9/3/2010: Cadillac Mountain

On the way back from dropping daughter #3 off at College, we stopped for the afternoon and night in Bar Harbor…mostly to see daughter #1 and #2. Daughter #1 lives there, and daughter #2 is working there in Acadia National Park for the summer. No visit to Acadia, of course, is complete without a drive to the top of Mt. Cadillac. Even though we only had a few hours there, after a hike around Jordan Pond (also a must as far as I am concerned), we drove to the summit on the way back to Bar Harbor and dinner. It was not a pristine day…there was a good deal of haze over the ocean, but the late afternoon/early evening light was interesting on the stone of the peak.

This is an HDR using two exposures and Photomatix Lite. In realty I am not sure I gained much through the two exposures. I am pretty sure I could have adjusted a single exposure in Lightroom for close to this effect. Still, the tone-mapping for detail in Photomatix certainly brought up all the character in the foreground rocks, and I am certain I could not have pulled up the greens in the trees to this level. The greens have always frustrated me in shots from Cadillac, since exposing for rock and sky always leaves the greens running toward black. Keeping the greens vibrant gives this shot three strong layers instead of two. This is good.

Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. Two shots separated by 3 EV using the Exposure Compensation dial.

Photomatix as above. Adjusted for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpness in Lightroom.

From Acadia 2010.

9/2/2010: Fox Pond, Maine

And so we leave rainy Germany and merry old England (also rainy) for perhaps another year, and return to home and Maine. Last weekend I drove my daughter to her first days of college in Machais, and, on the way back to Bar Harbor, where we planned to spend the night, my TomTom (on the iPhone) took me a shortcut across the mountains inland from US Route 1 and the coast. The sign as you turn on Route 182 says it is a Maine Scenic Byway, and it is indeed. The road climbs through the low coastal mountains, up and down, past streams and lakes and ponds. It was a glorious day. Good job TomTom! The only complaint I have about this shortcut is that it was, considering the wonderful scenery, too short!

This is Fox Pond, about 2/3rds of the way between the two ends of the loop of US 1 that 182 cuts off. A low angle shot with the SX20IS flip out LCD to get the water hyacinth in frame.

I used a single image tone-mapping in Photomatix to give it an HDR effect, before bringing it into Lightroom for final adjustments of Exposure, Blackpoint, Clarity, and Sharpen. I also had to straighten it a bit.

Canon SX20IS @ 28mm equivalent @ f8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 80. Aperture preferred so I could use a small f-stop for depth of field. The hyacinth was barely a foot away.

From Machias 2010.

7/6/2010

Mousam Mouth

Just a gentle landscape shot, out across the marshes toward the mouth of the Mousam River…a rarity for the cost of southern Maine these days in that it is a unprotected river mouth…no jetty…therefore one of the last wild, unmanaged beaches.

This is a good example of what a little help from Lightroom can do for a landscape. The original…

has potential but is overall rather dull. Applying my normal processing…Recovery for the sky, touch of Fill Light, Blackpoint to the right,  added Clarity and Vibrance, and sharpening…improves the sky but leaves the foreground too dark and still dull…maybe duller since the highlights are stripped from the grasses as well.

This is when I resort to Lr’s graduated filter effects.

Drawing one down from the top across the sky and well into the landscape, I am able to reduce some Brightness, and add additional Clarity and and a bit of Contrast to bring up detail in the clouds. Then, drawing a graduated filter up from the bottom about 2/3rs of the frame, I am able to add Brightness, increase Clarity and Contrast, to bring out both the color and the detail in the foreground. I call it the dualing GrFilter effect. Finally, since the midground right along the horizon was left a little dark, I went in with the Local Adjustment Brush in Lightroom and defined a brush that was mostly feather…then drew an area along the horizon and added Brightness and Clarity. The result is a far different image…but arguably one closer to what the eye sees, rather than what the sensor captures. Mind you, Lr does not add anything to what the sensor caught…it just remaps the tones to a closer approximation of the visual. In that sense, the sensor and the camera did a great job of capturing the scene…since all the information needed to post-process was in the file!

