I had never heard of Ravine Gardens State Park until Lynn mentioned it to me after reading about it in our Florida guidebook in the St. Augustine section.  The ~185 acre park is in Palatka, about 35 miles south west of St. Augustine and about 90 miles north east of the Orlando area.

This is a steephead ravine formed by ground water leaking through porous sand onto a sloping surface.  The sand is eroded from the bottom causing sand above to collapse and be carved away by the stream.  It’s from 70 to 120 foot deep.

It became a state park in 1933 when the Works Progress Administration began construction and also landscaped it with 95,000 azaleas including 64 varieties.  They also planted 11,000 palm trees and more than 250,000 ornamental plants.  There’s a multi-tiered rose garden with a fountain at its center.  You can drive a 1.8 mile loop around the ravine and hiking paths and jogging trails also wind throughout the park, including one over a suspension bridge across the ravine.

Lily pond and suspension bridge

There’s also a playground or two and picnic tables if you want to eat lunch there.

Info for Photographers

Photo hints:  The azaleas are a main attraction at this park.  There’s other things to see too, including the abandoned water plant, the suspension bridge, and ponds.  For photography, of course, early or late in the day would be the best time to get there.  If you try to photograph during midday, you’ll be bothered by harsh sunlight and high contrast with the dark forest.  Capturing a scene with this much dynamic range practically begs for RAW mode and HDR techniques.

Tripod/Monopod: Definitely allowed, and you’ll need it for any HDR work.

Lenses:  A wide angle lens will be useful to try to capture the feeling of the change in elevation.  We saw butterflies and dragonflies when we were there, so a macro capability might also be handy.

I believe this is an Ebony Jewelwing dragonfly

Best time to visit: Spring time is a wonderful time in Central Florida. Although Lyn and I haven’t seen this park in the spring, we definitely intend to go back to check out the flowers.

Other: Like most state parks, the entrance fee is a bargain at $5 per car.  You’ll need to occasionally park and walk short distances to see all the views, but you can see most of the park from your car.  Wear good shoes if you intend to do any hiking.

Summary

This park doesn’t seem to be very well known and it’s a wonderful surprise when you discover it.  The elevation changes are  interesting and very different for Central Florida.  It’s fairly close to Orlando and well worth a visit.  Go in the spring time so you can view the multitude of flowers.

Vine covered trellis.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Roadside Flowers alongside the Florida Turnpike. I saw these while driving home from Gainesville, Florida yesterday afternoon. I had to stop and photograph them.

I’ve posted previously about wildflower and roadside flower photography in Central Florida. If you haven’t read these before, check them out:

• http://ed.rosack.com/wordpress/2009/05/09/roadside-flowers-2/ is about roadside flowers on the way to Mount Dora.
• http://ed.rosack.com/wordpress/2007/10/07/storm-and-flowers/ and http://ed.rosack.com/wordpress/2009/10/10/lake-jessup-conservation-area-wildflowers/ are about wildflowers around Lake Jessop
• http://ed.rosack.com/wordpress/2009/05/09/wetland-wildflowers/ mentions wildflowers at Orlando Wetlands Park.

My drive yesterday reminded me that the Turnpike and Interstates in Florida break out in bloom this time of year too. I’ve seen this before – here’s a photo I made way back in 2001 on the side of I-75 near Ocala, Florida:

New Flowers, Old Barn

So if you’re in Yosemite or some other photogenic place during wildflower season that’s great. If not, don’t worry about it. Stop and smell the flowers wherever you are and make some interesting photos too.

Note: You can click the photos above to go to Flickr where you can see a larger version.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Here’s an exercise for you: Next time you’re out and about in your home town, take a camera. Pretend you’re a tourist in another city or country  you’ve never been to. Really look at things like you’re seeing them for the first time.  Examine everything with fresh eyes. I’m sure if you try this, a photo op or two will present itself.

This little cafe was around the corner from where I waited for Lynn this morning. I liked the scene enough to share it.

An outdoor cafe in Lake Mary.

