photoartflightBlackwater NWR Sunrise
Posted on August 13, 2018
The featured Sunrise image is a series of horizontal images stacked vertically to get more of the colorful clouds and sky at sunrise. Five images shot at 12mm, aligned and blended together manually in Photoshop with soft edge masks. This view is not far from the entrance on the Wildlife Drive looking out over The Little Blackwater River.
6 images, horizontal, overlapping & combined manually in Photoshop for final image
The image below is around the corner from the featured & above image, by the Observation Platform, looking out at the Blackwater River.
Pre-Sunrise Clouds – 24 Shot Panorama @ 400mm
Posted on June 18, 2018
I like going to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland for their colorful Sunrises and Sunsets. (Also for Eagles & Ospreys and…) On this day the clouds were very interesting so I was shooting a few different versions, compositions, focal lengths and Camera/lens combos. Then I noticed a thin long length of colorful clouds above the trees but below the main larger clouds. So I tried a 400mm with a 1.4X Teleconverter pano version. I shot 24 images with that combo, with large overlaps on each shot, all handheld. This is the Featured Image above. I used a lot of overlapping images because it usually lines up better, especially when the camera is handheld. If I do not need them I can just use a few instead. Below are more versions with different camera and lens combinations. Also some eagles that flew by in the colorful sky adding some interest and a subject in the colorful sky. In the featured image about 2/3rds over to the right there is a small dot below the clouds. That was another Bald Eagle flying through and I decided to leave it and not clone it out.
Blackwater NWR PreSunrise @ 24mm (2 image blend for foreground detail)
Blackwater NWR Sunrise, 2 Image pano @ 24mm
Blackwater NWR Sunrise @ 400mm, Canon 400mm DO lens
Blackwater NWR Sunrise @ 400mm, Canon 400mm DO lens w/ Canon 1.4X Teleconverter
Immature Bald Eagle Soaring in the Sunrise, Canon 400mm DO w/ 1.4X Teleconverter
Closer Bald Eagle Flying in the Sunrise, Canon 400mm DO w/ 1.4X Teleconverter