Note that I am working from the jpeg file, and even with the limitations of jpeg, a lot is still possible in Lr.

From Around Home 2010.

4/30/2010

Ancient Dunes: Live Oak/Palmetto Forest

Once upon a time the ocean levels along the Florida coast were considerably higher. When they receded they left a pattern of ancient dunes well inland. Over time, vegetation conquered the sand, mostly Live Oak, Bay Tree, Palmetto, and in the troughs between the dunes, Cabbage Palm and Slash Pine. You see this habitat at Ft. Matanzas National Monument and, as pictured here, at Anastasia State Park (among a host of other spots). Add the inevitable Resurrection Fern and Spanish Moss and you have a truly tropical look.

In a shot like this, for me, it is the variety of shapes and textures that capture my eye…and, of course, the way the light plays over it all. I have taken more than a few shots on every visit to this kind of habitat. They rarely work. This one, I think, manages to hang together and capture something of the experience of being there.

One of the limiting factors in these shots is always exposure. It is very difficult to capture the range of light…from sky visible between trees, to the shadows under dense vegetation. I make no claim to special skills in this area. I have come to trust the auto exposure in most modern compact digital cameras to do a better job of balancing exposure than I could…at least getting it close enough so that the image can be post-processed to bring both highlights and shadows back in range. The SX20 on Landscape program certainly handled it well, with enough balance so that a little extra work in Lightroom brought it up to something quite close to the naked eye impression.

Canon SX20IS at about 48mm equivalent. F3.5 @ 1/80th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.

In Lightroom, fairly heavy Recovery for the backdrop of skylight. A touch of Fill Light for the foreground shadows. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and a smidge of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.

From St. Augustine FL 2010.

4/13/2010

Parsons Rays

Parson’s Beach is only 2 miles from my front door, so we visit it often, and it never fails to show a new face. This is late in an iffy day weather-wise. I was after the rays here and the dramatics in the sky. I took a fairly straight forward Landscape program shot, biased a little for the sky by tipping the camera up and locking exposure, and then brought up the foreground in Lightroom.

Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.

In Lightroom, heavy Recovery for the sky (even biased as the exposure was). Added Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint right. A good deal of Fill Light for the foreground, but even then, to restore it to something like what my eye saw, without removing the dark areas of the clouds,  it required a Graduated Filter Effect from the bottom to lighten exposure on the sand.

From Around Home 2010.

A photo friend with whom I trade comments suggested that this might look good in B&W. We often have this discussion as he likes B&W better than I do. So, without further ado, a B&W version.

3/13/2010

Tide Pools Area: Cabrillo National Monument

Cabrillo National Monument sits at the point of Point Loma, overlooking San Diego Harbor on one side, and the Pacific on the other. There is a lighthouse there, and little pocket park, with some of the best views of the coast you are likely to see. You have to drive through a section of the Naval Base and the National Cemetery to get there, so access is limited to 9 to 5 (when the military gates are open these days) but it is always worth a visit, in any season and any weather.

The day I had available dawned, as promised, with rain, and I debated going at all. I did get out, and had about 3 hours there, shooting from under my umbrella and in brief intervals in the drizzle, before a steady driving rain drove me off the point and back to the hotel.

This is the Tide Pool area, which is reached by a well paved and graded road that serves both the modern lighthouse and a water treatment plant. They have been working here in the last year, making improvements on the short trail system, and I enjoyed exploring further from the parking lot than I have ventured in the past.

The challenge in this weather is, of course, to capture the authentic drama of the rainy coast, cliffs and ocean. The contrast and exposure (EV) range is surprisingly broad on such a day, dull as we might think it, as the lighter sky tends to dominate the dark, rain soaked, landscape. More on that in a Point & Shoot Landscape post (coming soon).

I took a couple of different shots of this view before I got the balanced rocks where they needed to go. This image required some creative work in Lightroom…or maybe I should say, a bit more work than my usual 1 minute adjustments.

Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80. Landscape Program. (For more on Landscape Program see the P&S piece mentioned above.)

