Polarized Filter or Not?

I watched a tutorial video by ON1 the other day and the photographer Scott Davenport.

The link goes to his website and some of the books, so it sort of is a shameless plug for him. His tutorials on the ON1 website are pretty darned good.
His photography is pretty amazing.

Well, let's just say, I don't think I will travel to all of the areas he does to get those incredible shots.
I have to stick around here for the time being. Farming, caretaking, and work all make it difficult to travel.
[However, I am looking forward to soon being able to explore as many State Natural Areas and State Parks as possible!...That is my dream goal.]

So I went down to the creek. The Awesome Creek. The sun was too bright for getting good 'water' shots, but I thought I'd not waste the opportunity and see what I could do.

I brought my Nikon D3100 with me along with that...Nifty 50mm lens. Of all lenses I could have, I think I like this one the best. It never disappoints me.

I had a rather inexpensive Circular Polarizer filter and a .6 ND [neutral density filter].

Here is a shot with the ND filter only. f16/ISO 200/1/5 second.

Same settings with a polarized filter and ND filter

The big difference is the ability to see the rocks through the water. I like both. The top shot shows more movement and the second shot clarifies the water.

So I tried another experiment.
I left the polarizer on and went to see how much reflection I could get off the water that was flowing.

And then I turned the polarizer filter and got this....

Encouraged by what I saw I thought I'd try some more.

However I learned that certain kinds of light and angles don't really have that much effect. I think I need to go out and do some more experiments.

However, let me say the filter did help me get a shot of the Trout on Sunday when I was in the Back Valley.

I hope to get out and try some more experiments.

Today I plan on using some things I learned regarding lighting and DIY lighting with flashlights to accent exactly what I want lit up in Still Life.

Low perspectives

The woods look pretty dreary and uninteresting right at the moment, but I still believe there can be interesting things found.

I grabbed my Nikon with the Nifty 50mm lens and decided to explore. The challenge is to not have a zoom focus but a fixed lens where you have to really think about getting the shot you want.

The shot of the creek bottom shows exactly how 'uninteresting' the woods appear to be. The shot of the Skunk Cabbage shows exactly how interesting the woods actually are!

When I came back from the woods, I found some crocus blossoms in the yard along with daffodils poking their brave stems out of the ground. I laid down in the yard to take some shots. There I was wiggling around trying to find the right composition, what did I see?

A little bug of some sort climbing around inside the crocus flower.  I peered at it after I took the shot and discovered that is was a very small bee and it was covered in pollen.

Imagine my surprise. If I stand up, the crocus plant is nearly impossible to spot. If one were to casually walk near the creek and not keep an eye out, they'd surely miss the Skunk Cabbage.

I'd place a skull next to the crocuses so that I could see them from further away and not step on them.
I was also surprised to see that a spider had climbed onto the skull!

And then there was the lone yellow crocus...it was very hard to find.

Yesterday some new crocuses came up and I didn't get out until the evening to get a shot of them while doing chores.

The daffodills are coming up around them and soon they will be gone. The daffy's will be the next blossoms to grace the yard.

Meanwhile out in the woods, under the debris I was able to see the very tips of Leeks just breaking the soil under the leaves.

They will come out when the weather is right.

The Robins however believe it is spring. This one sang the night song to me just before the sun blinked out of our hollow.

Lucky for me he perched on the branch long enough for me to attempt a shot.
This fit in my low perspective as he was higher than I was??

Well spring is coming and I believe I can say that I am looking forward to it. It was with deep regret that I put my cross country skis away yesterday and stored my snow shoes for next year.

35mm Prime Nikon Lens

I went ahead and did it.  I ordered a new Prime lens for my Nikon cameras.
I received it yesterday, a 35mm lens.

I ran a quick test on it when I got home, shooting in very low light in the house.

Here is my test subject wrapped in camouflage.  I couldn't get a good shot in anything other than an f stop of 1.8 but the hairs on his nose came out crystal clear and I was rather close to him.