You can click the photo to see a larger version on Flickr.  Thanks for looking.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Disney opened the EPCOT theme park in 1982.  It is a different sort of park with two main areas:  Future world, and the World Showcase.  They also occasionally have special events, which can greatly add to the photo op quotient.

Future world has a mix of rides, and the ones we enjoyed the most were Mission Space, Test Track and Spaceship Earth.  The Seas with Nemo & Friends is aimed at small children, but there is a nice, large aquarium there as well.

World Showcase is where you can enjoy shopping, food and a sample of culture from many places around the world.  Pavilions include: Norway (don’t miss the Maelstrom ride!), Mexico, China, Germany, Italy, The American Adventure Japan, Morocco (check out the shops and architecture), France, United Kingdom, and Canada.  There are many fine restaurants, and although a little pricey – you don’t have to settle for standard theme park food.  Be sure to make a reservation early.

Gifts of Morocco

The EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival runs from March 3 – May 16, 2010 so this is an especially nice time for a photographer to visit.  The entire park is planted with flowers with many Disney themed topiaries throughout.  There was also a collection of bonsai trees near the Japanese pavilion when we were there.

Bonsai boca

The Flower and Garden Festival also has some special activities such as The Pixie Hollow Fairy Garden, Fawn’s Butterfly House, The Community Garden and Flower Power Concert Series and more.  I was impressed by all of this, but the Butterfly Garden was still getting started when we were there.

Intense Flower

Info for Photographers

Photo hints:  Make sure you keep your eyes open – there are photo ops everywhere.

Tripod/Monopod: Definitely allowed – I saw several people with tripods and quite a bit of high end camera gear.

Lenses: For the Flower Exhibition, a macro lens was nice.  You’ll want a general purpose zoom for most of the park.  I didn’t see a lot of need for a longer lens.  I used a 105mm macro on my D700 for the flowers and other things and my Canon S90 for some shots.

Best time to visit: Spring time is a wonderful time in Central Florida.  The weather is great and the The Flower and Garden show runs through May 16th.

Other:  Like many of the Orlando parks, it’s pricey.  General admission is now $79 for adults and $68 for children.  You’ll have to budget an additional $14 for parking and additional money for any food and gifts you buy.  There are sometimes discounts for Florida residents.

Summary

The EPCOT theme park is a place where the entire family can have fun, while at the same time providing a large and varied number of photo ops for the photography enthusiast.  The photos in this post are just a few of the ones I made, and there was much more to see.  See below for links to the rest.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

A photographer should notice and share.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Lynn and I went out for a Valentine’s Day breakfast this morning and on the way back, she drove me around for a few minutes looking for good examples to photograph with my Canon S90. By the way, I very much like the S90.  It has a great deal of capability in a very small package.

Here’s one tree that caught my eye (click these to go to Flickr where you can see larger versions).

Red maple tree and reflection

The color isn’t from leaves, but from red seed pods. Here’s what they look like up close.

Red Maple seed pod close up

We have other trees starting to bloom too.  Here’s a white one, with some more of the red maple trees in the background.

White blooms, blue sky

So – keep a camera with you and keep your eyes open.  You might find something interesting to capture.  Also – if you can help with identifying these specific trees, please comment on the post or send me an email. Thank you, Kevin McKinney for helping me identify the Red Maple trees.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

When I used film, I always wanted a pro level Nikon camera and could never afford it. This started with my first SLR, which was a Yashica entry level model (I don’t remember which one). The best film camera I ever had was my last one, a Nikon 6006. I bought this sometime in the 1980s and it was a great camera, but it wasn’t a “pro” model.

So recently, I was browsing eBay and ran across a listing for a Nikon F4. This tank of a camera was introduced in 1988 and was Nikon’s top of the line film camera until maybe 1996 when the F5 was introduced. To make a long story short, I couldn’t resist.

This particular one is an F4S and is in great shape for a camera this old. It comes with an MB-21 auto-winder: can you imagine ripping through almost 6 frames of film a second with this puppy? A whole role of 36 gone in 6 seconds! Another feature that’s really nice is that this one can meter / focus with all Nikon lenses, including the newer G series (although you can’t control the aperture directly). For more information on the camera, you can look at the Nikonians website article on the F4 or visit Ken Rockwell’s site, where he talks about it. Also, a Google search will reveal several places on the web where you can download a PDF file of the camera manual.

