Tag Archives: sunrise

Emeralda Marsh

April 3, 2011Emeralda Marsh, INSIDE FLORIDAAmerican Bittern, birds, landscape, Northern Harrier, reviews, sunriseEd Rosack

Intro / Description

Emeralda Marsh is called the “Jewel of Lake County Bird Watching”. When we first visited in May of 2010, the Interpretive drive had just been closed to vehicles – which was a big disappointment and prevented me from doing a review of the site. Fast forward to late March of this year and the drive is again open, so Kevin M. and I headed over to see if this place lives up to its reputation.

It’s huge (7089 acres), with a 4.3 mile long drive that’s accessible by car for part of the year. We arrived a little after sunrise but before the gate opened at 8am, and so we spent a little time around this very picturesque canal just up the road from the entrance.

Canal, mist, and Sun Dog: A Sun Dog appears over this misty Florida canal near Emeralda Marsh just after sunrise.

Info for Photographers

Photo hints: The Interpretive drive is open from the 3rd week in February through May on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Call before you go to make sure. The drive had already been closed when we went last May and the place is too big to walk (at least for me). The hours are 8 – 5. We didn’t see much of interest on about the first half of the drive. Things picked up a bit when we turned north at the south-west corner (see link to Google Maps, below). Then we ended up seeing a good variety of birds including a Belted Kingfisher, coots and moorhens, gators, American Bitterns, a Northern Harrier, Ospreys, Egrets and Herons, and various ducks.

Northern Harrier in flight: This bird was quite active on the morning we were there

There’s a dirt road that’s closed to cars leading west from the north-west corner of the drive. It goes to a rookery on a small island just off the Lake Griffin shore. We walked out there and saw some displaying and nest-building going on, but it was grown up and hard to get a clear view.

American Bittern

Tripod/Monopod: Allowed of course.

Lenses: Bring your standard bird set up – the longer your lens, the better.

Best time to visit: When the drive is open (late February to May), which is also the best time for nesting, breeding, etc. Winter time is reportedly good for migrating species, but the drive will be closed to vehicles and you’ll have to hike in to the area.

Other:

You can download the drive guide map here.

Landscapes and sunrise / sunset photos will be hard due to the hours that the drive is open to cars, although you may be able to find a few scenic locations close by for golden hour photos.

There was a Bass fishing tournament going on the morning we were there, which made for a few loud moments as the fast boats all roared off. We also heard several gun shots, so there was some hunting going on in the area.

Summary

“Jewel of Lake County Bird Watching”? I certainly can’t argue with that. This is a huge place with a diversity of habitats and we did end up seeing a lot. I think that if you could visit several times over the course of a year, you’d see a variety of Florida and migratory birds.

My Gallery / Flickr photo set:	http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/sets/72157626234490421/
Website:	http://www.sjrwmd.com/recreationguide/emeraldamarsh/index.html
Address / Phone:	Lake County BCC 315 West Main St. P.O. Box 7800 Tavares, Florida 32778(386) 329-4404Geolocation: 28.886668,-81.79056View in Google Maps
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating:	There are places near me that I think are better, but go if you’re close.

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

Washington DC

March 19, 2011Must do list, Washington D.C.Arlington National Cemetery, cemetery, landscape, Lincoln Memorial, panorama, Potomac River, sunrise, travelEd Rosack

I’ve written about photography on business trips before (for instance here). If you’re willing to put up with the hassle of carrying your photo equipment (or you can travel “photo light”), and if you have an opportunity to leave early or stay late, then you may be able to enjoy some of the photo ops at your destination.

The pre-dawn Potomac River, Georgetown, and Washington DC from the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Rosslyn, Virgina: Getting up at 5:30am and leaving my warm, cozy room to walk down to the river with my tripod and camera in the cold and dark wasn’t easy. Timing the 4 – 8 second exposures between vibrations from passing cars was also a bit difficult. But I like the result.

I had a business trip to Washington DC this week and needed to be there first thing on Monday. Instead of flying in Sunday night, I made arrangements to get out on the first flight Sunday morning (whew, that was an early alarm!). This gave me few hours in DC to act like a tourist. The weather was cloudy with some rain, but that actually turned out to be an advantage for some of the things I photographed and I did manage to make some images that I like in two or three different places while I was there. Washington is a target rich environment for photo ops – where to start?