Morris really wasn't too excited about having a camera lens shoved in his face.  But he allowed me to wrap him up in the sheet for the photo.
Good dog.

So this morning I decided to take the lens for a test run on my Nikon D3200.  

I was not disappointed.
However since I didn't check the status of the camera's battery before I left, I had to pick and choose my shots very carefully.
Reminder to self.  Check your battery!  I thought two bars was good enough but very quickly it became one bar.

Here is a shot that is cropped shot at f4, 320, ISO 100. The colors came out wonderfully accurate and very little noise for shooting predawn.

With a slight edit, I was able to pull out some more detail.

So I did a few more shots.  These are cropped a bit specifically to take out a bit of the foreground.
I did purchase the lens for both portraits and landscapes.

[The horizon is not crooked this is a hilly area!]

I'm perfectly happy with this lens.  For landscapes it gives me a broader view.  This of course leaves me in a quandary.  
I have a harder time deciding which lens to put on the camera for taking a hike.

Thank goodness for my new little sling backpack, I can pack two lenses along with the camera and change them easily.

The colors are beginning to look bright in the trees so I guess you can figure out what I am going to try and do today.

Yep, laundry, house cleaning, and ... a field trip to look for cool fall things.

I like Ice!

I believe the temperature actually got to something like 8 degrees today.  So after finishing up with the farm chores I decided to grab the snow shoes and trek down to the creek.

Once down there I wandered around looking to see what sort of changes had occurred since my last visit.

The ice wall was incredible.  

Water seeps out of the limestone bank and slowly freezes in beautiful formations alongside the creek.
This is one of my favorite places to try and get some neat shots of ice.
Yeah.
I like ice.

Not the kind on the road that makes your car slip ice, cool ice shapes...ice.

 

The water was flowing fairly well IN the creek but frozen over in other places.


I set the snow shoes up against a tree and set up the tripod in the creek itself.
After about 40 minutes of messing around in the creek I noticed that my fingers were getting rather annoyingly cold.
So were my feet.
Obviously I was standing still for too long.

I picked up the snow shoes and hurriedly packed up the cameras putting them carefully away in the backpack and started hiking quickly along the creek bottom.

When I hit the trail that leads up and out of the valley, I stopped to put on the snow shoes.  

Half way back to the ridge my fingers got warmed up and so did the toes.

I was anxious to see how some of my shots of the creek turned out.

Sad to say that I reviewed them and didn't care for them at all.

But the ice shots took the day and made it worth half frozen fingers and toes.


If the temps EVER get back above 10 degrees, I'm going to hike back to the ice cave.

Tomorrow?  The high of 4?

Shot from about 3 years ago of the 'ice cave'.

 


Nope, doesn't look like I'll be taking my more sensitive equipment out.
But I could still go exploring in the valley out of the wind.

Or I could try some still life shots.
 

What kind of camera do you have?

I'm often asked this question.

So I thought I'd explain what I do have and what I carry with me most every time I step out of the door.

I have a plastic Sanyo P&S camera that I picked up at a Big Box store because I needed a carry along that I could stick in my pocket and it would not be a big deal to lose it...not much $ to replace it.

I have an old Pentax Optio W60, which is one of my favorites.  You can take it out on rainy days, freezing temps, drop it in the creek, drop it off a mule...and it won't bust up.  I have sent it in once for repairs.  This little gem takes fantastic macro shots.  Think fungi!  It also fits in the breast pocket of a shirt or cargo pants pocket.

Yes.
I have DSLR's.  I have a nice Olypmus E420 that I picked up for a steal as Olympus was discontinuing that model.  I find it nice and lightweight compared to the Nikon D40 or my newer Nikon 3100.

These cameras don't go with me unless I am really out hunting photos.  And even then I carry a pocket camera and generally my FujiFinePix HS30EXR.
This camera can go from ultra zoon to a 1cm macro in no time.  No lens changing in the field!  
It isn't THE best camera of its kind, but it suits my purpose.  I think some other brands would take 'better' photos, but this one had the super macro feature which is something I really wanted.