After the frost. Tri-X film, Nikon F4S, 60mm f/2.8 macro lens

When the camera arrived, I went to my local drug store to buy some film. To my surprise, they carried Kodak Tri-x B&W ISO 400 film! This is the first film I ever used in my rangefinder and SLR cameras and I used to load my own 35mm photo canisters from 50ft. rolls of film and do all of my own development. So … of course I bought a roll to run through my “new” camera. 24 exposures later, I brought it back to get developed. “Do you develop Tri-X black and white film?” I asked. [Photo clerk looking at film canister] “Of course we do. Do you need it back in an hour?” “No, I said” [Thinking to myself - 'this is amazing'], “I’ll come back later tonight to pick it up.” So I leave and on my way home, I get a call from the clerk: “Uh, sir, we can’t develop this film.” Apparently they can develop B&W film that’s designed for color print film chemistry, but not good old Tri-X. Anyway, my local camera store (Colonial Photo and Hobby) does develop Tri-X and can also scan it to CD for you as part of the process. I also ran some color print film through the camera, and ended up shooting a total of three rolls.

Weeds. Kodak Ultra Max Color Print film, Nikon F4S, 60mm f/2.8 macro lens

The camera works pretty well. The focus and exposure seem good. So what else did my tests reveal? How was the experience? What impressions did the Nikon F4S make? Did I finally fulfill my desire for a pro film camera? Will I give up digital and go back to film?

First of all, the controls were very familiar, so I didn’t have any problem using the camera. The locks were annoying to me – I’m not used to having to unlock the on/off switch. One thing that using the F4 emphasized is that film cameras are simpler to operate than modern digital cameras. Most of this is because on a digital camera, you not only have to control the camera, you also have to control / adjust the sensor response. Loading your film into a film camera determines the white balance, ISO, color profile, etc. for you.

Second, this is the heaviest camera I’ve ever used. An F4S weighs 45 oz. vs 37 oz. for a D700 or 25 oz. for a D90. That’s a big difference. Maybe I’m glad I didn’t have to carry this around all the time.

Third, I shot three different kinds of ISO 400 film: Tri-X, Ultra Max, and Black and White (CN 400). Grain is apparent in all of the shots although much less so in the CN 400. In fact, the grain is much more apparent than noise in either a D-90 or D-700 shot at ISO 400.

Orchid. Kodak Black and White (CN 400) film, Nikon F4S, 60mm f/2.8 macro lens

Fourth, having 24 or 36 exposures to work with instead of hundreds is quite different too. There’s much less experimentation and more ‘get it right the first time’. Even though I was only testing this camera and not on a serious shoot, I still found myself conserving film instead of shooting with abandon.

Fifth: Chimping is really handy! With a film camera, you can’t tell if you got the shot until much later. There’s a lot more “trust the camera” and “trust your skills” involved. I remember a trip to Germany in the early ’80s with many rolls of slide film and its narrow exposure range. I felt a lot of anxiety then until I got the processed slides back.

So, am I going to abandon my digital tools and revert to the good old days of Film? Absolutely not. It was fun to play with the camera and it brought back a lot of memories. But we’ve come a long way and the F4S is going on my shelf to look at. I won’t be looking through it too often.

You can click on any of the photos above to view them on Flickr. You can see the rest of my test shots here.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

One macro photography challenge is to get the desired portions of the subject in focus without using such a small aperture that the image quality is degraded by diffraction effects. One solution is to combine multiple images focused at different depths within the frame to extend depth of field. In this post I’ll talk about how to do this, including software that can be used to automate the process. I’ve posted one focus bracket image before in this blog. That image was created manually. Using software to help is much easier.

Note: double click any of these images to view them on Flickr, where there is a larger version available. You can also visit the entire set at this link or view a slide show at this link.

Back-lit Orchid – 15 separate captures at f/8.

