photoartflightBRIGANTINE IPHONE MULTI-IMAGE PANORAMAS
Posted on January 8, 2021
On our recent trip to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ, I was traveling light. Mainly using a Tamron 150-600mm lens on a 1D mkIV, a 12-24mm zoom on a Canon R and my iPhone 11 Pro for multi-image landscapes & multi-image panoramas. The Canon R with the 12-24mm never made it out of the camera bag. I was having more fun shooting multi-image Panoramas on my iPhone 11 Pro. The featured image is 13 images shot in multiple images per row & then multiple rows with the iPhone 11 Pro & the 1.5mm lens.
Community Meeting House Fall Panoramas
Posted on November 20, 2020
As I was walking around our condo community, I liked the Fall colors and clouds around our community Meeting House. This building is used for community meetings, concerts, church services and a few other gatherings. Because of Covid-19 it has been closed for quite a while, but it is still fun to photograph especially with some of the Fall Colors and bright blue sky. The Featured Image is a 2 vertical image panorama taken with an iPhone 11 Pro using the 4.3mm lens (Full Frame Camera Field of View is 26mm).
FALL TREES & SHADOWS IN THOMPSON PARK
Posted on November 11, 2020
We went for a walk at a local park in our town to see what we could find to photograph. We usually do not go there because it is a very crowded, but large park with 675 acres. The Park also has lots of sports fields, basketball courts, etc. The park features Manalapan Lake, a 30 acre lake periodically stocked with fish by the State Division of Fish and Wildlife. The Lake is not photogenic because of Buildings & Businesses across the Lake in the background. But some of the wooded areas were interesting with what was left of the Fall Colors in the trees. Plus it was a nice sunny day with blue skies behind the trees. I was traveling light and was just using my iPhone 11 Pro. When shooting panoramas with the iPhone, I do not use the panorama feature built in the iPhone because of the very small lenses in the iPhone – 1.5mm, 4..3mm & 6mm lenses (Plus Digital Zoom feature up to 10X). Using the Panorama feature tends to distort the ends of the panorama and give a “bulging effect ” in the middle of the image. Even with the wide 1.5mm lens (Full Frame Equivalent is ~13mm) I tend to like a wider view. Shooting multiple single images and combining them in Photoshop minimizes this “Bowing” effect and I can get any length image I want. The Featured Image was a 3 image panorama shot using the 1.5mm lens (Full Frame Field of View Equivalent ~13mm). The images for each Multi-Image were loaded into layers in 1 Photoshop file. Then I used Auto-Align to align the images. Then used Auto-Blend to blend the multi-images for the final image.
(13mm Full Frame Field Of View Equivalent)
Mc Cormack Lake Multi-Image iPhone Panoramas
Posted on October 27, 2020
On our recent walk at Plainsboro Preserve, we took a different trail that took us to the farthest viewing point of McCormack Lake. We had never been at this spot in the woods before. There were many trees in the way, but I liked the view looking through the trees seeing the distant shoreline with the trees & clouds across the Lake. I was using a Canon R with a 12-24mm lens, but for this post I am only using the images I shot with my iPhone 11. Most of these iPhone images are multi-image shots to get wider views or a little taller views to get more foreground & more of the clouds. The featured image is 4- iPhone 11 Pro images with the 1.5mm lens to get more width and more sky & foreground. On a Full Frame camera this would be approximately equivalent to a 13mm lens field of view.
Fog Landscapes At Davidsons Mill Pond Park
Posted on October 23, 2020
Yesterday we woke up to very foggy weather, so we decided to go out and see what interesting images we could find in the fog. One of our destinations was Davidsons Mill Pond Park. I was only using my iPhone 11 Pro using the 16×9 format with the various built-in lenses. This format does not make the images longer, but crops the narrower dimension so it looks more like a panorama. The featured image is 5- 16×9 format images with the iPhone 1.5mm lens (Full Frame equivalent ~13mm) assembled in Photoshop.
White Crab Spider In Garden
Posted on August 31, 2020
I was looking in our gardens for praying mantis photo subjects since our gardens & flowers are beginning to look a little worn now. We seem to have a large amount of mantises this year in a variety of colors and sizes. But as I was searching I noticed this White Crab Spider on the center of this flower. I was using an iPhone 11 Pro using the 16×9 image format with the Camera +2 app. The Camera +2 app seems to work better for getting closeup shots of subjects instead of using the standard Apple Camera app. It seems I can even get a little closer with this app. It also has a series of other shooting option selections. My favorite is the macro option in their series of options. When using the iPhone, I usually set it for the 16×9 format for taking images, plus it gives you more cropping choices while working on your files. I also set Photoshop to open the jpeg images in Adobe Camera Raw to pull more detail from the iPhone files, which works quite well. I was not impressed with the HEIC Raw file option. Did not really see much difference in jpeg vs HEIC raw files, they just took up more space on the iPhone. It also enables you to fine tune the iPhone files and add sharpening, noise smoothing, etc. before you open them in Photoshop rather than trying to do this after the file is opened.
