take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, work a scene!

Developing Clouds

July 18, 2021INSIDE FLORIDAclouds, landscape, mammatus, storm, WeatherEd Rosack

I was on my way home through some rain one day last week when the sky started to look very interesting. I stopped by the house, picked up a camera (I know – I should have had it with me!) and headed up toward Lake Jesup to make a few photos. I’m glad I did – the clouds got even more dramatic!

Squall Line

They were developing quickly. These photos were all made within about 40 minutes.

On the way

The clouds varied in different spots and directions. I stopped several times to make photos.

Weather across the water

This last photo is of some mammatus clouds. If you click on it to view a larger version on Flickr, you can see an airliner flying just below the clouds. I hope passengers were getting a good view and the ride wasn’t too bumpy.

Into the Mammatus Sky

The last time I wrote specifically about photographing Florida weather was in 2015: (https://edrosack.com/2015/10/17/photographing-florida-weather/). I think the weather photo hints from that post are still relevant:

Although you can see interesting weather all year, the best time here is summer afternoons and evenings.
The storms are big. Many times I find myself using a wide-angle lens or stitching panoramas for this kind of photography. The photos in this post were made with a 20mm lens. Some situations (like this thunderstorm) benefit from a longer focal length.
You can shoot from inside your car in many cases or just dodge the showers. Bring a lens cloth and maybe a towel or some plastic to cover your camera if it’s not weather resistant.
Be careful with exposure. If you have clear sky behind the clouds you can easily blow out highlights in the image which will be tough to fix in post.
When processing your photos, try using some mid-range contrast / clarity to bring out details in the clouds. Don’t go too far though or your results will look unrealistic.
Find yourself some good foreground locations in advance so you’ll be ready to head out when the weather gets interesting.
And be careful – don’t get struck by lightning or ruin your equipment!

Clouds and weather are often threatening and dangerous. But sometimes they’re interesting and beautiful. Be careful, and if they develop, make some photos.

You can browse more weather related posts on the blog at this link: https://edrosack.com/?s=weather. If you click on the photos above, you can see larger versions on Flickr. I’ve also collected other Florida Cloud and Storm photos that you can browse in this set.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Take care of yourselves and each other. And when you can, make some photos!

Header image: Clouds over the hill. Larger version here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/51310975255/in/dateposted-public/

Picking a Print

July 4, 2021Cameras and Photographybird, black and white, Deer, flower, landscape, lightroom, monochrome, Mpix, print, stormEd Rosack

We’ve been slowly (Lynn thinks too slowly!) making prints for our family room. We like metal prints and have been pleased with ones we’ve ordered from MPix. When they sent us a 25% off coupon last week, it was time for another order.

Having images tagged and organized in Lightroom is a big help for something like this. Using its filtering capabilities helped me quickly come up with some (too many) candidates. It was also easy to choose images based on size. I needed enough pixels for a quality larger print.

I spent a few minutes converting some I thought would look good to monochrome. I sorted them based on which ones I liked the best and then asked Lynn to help. We narrowed our B&W choices down to the ones you see below. They’re in date order, along with info about each.

Stormy Shore; Casey Key, FL; June 2015, 8 frame panorama; 8863×6064

Anhinga – full length portrait; Gatorland, FL; March 2016; 5 frame panorama; 7665×11204

Field of Flowers; Advance, WI; August 2017; 3 frame panorama; 5167×4134

Cocoa Beach Pier before dawn; Cocoa, FL; October 2018; Single frame (Olympus Hi res mode); 10196×6797

Who are you lookin’ at? Viera Wetlands, FL; January 2020; 2 frame panorama; 8312×5541

In the end we liked the photo of the deer the best. I think we can appreciate looking at it for a while. Our print should get here next week – I hope it turns out as well as the others we’ve ordered from Mpix.

Do you make prints of your photos? Have you tried metal prints? How do you pick the ones you hang on your walls?

Header image: Lake Eola in downtown Orlando; January 2013; Single frame; 7348×5046

It looks like tropical storm Elsa is heading our way. If you’re in the projected path, stay up to date and stay safe.

And for those of you in the US, Happy Independence Day!

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can, make some prints!

