First, I want to wish all readers of this humble photo blog a very

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 it’s 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 Park 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.

We had a family reunion of sorts in Denver last week for Thanksgiving.  Mary, Mike and Sara met Lynn and I at my mother’s place and we were able to see most of the Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and in-laws.  We had a great time and the Thanksgiving dinner was especially good, with 25 relatives at my sister’s house to consume two turkeys along with various gourmet attractions including sweet potato stuffed oranges.

We also had a chance to visit some Denver area photo attractions:  Buffalo Bill’s grave and museum at Lookout Mountain in Golden, The city of Denver’s bison herd, Garden of the Gods, and Pikes Peak.  We also got in a few minutes of browsing at the antique store along I-70.

Here are some of the photos from our visit – I’ve only posted a few of them here on my blog.  Click on any of them to go to Flickr, where you can look at a higher res version. You can also see the rest of this set on Flickr at this link.

We drove up to Lookout Mountain last Monday to visit the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave site, which is only about an hour from my Mom’s place.  The museum is nice, with a lot of information about Buffalo Bill and the wild west.  We especially liked the dress up area, where you can don chaps and a cowboy hat, climb up on the legless horse and rope a plastic calf. There’s also some very scenic overlooks from the parking area.

A little further up the road (I-70, exit 254), the city and county of Denver has a herd of bison that you can stop and see.

On Thanksgiving morning, Lynn and I got up very early and drove down to the Garden of the Gods before sunrise.  You might remember my earlier post about this place.  Let me just say that it’s even more beautiful at sunrise and well worth the early trip.

Saturday, we drove down to Pikes Peak and rode the cog railway to the top and back.  The visibility was much better this time than it was the only previous time we did this.  That time we had heavy fog and weren’t able to see much of the landscape.  This time, in spite of clouds – it looked like we could see forever.

It was a wonderful trip, we really enjoyed ourselves, and we’ll cherish the time we spent visiting these places with our family forever.

Description

If you are at all interested in technology and space exploration, then you should really visit the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) when you come to Central Florida. Living in the area and having a life long interest in space, I’ve been several times. Most recently last Thursday. This visit was with (among others) a fellow member of the Photography Interest Group: Kevin Krause. In a first for this blog, he’s agreed to help me write this entry describing KSC for photographers.

KSC is located on the east coast of Florida about an hour from Orlando. Here’s a link to a Google Map of the area, and here is KSC’s directions page.

Exhibits: The entrance fee to KSC is currently $38 ($28 for children). There are many museum exhibits at KSC as well as the relatively new Shuttle Launch Experience simulator, Two IMAX theaters, an Astronaut Training Experience, and several bus tours that will take you to places that are otherwise restricted. Several things at KSC, including the bus tours will cost extra. The “NASA up close” tour that we took was an extra $21, and the bus and tour guide showed us the Vehicle Assembly building, the shuttle landing strip and control tower, an observation platform close to the launch complexes, and a theater re-enactment of an Apollo launch. We also toured the Apollo-Saturn V Center where there is a restored Saturn V launch vehicle and other space vehicles.  You can also take a bus from the Saturn V center to the Space Station exhibit.

(NOTE:  clicking on the photos below will take you to their Flickr page, where you can see a larger version – select all sizes at the top)

Panorama image of the Rocket Garden at the main visitor complex, Canon G9, 4 vertical images (full res is 11215×4123), ISO 80, 7.4 mm, f/2.8, 1/50 sec.

A space capsule gang way in the KSC Rocket Garden, Canon G9, 2971×3978, 3 shot HDR, ISO 80, 7.4mm, f/6.3, 1/160 sec, 1/320 sec, 1/640 sec.

The Apollo 14 moon capsule, Canon G9, 4000×3000, ISO 80, 7.4mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, built in flash.

Landscapes: KSC is situated on typical Florida coastal landscape. There is some opportunity for landscape photographs, so be prepared. You might luck out with some interesting clouds during one of your tour bus stops as a background to the launch pads.

(Photo by Kevin Krause) Launch complex, clouds, water, Nikon D90, 3666×2445, ISO 200, Nikon 18-200 lens at 24mm, f/10, 1/400 sec.

Wildlife: KSC is right next door to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.  As such, wildlife should be abundant at KSC, although it will be tough to photograph in the middle of the day with so many people around. On our tour, we did get a glimpse of a solitary alligator in the canal on the side of the road as well as  egrets, herons, and other birds. There is also a 42 year old eagle nest on the property, but the eagles were not in sight.