At the first place, birds sang as I walked paths through the area. Looking up and searching for them, I could see trees beginning to bud out with leaves and flowers, signaling the start of Spring and triggering many thoughts about nature. As I continued, my eyes were drawn back to earth where the sight of graves triggered thoughts about sacrifice by many brave people. I also thought about predictions of the decline of the USA, and it occurred to me that these don’t take into account the power of our belief system. Our economy is large, and we are creative — but our true strength is that so many believe in our rights and freedoms and are willing to defend them with their lives.

Tomb of the unknowns, Arlington National Cemetery: I’d never been to Arlington before last Sunday. As a US Navy Veteran and a patriot, I have to admit it made a huge impression on me.

Arlington National Cemetery is located on a hill across the Potomac from Washington DC. It’s the former home of Robert E. Lee and was taken over by the Union when the Lee family failed to pay taxes. Arlington house (his former manor) is surrounded by grave sites of union soldiers so that if he ever tried to return, he’d have to cross that line of soldiers to enter his home. [4/16 update: Here is a good article about Arlington house: http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2011/04/arlington-house-home-robert-e-lee7966]There’s a good view of downtown DC and the country’s power base from up there. I hope that Congress glances up at Arlington occasionally before it makes decisions that may result in more grave sites. Arlington is only a few minutes from downtown Washington, and close to Reagan airport. There’s plenty of info on their web site for visitors.

After Arlington, I drove into downtown DC. Since it was Sunday and raining, there weren’t many people around and I was able to park about two blocks from the Lincoln Memorial and walk over for a few photos. Unfortunately, there is a lot of construction going on right now – the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument was drained, and this limited the compositions available.

The Lincoln Memorial and me: Last Sunday in Washington DC was cloudy with a bit of rain, so there weren’t too many people out and about in the city. I circled around to the south west side and set up my tripod for this shot. I think it’s pretty rare that you get a chance to capture an image of the Lincoln Memorial without people in the photo.

The view of the Lincoln Memorial above is a multi-shot panorama / HDR using 27 individual photos. The full resolution result is about 45 Mega-pixels in size. The power of the software we have available today always amazes me.

Take advantage of your travel opportunities. Turn them into photo ops. You might like the result.

If you click on the photos above you can see larger versions on Flickr. You can also see these photos and a few others from this trip in this set on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by, now go make some photos!

Catching up

January 30, 2011Cameras and Photography, Circle B Bar Reserve, INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWRBarred Owl, birds, BPWD, landscape, Scrub Ridge Trail, Spoonbill, sunriseEd Rosack

Hello again, readers! I apologize for a somewhat lengthy post, but today I wanted to catch you up on photo related happenings over the last couple of weeks – so there are several topics worth mentioning.

Circle B Bar Reserve

A week ago (Saturday, 22 Jan), I returned to the Circle B Bar over in Lakeland Florida with the Photography Interest Group. The first time I wrote about this place, I said: “I’ve only been to the Circle B once, and need to go several more times to get an idea of how consistent the photo ops there are.” Well, the second visit lived up to the first, starting with a quite pretty dawn:

Dawn at the Circle B Bar Reserve

One of the highlights of this trip was seeing a Barred Owl and getting a relatively good photo of it. The owl was high in a tree and ended up attracting quite a crowd before it got tired of us and flew off. The lighting was a bit tough – I’m glad I had my flash and Better Beamer ready.

Barred Owl watches photographers

We also sighted Ospreys, Red Shouldered Hawks, a Red Bellied Woodpecker, Whistling Ducks, and many other birds. Unfortunately, the beautiful yellow sunflowers that were all over the place last time are no longer there. They are seasonal and to see them you’ll have to return around mid to late November next year. All in all, a very nice trip and the Circle B definitely lived up to its reputation once again. You can look at more of my photos from the Circle B in this set on Flickr.