Another storm and a couple more birds

August 23, 2020Merritt Island NWRBPWD, landscape, lightning, long exposure, Reddish Egret, Spoonbill, stormEd Rosack

Yay -this week I did “get out and make some new photos”! However, these images I came home with are of the same subjects that I photographed in our yard and posted about last week: A storm and two birds. It’s almost like there’s something strange and metaphysical going on (– probably not).

First the storm:

Light show across the water

I set out very early Thursday towards Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge with no clear idea about where I’d try to photograph sunrise. I noticed a few flashes of lightning off across the river and stopped under the causeway to watch for a minute. I ended up staying longer and making a series of 15 – 30 second exposures. Most just show a dark cloud, but I caught a few mid-strike. I was glad I had my “go-to landscape lens” on the camera. It’s a 24 -105 mm and had the reach I needed to show off these far away clouds. My second most used landscape lens is a 16 -35 mm and wouldn’t have worked as well.

Pretty in Pink

There was a lot of water around Black Point Wildlife Drive and it seemed like there are a few more birds now than there have been recently. This was the only Roseate Spoonbill I saw anywhere that morning. I wish it had been a little closer (I always wish that). On the other hand, it was a very calm bird and posed nicely as I tried to make a good image. I like the fall looking colors on the vegetation around the pond. Maybe soon we’ll have some cooler weather.

Pretty light on a Reddish Egret in flight

I’ve often seen a Reddish Egret hanging out on the first half of Black Point. This time there were several of them on the second half. I think the light on this one flying by in front of me is very nice.

Anyway, although these are the same subjects as last week they are very different images. I think they’re worth posting. I hope you like them too.

You can view some of my other storm and cloud photos in this folder on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/albums/72157655291985133.

And I have many Merritt Island National Wildlife images collected in this one: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/albums/72157627776386723.

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!

Shenandoah – Starscapes, Sunsets, Storms, and Falls

August 21, 2016OUTSIDE FLORIDA, Virginiaastronomy, Flowers, landscape, meteor, milky way, panorama, shenandoah, storm, sunset, travel, waterfallEd Rosack

Our visit to Shenandoah National Park this year was extremely enjoyable (mentally not physically!) relaxing, and cooler than back here in Central Florida (highs there in the 70s). It was also interesting from a photography perspective and different from last year’s trip. I did a lot of sunset / night photography and didn’t try very hard to get up early every morning for sunrise.

We were fortunate with seeing conditions on the night we arrived. There were no clouds, and the Milky Way center was above the horizon for about two hours after moon set. Shenandoah has dark skies and the large cleared meadow near the lodge provides wonderful views all around the compass. Lynn hadn’t ever really seen the Milky Way before and I’ve never seen it this well. We were both amazed, and I was also impressed with how much detail my Nikon D800 was able to capture.

Big Meadows Milky Way. Three frame panorama, 24mm lens, manual focus and exposure, ISO 2500, f/1.8, 20 seconds.

Lynn is a big fan of meteor showers, and due to a gravity assist from Jupiter, the Perseid was predicted to be spectacular this year. We set the alarm for 1am the night it was forecast to peak and went out to watch. The area around Big Meadows was crowded with over a hundred people watching the show, and each overlook had cars parked with more people observing. It was a good show. Here’s one of my photos from that morning.

A Perseid Meteor and a cloud in front of part of the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy – From Old Rag View Overlook on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. 24mm lens, manual focus and exposure, ISO 3200, f/1.8, 20 seconds.

I tried sunset photos on most nights. The sky wasn’t as dramatic as I’ve seen it in the past, but there were many wildflowers in bloom helping to make up for that.

The end of the day – Looking out over Shenandoah Valley from Skyline Drive. The wildflowers were beautiful when we were there. Two frame composite, manual masking in Photoshop.

And storms also added interest. We watched this one develop from the balcony outside our room at the lodge.

Shenandoah Storm – A storm built up to the west at sunset. As seen from our balcony at Big Meadows Lodge in Shenandoah National Park. Multi-frame panorama.

Dark Hollow Falls is one of the most popular places in Shenandoah. When we drove by on Sunday, the parking area was overflowing with cars. We waited until the next morning to hike down. Last year, I didn’t make it to these falls and used one of my 20-year-old photos to illustrate it. For some reason, the hike (especially the return up from the falls) is more difficult than it was when I was 20 years younger. Hmm – I wonder why? This is from very near the same place, and a horizontal, wider view. I like this one too.

