Nature – Page 4 – April Siegfried

Cloud Play №5 (Converging)

Sep 212011

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This was a challenging image to process, with respect to color. When I tried to eliminate color casts—using every trick I know—it looked, somehow…wrong. Too, nature doesn’t always conform to our rules of color harmony. 🙂

Now I’ve reset my camera to shoot RAW+JPEG, so I’ll have a color reference. The JPEG preview on my camera display looked accurate in the field but, working solely with the RAW file next day, it was hard to recall from memory.

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Nikon D300; f8 @ 1/180 sec, ISO 720 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 22mm (33mm EFL)

Cloud Play №4 (Breath)

Nature 4 Responses »

Sep 122011

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This is one of those rare images where very little processing was needed. Other than running the file through the DxO raw converter and boosting contrast a bit, I have not modified the light—it is as seen!

Spot clean one distant black streak of a bird, add some high-pass sharpening, and done. I love when that happens. 🙂

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Nikon D300; f8 @ 1/250 sec, ISO 200 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm (27mm EFL)

Quiet

Nature 6 Responses »

Sep 052011

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Standing up above the rest, this white flower caught my eye in the garden of a courtyard building in our neighborhood. The background is a sidewalk, which sits on a small rise above the bed of zinneas in hues of orange, pink and yellow.

The morning was very still and calm, with quiet light, so that’s the word that came to mind as a title for this image.

I’m thrilled to write that I’ll be assisting Marti Jeffers next spring during her workshop in Callaway Gardens and Warm Springs, Georgia, and hope to have the pleasure of meeting more of you in person there!

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Nikon D300; f8 @ 1/180 sec, ISO 360 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 200mm (300mm EFL); focus distance 2.66m

photographed “in the field” in one of the neighborhood courtyard gardens I regularly prowl. The background is a sidewalk, which sits on a small rise above a bed of zinneas. One flower in particular caught my eye…

Cloud Play №3

Nature 5 Responses »

Aug 102011

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Note the focal length of this image, cropped only from 3:2 to 4:3. The cloud formation was huge.

See the little tiny speck near the lower edge, toward the right? That is a bird. 🙂 There’s enough resolution in the original file to actually discern its shape.

Cloud Play №1 was photographed in the parking lot of a Walgreen’s drugstore, and Cloud Play №2 in the parking lot of a local shopping mall. This was photographed just before 6AM at an intersection one block from my house. Even living in a city, I’m discovering there are pockets of space in which to enjoy such glorious skies!

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Nikon D300; f8 @ 1/180 sec, ISO 1250 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 48mm (72mm EFL); focus distance 21.13m

A Pond in Summer

Nature 2 Responses »

Jul 202011

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Another photograph taken during the recent Miksang workshop in Boulder. As we endure 96F heat and high humidity in Chicago, this image struck me as especially inviting to process. 😉

The white flecks were puffs of cottonwood seed floating on the pond’s surface, but remind me of falling snow or cherry blossoms.

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Nikon D300; f11 @ 1/180 sec, ISO 720 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 200mm (300mm EFL); focus distance 2.24m

Pussy Willow

Nature 5 Responses »

May 052011

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Backlit, this pussy willow caught my eye while I was running errands the other day. Sunlight glinting off needles and leftover Christmas lights on a hedge in the background created the bokeh with spots of color.

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Nikon D300; f8 @ 1/250 sec, ISO 200 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 200mm (300mm EFL); focus distance .71m

Urban Spring

Nature, Walks 2 Responses »

Apr 302011

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Photographed on a rainy day with an umbrella in one hand and camera in the other, stabilization is great on the little Lumix!

However, with a wide-open aperture and relatively high ISO, details aren’t as sharp as I’d like. I went back to the same location this morning with the Nikon under overcast skies, but color was nothing like that first day. I’ll have to try again when it’s drizzling, using a rain sleeve to protect the camera—hopefully before the tree leafs out much more.

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Panasonic DMC-FZ40; f3.4 @ 1/15 sec, ISO 400 (handheld);
Focal length: 17.5mm (97mm EFL)

Cloud Play №1

Nature 4 Responses »

Apr 162011

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Photographed last November, this one sat in the archives because I didn’t have the skills to process. As you can see in the original capture, contrast was low and detail soft:

In the tutorials of Tony Kuyper Photography, I discovered two procedures which helped make the image pop:

1. Curves>Auto>(Options) Enhance Monochromatic Contrast adjustment. Try this early in the editing process, and adjust clipping of black and white points to taste.

2. High Pass sharpening with a large radius. The starting point was 25px, but I bumped it up to 40px. I actually learned this several years ago from Mark Johnson, who used it in his Botanical Dreaming series to bring out detail in soft focus images. However, I didn’t really understand how it works until Tony applied it to clouds—which turn out to be a perfect subject for this approach.

I’m grateful to photographers who share their process with all of us!

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Panasonic DMC-FZ40; f8 @ 1/80sec, ISO 80 (handheld);
Focal length: 8.1mm (47mm EFL)

First Snow—Montrose Harbor, Chicago (revisited)

Nature 5 Responses »

Dec 092010

Version 2
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Version 1
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Nikon D300; f4.0 @ 1/125sec, ISO 1100 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 27mm (40mm EFL); subject distance 10.59m

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The other day…I learned something about not over-processing an image.

Version 2 above is much closer to the original capture, and to what drew me to make the photograph that morning—in the dark and cold, with wind blowing snow into the lens.

At least I have knowledge about how to expand dynamic range, heighten contrast, and change brightness that I can now throw out the window. 😉

First Snow

Nature 4 Responses »

Dec 062010

First Snow—Montrose Harbor, Chicago
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Nikon D300; f4.0 @ 1/125sec, ISO 1100 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 27mm (40mm EFL); subject distance 10.59m

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First Snow—Montrose Point, Chicago
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Nikon D300; f5.6 @ 1/180sec, ISO 200 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 26mm (39mm EFL); subject distance 5.96m

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Just the other day, we had our first snowfall of the season and it was a delight to explore.

These trees were photographed in one of my favorite locations on Lake Michigan, the first at sunrise off the harbor and the second about an hour later in a nature sanctuary nearby.

Driving in the dark on roads not yet plowed with snow still falling was…surprisingly peaceful! Few were in such a hurry as to risk wasting time with an accident report, and the neighborhoods decorated with Christmas lights were so pretty to view along the way.

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