Tag Archives: sunrise

St. Johns sunrise, and a ride 'round Viera

December 24, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, St. Johns River, Viera Wetlandsbirds, black and white, Caracara, cloud, Great Blue Heron, infrared, landscape, nest, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

Happy Holidays!

I had a rare mid-week day off last Wednesday and decided to spend the morning making photographs.

First up was a site I’ve driven by many times and always said “That looks like a great place for a photo”. It’s the boat ramp off of Highway 50 where it crosses the St. Johns river. I was there before dawn and had a good time watching the sun come up and the clouds evolve. And yes, it is a good place for a photo.

Dawn on the St. Johns River at the Highway 50 boat ramp

Next, I drove over to Viera Wetlands. I haven’t been there recently and wanted to see what’s going on.

Palms, clouds, and marsh at Viera Wetlands

There are a lot of the usual birds around: Herons, Egrets, Ibis, Anhingas, Coots, Grebes, Limpkins, Ospreys, Cormorants, a Caracarra, a Hawk, Gulls, etc. I also saw a lot of winter visitors there, including Kingfishers, Mergansers, Caspian Terns, Tree Swallows, and Northern Shovelers. By the way, another good place to find out what’s going on is the Viera Wetlands group on Flickr. I usually check it before I go so I’ll know what to watch for when I get there. Other folks are seeing Northern Harriers, Loggerhead Shrikes, Horned Grebes, American Kestrels, and many more.

Caracara with prey

The Great Blue Herons are all busy courting and building nests. This is a wonderful time to get some action shots, especially of these birds in flight. If you watch one of the couples for a while, you’ll likely see the male leave repeatedly to gather nesting material. They tend to leave and return from the same direction and this gives you a big advantage when setting up to take flight photos.

Great Blue Heron pair

You can see other photos I’ve made at Viera Wetlands in this set on Flickr. If you get some spare time over the holiday break, this would a good place to spend it.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

The year in review: My favorite 2011 Photos

December 19, 2011VARIOUSAntiques, Arlington National Cemetery, Barred Owl, birds, black and white, Bobcat, BPWD, cemetery, Deer, Eastern Meadowlark, Florida Scrub Jay, infrared, landscape, macro, Mount Blue Sky, Mountain Goat, Mt. Evans, people, reviews, Scrub Ridge Trail, sunrise, watch, wildlifeEd Rosack

I hope that all of you, your families, and your friends have a joyful and happy holiday season!

Photographer Jim Goldstein has an annual tradition of organizing a “best photos of the year” listing. So it’s a good time to put together my own third annual “Favorite photos of the year” post. You can revisit 2009 here, and 2010 here.

Again in 2011, I’ve been blessed with a huge amount of photo opportunities. The 2011 folder on my hard drive takes up about 178 GB of space. Wow – good thing storage is so cheap now days! I’m still using the following system to rate my photos. The numbers in parentheses are the counts for 2011 .

1 star – The photo is interesting (262)
2 stars – The photo is worth showing to others (400)
3 stars – The photo is the best of (or one of the best of ) any given photo shoot (81)
4 stars – My favorite photo of a year (1)
5 stars – My favorite photo ever (none, I’m not done making photos yet!)

Photos without stars are seconds or not so good versions of other photos. I usually keep them, but they probably won’t get any more attention. I’ve been using this system consistently, and it seems to work for me. I’ve reviewed my 2011 photos and selected what I think are my best. Of course, this is all subjective and my opinion only. Feel free to disagree, but I hope you’ll enjoy looking at the ones I’ve picked.

You can click on each of these to go to Flickr and see a larger version. Or you can click this link to go to the set on Flickr.

Here we go. I have 3 mammals, 3 birds, 2 landscapes, and 3 miscellaneous subjects …

November: Bobcat in Tree, Circle B Bar Reserve. I’ve seen Bobcats in the wild before, but I’ve never been able to take a good photo of one. We saw this one resting up on a branch and it posed for a while. In this image, I think it was trying to figure out how to get through the crowd of humans at the base of the tree. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/11/24/landscapes-and-bobcat-at-the-circle-b-bar-reserve/

July: Baby mountain goat, Mt. Evans summit, Colorado. There were several families of mountain goats on the way up and at the summit. This little one posed for me so I could frame him against the out of focus mountains in the background. It’s amazing to watch them scramble from rock to rock and never slip. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/07/10/mount-evans-redux/

September: Young deer at Viera Wetlands. View large and check out the eyebrows and whiskers! More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/09/04/late-afternoon-at-viera-wetlands/

January: Barred Owl watches photographers. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/01/30/catching-up/