Dark Hollow Falls. 14mm equivalent FOV, ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/13 seconds, Olympus hires mode.

We did a bit more hiking this year than last and went on trails we hadn’t tried before. Rose River Falls and Black Rock Mountain were two new favorites. Another one we hiked was Pocosin Trail. It was interesting, although I didn’t like it as much as the others. Maybe it was because of one sentence in the trail guide: “Soon the trail flattens.” It never did!

You can see larger versions of the photos above by clicking on them and more photos from Shenandoah in this album on Flickr.

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

Photographing Florida Weather

October 17, 2015Casey Key, INSIDE FLORIDA, Lake Jesup, Lake Jesup Sunflowers, Merritt Island NWR, VARIOUSbeach, black and white, BPWD, cloud, infrared, landscape, stormEd Rosack

Florida has wonderful weather photography opportunities. They’re not often the kind that you see from tornado alley out west. But the clouds here are awesome too.

Lynn and I traveled recently (New Jersey, Virginia, and Georgia). I realized when going through those photos that they lacked dramatic skies like we often see here in Central Florida. Maybe our timing was just bad. Anyway, it inspired me to put together this post with some examples of our weather along with a few hints.

We’d had several days of rain last August and even though afternoon light isn’t usually the best for photography, I decided to drive over to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and see if I could capture some of the weather drama. This one is from the south-east side of the causeway. There was a slight drizzle where I was standing and rain drops ruined several frames. This one must have been right after I cleaned the lens.

Weather over the Water (24mm focal length)

And this one was that same day, looking south along the back side of Black Point Wildlife Drive.

Storm Ahead (stitched panorama, nine frames at 24mm focal length).

This next photo is from September of 2012, also at Black Point Wildlife Drive. These clouds actually stopped me in my tracks and made me shift out of bird photography mode to make this B&W, IR image. You can see a color version of this here.

A little stormy (stitched panorama, three frames at 24mm eq. focal length).

These next two have been on the blog before, but they also illustrate my point: Clouds and storms in Central Florida are photogenic!

Stormy Shore: Storm clouds blow through north of our hotel on Casey Key, Florida. June 15, 2015 (stitched panorama, eight frames at 24mm eq. focal length).

And this last photo is from way back in October 2007. I put it in to honor our fading Lake Jesup sunflower season.

Lakes Jesup Wildflowers and Rainstorm (105mm eq. focal length).

We don’t have mountains here in Central Florida. And we don’t have very good waterfalls either. But our clouds are just as good as anywhere else. How are they where you are?

Photo hints:

Although you can see interesting weather all year, the best time here is summer afternoons and evenings.
The storms are big. As you can see from the captions, many times I find myself using a wide-angle lens or stitching panoramas for this kind of photography, although some situations (like the last image) benefit from a longer focal length.
You can shoot from your car in many cases or just dodge the showers. Do bring a lens cloth and maybe a towel or some plastic to cover your camera if it’s not weather resistant.
Be careful with your exposures. If you have clear sky behind the clouds you can easily blow out highlights in the image which will be tough to fix in post.
When processing your photos, try using some mid-range contrast / clarity to bring out details in the clouds. Don’t go too far though or your results will look unrealistic.
Find yourself some good foreground locations so you’ll be ready to head out when the weather gets interesting.
And be careful – don’t get struck by lightning or ruin your equipment!

If you click on the photos above, you can see larger versions on Flickr and I also collected other Florida Cloud and Storm photos that you can browse in this set on Flickr.

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

South Florida, the Everglades and the Florida Keys

May 4, 2013Everglades, INSIDE FLORIDAAnole, Bill Baggs, birds, Blowing Rocks, Brian Piccolo, Burrowing Owl, cloud, coquina, crocodile, Everglades, Key Largo, landscape, Lizard, Owl, storm, sunsetEd Rosack

First, an apology: It appears that a couple of the species names for birds we observed in the Dry Tortugas triggered some people’s spam filters. So if you’re an email subscriber and didn’t get the email with the Dry Tortugas post, please check your spam folder or click here to open it in your browser. Sorry about that. Although there’s not much I can do about it. And it is funny.

