photoartflightFlying Brant Ducks with Atlantic City Skyline
Posted on February 26, 2019
As I was photographing clouds along the Wildlife Drive at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division, this group of Brant Ducks took off. I thought it looked interesting as they flew over this little jetty of land in the water’s edge. Then they banked and flew farther to the right and over the Atlantic City Skyline you could see in the distance. The sky was constantly changing depending on which direction you were looking at. The cloud cover went from heavily overcast and ominous looking to blue sky with nice feathery clouds. But it did make for a wide variety of cloudscapes in one outing.
Olympus OMD-1, 14-140mm lens @ 48mm
Brigantine Early Morning Landscape
Posted on February 19, 2019
We went to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division to see what we could find to photograph. In the early morning the clouds were amazing and made for interesting photo opportunities. It started out with darker looking somber clouds then brightened up as the morning went on. The featured image was shot @ 12mm on a Canon Camera. The series of clouds over the Wildlife Drive below were shot with a m43 format camera @14mm. When doing panoramas with wide angle lenses on a m43 format camera you need to overlap your images for the panorama a lot more. It is better to have more to choose from than not have enough. It seems if you have too few frames you tend to get some strange distortions (at least using Photoshop to assemble) in the blending of the images.
12mm Clouds & Sun image along Wildlife Drive with Atlantic City on the horizon in the distance.
9 image (Horizontal) panorama, 14mm, (28mm Full Frame FOV) m43 Olympus
6 vertical image panorama, @14mm m43 Olympus
2 image panorama, 14mm m43 Olympus
7 vertical image horizontal panorama, 14mm, m43 Olympus
Multi-image panorama with dark clouds earlier in the am, 14mm, m43 Olympus
Clouds over Wildlife Drive, Single image, 14mm m43 Olympus
Early Morning Landscapes Along BWR Wildlife Drive
Posted on February 13, 2019
Here is a series of early morning landscapes from the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge along the Wildlife Drive. The clouds this day were amazing in a dark kind of way. Blackwater NWR is one of my favorite places to photograph. It is great for birds & Wildlife, but also fun for landscapes! On this morning the clouds and sky were amazing. These were all shot with an Olympus m43 Camera with a 14-140mm lens at 14mm (full frame FOV equivalent 28mm). Some are 2 image panoramas to add height or length to the image.
2 image panorama to include more height for showing clouds @ 14mm
Early Morning Landscape from Wildlife Drive @ 14mm
Early Morning Landscape Concentrating On Clouds @ 14mm
2 Horizonal images (Panorama) to Add Vertical Height for Showing More Clouds – 14mm
Another Panorama with 2 Horizontal Images @14mm to Add Height for Showing Clouds. (Eagle flying in top left corner)
Last Image in my Early Morning Clouds Series showing the clorful clouds we saw on this session along the Blackwater Wildlife Drive. 14mm
Blackwater Sunset Multi-image Panorama
Posted on January 10, 2019
I am still going through all the images I shot at Blackwater NWR. The featured image is another sunset panorama from our trip. This is a 3 image panorama shot @ 14mm with an Olympus m43 Camera (FOV 28mm full frame format equivalent). The panorama was blended in Photoshop.
BWR Sunset @ 14mm m43 format (single image)
More Blackwater NWR Landscapes and Panoramas
Posted on January 5, 2019
Some more panoramas & landscapes from our visit to Blackwater NWR. Featured image is a 3 image panorama, shot @ 48mm with a m43 Olympus and a 14-140mm lens. Assembled in Photoshop. Below are more assorted landscapes and panoramas from along the Wildlife Drive as the sun was setting.