As with all macro photography, good technique remains important. Focus bracketing will not make up for poor composition and exposure or sloppy camera handling. But for stationary subjects focus bracketing can give the photographer complete control over depth of field, background appearance / bokeh, and help optimize image quality. I used a program called Helicon Focus for this experiment. I think you can accomplish the same thing using Photoshop CS4, but I don’t have this latest version, so I haven’t tried. Helicon Focus is available as a fully functional 30 day trial download, so you can experiment with it too.

The Helicon Focus web site has a lot of information on how to use their software. To learn more, browse these links:

• http://www.heliconsoft.com/focus/help/english/index.html
• http://www.heliconsoft.com/focus_workflow.html
• http://www.heliconsoft.com/focus_articles.html

Here are some of my additional hints based on what I learned while evaluating the software.

1. Use good macro and general technique
   • As for any type of bracketing, a sturdy tripod will help make sure all images are aligned.
   • Use a cable release or remote so you don’t jar the camera.
   • Use the mirror lock up function on your camera with low shutter speeds
   • Know your lens and camera.
     • Which aperture has the best image quality? (Usually ~ 2 stops down from wide open)
     • Make several test images at a different apertures. Use them to select the aperture to use with the focus bracket series. You can also use one of these later if you like the background bokeh better than in the focus bracket result.
     • Where does diffraction start to affect the image quality? (About f/11 for full frame cameras and ~f/8 for APS C size sensors
     • Don’t forget about composition.
       • Eliminate unnecessary image content
       • Remember (or not) the Rule of Thirds
       • Isolate the subject and make sure the background isn’t distracting (e.g. bright spots)
2. When you’re ready to start the focus bracket capture, set your camera in manual focus and exposure modes. Also set your camera to a manual white balance, or do this post capture if you use RAW.
3. Make a series of captures working from far to near and varying the focus slightly closer for each one. I found that the smallest movement of the focus ring that I could make worked best.
4. I saved the images in RAW format and processed them through Capture NX2 in batch mode to apply the same pre-processing edits (overall lighting adjustment, some highlight recovery, a little dodging and burning and some basic sharpening) to each photo. I also used NX2 to convert the RAW images to TIFF format.
5. Then I ran the TIFF images through Helicon Focus. By the way, it is Intel i7 aware and so it runs pretty fast on my iMac. The only change I made to the default settings was selecting Lancos8 resample quality.
6. My resulting composite image had a few areas that could be improved by cloning from one of the source images. Helicon Focus supports this with a “resampling” mode which allows you to clone from any of the source files into the final before saving.
7. Once I had the final composite output saved, I opened it in Photoshop. Since I liked the bokeh of the f/36 image, I cloned from that background into the composite – and I was done, except for importing into Lightroom where I added some clarity and adjusted contrast.

Here’s a series of images to illustrate.

Wet Back-lit Orchid at f/5.6. At this aperture (2 stops from wide open) the lens optical quality is very good, but the depth of field is shallow. Parts of the flower and the stem are not in focus. The background is completely blurred out.

Wet Back-lit Orchid at f/36. At this very narrow aperture, the depth of field is maximized. The out of focus leaves and background are pleasing. But the small aperture is causing diffraction to degrade the optical quality of the capture.

Wet Backlit Orchid – focus bracket. In this composite photo made using the Helicon Focus program and 16 individual captures at f/5.6, the depth of field covers the entire flower and stem and the background is completely blurred. The optical quality is improved since the wider aperture does not suffer from diffraction.

The final image: Wet Back-lit Orchid – focus bracket with small aperture background. You can completely control the background. If you prefer the bokeh / background of the f/36 image, selectively clone it into the focus bracket image.

Conclusions: Focus bracketing is a useful technique that can give photographers a tremendous degree of control over depth of field in situations where the subject matter is still and there is time to set up, capture and process for it. If you add a manual step to the final output, you can selectively enhance the bokeh. Helicon Focus runs well and does what it is supposed to – make this process easier.

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Second, this year your devoted author has decided to join the growing tradition where photo blogs post a collection of their favorite photos from the year.