December: Eastern Meadowlark, Blackpoint Wild Life Drive. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/12/17/merritt-island-scouting-report-saturday-december-10/

June: Florida Scrub Jay watches us. One or two birds in this Scrub Jay family were real posers. And one of those was a “dive bomber”. It flew at our heads a few times trying to discourage us. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/06/19/a-summertime-visit-to-minwr-blackpoint-and-scrub-ridge-trail/

November: Sunrise at the Circle B Bar Reserve. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/11/24/landscapes-and-bobcat-at-the-circle-b-bar-reserve/

December: It was a little cloudy this morning. Blackpoint Wild Life Drive. I’ve enjoyed playing with an Infrared modified Olympus EPL-1 camera. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/12/17/merritt-island-scouting-report-saturday-december-10/

March: Tomb of the unknowns, Arlington National Cemetery. I’d never been to Arlington before this trip. As a US Navy Veteran and a patriot, I have to admit it made a huge impression on me. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/03/19/washington-dc/

December: Flavia, in color. American Photo Model Shoot, Orlando, 12/3/11. My first time photographing models was a real learning experience. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/12/09/orlando-american-photo-model-shoot-workshop-december-2011/

June: My Grandfather’s Pocket-watch. After the Orlando Watch Company repaired it, it’s working fine. This is a 1921 Elgin pocket-watch, marked Wadsworth Referee 20 year 5069868. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/06/25/grandfathers-pocket-watch/

I hope you’ve had a great photo 2011 too. Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some more photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Landscapes and Bobcat at the Circle B Bar Reserve

November 24, 2011Circle B Bar Reserve, INSIDE FLORIDAblack and white, Bobcat, Flowers, infrared, landscape, Marigold, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

Last weekend, I went over to the Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland, Florida with Kevin M., Lutfi E., and Frank B. I almost didn’t go – we checked Flickr for new photos from the area and didn’t see much being posted. But I remembered seeing yellow flowers blooming there at this time last year and wanted to see them again.

Early morning at the Circle B Bar Reserve – The yellow flowers are Burr Marigolds. These are all over the Circle B Bar in mid to late November.

Sunrise sure does happen early since the time changed. We met at 5:15am to drive over and arrived just as it started to get light. I find it very hard to predict how sunrise will look. Weather and clouds can shift over the time / distance of the drive. But this morning turned out nice and I managed to make a good image or two.

Sunrise at the Circle B Bar Reserve

The bird population was a bit disappointing. We saw the usual suspects, including Anhingas, Cormorants, Woodstorks, Ospreys, Herons, Egrets, Coots, Moorhens, and Whistling Ducks. I attempted a few bird photos, but none came out blog worthy. Here’s a landscape that includes a few birds:

Tree and Woodstorks

So – I didn’t see any new birds or make any great bird photos, but I did make some landscapes I like. Enough to count the trip as a success. And then…

A jogger came by us and told us about “a Bobcat up in tree about 300 yards away on the right past a palm tree”. That got my photo adrenalin going! I’ve seen Bobcats in the wild three times or so. In one case at dusk I was able to get a single underexposed, blurry photo before it moved off a trail at Orlando Wetlands. In my experience they take a look at you and then they’re gone. You only have a few seconds to make the photo. So this situation sounded exciting.

We took off down the trail – and Frank and I walked right by it! Lucky for us, Kevin was trailing us, saw it and called us back. It was very well camouflaged and it sure helped to have multiple sets of eyes searching. There was no one around at first. The Bobcat looked healthy, and appeared to be resting and watching from about 35 – 40 feet up. I was really happy that I had my long lens and flash with me. It was backlit against the sky and a real tough exposure without flash. We made some photos and moved on down the trail. When we returned, there was a crowd gathered and it was pretty famous on Flickr the next day! Judging from the photos in the Circle B Bar Flickr pool, it’s a good place to see Bobcats.

Bobcat in Tree, Circle B Bar – I’ve seen Bobcats in the wild before, but I’ve never been able to take a good photo of one. We saw this one resting up on a branch and it posed for a while. In this image, I think it was trying to figure out how to get through the crowd of humans at the base of the tree.

So the moral of this story is: You won’t make any good photos if you don’t get up and get out there. You’ll never know what you could have seen if you don’t make the effort to go out and see it. You may be surprised and if you are, I hope you’re ready!

You can view other photos I’ve made at the Circle B Bar in this set on Flickr.

Oh, and have a Happy Thanksgiving. Even with all the problems we have in the economy, country, world, and our personal lives – we can each find many things to be grateful for.

