photoartflightEastern Racer Snake Panorama
Posted on December 7, 2019
We were walking back through a local park to go home when we saw this Eastern Racer snake slithering by us. This was a few months ago so I am trying to catch up on some older files I had not gotten to. I was only carrying a m43 Olympus Camera with a 14-140mm lens. So I zoomed out to 14mm to get the whole snake but the Racer seemed very small in the frame with a lot of grass around it. So I changed my strategy and zoomed in and shot a 3 image series @ 140mm to assemble into a panorama to make the Racer Snake more prominent in the final image and still show the whole Racer snake. Then I got closer as it was going by to get a Portrait @ 140mm of the Racer’s head.
Eastern Racer Snake Portrait @ 140mm, m43 Camera
Colorful Sky At Sunset
Posted on November 9, 2019
We were talking a walk in our community as the sun was going down and the sky had a nice colorful glow. I had a m43 camera with me so I was able to get a few shots as we were walking home. The featured image was shot @ 140mm, f/13, ISO 800.
Meeting House at Sundown, m43 OM-D @ 25mm
Tree & Sky, m43 OM-D @ 22mm
Wider View Tree & Sky, m43 OM-D @ 14mm
Fading Sunset m43 OM-D @ 17mm
More Assorted Butterflies
Posted on October 7, 2019
The last of the Butterfly images for this year. They closed their Butterfly exhibit at Davidson’s Mill Pond Park and removed the coverings on their butterfly house, releasing all the butterflies a few weeks ago to migrate. These were the last few we photographed before they moved on. It took me a while to work on posting these but finally got to them.
American Painted Lady Butterfly, 140mm, m43 format
Painted Lady Butterfly, 140mm, m43 format
Monarch Butterfly, 140mm, m43 format
Buckeye Butterfly, 140mm, m43 format
Monarch Butterfly, 140mm, m43 format
Monarch Butterfly, 140mm, m43 format
Monarch Butterfly, 140mm, m43 format
Monarch Butterfly, 140mm m43 format
Monarch Butterfly, 140mm, m43 format
Painted Lady, @ 140mm m43 format
Painted Lady, @ 140mm m43 format
Monarch, @ 140mm m43 format
Monarch, @ 140mm m43 format
Monarch, @ 140mm m43 format
Cabbage White, @ 140mm m43 format
Painted Lady – @ 140mm m43 Format
Bombay Hook NWR Landscapes
Posted on October 3, 2019
Here are a series of landscape & cloudscape images from a recent visit to Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. The featured image was shot @ 14mm along the Wildlife Drive.
Bombay Hook Landscape along Wildlife Drive – Shearness Pool @ 12mm, Canon R
Bombay Hook Landscape along Wildlife Drive @ 158mm, Canon R, Tamron 150-600mm
Bombay Hook Landscape along Wildlife Drive – Shearness Pool @12mm, 2 img pano, Canon R
Bombay Hook Landscape, Shearness Pool along Wildlife Drive @ 14mm, Olympus OM-D
Raymond Pool – Sun Rising Above Trees
Posted on October 2, 2019
A 3 image Panorama of the Sun rising above the Raymond Pool early in the morning at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. Shot with a 14mm lens on a m43 Camera and assembled manually in Photoshop. It seems like panoramas with a wide angle m43 lens are more successful if you manually assemble the panoramas in Photoshop. The auto align seems to go to wild extremes.
Raymond Pool @ 14mm, shooting through an opening by a tree
Beaver Lodges At Davidsons Mill Pond Park
Posted on September 26, 2019
A few weeks ago we were at Davidson’s Mill Pond Park and we saw a lot of Beaver activity by the water areas along the trail through the woods. We were there for a walk so I only had a m43 camera with a 14-140mm zoom, which with it’s small sensor has a field of view sort of equivalent to 28-280mm on a full frame camera. There are a lot of fallen trees so we could see they have been very busy. But as were were looking at what we thought was a Beaver Lodge, a beaver actually ran along a fallen tree and submerged to go inside the Lodge. It was fun to watch, but Beavers are mostly busy at night. It was a distant shot so it was not great, but I still documented it. We went back, but during the day they are usually not active, so I was shooting a series of the 2 Lodges we could see and the surrounding landscape. Around the bend we thought we spotted a few more Lodges but could not get clear shots of them. Another Park we enjoy walking in, Plainsboro Preserve & Audobon Facility, has even more Beaver Activity / Damage. But it is hard to get close to the water, and along the trails you see more trees chewed down. So there is even more Beaver activity there.
3 image Panorama of the 2 Lodges
CloseUp Beaver Lodge #1
Beaver Lodge #1 & 2- 7 image Panorama – Tamron 150-600mm @ 150mm – showing surrounding landscape
Beaver Lodges 1 & 2 – 5 img Panorama, Tamron 150-600mm
Closer View Beaver Lodge #1
Turtles on felled tree by Lodge #1
CloseUp Beaver Lodge #2
Beaver Felled Tree – Amazing how they can take down Large Trees
Beaver “Lodge #1” with Otter in forground – 140mm m43, X-Large crop
Camera setup to photograph Lodges in the distance, iPhone 6
Tree Felled by Beavers – Amazing how many there are and how long it must take. but I guess they do not have anything else to do.