Sunset setting @24mm Olympus OMD mk-1
Sun Setting along Wildlife Drive @14mm Olympus OMD mk-1
BWR Sunset Along Wildlife Drive @32mm. Eagles roosting on first tall snag and forth tall snag. The nest is in a tree further down to the right. Olympus OMD mk-1
BWR 3 img panorama before sunset @ 14mm, m43 Olympus OMD mk-1
BWR Sunset @ 14mm m43, Olympus OMD mk-1
BWR Sunset 14mm, 2 img stacked pano, @14mm, Olympus OMD mk-1
High Flight Of Snow Geese At Blackwater NWR
Posted on January 2, 2019
We went for 2 days to photograph at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland. Early in the morning, along the Wildlife Drive on the second day we saw a huge flock of Snow Geese flying out under a heavy cloud cover. They were quite high and took a few minutes for the waves of them to pass by. Probably 500 to 700 (or more) passed by in multiple waves.
14-140mm lens @ 14mm with Olympus OMD Mk1
Distant Landscape In Setting Sunlight
Posted on December 24, 2018
When we were walking out of Longwood Gardens after photographing Christmas displays, I noticed in the distance, the setting sun casting interesting sun rays in the clouds on some homes. I liked the “warm” light and the opening in the clouds for the sun to cast the rays. Because my subject was quite distant, I shot at 95mm with my 14-140mm m43 lens for 2 images to combine in a panorama. If I just zoomed out I would have too much dark clouds above and too much foreground below so it would have lost some of the highlighted sun rays impact on the image. Using Adobe Camera Raw enabled me to pull even more detail and tones from the raw digital file.
Christmas Lights At Longwood Gardens
Posted on December 23, 2018
We went to Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square, PA, for their annual Christmas light displays. These are just a few of the outdoor displays at night. There are also many other displays throughout the Conservatory and other buildings. One of the other very interesting displays was a room full of decorations with amazing ornaments made from books and other paper pages. They must have been cut/fabricated maybe by laser cutting. But it was amazing to see the intricate cutting & fabrication. I will post some of them next. Most of the images I shot with an Olympus OMD-1 mk I with a 14-140mm Panasonic lens (with the lens stabilization turned off). I was also using a Canon body with a 12-24mm lens, but was relying more on the OMD for in-body stabilization. Much lighter to carry and with the stabilized body worked well for the images in early evening. I found the Olympus in-body stabilization worked better than the Panasonic lens stabilization. Plus if you stop down to f/22 you can get some really cool motion blurs or spins with the Olympus OM-D. I saw a few tripods being used, but you usually have to get a free permit for them and cannot use tripods after 2:00. Plus it was so crowded it would have been in the way, so they probably would not allow it for this time.
The featured image above was at 22mm with the 4/3 Olympus OM-D mkI.
We had to get there early, before 2:00 in the afternoon, otherwise, even being members, you had to have a timed entrance because of the huge crowds that come to see the night displays. Also getting there later you have to park off site and take shuttles to the facility. But there is plenty to see before the evening lights up! It takes hours to go through the Conservatory, which is all decorated for Christmas, and you still probably will not see everything.
Late afternoon along the walkways, getting ready for the full impact of the lights at night.
Fountains set to music – when darker they would have colorful lights
Along the path to other fountains & displays starting to get dark.
3 image panorama @14mm- assembled in Photoshop
Birdhouse Display early evening before dark, 18mm, f/10 @ 1/5 sec
Bird house display in the dark, f/ 5.6 @ 0.3 sec
3 image panorama – 14mm. Also these were cascading lights, so in a way it is also an Image Stack that included the cascading lights as they “fell”. 14mm, 1/3rd of a second each exposure, handheld. Pano & stacked in Photoshop. f/8 @ 1/8 sec, handheld
2 image vertical panorama & stack. Panorama to show reflections in water and stack to include more of the cascading lights.
Single image, m43 15mm, 1/8 Sec to show green lights before changing to another color, handheld.
Christmas Tree Changing Color of Lights, 1/13th sec, handheld, m43 @ 32mm
Tree with Lights and Color Spotlights on Tree Trunk. f/ 4.5 @ 12mm Canon, 1/30th sec
Another Tree with Lights, 12mm Canon, f/ 4.5 @ 1/13 sec. handheld
3 image Panorama, 24mm Canon, f/ 5.6 @ 1/8 sec. handheld
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