(Photo by Kevin Krause) This eagles’ nest has been in use for 42 years at KSC, Nikon D90, 2344×1645, ISO 3200, Nikon 18-200 lens at 200mm, f/5.6, 1/1250 sec.

A stuffed possum in the wildlife exhibit at the KSC main visitor center, Canon G9, ISO 80, 44.4mm, f/4.8, 1/60 sec, built in flash.

Photo hints

Tripod/Monopod: There is no posted policy on tripods. It might be a problem to use them, if only because of the short time available at most tour bus stops.

Lenses: Bring what you have. Longer lenses will come in handy, except when you’re trying to show several launch pads in a single image.  Have a wide lens for that situation, or you can experiment with multiple images stitched into a panorama.

Other: Check out the NASA Images web page where you can search their archives for down-loadable photographs of almost any NASA subject.  Many of these are available in high-resolution. Let’s face facts – you will have a very hard time making better images than these in the static exhibits or on the tour bus at KSC. Browsing through NASA’s image archives may discourage you from trying too hard to make any images yourself, other than the requisite, documentary “We were here” photos.  But hey – we’re photographers and we live for the challenge, right?

Summary

If you’re interested in aeronautical engineering, space exploration, or Apollo program history this is a very good place to visit. Since the shuttle program is winding down, you won’t have many more chances to see a space shuttle on the launch pad.  If you’re interested, check the KSC launch schedule before you go and try to show up when a shuttle is out. Photo opportunities abound, although they’re of the “museum exhibit with people around” variety.

If you want to see more of the photos that Kevin (131 images) and I (30 images) made, the links below will take you to our respective KSC Flickr photo stream sets.

©2009, Ed Rosack and Kevin Krause. All rights reserved.

This is the third installment of our vacation adventure, where I’ll show you the some of the other things we saw, both in Alaska and Seattle. Chapter One is here and describes the wildlife we encountered on our trip.  Chapter Two is here and is about the glaciers we visited.

I’ve finally gotten through the rest of the photos that I made.  The only ones left to process are the “people pics”.  When I finish these, the final part of my post processing will be to go through everything and then selecting a “best of all set” to try making into a photo book.

Before we get started, please note that the photos in this post are linked to my Flickr account and you can click on them to go to Flickr where you can see a higer res version.

First of all, here’s my favorite photo of me from the trip.  It’s a picture of Lynn and I that Sully made.  We spent a lot of time sightseeing from our balcony, and looking at this really brings back memories.

Ed on vacation with three cameras. Lynn on vacation with two glasses of wine.; Canon PowerShot A700,11.546 mm,1/80 sec at f / 3.5,, Dimensions are 2816 x 2112, Photo by Marin Sullivan

There were quite a few impressive sunrise and sunset opportunities.  I often shot in “panorama mode”.  Most of these I took hand held and they seem to have worked out quite well.  I was careful to line up the horizon or another feature in the terrain with one of the marks in the viewfinder, and this really helps when you stitch.  I’ve also found that running Nikon images through CaptureNX before I stitch them in Photoshop really improves the final image quality.  The key is to use the CaptureNX function that corrects lens distortion.  Here’s a sunrise from our final morning on the ship.  It’s composed of 4 images stitched together vertically.  In the full res version, you can see the planet Mars (if my astronomy software is correct) underneath the moon!

Seattle sunrise panorama with moon and Mars(?); NIKON D700,48 mm,1/50 sec at f / 2.8,ISO 800, Dimensions are 4312 x 7619

Here’s another one I really like. I took this in Juneau, when Lynn and I went gold panning. I had just my Canon G9 with me (in a pocket most of the time – it was raining), and I used a flat rock in the creek as a tripod.  By the way, Lynn and I both found flakes of gold in this creek!

Juneau, Alaska – gold panning creek; Canon PowerShot G9,7.4 mm,1.0 sec at f / 8.0,ISO 80, Dimensions are 4000 x 3000

And here’s one last photo for the blog of some trees at the Lake Washington Ship Canal.  I’m not sure what this tree was and whether it was turning already for fall, but I really liked the color contrasts.

Trees; NIKON D90,19 mm,1/50 sec at f / 3.8,ISO 100, Dimensions are 2848 x 4288

As before, I’ve posted the rest of the photos for this blog entry in two ways.  I added a set of “other” photos here to my photo galleries.   You can also look at our Alaska photos together in a single time ordered set of 72 photographs here on Flickr.  Clicking on one of the photos above will also take you to Flickr, where if you click on the “all sizes” button, you can see the photo in a higher res version.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

This is the second installment of our Alaskan adventure, where I’ll show you the glaciers we visited. Chapter One is here and describes the wildlife we saw on our trip.