I’m thankful that you stop by and read my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Using Selective White Balance to Fix Problem Photos

October 30, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Technique, Washington D.C.Potomac River, sunrise, sunset, white balanceEd Rosack

I thought about going to Orlando Wetlands Park on Saturday before it closes for the winter (in mid-November), but the weather was quite bad. This morning, I wanted to get up early in search of a sunrise but instead had to deal with a migraine headache (I need to be much more careful about restaurant MSG). So anyway, no new shots to post this weekend.

Instead, let’s go over a technique that can be quite useful in certain situations. Normally I shoot in RAW format and use Lightroom to adjust color balance globally over the whole photograph. This works well in most situations, but sometimes a photograph can be improved substantially by correcting white balance selectively.

How do you do this? The way I do it is to open the photo in Photoshop, duplicate the image in a second layer, and adjust the white balance globally in each layer, but for different areas of the photo. So in layer 1 the sky may look good, but the ground may be off – while in layer two the opposite is true. Then I blend the two layers together using a layer mask, taking the best portions of each. If you don’t already use layers and layer masks in Photoshop, you should really learn about them. They provide a very useful tool in many situations and the ability to paint in (and erase) from one layer to the other gives you a great deal of flexibility and control over the results.

In this first example, I initially used a “day light” color balance and this brought out the sunset colors in the clouds, but the clear sky and terrain are a little too warm.

: Neighborhood Sunset – before selective white balance adjustment

In Photoshop, I left the color balance as is in one layer, and in the second layer, I made it much more neutral. I then painted the clouds from the first into the second.

Neighborhood Sunset – after selective white balance adjustment

This second example is even more dramatic than the first. The scene included both the pre-dawn sky and artificial lights along the far shore of the river. No matter what I did with the global white balance adjustment, I couldn’t get it to look right.

: The pre-dawn Potomac River – initial white balance

Again, duplicating the image into a second layer and blending with layer masks allowed me to neutralize the color balance of the lighting on the far shore and still make the sky and water more natural looking.

The pre-dawn Potomac River – after selective white balance adjustment

You owe it to yourself and your photography to try this technique. It some situations it can save a photo.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

MINWR is a big place!

October 23, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWRbirds, BPWD, Butterfly, Flowers, Gator Creek Road, Green Heron, landscape, sunriseEd Rosack

I’m extremely fortunate to live near the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, and the more I learn about it, the bigger and better it seems. I’ve been going to Black Point Wildlife Drive for several years, but only recently started exploring other locations in the Refuge. If you only have a short time to visit, Black Point is a great place to see – but there’s so much more. If you have time, visit East Gator Creek Road, Shiloh Marsh Road, Bio-Lab Road, Scrub Ridge Trail and other areas. Look here for maps of these and other MINWR trails.

Kevin M., Lutfi and I were in place on East Gator Creek Road this morning in time for sunrise. It was my first time at this spot and I was very happy with the views. Highly recommended for sunrise shots!

Merritt Island Sunrise

Next, we drove up to Shiloh Marsh Road. We were able to drive in only a short distance from either end before the way was blocked by chains – I think for duck hunting season. If you decide to drive this road, check to make sure it’s open and make sure your vehicle has plenty of ground clearance. There are some grand canyon sized potholes out there.

After Shiloh, we drove Black Point Wildlife Drive. This road was resurfaced this year and is in very good shape. Not too many potholes here.

Little Green Heron in flight; I made this photo very close to the same spot a few weeks ago – is this the same bird?

Finally, we headed over to the MINWR Visitor Center to see if the Painted Buntings had arrived for the winter. But it was closed too – we’re not sure why.

Today was a wonderful day for wildlife and nature watching. We saw Spoonbills, Ospreys, Redish Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Black Vultures, Turkey Vultures, Lesser Yellowlegs, Willets, Little Green Herons, Belted Kingfishers, Tri-Color Herons, Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Crabs, a deer, flowers, Bald Eagles, Ibis, European Sparrows, Cormorants, Anhingas, Cardinals and butterflys among other things.

Butterfly and flower

For more info on MINWR, this search will bring up other things I’ve written about it. And you can view some other photos I’ve made at the Refuge on Flickr here, and here.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge – Fall is here!

October 1, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWRbirds, BPWD, landscape, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

Well, Fall has arrived here in Central Florida. It’s rescued us from our too hot climate and given us a few days of wonderful cool weather. So it’s a perfect time to get out and photograph our area’s nature and wildlife, and Kevin M. and I took off early this morning to re-visit Merritt Island National Wildlife Drive.

We arrived at the 406 bridge over the Indian River Lagoon just before sunrise. The cold front cleared out most of the clouds, so the sunrise wasn’t too spectacular, but we made some photographs anyway.