Black Point Wildlife Drive

Yesterday, I visited Black Point again. I’m not sure why, but this place seems to be really great for photos with reflections. Quite often the water is extremely calm and you can see scenes like these:

Clear day, calm water

Spoonbill and reflection

There was a lot of activity at Black Point. We spotted an otter, Hooded Mergansers, Belted Kingfishers, Hawks, and many other species. We also paused for a while to watch a pair of Ospreys fishing. They were too far away for good photos, and never came closer even though we had fish jumping out of the water right in front of us! You can look at more of my photos from Black Point in this set on Flickr.

Scrub Ridge Trail

A couple of weeks ago on Flickr, I saw some very nice photos of Florida Scrub Jays, made by “moonfloweryoli“. I commented on them and she mentioned a trail in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge where she saw them. This led us to an add a second expedition to yesterday’s Black Point visit. We wanted to try to observe this unique species that only lives here in Florida. To make a long story short, we tried hard, but we never saw any. We’ll have to go back and try again. Kevin K. did make this image to document our search:

“Wilbur” and “Donuts” looking for the hard to find Florida Scrub Jay (image courtesy of Kevin Krause); Your humble author is the one on the left.

Alligator Farm and Gatorland blogs

A quick update for those of you looking for info on the St. Augustine Alligator Farm or Gatorland. I reported back in November that Gatorland was canceling its photographer early entry program. The Gatorland Blog hasn’t been updated since then, so it’s a bit hard to find out what’s going on at that park.

Meanwhile, the St. Augustine Alligator Farm announced they would continue their photographer early entry program. They’ve been running a mailing list on Yahoo where you could find information, and last week they announced that they’ll be discontinuing this and starting a blog of their own. It’s now up and running, check it out.

Sigma 150 – 500

Finally, here’s an equipment update. I’ve been doing much of my bird photography since early last year with a Sigma 150 – 500 OS lens. I’ve been very happy with it and one of my few complaints was that the Optical Stabilization was a bit noisy. Lately, it’s developed a “chatter” where it sounds like the OS motor is vibrating back and forth. While it does this, you can see the image vibrating through the viewfinder. I called Sigma and they said to send it back. So I’ll be without it for a while. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

That’s all for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Two Image Pano / HDR / Focus Stacking

January 21, 2011Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Technique, Viera WetlandsHDR, landscape, panorama, post processing, sunriseEd Rosack

Intro

It’s been a while since I posted an in depth technique article, so I thought I’d do another one. Warning: Major photo geek out ahead. If you’re not into HDR, panoramas, post processing, etc. please move along.

…

OK, now that it’s just us photo nerds left, wanna see some sausage made? Let’s get started.

My question to you: What if you want more pixels in your final image, more dynamic range in both highlights and shadows, and better depth of field, all by using a much simpler technique than you might normally use? How would you go about it? I’ll explain one approach I used recently to make this lead photo from my previous post:

Finished image (click to view on Flickr)

I made this with a 12 megapixel Nikon D700, but my final image file is 4238 pixels wide by 5776 pixels tall (about 24.5 Megapixels). It has good depth of field with objects from very close out to the horizon in focus. It also has good dynamic range with both the ground and the sunrise & clouds well exposed.

Details

If you were going to create an image like this using conventional techniques, it could require 6 or more exposures. You’d mount your camera on a tripod and manual focus. You might analyze the scene to decide on an optimum exposure. Then you’d make three bracketed exposures around that, first of the lower portion of the image, then shifting your camera viewpoint up toward the clouds – three more bracketed exposures. Then you’d use panorama software to combine the three pairs of images at each exposure value, followed by HDR software to combine the three resulting panoramas into an HDR file and tone map it. You might have to play with the result quite a bit to eliminate noise, ghosting, etc. introduced by the HDR software. And if you wanted to stretch the depth of field, you might go through this twice with different focus points, and combine them too. In some situations, you could also try using graduated neutral density filters to control dynamic range.

Whew – that could be a whole lot of work! I didn’t do all that. Instead, I used a much simpler idea. Basically, I just combined two images manually in Photoshop.

If you’re still with me, read on (it might look complicated, but it’s actually harder to read about than do). Here are the details.