In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky, Fill Light for the foreground. Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Reduced Brightness overall. Reduced Contrast. Graduated Filter effect pulled down diagonally from the top right corner across the top half of the image to reduce exposure even more for the bright area of clouds. Sharpen landscape preset.

From San Diego 2010.

1/17/2010

Merriland River Massh

Looking out over the Merriland River marsh to the sea from on of my favorite vistas at Rachel Carson NWR. I have lots of shots from here but I have generally called it the Little River Marsh. I just found out that the river in the foreground is the Merriland…it joins the Little near the point of trees jutting out o the left.

This was a very difficult shot to expose. I ended up with just a straight Programmed Auto exposure and some heavy work in Lightroom.

Fill Light for the trees, which otherwise were dark going on black, Recovery for the snow field and sky, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen Landscape preset. Pretty much standard processing. but more of everything, beginning with Fill Light.

Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100.

From Rachel Carson Seasons.

1/13/2010

Little River in Winter Sun

We switch now from the series taken while it was snowing to pics taken several days later when we got our first real sun. Sun on snow is a whole other story. For more on the exposure and post-processing challenges, you might want to visit Shooting Snow on Point & Shoot Landscape.

The Little River flows through the Headquarters section of Rachel Carson NWR. This is one of those classic views of the river that I have taken in all weathers and in all lights, and that I will, I am sure, continue to photograph as along as I live in Kennebunk. Winter light across the snow. Winter light and color caught in the water. The green of the evergreens showing at its best. Classic. Zoomed in a bit for effective framing.

Sony DSC H50 at about 60mm equivalent. F5.0 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto with –.7 EV exposure compensation.

I was experimenting with EV compensation for the snow. This shot was underexposed .7EV. Some Recovery in Lightroom for the snow. Fill light for the colors. Blackpoint to the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance (Vibrance really brought up the color in the water). Sharpen Landscape preset.

From Rachel Carson NWR Seasons.

11/9/2009

Rose Hips at Sunset

I previsualized this shot, walking back to the car from my late day, cloud’s-closing-in visit to the beach…but getting it right was not so easy. There were lots of rose hips, just at their best, and lots of beach, but finding the right combination proved more difficult. And then exposing the thing: that was a challenge.

Still, with a little help in Lightroom, it just about works.

Sony DSC H50 at just under 40mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.

I took two exposures, one metered more for the sky and one more for the rose hips. When I got home, I actually chose the lighter of the two to work with as the hips were just too dark in the sky shot.

Recovery for the sky, Fill Light for the hips. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Landscape preset. I pulled a Graduated Filter effect down diagonally from the top left corner, ending just at the hips. I reduced Exposure and Brightness, and increased Contrast under the filter. Finally, I increased overall Exposure slightly and cropped from the top to eliminate some distracting elements on the right and improve overall composition.

From Around Home Kennebunk ME.

11/8/2009

Drawing Water over Parson's Marsh

Happy Sunday!

For full effect you should view this image larger than it is here. Click it and it will open in a new window. There are size controls at the top.

By the time I got out yesterday afternoon, we were rapidly loosing the light. Clouds were coming and we had an early sunset as they built in from the west. I always love the sun drawing water effect, and have caught it several times this fall. Must be something in the air.

Drawing water shots are, however, among the most difficult to expose. It is really a very delicate effect: obvious to the naked eye…but the eye has such a huge range of light sensitivity compared to any capture medium, and certainly compared to a digital sensor. It is just not possible to capture the scene the way it really looks.

Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. Programmed Auto, tipped up to meter the sky.

So you expose, as I did here, for the sun-rays, and everything else goes unnaturally dark. You can recover some of the natural look in post-processing with curves and levels and selective exposure compensation, but you never get quite there. Personally, I generally decide on the dramatic look…dark and intense…and then second think and go back for a more natural treatment, as I did here.

In Lightroom, I used two Graduated Filter effects, one from the bottom to lighten the foreground, and one from the top to darken the clouds and sky. I also applied a good deal of Fill Light to bring out some color in the marsh grasses in the mid-ground. Blackpoint just a touch right for intensity. Added Clarity and Vibrance for the drawing water effect. Sharpen Landscape preset.

From Around Home: Kennebunk ME.