 

I can go from this shot of the acorn above to this shot of a mule below in just a few seconds.

 

 

Sometimes the photos are a bit 'noisy' and sometimes the colors may be a bit off.  But any camera will do that to you.

I've had the Fuji for just about a year now and I've taken 4,700 photos with it.
Not all were fantastic, not all were winners.
But compared to my other cameras, this one goes with me everywhere as it is the most useful to me.

It doesn't do well in low light though, thought I'd add that.
But you can compensate with a light tripod and a lower ISO.

Well off to run some errands and then if the rain lets up, I think I'll take out my camera bag and see what goodies I can find.

 

Comparing Cameras and more snow melt!

I hope Neal who left a comment can see this or will read this.  He asked a question regarding the FujiFilm HS30.

This shot was done with the FujiFilm FinePix 30EXR.
I used a ND Filter X4 with a ND Filter .6 added.
Here are the settings:
Exposure:     1/10 of a second
Aperture:       f/11
Focal length: 38.33
ISO:                200 could have gone with 100
I used a tripod with a the delay option to avoid camera shake.

Here is somewhat the same shot with a Nikon D40 using a telephoto lens and a ND filter 1000X which means the filter is black and hard to see through, allowing for much longer exposures in bright sunlight.

The colors are different because of course the cameras are different.  I left the tripod in the same place.
Here are the settings for this shot:
Exposure:     13 seconds 
Aperture:       f/25
Focal length: 200mm
ISO:               200 
The Nikon D40 does not go below 200 ISO and I took the zoom to its highest level.
I have a remote for this camera so I used that.

Both shots were shot in their RAW format and processed with the software that came with the cameras.
I then used Adobe Elements 5 to process them.   

The next two shots come from my Nikon D3100, the camera is faster and has more focal points than the D40.
The first shot was shot in Program Auto.

  
You can see the movement in the water here.
Exposure:      1/100th of a second
Aperture:        f/5
Focal length:  55mm 
ISO:                 100

Same place now with a ND .6 filter.  The day was heavily overcast so I didn't need much of a ND filter to help slow down the exposure.

Exposure:      1/6th of a second
Aperture:       f/22
Focal length: 55mm
ISO:                100
I left the lens at the same spot and just added the filter.  I tried to get the very same shot, but inadvertently moved the tripod while putting on the filter.

Lastly, for those who enjoy not only photos but videos, I brought along a Point of View video camera called the Drift.  It can be attached to a car, or a helmet.  In this case I carried it and was able to catch yet another small 'flash flood'.

The video was compiled in Windows Live Movie Maker which is not very difficult to do and is fun.
   

Windswept Afternoon

I thought that Sunday would be the perfect day to go back to the 'ice' cave and see what formations had come about from the recent melts and freezes.

I wore my slightly longer and newer snow shoes and was very happy that I did.  
The fact that they are slightly longer helped me stay ON TOP of the snow!
 
The snow has an ice crust on top of it.  Unfortunately, the icy crust and the snow shoes made quite a bit of noise so I didn't see any deer or other wildlife.

I also did not take Morris.  The coyotes are 'in season' which means they are very aggressive to domestic dogs if they get in coyote territory.  Morris can blend in with the scenery this time of year and I would rather not take any chances.  
Morris was not happy with that decision.

The ice cave wasn't very spectacular and the lighting wasn't very good for a photo.  I didn't have a long lens and in order to do the cave justice I would have had to do some pretty tricky climbing.
I decided against it and followed the steep trail to the creek in the 'back' valley instead.

The slightly red arrow points to my shadow waving!  
I ended up stashing my snow shoes and climbing down into the creek bottom itself.

There was no wind down there and the sun was nice and warm.

In the shade however it was quite cold, but the ice formations were pretty cool.