I hand held my camera and used an image stabilized lens so I didn’t have to worry too much about longer exposures. The camera was in landscape orientation. I used aperture priority, with matrix metering auto exposure, and auto focus using the center focus point. When I made these, I held my camera very carefully to make sure there was no side to side movement and that the horizon was level so there was no rotation between shots, and I made sure there was at least 30% vertical overlap between the two images. I also shot in RAW mode for the best dynamic range and control over processing.
For this first photo, I pointed at the sky and let the camera auto expose for the bright clouds and sunrise. It also auto focused on the clouds in the middle of the frame. It’s at 16 mm, ISO 200, and f/8 @ 1/160 sec. Here’s the unprocessed RAW source image for the sky:

For this second photo I pointed down at the ground and this time the camera exposed for the dark foreground. It auto focused on the ripples in the water just short of the first coot (again in the middle of the frame). It’s at 16 mm, ISO 200, and f/8 @ 1/25 sec. (almost 3 stops more exposure). Here’s the unprocessed RAW source image for the ground:

_DSC1056 — RAW source image for the ground

Then I processed the RAW photos. I used Capture NX2 and converted them to TIF, but you could use Photoshop to convert them and not need CaptureNX2. I set picture control to neutral, white balance to daylight, enabled distortion correction, and tried to bring both photos closer in overall brightness. Here are the two processed images:

_DSC1058-2 — Sky image after RAW conversion

_DSC1056-2 — Ground image after RAW conversion

Next I loaded the files into Photoshop as separate layers in the same file, and used Photoshop’s Edit / Auto Align Layers function to place the two images relative to each other.
At this point, I added a layer mask (reveal all) for the sky image and then painted black to remove the portions below the horizon that I didn’t need. It was fairly easy to blend the images by changing the brush opacity and either erasing or painting in until it looked correct.
The final steps then are the same ones used for any photo: crop, sharpen, levels, apply any creative filters you like, etc.

Once you go through this a few times, it’ll be easier and you can, of course vary some of these steps based on your own preferences.

Conclusions

I think this “Two Image Pano / HDR / Focus Stacking” technique can be really useful and it has several advantages over standard approaches normally used for this kind of image.

Benefits

It’s simpler than conventional techniques, and yields very good results.
You can hand hold in many cases, especially if you use an image stabilized camera or lens.
It uses the camera’s auto exposure effectively to expose correctly for the different areas of the image.
You can post process with just Photoshop – other software isn’t required.
It greatly increases the dynamic range of the final image without requiring HDR processing or software. It doesn’t require a straight line horizon like graduated neutral density filters would.
Depth of field can be increased over that in a single exposure or in a conventional pano / HDR approach.
It also substantially increases vertical field of view.

Limitations

This technique is situation dependent: It’ll only produce portrait or perhaps square orientation output images (although you’ll have lots of pixels to crop to other formats). It only works where the scene is easily divided into two portions where the brightness varies vertically. Also,the dynamic range increase available from just two images may not be enough in all situations.

So, should you use it?

Why not? Under the right conditions, it can generate very good results with minimal effort. Now that you’ve heard about this technique, you can watch for scenes where you may be able to use it.

Then you can try it – and please let me know how it works for you.

A very nice Viera morning

January 15, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera Wetlandsbirds, Cormorant, Fish, landscape, sunrise, Wilson's SnipeEd Rosack

Although it was very tempting to sleep in this morning, I was up early and made it over to Viera Wetlands in time to witness another one of nature’s shows. The clouds cooperated and did their part, the sun and calm water pitched in, a couple of coots made just the right ripples, and all I had to do was snap the shutter.

Sunrise at Viera Wetlands

Once the sun was up, we parked the cars and walked for a while, thinking that the slow deliberate approach would yield better photos than the quick drive method. It didn’t – we failed to find much of interest on foot. The light wasn’t very good either – due to the clouds that made the sunrise so nice. We ended up getting back in the cars and using them to find things of interest. And after a while, the clouds cleared and we had better light for bird photography.

Last week we saw several Snipes, but couldn’t get good photos since they took off and flew fast and erratic as soon as we got close. This week our luck was better (or this bird was a bit tired). He stayed still for us to make his portrait.