Second: Happy anniversary, blog! The first Central Florida Photo Ops post went up on May 7th, 2007 – 6 years and 270 posts ago. Thanks once again for all your encouragement. I enjoy writing the blog, but I don’t think it would have lasted this long if not for the occasional comments and questions from readers. Please keep them coming!

Third: Here’s some info on the rest of our South Florida trip. The Dry Tortugas were the focus of our expedition, but we also visited Blowing Rocks Preserve, Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, Key Largo, Everglades National Park, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, and Brian Piccolo Park. Since these were such short visits, I can’t really provide detailed reviews of each. Instead, I’ll show sample images to give you some background and an idea of what you can see in each place.

I’ve heard that Blowing Rocks Preserve in Jupiter Florida is an awesome landscape place under the right conditions. The morning we were there, the light was harsh and the weather wasn’t ideal to show off the rocks. I think studying the tides and winds (and some luck) are required to make the most of a visit to this place. Here’s one photo I came up with.

Blowing Rocks Preserve – Sand steps, Three sets, Two close, No return?

We stopped at Bill Baggs to look for a couple of birds that had been spotted there. We didn’t have much luck with the rare birds, although I enjoyed seeing the light house and this awesome lizard.

This Cuban Knight Anole was over a foot long, much larger than the anoles we see in Central Florida

We spent a day driving through the Everglades, stopping at each area along the main park road and side roads. It was very overcast, and I found it tough to compose landscapes. I’m sure there are some great spots that people more familiar with the area know about. I guess I need to go back and find them.

Brewing storm, Everglades National Park – A pine tree and grass reflect on the inches deep Everglades “river of grass”

We made it all the way to the end of the road in Flamingo. I was very excited to see a couple of American Crocodiles in the marina there. Only about 2000 of these remain in the wild. They look different and somehow even more menacing than the alligators we’re used to seeing in Central Florida.

American Crocodile

We had tentative plans to find some night-time / star trail photography dark sites in the Everglades, but with the long days and cloudy weather, we never got to it (another reason to go back). While in the Everglades we saw Purple Martins (rooming with House Sparrows), Shinny cowbirds, Brown Cowbirds, Spotted Sandpipers, Red Headed Woodpeckers, Swallow Tail Kites, Red Shouldered Hawks, an Anhinga rookery, Black Vultures (that were eating rubber off of cars!), the American crocodiles, and of course Alligators, Turtles and many other common birds.

The place we were staying in Key Largo had a private beach and boat ramp, and we spent one sunset there. It was pretty – the rocks in the foreground look like a Japanese garden. So much so that I wonder if someone arranged them.

Gulf view from Key Largo at sunset

On our way home, we stopped at Brian Piccolo Park to see the Burrowing Owls. They were easy to find in their marked nests and fun to watch. We also saw a few Monk Parakeets there.

Brian Piccolo Park: Burrowing Owl guarding nest

Other wildlife seen on the trip included Loggerhead Shrikes, Ground Doves, Eurasian Collard Doves, White Headed Pigeons, a Great White Heron, Cardinals, a Northern Curly Tailed Lizard, and Iguanas.

It was a fun but exhausting trip! For more photos, please look at this set on Flickr.

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

Summer Blahs

July 31, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Lake Jesupbirds, Eagle, Lake Woodruff, landscape, storm, wildlifeEd Rosack

July in Central Florida is a tough time for photo-ops, especially nature and wildlife photo-ops. The bird breeding season is over, and the heat makes both human and animal activity brief and difficult.

A few of us did scout Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge last weekend. It’s supposed to have the largest summer gathering of Swallowtail Kites in the Southeast US. They spend July and August there while they prepare to migrate to Brazil. We didn’t see any. We’ll try again and I’ll put together a better scouting report.

Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge: Birdless, misty morning

I did manage to make a couple of photos around my neighborhood last week. This one is from Tuesday. I noticed these awesome rain clouds on my way home from work and stopped by a small park on the south shore of Lake Jesup to photograph them.

Might Rain: Looking north from the south shore of Lake Jesup

And this is a photo of one of our neighborhood eagles. We’ve seen it sitting in this tree on many mornings this year.

Neighborhood Bald Eagle: It always amazes me when I see one of these in the wild. What a remarkable comeback they’ve had from near extinction.

So there you have it. My photo life this week.