Davidsons Mill Pond Park Panorama
Posted on September 2, 2019
We went to a local park for a walk so I only took a lightweight camera setup, the Olympus OM1-Mk1 with a Panasonic 14-140mm lens. It is the perfect walk around camera when you are not going to photograph something very specific and just want something better than your camera in the iphone. Before we got to the trail through the woods, I saw this view I thought was interesting with the clouds. I shot a 3 image series to combine in Photoshop @ 14mm. It is interesting that when doing a panorama @ 14mm with a m43 format, you have some slight touchups to get a nice panorama. Full frame cameras seem to handle panoramas better. It also seems worse if you do even more over-laping frame sections. So I shoot more frames and then just pick a few to use for the final panorama. But this way I have choices of which frames I can select or turn off to get the best results.
2 image panorama @ 14mm, combined in Photoshop
3 Horizontal Images Stacked Vertically @14mm ea.
2 Horizontal Images @ 14mm
2 Horizontal Images @ 14mm
2 Horizontal Images @ 14mm
Bailey Tract – J.N. Ding Darling NWR
Posted on August 2, 2019
Most people that go to J.N. Ding Darling NWR do not know of, or go to the Bailey Tract in Sanibels’ Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. The tract is on Tarpon Bay Rd., not in the main Refuge and Wildlife Drive. The major feature of the Bailey Tract is a series of impoundments and dikes built years ago to attract waterfowl, including ducks, grebes, coots and moorhens. It still does, but as part of the J.N. “Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge it also creates a perfect place for hikers and bikers to see them. It’s a great place to take a peaceful walk or hike on its 100 acre grounds. We just took a leisurely walk though one afternoon when we were in Sanibel. We did not see a lot of Wildlife, but that was probably because it was in the afternoon when things quiet down. It seems like it is not visited much like the main Refuge. So you can feel quite alone here. It was rare to see another person walking the trails as you walk through. Also there are no staff here. I was traveling light with just an Olympus OM1 with a 14 – 140mm lens. We were just enjoying the beautiful day and a nice walk.
Information Signs along the way to help visitors ID or give information for what they might see.
2 image panorama @ 14mm, m43 format
2 image panorama @ 14mm, m43 format (very slight overlapping of images)
3 horizontal images stacked @14mm – m43 Olympus
Single Image @ 41mm
Bailey Landscape – 2 image panorama @14mm
2 image Panorama @ 14mm
Single Image @ 28mm
Lizard @ 140mm
Small Pond with Alligator Submerged @ 48mm
Same as above 14mm view
Landscape w/ hidden Alligator @ 32mm (2 img pano) – above this plant in the water on left
Another Lizard @ 140mm
Brigantine Cloud Panoramas
Posted on July 26, 2019
I finally had a chance to work on some panoramas I shot last month at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division in Oceanville NJ. The cloud formations on this day were amazing. So I had a lot of choices for working with series panoramas while we were there. Lately I have been using an Olympus m43 Camera with a 14mm – 140mm zoom for landscapes or general info shots and the Canon R with a 400mm DO lens or the Tamron 150-600mm for Wildlife. It is a lot easier to carry a smaller m43 camera with a wide zoom range along with the heavier full frame camera with longer lenses, instead of 2 large camera bodies. The m43 format with a 14-140mm zoom seems a little harder to do multi-image panoramas @14mm but after working with it for quite a while I am getting more usable & predictable panoramas. Sort of a learning curve I guess. Basically I overlap the images more. At 14mm with m43 format it is sort of the equivalent (field of view) of 28mm on a full frame DSLR. All the images here are shot at 14mm but go from 2 to 8 images for each photo panorama. Some were vertical images and some were horizontal images for each image.
2 – 14mm Horizontal images panorama
Panorama- 4 Vertical Images @14mm
Panorama – 3 vertical images stacked @ 14mm
3 horizontal images stacked @14mm
Panorama – 4 horizontal images @14mm
2 horizontal images stacked @ 14mm
2 Horizontal images @14mm Stacked
2 Horizontal images – Atlantic City on left @14mm
2 Horizontal Images Stacked @ 14mm
2 Horizontal Images Stacked – Osprey Platform @ 14mm
2 Horizontal images Stacked @14mm
2 -Horizontal Images @14mm
3 – Horizontal Images Stacked @14mm
2 – 14mm Horizontal Images Stacked
7 – 14mm Images stacked
Two Trees – 3 Images Vertical Stacked
Brigantine Landscape- 3 Horizontal Images Stacked @14mm
Brigantine Landscape w/ Clouds – 2 Horizontal Images @14mm
Brigantine 3 Vertical Images @14mm
Brigantine – 2 Horizontal Images @ 14mm
Brigantine NWR 2 Image panorama
Brigantine NWR – 3 Image panorama @14mm
7 image panorama – 7 – 12mm vertical images combined in Photoshop
2 Vertical Images @14mm
4 Image Panorama – Flying Brant Ducks with Atlantic City Skyline
Posted on February 28, 2019
As I was photographing these Brant Ducks, I also shot a series of the flying birds for a panorama, to see how it might work out. I was surprised it pretty much just worked out fine with no retouching of overlapping Brants. I was using a m43 camera with a Panasonic 14-140mm lens @48mm. I started on the left and just shot a quick series going to the right. I always shoot the pano of flying birds in the direction they are going. Seems to work better that way. The files adjusted in Adobe Camera Raw and the panorama assembled & blended in Photoshop for the final image.
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