This was the sunset image from the same evening as the last few posts. After some great light we had an intense rain storm and then the skies started opening up just before the sun set. All the photographers left the butte except one other PSA member and myself. This image was the reward for sticking it out.
Captured with the Panasonic Lumix S1R and the Lumix Pro S 70-200 mm, f/4 lens at 70 mm. Exposure triad: f/11, 1/125 sec at ISO 800.
Before leaving the Palouse, I would really like to venture inside one of the giant combine harvesters that the farmers use. The are specially designed machines that traverse the steep inclines and slopes of the Palouse without tipping over. The cab is fully climate controlled and has computers that monitor and measure things like quantity of the grain being harvested, the moisture content and many other indices.
This is an image captured on Sept 20, 2019, in the late afternoon before the storm. I used the Lumix S1R with the Lumix Pro S 70-200 mm lens. I have cropped a slight amount on the top of the frame to remove a distraction. The performance of the S1R is exceptional. This was a normal (not a high resolution) capture. A severe crop of the frame just to get the farmhouse is shown in the image below. (Please do click on the images for a larger rendition).
Exposure triad: f/11, 1/15 sec, ISO 200. Focal length 200mm.
I arrived in Spokane, WA for the PSA Board Meetings and the Conference. It was a long flight from Boston to Spokane but I was not going to pass up the opportunity to take a ride to the wheat fields of the Palouse. The weather did not look good but then bad weather can make for some great images.
Most of the afternoon the fields had barely any light and when there was some it was flat. As the afternoon progressed there were occasional openings in the dark cloud that were letting some light come through. The was a large expanse of rain clouds that were dumping rain while the sun shone through on either side casting some warm light on the harvested wheat stalks.
This image was captured in high resolution using the Panasonic Lumix S1R and the Lumix S Pro 70-200 f/4 lens. Exposure triad: f/11, 1/25 sec, ISO 200. Lens at 70mm. The 1440 x 934 pixel image is about 8% of the original file.
Please click on the image for a larger rendition.
When the sun was setting this past weekend (Sept 7, 2019) the moon was about 60% and quite high over the horizon. As the light from the sun was all but gone, the moon shining on the water created this cool/warm juxtaposition in harmony with these old pilings.
The breaking waves in the foreground appear to be trying to blend the warm and cold together. Also, notice the split in the color temperature how the light significantly affected the shadows of the pilings on the right vs. the ones on the left.
These situations remind me of George Eastman’s quote:
“Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.”
The weekend provided
I first shot this composition wide with lots of negative space but realized that with the rocks so small in the frame the beautiful texture was getting lost. So I composed tighter to show much more detail while the image still remained minimal. The setting sun cast some lovely light in the rocks and created a glow in the sand. Although the slow shutter speed remove the detail from the sand, I like the way the color creates a leading line to the rock formation.
The image was captured with the Panasonic Lumix S1R and the Lumix 24-105 f/4 L-Mount lens. A Benro circular polarizer was used to reduce reflections and a Benro 10 stop ND filter was used to slow the shutter down.
Exposure triad: f/8, 60 sec, ISO 100
Happy 4th to all. I am spending a few days with a dear friend in Cape
Photographed with the Panasonic Lumix S1R and the Lumix 24-105 f/4 lens. Exposure triad: f/8, 4 sec, ISO 640.
The barred owl, also known as northern barred owl or hoot owl, at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Florida this afternoon. The swamp has way too much water and as a result, the number of birds is minimum. This owl remained with its eyes closed for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, when the park staff came by to say we had to leave, I stopped by to get this image.
Coppersmith Barbet Psilopogon haemacephalus – Lumix G9 with the Leica 100 – 400 mm. Exposure triad: f/6.3, 1/640 sec, ISO 8000
Barbets are a species of tropical birds in the family Capitonidae (order Piciformes). Barbets are named for the bristles at the bases of their bills that they use to dig holes in rotting trees where there will nest. They have large heads and short tails and are not agile fliers. They eat insects, lizards, birds’ eggs, fruit, and berries.
The Keoladeo NP has three species of Barbet. I was able to photograph only the Brown-headed Barbet Psilopogon zeylanicus and the Coppersmith Barbet Psilopogon haemacephalus, The third, White-cheeked Barbet was not found.
As these birds sit in very dense leaf trees the light is hard to work with and high ISOs become mandatory.
Brown-headed Barbet Psilopogon zeylanicus – Lumix G9 with the Leica 200mm and 1.4X teleconverter. Exposure triad: f/5.6, 1/125 sec, ISO 1600
Yellow-Rumped Warbler – Lumix G9, Leica 200mm f/2.8 and 2X teleconverter. Exposure triad: f/5.6, 1/1000 sec, ISO 400 (click on image to see it in full resolution)
The warbler was at a distance so the subject was very small in the frame. Normally I would discard most of these images but decided to see what I could recover despite a severe crop. This image is a 17.5% crop from the original RAW file. I have not applied any noise reduction to prevent any softening of the image.
This portrait is an example as to how well the image stabilization performs using the Panasonic G9 body with the new Leica 200 mm f/2.8 lens (I have a preproduction version). The lens aattched to the 2X teleconverter on the micro 4/3 body gives an effective focal length of 800mm. The image was captured hand-held at 1/125 sec, f/8 and ISO 640. Typically, at this focal length I would use a minimum of 1/1000 sec but the 6.5 stops of stabilization is remarkable.
