photoartflightLittle Blue Heron @ Audubon Swamp Garden
Posted on February 21, 2023
I am going through my collection of Backup Hard Drives looking for images to post on the blog. Now that I am retired I have time to post more often. For this post I am showing a Little Blue Heron on a tree top that was quite far in the distance in the Audubon Swamp Garden at the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in South Carolina. The Featured Image of the Little Blue Heron is a heavily cropped section from the first image below.
First Images With TT Artisan 11mm Fish-eye Lens For Canon RF
Posted on November 12, 2022
Lately I am shooting landscapes with Fisheye Lenses for a very wide angle of view with 1 image or sometimes multiple image panoramas. Fish-eye lenses give you a very wide Field of View but you have the Fish-eye Effect look or Warped looking images. But when working on the files it is easy to correct and remove the Fish-eye look. This is also useful if shooting multi-image panoramas with Fish-Eye lenses for an even wider view because the Fisheye effect makes it almost impossible to blend the images nicely. If shooting Multi-image Panoramas with Fisheye lenses before blending the images you have to remove the “Fish-eye” distortion. So I use Photoshop’s Adaptive Wide Angle filter under Filters and enter the info needed there to de-fish the images. Sometimes it takes a few tries especially with Fisheye lenses like this 11mm Fisheye lens. You can also use the Warp tool to fine tune the image distortion a little more after using the Adaptive Wide Angle filter. The Artisan TT 11mm lens does not communicate with the R camera body so you have to set the camera to shoot without a lens and manually set the f/stop you want to use on the lens. If you use f/11 or f/16 almost everything is in focus without manually focusing if you set the lens to infinity & the Camera on Aperture Priority.
Blue Dasher Dragonflies
Posted on September 10, 2022
Dragonfly season will soon be ending but here are a series of Blue Dasher Dragonfly images from a series of different outings. The Featured Image was taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens on a Canon 1D mkIV, @f/8, 1/400 sec.
DewDrops On Double-ringed Pennant @ Blackwater NWR
Posted on July 15, 2022
When we got to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge we went to the nearest Observation Platform to see what was going on and to also get some panorama landscapes as the sun was just rising in the sky. On the Observation Platform I noticed this Double-Ringed Pennant Dragonfly on a grass stem along the Observation Platform that had a heavy coating of Dew Drops. I had to backup quite a bit because I had the 150-600mm lens on my Canon R camera. I shot a few images handheld @ 600mm but it was 5:30 in the morning and there was not much light. So I upped my ISO to 800 and shot a series of images wide open @ f/6.3 & 1/60 sec. Hoping 1 or 2 in the series would be sharp enough to use. It seemed to work out ok and got a few images sharp enough to use.
When You Can Not Get Close To Your Photo Subjects
Posted on March 17, 2022
Many times when I am out walking in a Wildlife Refuge to photograph birds I either cannot get close because they are high up in the trees or there are other things in the way to get close. Or they are flying some what in the distance. So if you are shooting “RAW” camera files such as Canon CR3 Raw files you can use “Enhance” in Photoshop to nicely uprez your images for severe cropping. Or if you want to really Print Large images. Works well for both applications. It also helps to run a noise reducing software after uprezzing. I had made my own Photoshop actions to uprez images but using “Enhance” in Photoshop is easier to use. The Featured Image is severely cropped from my “Enhanced” File. Sometimes I also use Nik Define software to remove some “noise” in the image if I am using a high ISO.
Bombay Hook NWR Cloudscape Panorama
Posted on February 25, 2022
I was cleaning up backup Drives and found this panorama taken years ago at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. The panorama is made with 6 handheld horizontal images taken with a Canon 1D mkIII with a 24-105mm lens @24mm. Images were aligned & blended in Photoshop. I had previously posted a narrower 4 image version of this years ago, but liked this longer version I found and blended to show more of the landscape on the edges. This image was taken by one of the fields near the entrance to the Refuge. Once in the refuge the clouds were great also as we were traveling the Wildlife Drive.
Bald Eagles From Brigantine
Posted on January 18, 2022
We took a trip to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division to see what we could find to photograph. I was not sure of what we would find but it turned out to be a Great Photo visit. I was hoping for large groups of Snow Geese and we definitely found multiple groups of them around the Refuge. Most of the groups of Snow Geese were far out in the various pools, so for those images I shot a series of images for long panoramas of the large groups. One large group of Snow Geese far out in the water, shot with a 600mm lens, was a series of 64 images with a final image size of 507″ long. On the first area we were photographing in I was shooting some landscapes when Kathy pointed out 2 Bald Eagles in a distant tree. So it was going to be a Good Photo Day!
Tricolored Heron With Breeding Plumage On Nest
Posted on November 16, 2021
These images of a Tricolored Heron in Breeding Plumage on the nest were taken a couple of years ago on a photo trip to Florida. These were taken at the Rookery at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. I was using a Tamron 150-600mm lens on a Canon R. This combo worked great for getting images in the Rookery because there were so many photo opportunities, some were far off but many were extremely close, almost too close! I was fortunate to come upon this Tricolored Heron in High Breeding Plumage on a very close nest. It is only in High Breeding plumage for a few days. During the peak of the breeding these herons have the distinctive coloration of red eyes, purplish feathers, pinkish legs and bright blue bill. The Tricolored Heron is also known as the Louisiana Heron. The Featured image was taken @ 600mm & cropped slightly.
Lake Mc_Cormack Panorama
Posted on January 17, 2021
When we were photographing the trees with strong shadows at Plainsboro Preserve for the previous post, I also shot a series of 7 vertical images of Lake McCormack @17mm for a wide panorama. When shooting at wide @ 17mm, I overlap my series of images more than my usual overlapping if using a longer lens.
Audubon Plainsboro Preserve Winter Landscapes With Strong Shadows
Posted on January 13, 2021
We decided to go for a walk at the Audubon Plainsboro Preserve and see what we could find to photograph. The sun was somewhat low but that made long shadows in the landscapes and great starbursts on the lower sun in the sky. I was using one of my lenses that I do not use much – the Canon 17-40 mm lens.
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