Wilson’s (Common) Snipe

We saw the usual Heron and Egret suspects, along with Anhingas, Hawks, Black Crowned Night Herons, American Bitterns, Savannah Sparrows, Northern Shovelers, and Sandhill Cranes. I was able to photograph two new (for me) species – Ring Neck Ducks, and Lesser Scaups.

We also took a turn ’round the click ponds and there was a great deal of activity there. This Cormorant surprised me when he came up with his breakfast.

Cormorant with fish

We had a great time. Clicking on these photos will open them on Flickr, where you can view larger versions. You can also visit my Viera Wetlands set on Flickr to see other photos I’ve made there.

My Favorite Photos of 2010

December 19, 2010VARIOUSAlligator, beach, birds, Cormorant, Cypress, Fish, Flowers, Koi, lighthouse, panorama, star, sunrise, sunset, tree, wildlifeEd Rosack

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

The weather has been pretty gloomy here this weekend, so I didn’t get a chance to go out and make any new photos. I thought it would be a good time to jump the gun and put together my second annual “Favorite photos of the year” post.

One again, I’ve gone through the photos I made in the last 12 months. I use Lightroom to rate them from 0 through 5 stars. My rating system definitions are:

1 star – The photo is interesting
2 stars – The photo is worth showing to others
3 stars – The photo is the best of (or one of the best of ) any given photo shoot
4 stars – My favorite photo of a year
5 stars – My favorite photo (ever)

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 used this system consistently, and it seems to work for me. 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 chosen.

Again in 2010, I was really blessed with a huge number of photo opportunities. On my hard drive in my 2010 folder, I have about 11,700 files (not all are photos), taking up 145GB of space. Of these:

5997 of the 2010 images have been cataloged in Lightroom. Many of the rest are source images for multi-shot panoramas or HDRs, or high rate bursts that I selected from.
1139 are rated 1 star or higher
639 are 2 star or higher
88 are 3 star or higher
1 is 4 star, and
None are 5 star (I’m still not done taking photos yet!)

Of the 88 that are 3 star or higher, I’ve selected 10 images to include in a gallery of my favorite 2010 photos. You can click on each of these to go to Flickr, where you can see a larger version. One interesting difference from my 2009 Favorite Photos post is that all the ones this year were made in the Central Florida area.

So, here we go…

My #10 favorite 2010 photo is: Waving Gator. Gators always smile at you, but this one was even waving! No, I didn’t Photoshop the wave. The gator really did it all by itself. I have witnesses.

My #9 favorite 2010 photo is: Roadside Flowers. Wildflower photography is a little different in Central Florida than some other areas of the country. Some might say it’s more challenging here, and I doubt anyone comes to Central Florida specifically to photograph wildflowers. None the less, wildflower photo ops are around here too if you keep your eyes open. These are along the Florida Turnpike. I saw them while driving home from Gainesville, Florida and just had to stop and photograph them.

My #8 favorite 2010 photo is: Cattle Egret in Flight. For once, I was ready when this bird flew close by. Right lens, correct camera settings, and paying attention. I could almost feel my camera nail the shot. I wish I felt like that more often.

My #7 favorite 2010 photo is: One Second Koi or “One second, Koi” or “One second Koi?” I don’t usually make this sort of photo. On this occasion, I decided to experiment and I was very pleased with how it turned out.

My #6 favorite 2010 photo is: Sunrise, fog, palms, pond. This scene is close to the north-west shore of Lake Jessup. On this particular morning, the mist in the distance and the clouds on the horizon shaping the sunlight drew my attention.

My #5 favorite 2010 photo is: Burning waters @ Orlando Wetlands. We were at Orlando Wetlands Park back in late September before dawn. It was raining very softly, but not enough to discourage us from hiking out to Lake Searcy and capturing this scene. I like the light hitting the flowers on the left, the rain cloud in the distance, and the dawn colors in the sky.

My #4 favorite 2010 photo is: Grasshopper and Donuts perform photo-magic on the beach under the stars for an audience of three.

We have a local camera club and three of us decided to go over to the beach to try to photograph the Perseid meteor shower. My two friends went out on the beach while I stayed up on the boardwalk. At one point I looked down and could barely make out this scene in the dark. I like the way the camera’s LCD is lit up and draws the viewer’s eye to the two photographers. I also like how the three strangers (who were watching for meteors) look like they’re watching my friends.

