Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Site -The Woods

On my trip to Vermont.  I visited the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Site in Vermont.  This site is dedicated to stewardship and the preservation of the natural world.  A full blog about the visit will be forthcoming.
As I was reviewing my photographs from the visit, I was intrigued by one photograph  taken in the woods, showing the road and the woods surrounding it.  However, it was a bland photograph.
I decided to use NIK HDR Pro 2 and process the single photograph as a tone map.  I just purchased The Photographer's Guide to HDR Efex Pro 2.0.  By Jason Odell of Luminescence of Nature Photography.  Part of the package was a number of presets by Jason Odell.  I utilized a black and white grunge preset and just added a touch of saturation, which gave a very light green tint to the vegetation.









The e-book is on sale with a discount until September 2 and can be found at http://www.luminescentphoto.com/blog/2012/08/25/the-complete-guide-to-nik-software-hdr-efex-pro-2-0/
This is an excellent book for helping you get the most out of NIK HDR Efex Pro 2.

Allens Pond Sunrise

As the days get longer, in order to capture the sunrise, we need to wake up earlier, so this morning my grandson and I left before 5 AM in order to be at Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary, prior to sunrise.  I knew was going to be an interesting sunrise, because we had intermittent broken clouds in the sky.
The sky, when we arrived, was different shades of blue and white with a reddish pink color at the horizon line.  The first 2 pictures below are views over the field toward the horizon, and the next was over the marsh and Allens Pond.

View across the field



View across the marsh and pond

 I then made a 3 picture stitched panorama looking over the beach toward the east, where the sun would rise.


Beach and sunrise panorama



I then obtained a series of photographs as the sun rose up over the horizon and went behind  the clouds which showed the different changes in the color and texture of the sky. 

Utilizing a 3 picture bracket,  I processed the pictures in NIK HDR Efex Pro.
If you get up early and watch the sunrise will never know what you will see, because each sunrise is different depending on the weather conditions and the clouds.

Morning Sunrise

There is supposed to be a big storm coming in this evening and night, the only good thing is that supposed to be rain (right now I would prefer snow :)) I went this morning Back to Gooseberry the photograph the sunrise.  The whole sky was beautiful and I created this panorama to try to capture some of the beauty that was in the sky.  Time wise, This was a approximately 20 min. prior to actual sunrise.

As usual, the sky took on various colors and changes as we got closer to and after sunrise.

On Tamron My Photo Exhibits, I created an exhibit showing previous photographs of sunrises on Gooseberry.  The URL is: Http://tamron.myphotoexhibits.com/exhibits/5066-sunrise-project

Surrealistic Snowy Owl

I went back to Duxbury Beach yesterday and met my friend Chris to take him down to see if we could find the snowy owl.  It was an interesting morning, we were out to the end of the road just before Gurnet and we observed a red fox running through the marsh.  The light was very dim and therefore no picture was obtained.  We search with our binoculars.  The usual locations where a snowy owl has been found in the past, but no owl was present.  We traveled back down the road slowly, stopping, observing and even moving over to the beach to see if the snowy owl was anywhere in sight.  We finally located at the end of the marsh and did get some photographs of it.  It then flew carrying what appeared to be a duck out to a distant spit of land.  We traveled back up to the top of the road and slowly made our way back down.  The tide was coming in and when we got down to where the snowy owl was the part of of the marsh where it was sitting was almost on the water and the owl flew onto the land closer to us.  It was hidden partially in the marsh grasses.  After a while it started eating and then hopped way slightly clearer area of the marsh.  The photograph that I took of it hunched over its prey, I decided to make sure listed and here is the result. 
The image was post processed utilizing NIK software (Color EFEX 4, VIVEZA) and Topaz software (LENS EFFECT)

Post Processing with NIK Plug-ins

As I promised earlier, in my last blog, I am going to show some of the changes that you can create a post processing, utilizing NIK Color Efex Pro 4.  The first filter that I am going to use is an adjustment developed by Arthur Morris as described in his blog, http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/2011/12/18/nik-color-efex-pro-4-tip/.  This is using and adjusted Tonal Contrast filter along with the White Neutralizer filter.  As he described in his blog I created a recipe to do without any difficulty and made it easier to repeat the action
Here is the original image without any processing
This is the image After applying The above filter.
After I utilize the above filter, I applied the Detail Extractor filter to the image.
Finally, I went to VIVEZA and put a control point onto the snowy owl, to brighten its image, since the day was very overcast and it was snowing.
the changes that were applied subtle but did make the image better in my opinion..

Plug-ins, including NIK and TOPAZ, to end up making your post processing life easier and your pictures better.  NIK plug-ins work in both Windows and Macintosh and can be utilize In Photoshop, Aperture, and Light Room...

