So, Josh - did you have a clear night to use your glass at the sky?
Sorry I've been unproductive lately. Extreme cold coupled with a general lack of interesting subjects nearby have kept me from doing anything in the last week. I'm hoping I get to find something to shoot tomorrow (if campus is closed) or Sunday evening, but who knows.
Nat,
ReplyDeleteNope. Clouds.
Not complaining, it has been raining consistantly here, and we are finally getting decent flow at the waterfalls.
I had an endoscopy yesterday, so I'm glad it was cloudy, because I would have been talking to the moon from the sedative they used.
I'm heading back up to Sipsey Saturday for some waterfall photography, to test out my new 77mm CP-L.
- Josh
Nat,
ReplyDeletePhotographs from today's dual waterfall trip posted at:
http://www.szulecki.com/images/CaneyandBordenFeb22/
- Josh
Nat,
ReplyDeleteBTW, the birds were very active today, presumably because it has been raining all week, and the migration is starting here. I saw some sort of yellow warblers (flock), some sort of reddish-brown birds (flock), lots of flocks I couldn't identify, several different species of hawk, cardinals, mockingbirds, heard a woodpecker and turkeys, a kestrel, and I think I saw an owl.
- Josh
A lot of your pictures of the falls there were funny colored... any idea what caused that on the camera? I'd be interested to know because I'll probably be out shooting in similar conditions soon as it warms a little up here.
ReplyDeleteThe birds have been getting more common up here - yesterday, I saw anywhere between two dozen and 30 red tailed hawks, probably 10 red shouldered hawks, and at least 7 if not 8 kestrels - also a common raven, and two groundhogs to go along with all that. All this in Northern Virginia, between Reston and Winchester on 50, then back on Rt. 7. I'm really pleased about the raven, but tomorrow, I'm headed to Wilde Lake up here to catch a red necked grebe. Jon (from work) is actually the first person to have spotted one in Howard County (ever), so he went to see it today and told me about it. I thought a haircut was more important, I guess, but I also didn't have any optics with me suitable for finding or photographing it.
Nat,
ReplyDeleteIn which color direction? The funny washed out color? That's really common on cloudy days in Alabama. Not sure if it is just the foliage screwing with the WB, or what. The ones where the polarizer was properly aligned don't have it.
If you have a chance for a really good capture with the grebe, see if you can rent a longer pentax lens. Or a Canon camera and lens. ;)
- Josh
ha... rent pentax gear...
ReplyDeleteYou might be onto something with the Canon rental, but the deposits they want on the systems from Penn are more than my credit limit - for gear that will work well for this afternoon. I figure if I go see it, great, if I get a picture that's identifiable, great, if it's an okay picture, fantastic. The bird is apparently near the dam responsible for the lake, so I should be able to get reasonably close.
Colorbalance - cause I forgot - I don't know; if I were seeing that on replay, I'd probably start shooting raw for the afternoon. I've not yet run into that problem, so I don't really know how I'd handle it. It doesn't surprise me, though, to hear that it's a product more of the environment than anything else.
ReplyDeleteNat,
ReplyDeleteThe preview screen doesn't really give a good enough idea to see if it is happening.
It isn't just a color balance issue, it is also a flare issue. If you look through some of my old photos you'll see it crop up all over the place.
If somebody made a decent FOSS raw editor, or I could find my Canon CD, I'd have shot RAW knowing it was going to show up, but...
- Josh
Nat,
ReplyDeleteI managed to get DPP back onto my desktop. I'll try RAW next time I go out and see what happens.
- Josh
Nat,
ReplyDeleteI have a decent answer. DPP lets me psuedo-adjust the WB on a JPG, and when I did that, I was able to figure out how the camera was screwing up.
The auto white balance was reading the scene wrong, and rendering the color temp substantially too cool. If I calibrate it on the white of the waterfall, it warms up. It looks like either the reflectively of the scene, or the DARK areas in the picture, are screwing with the camera's ability to render a proper AWB judgement.
- Josh