Our ship, the MS Westerdam left Seattle on Sunday, September 6th and headed north to Glacier Bay National Park where we arrived on Tuesday.  Glacier Bay was one of the main reasons that we picked this itinerary and we were looking forward to seeing it.  The morning started out beautifully, with a very nice sunrise.

While cruising in Glacier Bay, we visited Lamplugh, Johns Hopkins, and Marjorie glaciers.  Several cruise ships had been unable to reach the Johns Hopkins glacier this season due to ice, so apparently we were lucky.  Here’s a panorama I made from the 4th deck of the Westerdam at Johns Hopkins glacier.

One of the first things we noticed is that the color of the water close to the glaciers is a very distinct greenish blue.  According to this article on wired.com (which also has some stunning photos of glaciers taken from space) the color is due to the very fine silt that is ground away from the valley walls by the glacier and deposited in the water.  This “glacial flour” can be very reflective and turns the water this color.

At Marjorie glacier, I was in the right place at the right time to photograph the ice calving.  Here’s the middle photo of a three photo sequence (you can see the others when you visit the gallery for this post).

When we exited Glacier Bay, we headed for Juneau where we also visited Mendenhal Glacier, among other things.

When we were back on board in Juneau, the captain made an announcement about gale force winds and 40 foot seas that were expected off of Sitka, which was supposed to be our next stop.  To avoid this weather he decided instead to cruise through Tracy Arm fjord, where we spent all of the next day (Thursday, September 10th).  Tracy Arm is a truly spectacular place that isn’t often visited by cruise ships as large as the MS Westerdam.  We were able to get in there since our Alaskan waters pilot was very familiar with the place.  It was amazing to watch the ship maneuver in such tight waters — at times we were within 30 yards or so of cliff walls and we must have seen hundreds of waterfalls.  There was quite a bit of fog and haze, which made photography difficult, but I did manage to get some good shots.  Here’s one example of the scenery:

I also put my Canon G9 on a Gorillapod, mounted it to the balcony rail and made some movies. Here’s a time lapse video (one frame per second) that I made in Tracy Arm. It has a sequence of clouds forming and moving along with the ship.  We saw this same phenomenon several times that day.  Was it perhaps the great spirit of the northwest accompanying us on our tour?

That night after exiting Tracy Arm fjord, our course carried us back into the Pacific Ocean in order to get to Ketchikan.  It was still pretty rough with about 25 foot seas.  We had a great view of the ocean from the second deck during dinner.  It was like eating on a roller coaster!  The next morning, when we arrived in Ketchikan, we had seaweed on our 6th deck balcony!

You can view the rest of my glacier photos in two places.  I added a set of glacier photos here in my photo galleries.   You can also look at all of our Alaska photos together in a single time ordered set here on Flickr.  Clicking on one of the photos above will also take you to Flickr, where if you click on the “all sizes” button, you can see the photo in a higher res version.

Coming next:  “North to Alaska, Ch. 3: Miscellaneous photos.  I’ll also probably wrap up with a Chapter 4: Photo hints.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Lynn and I have talked for a long time about taking a cruise to Alaska.  Since we’re celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary this year, we finally decided to book on Holland America’s MS Westerdam.  We did this early in the year and it seemed like forever before we departed Seattle on September 6th for Glacier Bay, Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, and Victoria.  We spent some time before boarding with our good friends, the Sullivans who cruised with us in the next stateroom with a shared balcony.

It was our first visit to the US northwest and Alaska, and we saw spectacular things that we’ve never seen before except on TV.  Coming up with words to do justice to what we experienced will be hard.  We came home already talking about plans for our next trip. I hope I’ll be able to share some of the feelings of being there through the photographs I made.  Although far away and expensive, this vacation most definitely qualifies for the “Must do list” .

Instead of a day by day description, I’ll break this up into subjects.  This will help me organize my editing efforts.  I’ll talk first about the wildlife.  We spent quite a bit of time on the balcony and were rewarded on occasion with whale sightings, like this killer whale.

North Pacific Killer whale from the MS Westerdam; NIKON D90,300 mm,1/320 sec at f / 5.6

We also saw humpback whales and I was grateful that Chuck loaned me his 80 – 400mm lens, since these were quite a distance away – every millimeter helped.