Indian River Lagoon at dawn

Our next stop was Black Point Wildlife Drive. It’s been closed while they resurface the road, but was open this weekend. They are going to close it again while they finish. There’s plenty of water at Black Point, but not too many birds. We did see several Belted Kingfishers (these are winter visitors) and some of the usual birds (Tri-Colored Herons, a Reddish Egret, Great Blue Herons, etc.). This Green Heron was posing in a bush on Cruickshank Trail, so I made a portrait.

Little Green Heron portrait

Next, we drove over to Scrub Ridge Trail. Once again the Scrub Jays were easy to find on the trail to the north of the parking area. We saw a group of 8 – 10 along the left side of the trail.

Florida Scrub Jay with berry or acorn

We also wanted to stop by the visitor center, buy an annual pass ($15), and check to see if the Painted Buntings have arrived (another winter visitor – they aren’t here yet). While at the center, we found out that there was a guided tour scheduled, but no one had shown up for it, so we decided to go. Since there were only two of us, Ranger Al gave Kevin and I a semi private tour of Shiloh Marsh Road, which runs for about 10 miles through the marsh and along the lagoon. It’s a narrow, two-way dirt road with very little room to pass. We saw many more birds here than at Black Point, especially on the southern end (near the radar dome). We saw more Belted Kingfishers, Roseate Spoonbills, White Pelicans, Reddish Egrets, a female Blue Grosbeak, a Yellow Billed Cuckoo; and other species. Ranger Al was very informative and pointed out all types of flowers, Butterflies, Dragonflies and birds. On the way to Shiloh Marsh Road we also stopped at Haulover Canal where we saw some Manatees. They spend the hotter months around there and move to warmer waters in the Winter.

White Pelican: There was a large flock of these birds. These are usually migrants in Central Florida, but the ranger said that some had spent the summer.

This outing was a bit longer than our normal excursions – I didn’t get back home until 2:30. But it was very pleasant – we saw a lot of things and the weather was wonderful.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

September 11 Sunrise – Orlando, Florida – 2011

September 11, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando, VARIOUSlandscape, Politics, sunriseEd Rosack

Orlando skyline sunrise, 9/11/11

The human capacity for evil, ugly, cruelty is overwhelming if contemplated in isolation. To stay sane and somewhat unafraid, we must consider it in concert with our greater capacity for good, kindness, and beauty. Of all the events from this day 10 years ago, we should remember the uncounted acts of heroism, bravery, and kindness. On the other hand, our enemies should remember how we overcame that evil and that no matter how long it takes, we will bring them to justice.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos. Create more beauty in our world.
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

An HDR photo and some tips

August 20, 2011Cameras and Photography, Circle B Bar Reserve, INSIDE FLORIDA, Techniquelandscape, sunriseEd Rosack

Here’s another photo from our trip last week to the Circle B Bar Reserve:

Sunrise marsh: Early morning at the Circle B Bar Reserve near Lakeland, Florida

The dynamic range of the light in a scene like this is extreme – a perfect opportunity to try your hand at High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. I won’t get into the details on how to do HDR. You can find an excellent tutorial on Trey Ratcliff’s site. But I wanted to offer a some hints.

For sunrise / sunset images such as this, I usually bracket 9 frames at 1 EV apart. This allows me to capture the very bright sun, details in the sky, and even details in the shadows. You may want to consider biasing your overall exposure to underexpose slightly since it’s usually the sun’s brightness that is hard to capture.
When you process your images, select only the ones you need. I look at the image and histogram in Lightroom and use that to pick which ones to use. In this example, I didn’t process the brightest exposures. The reason for this is that as you use more and more exposures, you increase the chances of introducing noise and ghosting into your final output.
If you can afford it, try different software to process your image. Photoshop, Photomatix, and HDR Efx Pro (and others) all have their strengths and weaknesses and one may work better on any given image than the others.