I was using ISO 1600 and my “nifty 50” 50mm lens at f/1.8 to keep exposures as short as possible (I was trying to prevent the stars from trailing), and I had focused manually at infinity. All I had to do was switch on live-view, re-compose, and zoom in on my friend’s white shirt to manually re-focus. Fortunately no one moved very much during the 4 second exposure. It’s really amazing how modern cameras can capture scenes that are barely visible to our eyes! And yes, we did get a few meteor photos. (Grasshopper and Donuts are nicknames for the two photographers in the scene).

My #3 favorite 2010 photo is: Cyprus tree and knees. I wanted to try the Nikon D7000 on some landscape photos, but didn’t really have time to go anywhere special. This tree is very close to my home – along the shore of Lake Jessup in Central Winds Park. Cypress trees make very good photo subjects since they can provide both near and middle distance content for a scene.

My #2 favorite 2010 photo is: Cormorant at the Circle Bar B. These birds have been posing for me lately. I think it’s amazing how pretty they look in the right light.

And … my #1 favorite photo of the year 2010 is: Ponce Inlet light, sunset, bird. Imagine if you will, a perfect dusk scene with sunset colors drifting up from beyond the horizon. In the distance is a photogenic lighthouse that’s illuminated just enough to make it stand out against the bright sky. Beneath your feet, slow-moving Atlantic Ocean surf rolls up on rocks. You spot a bird in the surf and hope it will be still while your shutter remains open for the seconds necessary to record the image as your mind’s eye sees it – tack sharp from foreground rocks all the way to the distant lighthouse, with silky smooth water reflecting the dusk sky. Imagine coming home and seeing the image that you imagined right there on your computer screen in all it’s glory. That’s what happened to me last August.

I’ve uploaded these photos to this Flickr set, and you can click this link to watch a slide show. When you watch the show, you might want to click the “show info” link.

Thanks for looking.

Local Park Landscapes

November 21, 2010INSIDE FLORIDA, Lake JesupCypress, sunrise, sunset, treeEd Rosack

Just a short post today with an idea for local photo-ops: How about the parks in your own neighborhood?

I wanted to try out the D7000 on some landscape photos, but didn’t really have time to go anywhere special. Instead, I went out to three local parks and made the photos below.

You’ve seen this tree before – it’s along the shore of Lake Jesup in Central Winds Park. I like this more complete composition, since it includes the cyprus knees.

Cyprus tree and knees

This next one was made at Lake Marie in Trotwood Park. There are almost always at least a few birds in this small lake and last night was no exception.

The geese aren’t watching the sunset

And finally, here’s one from this morning at Sam Smith Park. It was very quiet – almost no wind, which helps wonderfully with reflections in water. The cyprus trees here in Florida do change colors for the winter – the one on the left is starting to turn.

Sunrise and Cyprus

Visit your local parks and make some photos.

Sunrise, Otter, Eagle, Cormorants, Raccoon – a nice morning at Viera Wetlands

November 14, 2010Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Viera Wetlandsbirds, Cormorant, d7000, Eagle, Otter, Raccoon, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

I’m coming down with another cold and wasn’t very enthusiastic about going to Viera Wetlands yesterday. Actually, “not very enthusiastic” is a big understatement. I almost didn’t get out of bed – but now I’m glad I did.

We had to leave at “O dark thirty” to get to the west side of the wetlands just before sunrise. I wanted to try the D7000 out on landscapes and it performed very well. The image below is a single exposure of the sunrise. I don’t care too much for silhouettes – I like to have some detail and color in the shadows. For this one, I exposed at -2 EV to prevent blowing out the sky and then brought up the shadows in post processing. The D7000 recorded a very broad dynamic range and has remarkably little noise in the shadows at base ISO, even when under exposed. This real world example, along with the the results from the recent DxOMark test of the D7000 indicate it’s going to be a very fine landscape camera. The only problem is that I don’t have a very wide lens for it.