In Juneau, Sully and I went on a “Photo Safari by Land and Sea”, which was a guided whale encounter and glacier trek run by Gastineau Guiding. Our guide  Rick, and boat captain Gary, were both extremely knowledgeable and helpful in finding whales, seals, and sea lions.  Also eagles were quite abundant, feasting on the remains of the salmon run, which was still on-going although according to locals much slower than it had been.  Here’s a few photos:

Breaching humpback; In the full res version, the two white dots in tree to the upper left behind the whale are bald eagles.; NIKON D90,300 mm,1/1600 sec at f / 5.6

The whale in the first photo is an adult female. Her calf was also with her.  He/she seemed to jump upside down or do barrel rolls most of the time. It’s hard for me to imagine they were not having fun doing this.

Humpback whale calf breeching; NIKON D90,300 mm,1/1250 sec at f / 5.6

Humbolt Sea lion and gull watch two male Sea Lions arguing; NIKON D90,300 mm,1/1250 sec at f / 5.6

Rick also took us to Mendenhal Glacier in Juneau, where there were reports of black bear sightings.  Sure enough, as we descended to the lake by the glacier, a bear was seen napping under a bush.  I didn’t get a good photo, but here’s one that Sully made.  The bear had more sense than us.  It was sheltered from the rain taking a nap.  We were out in the rain trying to make pictures of it.  When we got back to the ship, another couple we ate lunch with told us about encountering bears on a different path than the one we took at Mendenhal.  I wonder how common they are?

Bear in the bushes (photo by Martin Sullivan); Canon EOS 40D,135 mm,1/30 sec at f / 5.6

I made many more photos than will fit on a blog page.  I’ll post them two different ways.  You can look at them all together as a time ordered single set here on Flickr.  I’ll also post them on my photo gallery page organized by subject.  I posted the first set of 21 Alaska wildlife photos here.  Clicking on one of the photos above will take you to Flickr, where you can see it in a higher res version.

Coming next:  “North to Alaska, Ch. 2: Glaciers.”  I’ll also collect my hints for fellow Alaskan vacation photographers into a single post to follow.

©2009, Ed Rosack and Martin Sullivan. All rights reserved.

Lynn and I are so fortunate.  We’re home again after a wonderful vacation! Round trip, we traveled 5,092 statute miles by air to / from Seattle and 1930 nautical miles by ship, as far as Glacier Bay, Alaska.

Along the way we visited our good friends, the Sullivans. We saw beautiful sunsets and sunrises, glaciers, mountain vistas, humpback and killer whales, sea lions, harbor seals, otters, many birds including bald eagles, a bear blob, and several types of fish including spawning salmon. We saw the sites and shopped in Seattle, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Victoria, panned for gold and went to salmon bake dinners. The Holland America MS Westerdam is a superb ship, with a fine crew, although we were also thrilled by roller coaster like rides through gale force winds and 25+ foot seas.

Photography wise, it was a target rich environment, but the weather was mostly overcast with fog, low clouds and frequent rain. I took too much photo gear, but since I had it with me, I used most of it. I made thousands of photographs and my friend Sully made thousands more. Many of these are bracketed or panorama sets. I plan to go through them, choose the selects, and post process them as time permits. Hopefully there will be a few that are worth sharing here on this blog and in some galleries. I think that the next three or four of my posts will all be Alaska related. I also want to go through and create a photo book about our trip.

But we just got home, we’re tired, and we have to go to work tomorrow. For now, here’s one photo I really like.  We saw this rainbow on our first day at sea, about an hour after leaving Seattle.

Intro / Description

Three of us from the Photographic Interest Group went over to the Canaveral National Seashore yesterday to explore. We entered at the north end near Turtle mound. We could only go about 2 or 3 miles into the park, the road was closed after that.

CNS is a national park located on the east coast of Florida, south of New Smyrna Beach.  It’s a very scenic place and there are many activities available.  The surf was very high yesterday (due to Hurricane Bill?) and there were quite a few people out taking advantage of it.

In the short time we were there, we also saw people fishing:

and canoeing:

There’s a lot of wildlife in the area, but the number of people here at certain times of the year (like yesterday), probably makes it difficult to see much of the animal population, unless you’re here when the people aren’t. We did see some wildlife – here’s a CNS Anole:

And a sandpiper:

We also stopped by the Eldora Statehouse, which is a historic example of earlier life along the Mosquito Lagoon.

Speaking of mosquitoes, make sure you bring some bug spray – they were pretty vicious at times.

Photo Hints

Bring what you have. I don’t like to take my expensive DSLRs into the hot sun near the ocean for long periods of time, but you might if you’re careful. Shorebirds can be small (and fast) – so to get prize winning bird photos here, you’ll need to be lucky or a very dedicated and good photographer willing to forgo other activities. It might be a good place to practice "birds in flight" photos in your spare time – Pelicans often cruise down the shoreline. If the surfs up, that can be fun to watch / photograph too.