Snow and Snowy Owls

After spending the last day and a half recovering from a small cold, on Sunday, I promised Jan that I would take her to try to view the snowy owl.  We started out in bright sun and needing to where sunglasses as we were driving and approaching down to the coast near Plymouth, the skies became more overcast and there was snow falling.  And Duxbury, it was light snow covering portions of the ground and rolled and on the beach, there was wind and snow blowing.  Driving down the road, keeping our eyes open for the snowy owl, we first came across a pair of gulls fighting at the waters edge.  I stopped the car and got my camera out, however, they stopped fighting, but did interact and lead to a few interesting photographs.


After we started driving and looked backwards the gulls started fighting again.  I did not obtain any photographs of the fight.  We did not locate the owl on our trip down to the beginning of Gurnet.  There we met up with 2 other photographers, one who said he had seen the owl recently near the mud flats and said he would be happy to lead us to where it was.  We followed him down and came to where across the marsh, the owl was sitting with the snow blowing around it.  I wish to thank Mike for his kindness and showing us where the owl was located and furnishing Jan with her first look at a snowy owl.  She was impressed with the size of the owl.  I did obtain a few pictures, again having to hold my tripod and moved lens and camera very steady, because of the blowing wind.  To help me in this endeavor.  I did not extend the tripod up, but kept it low to the ground, just enough so it would be over the marsh grass and I kneeled in the small amount the snow that there was there.

Although, there wasn't a huge amount the snow, it did make for a nice winter scene of the snow on the dunes.
Because the day was so overcast and the light so diffuse, they were really wasn't much contrast in the photographs.  Always photographs were post processed in NIK software, Color Efex Pro 4 and VIVEZA.
In my next blog, I will show some photographs for and after using the NIK software.

Sunrise Portfolio

As previously described in my blog http://photobee1.blogspot.com/2011/10/sunrises-over-buzzards-bay.html I have continued to photograph sunrises over Buzzards Bay on Gooseberry in Westport, Massachusetts.  In order to photograph sunrises, I have to rise up early enough so I can get there at least one hour to 45 min. prior to actual sunrise.  Sometimes the best colors occur prior to sunrise.  You also have to look all around because even behind you at 180° away from most sunrise beautiful colors can occur.  Each day brings a different look to the area.
I have been photographing either in manual or aperture priority at a ISO of 100, and with the f-stop of the lens between f 11 and F 22, in order to get the best depth of field.  To bring out the beautiful colors and the details, I post process, utilizing Photoshop and Lightroom along with the judicious use of NIK software, usually VIVEZA and Color Pro EFEX.  For more information on the NIK software go to http://www.niksoftware.com/index/usa/entry.php.

I am not the only person that comes to view the sunrise

Here is a video of a sunrise.

Bird Behavior, Bathing and Photography

The fun of photographing birds at of the animals is capturing the unusual.  Partly it can be luck, but also it is understanding the behavior of the animal that you are observing and trying to photograph.  I have a large number of images of ducks and gulls swimming and walking, so lately I've been observing them in order to capture of the behavior.  One of the events that I have observed is that when birds bathing and preening, they will usually rise and spread their wings, which gives you different action and behavioral photographs.  The idea is to have patience observe and be prepared for that event.  The other day when I was down at Jenney Pond in Plymouth, Massachusetts, both Mallards and Ring-billed Gulls were preening and bathing, which led to some interesting photographs. 
In order to help people with their photography, I am going to provide some technical information on what equipment I used and what settings and further information on post processing.
I utilized a Nikon D7000, with a Sigma 300 mm f 2 .8 lens along with a Sigma 1.4 tele-converter.  Because the Nikon D7000 has a 1.5 crop sensor, my equivalent focal length was 630 mm.  I used a monopod - Monostat-RS, which I love because of its large swivel toe stabilizer that prevents involuntary movements and yet permits smooth motion, and the horizontal for photographing moving objects.

For this photograph, I wanted a partial blur.  So I had set my f-stop to f 13 and my shutter speed was 1/250 sec.  For all my photographs, I had my ISO set at 400.
For this series of pictures my f-stop was f 7 .1 and the shutter speed ranged between 1/1001/250th of a sec. For more infoation about creating blurs check out A GUIDE TO PLEASING BLURS by Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito at http://deniseippolito.com/prints/


Mallards:

Male Mallard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ring-bill Gulls   

Post processing was done in Lightroom and with NIK software, Viveza 2 and Color Efex Pro 4, which allowed me to control the contrast, saturation and the detail in the pictures.

As I continue to look at the pictures, what I identified as mallards, except for the male Mallard.  O am thinking that the pictures are more of a Black Duck-Mallard hybrid, because of the bill color and that there is a touch of green on the ducks head