To accomplish this, I’ve gone through the photos I made in 2009 and used Lightroom to rate them from 0 through 5 stars. The rating system I’ve adopted is as follows:

• 1 star – The photo is interesting
• 2 stars – The photo is worth showing to others
• 3 stars – The photo is the best of (or one of the best of ) a given shoot
• 4 stars – My favorite photo of a year
• 5 stars – My favorite photo (ever)

Photos without stars are seconds or not so good versions of other photos. I’ll keep them, but they probably won’t get any more attention.  Since adopting this rating system, I’ve tried to use it consistently.  Before this I would rate images, but the meaning of the ratings would vary.  As far as what they mean now, it’s all subjective and my opinion only.  Feel free to disagree, but I hope you’ll enjoy looking at the ones I’ve chosen.

I was really blessed in 2009 with a huge number of photo opportunities.  On my hard drive in my 2009 folder, I have about 16,000 images, taking up 164GB of space (I shoot mostly in RAW).  Of these:

• 3804 of the images have been cataloged in Lightroom.  Many of the remainder are source images for multi-shot panoramas or HDRs, or high rate bursts that I selected from.
• 1084 are rated 1 star or higher
• 692 are 2 star or higher
• 75 are 3 star or higher
• 1 is 4 star, and
• None are 5 star (I’m not done taking photos yet!)

Of the 692 that are 2 star or higher, I’ve selected 44 (mostly 3 star) images to include in a gallery of my favorite 2009 photos.  You’ve seen many of these photos in this blog, already.  But where it made sense, I re-processed them to try and improve them.  Here are the top ten. You can click on each of these to go to Flickr, where you can see a larger version.

My #10 favorite photo is:  Great Blue Heron in flight.  This heron didn’t like me aiming my camera at it.  It’s making a lot of noise as it leaves the area.  I was able to pan with its motion to get a sharp shot.

My #9 favorite photo is: Ketchikan harbor.  The trawler Isis, a house in the background, and the parked float plane are very representative of Alaska.

My #8 favorite photo is: Black Point Sunrise. This reminds me of a boundary of a set of points in a complex plane (i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set)

My #7 favorite photo is: Glacier Bay Sunrise, A dawn panorama heading in to Glacier Bay National Park.

My #6 favorite photo is: Black-bellied Whistling-Duck in flight.  We saw this unusual and photogenic duck at Orlando Wetlands Park.

My #5 favorite photo is: Lake Lily Park tree and bird at dawn.  Sometimes you go out specifically to photograph.  Other times you go out just  carrying your camera.  It’s exciting to me when I find a photo like this one while I’m just out carrying my camera.  The light on this Cyprus tree caught my eye as we walked around the Lily Lake  one Saturday morning looking at their flea market.  The bird in the middle distance was a bonus.

My #4 favorite photo is: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive: Wide angle, winter dawn. On this particular morning, it was hard coming up with any good photo inspiration for the sunrise.  There were no clouds, not much color in the sky, not a lot of interesting landscape detail, no cooperating wildlife, the wind was blowing pretty hard, etc.  This palm tree had an interesting vine growing in it that was pointing back toward the road, so I  made it the subject of the picture and violated all the composition rules by putting it way off too one side.  To me, the road leading past the tree could represent the last part of the long journey of exploration and learning that led to being able to make this photo in this place at this time. The road is empty because each person’s journey is unique. Oh, and BPWD just happens to be a one way road – toward the photographer. The somewhat surreal colors come from a program called “Photomatix” that will “tone map” multiple, bracketed exposures.  Anyway, I liked it too.

My #3 favorite photo is: Gorilla watching people, Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, Disney’s Wild Kingdom.

My #2 favorite photo is: Breaching humpback, off shore from Juneau, Alaska.  In the full res version, the two white dots in tree to the upper left behind the whale are bald eagles.

And … my #1 favorite photo of the year is: Ship, water, glacier, rock.  A multiple shot panorama showing Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park from the cruise ship MS Westerdam.  The full res version of this photo is 7747 x 4716 pixels = 36.5 megapixels.

I’ve posted a gallery of all 44 images on my website at www.ed.rosack.com/BO09.  I’ve also uploaded them to this Flickr set, and you can click this link to watch a slide show at Flickr.  When you watch the show, you might want to click the “show info” link.

Thanks for looking.

All content ©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.