Sunrise at Viera Wetlands, D7000, ISO 100, 1/100 sec. @ f/11, 16 mm

As we were photographing the sunrise, an otter swam by right in front of us just past those reeds (about 8 – 10 feet away). That’s the closest one’s ever come to me in the wild. Of course, I didn’t have the right camera set up so I didn’t get a photo. I think the otter knew that, and swam by just to tease us. We saw it a couple more times but could never get a shot off. Those things are quick. And black. And hard to photograph.

After the sun was up, we drove around the wetlands and came up on this:

Bald Eagle on dead tree, D7000, ISO 320, 1/500sec. @ f/8, 500 mm

This eagle was just surveying the area. I did get a few images when it flew off, but none blog worthy. I need more Birds in Flight practice, especially at 500mm!

The sun was up, but still low in the sky as we saw some cormorants sitting on a viewing platform. The light was hitting this one just right to show off the detail in his dark feathers.

Cormorant, D7000, ISO 220, 1/500 sec. @ f/8, 500 mm

Here’s one more photo I want to show you. This little fellow was digging around in the reeds along with several birds. I’m not sure what they were after, but it might have been snails – we saw a lot of them yesterday. This image is a good example of the D7000 at ISO 1600. Very usable with minimal noise.

Rocky Raccoon, D7000, ISO 1600, 1/500sec. @ f/9, 500 mm

Today I feel a bit worse, so I’m glad I went out yesterday. Hopefully I’ll start feeling better tomorrow.

Note: you can click on any of these to go to Flickr where you can see a larger version. You can see more of my Viera Wetlands photos in this set.

Just Wandering

October 16, 2010INSIDE FLORIDA, Sanford, Technique, VARIOUSbirds, Gull, Lake Monroe, sunriseEd Rosack

Morning Gulls on Lake Monroe

Do you ever just go wandering around, exploring new areas? Not to make photos, but hoping in the back of your mind that a good photo might show up in front of your lens? Sometimes I do. And sometimes it happens.

One day back in July of 2007, I drove over to Sanford, Florida and stopped by the boat ramp. As I watched the sun rise, I kept my eye on some seagulls flying around over the water. When the sun went into those clouds and the very pretty rays showed up – I framed my shot and started walking over toward the gulls, shooting in continuous mode. I was hoping for something exactly like this, and when I got home I was happy with how it turned out.

So, I’m just wondering. Would you ever drive to a boat ramp at sunrise for a photo-op? Maybe, maybe not. When you’re just out wandering around with your camera, your expectations are different. The photo pressure’s off. It’s OK to go home without a 4 or 5 star image. But the opportunities for photos may be a lot more varied than if you set off with a specific photo goal in mind. And if you do come home with a nice photo or two it’s a bonus.

So, just go wandering. And keep your eyes and mind open to the beautiful nature show happening all around you. And take a camera.

P.S. We drove by the Lake Jesup wildflower fields this morning and they’re just about all gone. If you didn’t make a photo there this year, you’ll have to wait until late next September for your chance.

A full bloom riot of flowers

October 3, 2010INSIDE FLORIDA, Lake Jesup, Lake Jesup SunflowersFlowers, landscape, Marl Bed Flats, Sanford Florida, Sunflowers, sunrise, sunsetEd Rosack

Last year during wildflower season, I hesitated to venture out into the Lake Jesup Wilderness Area in the dark. I’ve seen several types of animals and birds out there and never any snakes, but it sure does seem like prime snake country to me. And I don’t relish stepping on something dangerous in the tall growth and dim light. This year, I was a little braver (and very careful) and got out into the wildflower fields just as the sun came up.

Watching the sun rise

I really wish last weekend’s spectacular sunrises had repeated this weekend. But even though there were no clouds and very little sky color, the fields of wildflowers made up for it with a full bloom riot of Helianthus angustifolius var. canadense.

Lake Jesup Wildflowers – Narrow leaf Sunflowers, also called “Swamp Sunflowers

It’s not too late for you to go out and see this wonderful explosion of nature, but it will be too late soon. This morning, the blooms seemed to be just about at their peak, and they fade quickly.

You can see other photos I’ve made out there in this Flickr set. For more information, here are two other posts about this area:

https://edrosack.com/2009/10/10/lake-jessup-conservation-area-wildflowers/

https://edrosack.com/2007/10/07/storm-and-flowers/