Category: Nature

Day 86 – Weeds

Weeds

While new images were made today, the energy and time to upload and process them were lacking. So, while I was very tempted to blow it off for today, I turned to the archives and came up with this image of dying weeds from my last trip to North Mountain Park. This was captured with the Trio 28 on the M100 and I love what it did with the background. It was a little bland so I increased the saturation and vibrance and added a green texture to help it along. I also denoised it in Topaz DeNoise and added a high pass filter and sharpening.

Day 83 – Feather

Feather

This has been one of the slowest paced Road Scholar trips I’ve ever been on. Which is a good thing because it means I have time to go for walks on the beach and post pictures in between lectures and field trips. The weather has improved significantly so I got in a walk this morning before lunch and after our lesson about salmon and albacore tuna. We’re going out for dinner tonight so I wanted to get an image posted before our wine tasting lesson coming up in a half hour. Feathers on the beach are one of my favorite things. I really love what the sweet 50 did with the grains of sand on this shot. In post processing I added clarity, vibrance and a touch of saturation, also a high pass filter to bring out the detail in the feather.

Day 82 – Mushroom

Mushroom

We had a very short walk in the forest this afternoon but I was overwhelmed with the selection of mushrooms available for photographing. Many had flat tops but this one with the pointy top was my fav. I opened the shadows and bumped up the exposure a little. Then added a high pass filter. I may have to go back on Friday with the big girl camera and have more fun with mushrooms.

Day 79 – Chrysanthemum

Mum

Three times today I thought of getting something posted so it would be done. Three times I got distracted by something else. Then I went downstairs to relax and oh, groan, it never got done. Good thing I had this one in my back pocket from the other day when I took the fisheye lens to North Mountain Park. Such a great example of what the fisheye can do when the subject is right and the focus is in the right place. I added a high pass filter and tweaked the exposure and that’s all. Twenty one days never seemed so long. 

Day 78 – Gone to Seed

Seedy

So today was another busy day but I had stuck the M100 with the Trio28 in my briefcase “just in case”. I decided I needed to get a few more steps in and was driving past North Mountain Park so decided I might as well stop and do a camera walk. I was fascinated with these flowers that have gone to seed with the fall colors in the background. Unfortunately I had the camera set at high ISO and forgot to change it so the images came out kind of grainy. So I decided to just throw on a texture that would mask the grain and also bring out the warm autumn colors I was going for. 

Day 77 – Maple Seeds

Seeds

Well, it’s a good thing I took lot’s of pictures yesterday because today was a busy day and now it’s raining.Maybe there will be raindrop pictures in my future. We’ll see. I could wish that this one had just a bit more depth of field for more focus on the right side of the seed couplet but I do love the beautiful blur of the red leaves of the Japanese Maple trees and the subtle bokah. I did add a high pass filter and some sharpening to get as much detail as possible in the seeds. I also added a texture to create a little more interest in the background. Oh, yes, this was shot with the Sweet50 on the M3.

Day 76 – Leaves

1_Leaves

I decided to forego the grower’s market today in favor of a walk in Lithia Park. So glad I did as the Park is pretty close to peak right now. Even the Japanese Garden which has been peaking closer to November 1st lately. Plenty of color there now this year though.  I also decided I have refrained from using the Sweet 50 long enough and it proved to be the right tool for the job where fall color is concerned. My problem was getting things focused where I wanted them. This one turned out pretty well. I did have to bump up the exposure some. I added a high pass filter and added clarity and vibrance. It still didn’t look right to me so I nudged the brightness and contrast and now I’m very happy with it.

Day – 73 Hydrangea

2_Hydrangea

Yeah, I know, another Hydrangea, pretty lame. But it has been a busy day which is going to be followed by a busy week so I HOPE I find some time to get some new images but it is not going to be easy. This one was also taken with the fisheye optic. It left some black corners which I filled in with content aware fill. I also had to reduce the noise and I added one texture to help unify the edits to the corners. But, you get a little better idea of what the fisheye is capable of with this one.

Day 72 – Hydrangea Blossom

1_Hydrangea

I made the mistake of going to Lensbaby’s web site to see if they had any other lenses I should try out. What I found was the Fisheye optic which gives a very wide angle of view and has a half inch minimum focusing distance. I started out in my back yard to see what it could do. I had been shooting inside last night and forgot to reset my ISO so I’m going to pretend I wanted all that graininess for an artistic effect. I had to crop it to an 8×10 because I found the curvature of the fisheye at the top very distracting. I added a lightroom preset and one texture. Not my best work but what I could come up with on short notice today. I’m thinking the fisheye might be fun at the rose garden.