Camera + 2 App screen (options)
Night Photos with iPhone 11Pro
Posted on June 5, 2020
We were taking an evening walk in our community to get a few more steps in before settling in for the evening. It was a pleasant evening and the sidewalks were well lit. As we were going by the Meeting House, I decided to try a few night images with my iPhone 11Pro. It is supposed to be pretty good in low light, but have not really tried it at night. Here it was actually dark and I was surprised how good the images were straight out of the iPhone. It seemed to automatically somewhat balance nicely the highlights & darkness. Especially since there was a wide mix of darkness, spotlights and ambient lights along the sidewalk. I have tried shooting Raw files on the iPhone 11 Pro, but did not see that much difference so I just shoot jpegs with it. But I do have my Photoshop setup to open jpegs as raw files so I can pull even more detail and have more adjustments from the jpeg file before I actually open them in Photoshop. I have not seen a significant difference on the jpeg files in image quality doing this and have printed these kind of files quite large. It goes against my normal work flow of shooting Raw files on all my other cameras. I was using the iPhone 11 Pro’s 4.3mm lens (Full Frame FOV equivalent ~26mm). The featured image is also 2 vertical 16×9 images blended, side by side to get a little bit wider view. When I am photographing with the iPhone I usually always use the 16×9 format. The image below is basically from the same spot but I just turned around from photographing the featured image. I was pleasantly surprised at the images because the exposures were 1/30 sec. on the Meeting House and 1/8 sec. for the image below. The exposure actually seemed much much longer and you could see some blurry movement during the beginning of capture on the phone’s screen. But I guess the phone was doing a lot of processing & adjusting of the image as it was saving the final file.
180 degree Opposite View from where I was standing
Garter Snake Shed Skin
Posted on June 3, 2020
As we were taking a walk in our community I noticed a shed snake skin in the grass near the sidewalk. The featured image is a closeup side view of the head area. Images were taken with my iPhone 11 Pro with the 6mm lens, 4:3 image format, (Full Frame Field of View equivalent 52mm). I never have seen a shed snake skin before in person, only in photos. It almost has the look of a 3D computer modeling display!
Full view of shed skin – iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm lens, 16×9 format
Closer image of Head Area & Some Body, 6mm lens, 16×9 format (with slight crop of image)
Closeup Head & Eye Area of shed Garter Snake Skin. iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm lens, 16×9 format, cropped slightly.
Another Closeup Head & Eye Area of shed Garter Snake Skin. iPhone 11 Pro, 6mm lens, 16×9 format, cropped slightly.
As garter snakes grow, they must shed their skin. Unlike other creatures like humans, a snake’s skin does not grow along its body. Its scales are made of keratin, which is the same protein found in our fingernails. When garter snakes slither along the ground, their scales scrape on rocks, dirt and other debris. This movement is important to help snakes shed their skins. Snake skin usually sheds off in one continuous piece, starting around the lips and ending at the tail.
The young garter snake grow rapidly as they feed on prey items such as insects, amphibians and earthworms. As they grow, they have to shed their skin approximately every four to five weeks. As they mature and grow into full-sized adults between 2 and 4 years old, the amount of shedding declines since they are not growing as rapidly. Mature garter snakes shed a few times each year, due to wear and tear on their scales. In a healthy garter snake, the entire shedding process takes a little longer than one week.
Shedding Skin –
The initial shedding process involves the garter snake secreting a milky fluid that helps separate the new skin from the old skin. A garter snake hides and won’t eat since he is blind when he sheds. When ready, a garter snake rubs his mouth on the ground to help push up the older skin. He then slowly makes his way out of his old skin by slithering along the ground, encouraging the skin the retract inside-out as it comes off in one piece.
Garter snake that was by the shed skin, photographed the next day. It seemed like we interrupted the Garter Snake eating it’s shed skin.
Eastern Garter Snake In Garden
Posted on May 15, 2020
We had started to put a few plants in our gardens yesterday so we went out to take a look today. We were surprised to see an Eastern Garter snake stretched out along the edge of one of the garden beds. The featured head image was shot with an iPhone 11 Pro, standard 4:3 format, 6mm lens (Full Frame Camera Field of View equivalent focal length = 51mm). I then switched to the 16×9 image format with the 4.3 lens (Full Frame Camera field of view equivalent ~26mm) to get an image of the whole snake along the edge of the garden bed. All focal length info listed above are from notations from the equivalents listed when opening the images in Adobe Bridge & Camera Raw info. It is nice to have such a versatile camera in a phone you usually always have with you. Between the 3 different lenses and different image formats it comes in handy for those unexpected image opportunities! Is it as good as a “Real” Camera? No, but if you are careful and use Adobe Camera Raw carefully, it does an amazing job! The more you use it the better the results. Especially for multiple image & multiple rows for landscapes!
You Never Know What You Will Find In Your Yard
Posted on April 26, 2020
I was surprised to see these bones under a tree in the corner of my yard. There is a wooded area on the other side of my sidewalk where we used to see a lot of turkeys, deer & foxes. But it is chain linked fenced from the larger woods beyond. The featured image is also a 2 image iPhone panorama.
2 image panorama, assembled in Photoshop, iPhone 11 Pro