One non-photo hint:  Be careful where you park.  The rangers are rather zealous about enforcing the parking regulations.  Parking on the grass is not allowed – even when it isn’t specifically posted.

Summary

The beach is a nice place to take some photographs and CNS is a very nice beach. We originally went there to explore a new place as a bird photography location.  We didn’t find many birds, but we only stayed for a short time. I wonder if other times of the year would be more productive?  The surfing would have been an excellent photo opportunity if I had been prepared for it (beach clothes, longer lens, etc).

If you’re here to visit the beach, bring a camera – over the course of of your visit, interesting photo opportunities will present themselves.

I have a few additional photos of this visit posted on Flickr .

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Intro / Description

You may remember my post from May about Disney’s Animal Kingdom .  Disney also has the Animal Kingdom Lodge co-located with the park.  It is an African style lodge / hotel with over 700 rooms and several restaurants.  Lynn and I enjoyed our visit to Animal Kingdom so much that when we heard about the Lodge, we decided to go to the Boma Restaurant there for brunch on our anniversary in mid June.

Rooms at the Lodge overlook an area modeled after an African savanna, where 30 animal species roam about.  There are also several viewing areas where guests can walk a short distance out into the savannas to  observe what’s going on.  When we were there, we saw Giraffes:

Zebras:

Wildebeests:

Gray Pelicans:

And African Spoonbills:

Photo Hints

For this "expedition, I traveled light, took only my Canon G9, and shot hand held. A little more reach would have been welcome. I think you could bring and use a tripod – I didn’t see any signs prohibiting their use. We were there in the heat of the morning – about 11 am. Most of the animals had more sense than us and were out of sight somewhere cool. If you go, take the weather into account, it will certainly affect the animal behavior, as well as your comfort.

Summary

The breakfast at the Boma Restaurant was delicious and enjoyable. We also had fun wandering around the grounds afterward.

The Animal Kingdom Lodge is a unique experience. There is no where else in Central Florida that you can stay in the middle of an African savanna. Is it worth the premium over other hotels in the area? Since we didn’t stay in the Lodge, you will have to decide that on your own.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Description

I’ve been wanting to visit the landscape photography exhibit at the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art . I decided to go up yesterday, since it will only be there through the end of August. I very much enjoyed the photographs, which included several by Ansel Adams.
The Florida Museum of Natural History is right next door to the Harn Museum, and they have an excellent butterfly exhibit, called the Butterfly Rainforest .

Although I didn’t write about it at the time, I was there once before in 2007 with my daughter Mary, and I’ve wanted to document it as a Central Florida Photo Op ever since.

The Museum is located on the University of Florida Campus in Gainesville, just off of I-75.  For visitors to Florida, it might make a very nice 2 or 3 hour stop along the way to Orlando or Tampa.  For Orlando area residents, it’s about a 2 hour drive.

The web sites above have directions and entry fee information.  You should consider the weather before you go.  When I went on June 20th, it was very, very hot and humid and this might be easier to put up with in the cooler times of the year.

There’s also quite a lot of pretty tropical and sub-tropical flowers to take photos of, which supply nectar to feed the butterflies.

And there are several smaller birds that are flying free within the exhibit.

So, as you can see – this is a target rich environment for the photo sharp shooter!

Photo hints

Tripod/Monopod :  They have a pretty strict policy on what you can bring in.  Tripods and monopods are not allowed.  The pathways are narrow and restricted.  You also have to check strollers and bags (including camera bags) so plan ahead.  I brought a single camera on a strap, a filter case in one pocket and a flash in my other pocket.

Lenses :  Without a tripod or monopod, vibration reduction is pretty important.   Since you’re restricted to the paths and you can’t bring a camera bag in to switch lenses, a zoom lens is a necessity. Maybe you could wear a photo vest with some lenses in it (although I don’t know if they’d let you bring it in).

I used my 70 – 300 VR zoom on my Nikon D700 and also used a close up filter at times. This seemed to work out pretty well.

Other :  Some of the butterflies will be still for you and some won’t.  Most don’t seem to mind the people.  In fact some of them will land on you!

My SB-600 flash came in handy at times to fill in shadows.  The light was variable.  There’s a lot of shadows from vegetation and the cloud cover can also make a big difference in a small amount of time.

The museum also has a page that can help you identify Florida wildflowers and Butterflies .

Summary

The Butterfly Rainforest has a lot of photos waiting to be made.  The conditions are a bit challenging, especially in the summer.  But if you can put up with the heat or go by in the cooler part of the year and deal with the lighting conditions, then this is a good place to visit.

©2009, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.