It's My Nature » close-up

Coneflower Meets Macro

Ed — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:48:16 +0000

The ebb and flow of our photographic lives always seems to have us moving from subject to subject, from technique to technique, from favorite lens to favorite lens as time moves incessantly forward. The past couple of years (prior to this one) I tended to do a lot more macro and flower photography. This year not so much as my attention has turned more to landscapes and sunrises and such.

I found myself at home today, not really feeling well but getting bored of sleeping the day away. So I one point I grabbed my Canon 30D, put on a Sigma 70 mm macro lens and ventured out into the backyard for a little while. Nothing fancy. No tripod. Just the camera, the backyard and me. In the back corner (of a small backyard) behind the (very small) made-made pond, in amongst the native shrubs and wildflowers was a small stand of purple coneflowers that looked like they could be fun to work with.

So I did. All images were shot handheld at f/2.8. I shot wide open because I was really looking to create some soft images with very soft backgrounds. For the third image, I purposefully took the entire image out-of-focus in-camera in order to create an entirely soft image. Images of that type aren’t to everyone’s liking but hey, I like it and that’s what counts!

“Coneflower #1″

“Coneflower #2″

“Coneflower #3 – Perchance to Dream”

Shooting Soft with the Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Ed — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:15:21 +0000

I’m sure many of you visiting my website and blog are already familiar with the Lensbaby lenses and their interchangeable optic system and accessories packages.Likewise I am also sure that there are some of you who are not familiar with the lens. For those of you who aren’t, the Lensbaby is a selective focus lens with a focal length of 50mm. In it’s most basic form, the selective focus sweet spot can be moved around the focal plane by simply “bending” the lens. Yes, the lens actual can be bent to the left, to the right, up, down and anywhere in between. It really gives the photographer an opportunity to play around, be creative and try some new things. Yes, it is fun to play with the Lensbaby but it is not a toy. Interchangeable optics include double glass (the highest quality), single glass, plastic (think Holga toy camera), fisheye, soft focus, wide angle and I know I have missed a few. Accessories include, among other things, a set of macro lenses that can be added to other Lensbaby optics except for the fisheye. For more information on the Lensbaby, visit their website at www.lensbaby.com.

There is so much you can do with the Lensbaby. I happen to use the Lensbaby Composer with the double glass optic quite often. Sometimes I like to add a macro lens to it. And I really love the vignetting one gets with the fisheye optic particularly when used with a full frame camera like my Canon 5D Mark II. But of all the optional optics, I have found the soft focus optic the most difficult for me to come to terms with. I will use it and then end up doing things, almost unconsciously, in processing to try to bring the sharpness back into the image instead of just going with the flow and basking in the softness. So I often tend to shy away from using the soft focus optic. But every so often, I force myself to leave everything else behind and use it. That’s what I did this past weekend.

MY local club, the Lehigh Valley Photography Club, held a group photo shoot at Jacobsburg State Park (PA). I had just done some straight macro shooting in the meadows there the week before so I decided the time was right to go out there with just my Canon 50D and the Lensbaby Composer w/ Soft Focus optic.

Here are a couple of images, soft as they should be, from this past Saturday’s shoot.

“Daylily”

“Meadow of Yellow”

Morning at Jacobsburg

Ed — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:54:37 +0000

It struck me that it has been a while since I had visited one of my favorite local wildflower locations – the meadows at Jacobsburg State Park in Northampton County, PA. And even worse, it had been a long time since I got out and actually worked some wildflowers anywhere. So I decided to rectify that situation yesterday morning. Barb and I headed out to Jacobsburg, she to search for the elusive Yellow-breasted Chat and me to find some wildflowers to shoot. As I guess it should be on Father’s Day, I found the flowers but, alas, she came up empty on the Chat.

Anyway, here is a sampling of images from meadows at Jacobsburg. Hope you enjoy them.