Circle B Bar Reserve – Summer Sizzle

August 14, 2011Circle B Bar Reserve, INSIDE FLORIDAbirds, Flowers, landscape, sunriseEd Rosack

It’s hot and muggy here in the land of sunshine and the later in the day you go somewhere, the hotter it gets. This is real motivation to get out early – so Frank and I were on the road at 5:30 am yesterday to drive over to the Circle B Bar Reserve near Lakeland, Florida in time to catch the sunrise. I’m not sure what these flowers are, but I really like how they almost match the color of the horizon:

Misty Sunrise Flower; 9 bracket capture processed with Nik HDR Efex Pro

We saw a lot of the usual wildlife: Limpkins (one with a very large, fist sized snail!), Great Blue Herons, Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Moorhens, Grebes, many Woodstorks (especially in trees) – including some juveniles, a Bald Eagle, quite a few Ospreys, several Hawks, and of course a few Alligators (mostly in Lake Hancock). This Great Blue was posing in front of some Spanish Moss. I wanted to do something a little different, so I converted it to Black and White. It makes it much more of an abstract composition:

Great Blue Heron on one leg with Spanish Moss; B&W conversion with Nik Silver Efex Pro

All in all another good visit, but by the time we left it was very warm. I’d like to share some tips with you for this kind of weather. When you travel somewhere in your air-conditioned car and take your cool camera gear out into an environment like this, your lens and eyepiece are very likely to fog up. Try these things to minimize the issue:

Keep your gear packed up while inside the car to insulate it from the cold. It will be much worse if your camera is sitting on the seat by you right in the A/C blast zone as you drive
Consider running the A/C at a higher temp on your way over so the gear doesn’t get so cold
Try to arrive a few minutes early to give your gear time to warm up
Take a lens cloth with you
If you have a filter on the front of your lens, you can remove it when it fogs and get the next shot before the front element fogs up
The smaller your gear, the quicker it will warm up and stop fogging. If your big DSLR glass fogs, pull your point and shoot out of your pocket and keep going.

You can read what else I’ve written about the Circle B Bar here. And you can view photos I’ve posted from this great place in this set on Flickr.

Eagles, Owls, and more at Orlando’s Greenwood Park and Greenwood Cemetery

April 24, 2011Greenwood Park, INSIDE FLORIDA, OrlandoBarred Owl, birds, cemetery, Eagle, landscape, sunriseEd Rosack

Intro / Description

Greenwood Urban Wetlands is a 19 acre park in downtown Orlando and was created in 1991 to help handle the sometimes massive rainwater runoff in the area. The park is right next to Greenwood municipal cemetery, where many of Orlando’s notables have been buried since 1880.

Venus Rising: Pre-dawn pond at Greenwood Park – This is a two image composite that I hand merged in Photoshop.

I arrived before dawn a couple of Saturday’s ago. I’d heard about it on Flickr and seen photos others had made there, although I still wasn’t sure what to expect. I was hoping for a sunrise photo, but the sky was very clear and I didn’t know the area. So, I picked a spot near the parking area and set up for the image above. For this one, I made two exposures (one for the sky and one for the ground) and merged them as described in this post. I like the way it turned out, especially with the morning star Venus rising, and the leaves and flowers on the left.

Kevin M. joined me a bit later and we walked around exploring. There were a few birds (coots, wood ducks, egrets, Great Blue Heron) in the small lakes, but nothing too unusual. We’d heard about an eagle nest nearby, so we decided to look for it in Greenwood Cemetery.

The nest was easy to find, since there were two juvenile eagles perched right next to it calling quite often. We made several photos while we waited for better light and were eventually able to get the birds facing us with the sun at our backs. These two young birds were flying between trees in the area, but didn’t act like they knew much at all about feeding themselves. They seemed to be waiting for the parents to bring back food – but that didn’t happen while we were there.

Juvenile Eagle

We also saw a very pretty Wood Duck pair in nice light, a couple of Barred owls, and some very aggressive Blue Jays (harassing the owls) on the way out. You can see the other photos I made in this Flickr set.

Barred Owl

Info for Photographers

Photo hints:

There’s not much to work with for landscapes. But there’s a surprising variety of birds for such an urban setting. Make sure you walk through both the park and cemetery if you go. You could also drive through the cemetery if you don’t have time to walk.

Tripod/Monopod:

Of course.

Lenses:

Take appropriate lenses for your subjects. Mostly long lenses for the birds. A flash might help control the contrast for the subjects back in the leaves (owls).

Best time to visit:

February – March might allow eagle nesting activity to be observed.

Other:

This close by park may be an opportunity to snag a few keeper shots for your bird portfolio, and won’t take too long to check out.

Halloween 2012 update: Don Price, the Greenwood Cemetery Sexton, offers guided moonlight walking tours once a month where you can learn about Orlando and the people who have contributed to the history of the city. The tour is usually crowded and reservations are required. Go to the cemetery website and click on “Moonlight Walking Tours” for more info.

Summary

My Gallery / Flickr photo set:	http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/sets/72157626518075606/
Website:	http://www.cityoforlando.net/fpr/html/Parks/Greenwood.htm
Address / Phone:	1411 Greenwood Street, Orlando, Florida 407.246.2283
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating:	A surprising urban opportunity for a few bird photos.