I looked further upstream and really wished that I had time to walk the entire valley.  It was very tempting.
Instead I sat down and had some snacks, took some more shots and then packed up and headed up the long hill towards the open corn field.

After spending so much time in the valley and the woods I enjoyed the walk across the ridge top and the cold breeze in my face.  
The corn stubble created a bit of an issue with my snow shoes.  I had a malfunction at one point. 
But no one was there to see me trip up and so everything went just fine.

I however was more careful and chose a 'trail' that the animals had been using.

I did use my Garmin to measure the distance and the altitude change.  I hiked 2.1 miles by the time I arrived close to home.  I'd been gone a bit over 2 hours with a lot of 'stop' time of course.

The altitude changes really surprised me when I looked at them in a graph form.  

I spent most of my time looking at tracks on the ridge in the windswept snow.
I could see where coyotes had been walking.
Rabbits trails, deer trails, tracks of mice, raccoon, turkey, and 'possum.
There were places that the hard crusted snow had been dug up to get at either corn or grass.

Winter is a great time to be in the woods.  The landscape is not hidden by foliage and everything seems bare boned.  Perfect in some aspects for photography in black and white.
It was a nearly perfect day.

Dixie's Solo Walk With Me

Dixie has graduated to hiking solo.
She has learned, 'Come' and she runs hard when I call.
She has learned 'NO!' and stops whatever she is doing immediately.

Yesterday I decided that I'd take her by herself on a walk so that I could see if she has developed some independence...and 
not
always
just chasing Morris for fun.

And, well, I had to do some more experimenting with the 50mm lens, of course.

I took the short cut across the meadow and went down the steep hillside into the valley with the creek.
Across the meadow and down the steep hill, Dixie followed me at 'heel' position, every once in a while she reached up and nudged my hand as if to assure herself that I was fine.

When I started taking shots of interesting ice formations, she hovered close.  She did not bowl me over.
I shooed her away a few times.
Gradually she realized that I was not doing something that was very interesting to her hound dog nose.
And she began to explore a bit.

She discovered that she enjoyed walking in the creek.
I don't know if she saw some brown trout or not, but suddenly she wouldn't get out and kept wandering back into the water as if to search.

[this shot not taken with the 50mm, taken with the Fuji Camera]

This was good because a month ago she avoided water like the plague and was tentative about it.

We followed the creek towards my fence line and I looked for photos, Dixie checked out the deep pools of water, I'm thinking of the trout I've seen flit around there...
and
we began to ignore each other, both of us busy, yet both of us checking in on each other.

Soon enough we came to the huge dry run that is filled with mossy boulders.  I'd been there a couple of weeks ago when the temps had reached 49 degrees and it had rained hard.  I'd taken photos of the mini water falls.

The boulders were covered mostly in snow, but there were ice formations.

What a good dog Dixie was to go first and find out that the snow would slide out from under neath her!

She was good and only hovered at my shoulder [of course to make sure I was okay!] as I tried to get a shot of where the water falls had been.

It made scooting around the boulders a bit more interesting.

So I decided to walk a bit further up the creek bottom.  In one spot the creek was running clear.  So clear in fact that I was able to catch bubbles from one of the springs coming up through the rocks.

This creek has many springs.
Then I turned around and saw the iced creek bottom.  It was wall to wall ice, like a glacier and it was evident where the run off had cut through it.

No adventure is complete without a shot of Dixie and her flapping ears as she runs to me.

Lastly.
Dixie is learning independence.
She is venturing out away from me and investigating.
She is even leading the way.

On our way home up the 'ridge' road .. she ran ahead of me and would wait.  If I didn't come fast enough, she'd come back and investigate.

Soon my training with her will be done.  Oh I'll still work on her leash behavior and her manners.

Last shot.

Where's Dixie?
Can You see her??

All of these shots were taken with the 50mm lens.  There is no zooming in and out with this lens, you have to work at composing your shots.
All the more reason to practice.