Wild Blue Flax

Yellow Goatsbeard

Bumblebee on Thistle

Leatherwing Beetle on Daisies

An Inside Look into the Life of a Nature Photographer: The Weekend in Review – Day 1, Saturday

Ed — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:46:09 +0000

I was contemplating what, from this weekend, I wanted to add to my blog. After thinking about it a while, I concluded why not take you through the entire weekend. So let’s start at the beginning, Saturday morning.

Saturday more was a “late” start for us. We were up at 0530 and out of the house at 0630 headed for Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve. If you love wildflowers (and I do), Bowman’s Hill, just south of New Hope, PA is wonderful place to be. And this time of year, it is doubly good because they also have early morning bird walks on Saturday mornings. So my wife heads out on the guided bird walk (she has seen life birds her last two walks) and I wander about looking for wildflowers that just somehow speak to me. It funny (and a bit painful) but I always lug around my entire backpack arsenal of camera bodies, lenses, filters, teleconverters, extension tubes, etc. etc. And I always seem to use just a single camera body (this time the 50D), a single lens (my Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro because to me wildflowers tend to beg for close-ups) and, of course, my tripod. And so it was on this day. As I said, I tend to look around for those special flowers as opposed to opening fire and shooting everything in sight. The entire morning, I only photographed five flowers. This Virginia Spiderwort image is an example of what I came away with on Saturday morning.

We stopped for breakfast/lunch at a favorite little roadside cafe and were home for the afternoon during which I processed images from the morning shoot. After dinner, we decided to head out for a ride. Barb always takes her binoculars and I have to take along at least a camera and lens. And that’s what I did. After dragging along the 30+ pounds of camera gear in the morning, I went out with just the 50D and 24-70 2.8L lens. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Heck, I didn’t even know where we were going at this point. And the 24-70 is my basic walkabout lens. We ended up at a small county park along the Delaware River just south of Easton, PA called Wy-Hit-Tuk (don’t ask; I have no idea what it means). We walked through the park and along the Delaware Canal towpath where I came across these stands of bright yellow flowers. I’m not even sure what they are but as soon as I saw them I knew I had to create an impressionistic abstract of them. The key to making any type of blur abstract is to lengthen the shutter speed so that you have time to move the camera. Sometimes that movement is a vertical pan, sometimes it is a horizontal swipe and sometimes it is just a slight little bounce or jiggle that creates the blur. I dropped the ISO to 100 because that will lengthen the shutter speed. I happened to be in AV mode so I stopped down to around f/18 which in combination with the ISO 100 gave me a shutter speed of 0.8 seconds and I was ready to shoot. (Note, it just just as easy, probably easier, to switch to TV mode and set the exposure of 0.8 sec and let the camera select aperture.) Then I started to shoot – handholding the camera and introducing slight little movements to get the effect I wanted. What effect? A Monet-like photo-impressionistic effect.

Upon returning home, I surveyed the images made (maybe a dozen), selected the few that I liked and processed them. And thus ended Saturday, Day 1 of the three-day Memorial Day weekend. Stay tuned for Day 2 (Delaware Water Gap) and Day 3 (Back to Nockamixon) coming to you tomorrow and Wednesday.

Wildflowers – Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve

Ed — Sun, 09 May 2010 14:24:37 +0000

Barb and I headed to Bowman’s Hill yesterday morning – she to go on a bird walk, I to photograph some wildflowers and both of us to buy some flowers at their annual native plant sale. By all accounted the morning was a success even though (if you live around these parts, you know this all too well) a cold front passed through between 0900 and 1000 with storms and particularly very high winds that continued through the remainder of the day and continue as I write this morning.

Anyway, we bought flowering plants to fill in one area of the backyard that we are working on this year (this conversion of the backyard habitat to all native plants has been going on slowly for the past several years), Barb saw two life birds for her and I got in a couple of flower portraits before the rains and winds came. Here are a couple of examples of the flower portraits.

“Columbine”

“Yellow Lady’s Slipper”

Hope you enjoy the images. And have a wonderful day!

Longwood Gardens Hibiscus

Ed — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:45:19 +0000

I spent most of the day Monday photographing with an out-of-state, online friend inside the conservatory (it was pouring outside) at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. Having been there several times already this year, I decided to challenge myself by only bringing a single lens – the Lensbaby. (I hear some groans out there. :-) ) I did provide myself with some leeway by including the Lensbaby Macro Kit, Soft Focus Optic and Fisheye Optic. So I did have some choices to make. I am pleased to say that I used all three and by the time the day was done, I felt much more comfortable with the Lensbaby. As I said elsewhere, I felt I had become one with the lens.

The Hibiscus images below were made using my Canon 5D Mark II and the Lensbaby Composer with the Soft Focus Optic and the +4 Macro filter/lens. Hope you enjoy them.

The first is a beautiful red/purple Hibiscus but I forgot to jot down the name.

I call this second image “The Age of Aquarius” since the Hibiscus is named Fifth Dimension.

Himalayan Blue Poppies

Ed — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:21:47 +0000

(0.8 sec @ f/16; ISO 100; 0 EV)

(1/3 sec @ f/22; ISO 400; +1/3 EV)

(0.6 sec @ f/22; ISO 400; +1/3 EV)

(0.8 sec @ f/16; ISO 200; +2/3 EV)

Took a day off yesterday to visit Longwood Gardens (Kennett Square, PA) and see the elusive Himalayan Blue Poppies. These absolutely gorgeous flowers apparently grow in the wild in only three places in the world – the Himalayas, Scotland and Alaska. Longwood Garden has been forcing these Blue Poppies for the past several years. Being fairly delicate and sensitive plants, the blooming period is very brief. Typically, the flowers can be seen for about a two week period in early to mid-March.

There weren’t many specimens in the conservatory – two very large pots as part of one of the indoor “outdoor garden” displays and a few plants isolated in one of the flower beds. Still it was well worth the trip and the time spent photographing them.

All images were made with my Canon 5D Mark II and a Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro lens; tripod-mounted.

Hope you enjoy the images as much as I enjoyed making them.

“… I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Ed — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:28:11 +0000

(1/40 sec @ f/7.1; ISO 800; +2/3 EV; AWB; FL 66mm)

… my new Canon 5D Mark II and me.

The new camera arrived yesterday (purchased from Adorama – see affiliate ad on left).

I won’t bore you with the details but it was a long and winding road that brought me to this point. But as they say, all’s well that end’s well and I am very happy with how this has ended.

As we are all wont to do, I wanted to check the new camera out. So I pulled down a flower and started to snap away just to check that everything works as it should.

I made this image under bare bones conditions using the new Canon 5D Mark II; 24-70mm f/2.8L w/ 500D close-up lens; handheld. Lighting was just overhead indoor lights.

Image was processed with Nik filters.

Longwood Gardens – Macro Photography – “Take Me to Your Leader!”

Ed — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:32:16 +0000

I think I will end this series of images made during our recent trip to Longwood Gardens (PA) with one that continues to bring a smile to my face every time I look at it. Yes, the kids did appear. And yes, they had mom and dad in tow. It was time to break out the macro lens and really work in close. So I put my Sigma 70mm macro lens w/ a 12mm extension tube on the Canon 50D and went to work getting up-close and personal with the orchids.

What can I say? Had I not brought along the macro lens, I very probably would have missed this “Close Encounter of the Orchid Kind”. There standing in the heart of this beautiful orchid was a tiny little alien screaming “Take Me to Your Leader!”

Longwood Gardens – Lensbaby Soft Focus – Orchids

Ed — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:45:56 +0000

Not a whole lot to say here. Most of the morning, I carried two cameras ready to go. One was the 50D with the 24-70 and the other was the 30D with the Lensbaby. I added the soft focus optic for this image. Processing was done with Nik filters – Viveza 2 to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation and structure; Glamour Glow filter in Color Efex Pro; and then, at the last second, I decide to add a bit of sharpening with Sharpener Pro. The sharpening added more detail to the petals while leaving the halos characteristic of the soft focus optic intact. I kinda liked the result.