hark 2022

With the dreary rain, I really wasn't expecting to see anything today - that was until I drove to the Park and saw the fog. Editing fog photos was never my strength - but this time I went about the editing process much differently. Increasing contrast tends to wash out the fog. So less contrast, Camera Neutral for my Camera RAW camera profile plus I used two Nik Plug Ins that I've rarely used previously.





For the following image, I decided to open up my aperture more to blur the far side of the lake. That would allow the fog to be softer and not become so harsh from sharpness with depth of field.

Like your fog shots a bunch.

Bikerbrent said:

Like your fog shots a bunch.

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Thanks kindly, Brent! This is the first time I've been pretty satisfied with editing fog. And I edited my post above stating I intentionally opened up a little to f/6.3 to soften the fog. The fog definitely has a different appearance in the two images with the f/6.3 aperture than it does in the other images.

A lackluster day for weather. Mostly overcast although the sun came out a couple times while I was still at home. Despite it being in the low 60's today, tonight and tomorrow is forecast for accumulating snow. I'm the one who gets to clean it up so I'm not thrilled.

In general I've found most people fishing tend to be so caught up in what they are doing that they never look my way. However, usually I find the majority of non-fishing people will at least say hello or even tend to ask what type of photos I'm taking. When I walked along the paved path, a man was sitting on a memorial bench and quickly glanced as I walked by. Since I didn't want to bother him and certainly wasn't expecting any interaction, I kept moving. Eventually I spotted a red-tailed hawk. Unfortunately I only had my 24-120mm with me so I settled for a landscape photo instead of a wildlife image. During editing, I lowered the clarity to soften the branches/brush for more of a painterly look.



On my way back, the fisherman was standing by the lake. He called over and asked what I was photographing which was mostly memorial benches. Then I asked if I could take his photo. Of course he said yes and asked if I was from the newspaper. Nope ... but I told him I'd share the photo on Facebook (which I did). Hopefully someone will know him.



This is a companion bench to the one the man was sitting on. Both benches were purchased by the same family. Not sure what tomorrow will bring. I am considering joining in on the 365-day challenge but since I don't get out as much as I should, I don't know if I will have the motivation to try. Guess I still have a couple weeks before making my final decision.

I'm on a roll with 3 days in a row!

Today's forecast was for 8" of snow. By 5:30am, all the local schools cancelled classes. I did see 3 itty-bitty snowflakes. :beguiled: That was all we received. We did have a very colorful sky at sunset. I was going to upload the images but saw each one has a sensor spot on it. Gotta fix those.

This was taken less than 2 hours before sunset. Because of the heavy cloud cover, most of the sky was dark and dreary. Just this one section of color was visible at the top of the tree line. I tend to keep my 70-200mm f/4 mounted on my D610. So it's convenient to just grab that combo and not have to change lenses.

I went back and edited out the sensor spots. Both were set for Camera Neutral for the Camera RAW profile - and no editing except to use an adjustment brush for any clipped whites. I figure if I need either for sky replacements, then I can do any additional editing at that time.

hark said:

On my way back, the fisherman was standing by the lake. He called over and asked what I was photographing which was mostly memorial benches. Then I asked if I could take his photo. Of course he said yes and asked if I was from the newspaper. Nope ... but I told him I'd share the photo on Facebook (which I did). Hopefully someone will know him.

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That is really nice. My Dad took all kinds of people images. I don't find people all the friendly to my lens, so I don't point it at people too often. I emailed files to a couple people who let me take their image.

Sometime last fall I saw this mural in the process of being painted. This was my first time back to photograph the finished project.



And while I was in the area, I took a couple photos - these were taken within a few feet from the Delaware River. The white tree in the second image really caught my eye.

Two more from yesterday's outing.

I changed up my editing slightly, and at least for this image, it speeded up my PC quite a bit. Instead of waiting until I've finished editing in Photoshop before converting to a Smart Object, I converted then applied a Levels Adjustment and Color EFEX Pro afterwards. I was amazed my PC didn't grind to almost a halt which is what usually happens.

Color EFEX Pro was applied as a Smart Filter instead of how it's normally done. I didn't notice any difference in the overall result.

Just as I drove past the park today, they reopened after plowing the walkways and road. All I had with me was my 100-400mm lens. :beguiled:

Two Red-Tailed Hawks surveying the surroundings.

After having all the issues with my 300mm f/4 PF, I decided to perform the autofocus tuning indoors using a much shorter distance. The lens always front focused. In the past, the value was always a minus value (like -7). This time that same lens along with every other lens that underwent the AF tuning was a + value. Yet it was an insane amount in comparison. More like +15.

Sadly my 300mm lens pretty much has bit the dust. It struggles to focus at all, and sometimes it won't even attempt to focus (I already cleaned the contacts, too). At some point, I will have to see if Nikon will accept it back for another repair. Yet after all the times they turned down accepting it again, I won't hold my breath.

Here are a couple examples with my 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR lens. Both images are cropped. For the second example, I will post the pre-crop so you can see the insane amount of cropping I did to that particular pic.

In this first example, I cropped somewhat and did my normal editing which also includes Shake Reduction. I focused on its face. For some images, I recomposed after focusing on the face.




Here is the other image - this one is the sooc jpeg.



And here is the immense crop of the NEF sharpened with the default sharpening in Shake Reduction.

Oh man, what a shame :frown-new:

Dangerspouse said:

Oh man, what a shame :frown-new:

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I've done all I can for the 300mm f/4 PF. When it works correctly, it's an impressive lens.

Here is an image with my 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR coupled with my 1.4x TC. I also performed the AF tuning with this combo the other day. There wasn't any way to just capture the top of the Bald Eagle's head (too many branches), yet the focus isn't too bad. If you look closely, you will see the top of the female's head along with the yellow of her beak. I think she must be sitting on an egg. This is also cropped from the original.

Despite driving around for a while, I couldn't find any other wildlife to photograph. What I did see was a Jeep pulled off to the side of the road. Another car pulled up in front, but the Jeep's driver must have waved the second car away. After the second car left, the Jeep's driver was standing inside the Jeep with the moonroof opened and a camera/lens sticking out! :beguiled: That's another area where quite a few Bald Eagles can be seen - although I didn't happen to see any, they must have been there somewhere.

Today I attended another falconry session. Yesterday temps dropped dramatically plus we received 1/2" of sleet. Originally they were calling for around 3" of snow so I wasn't sure if the event would even be held.

This is the same Harris Hawk that I photographed last fall - Rangle is his name.

Here's another from today's session. When Rangle was free to fly, he headed to this bush, and for some reason just grabbed a hold and didn't move. He stayed put until his handler moved to Rangle's right with bait on the glove. The shadow on the right is a person. I was standing behind two people trying to shoot in between them.

On March 21st, two Pennsylvania State Troopers on I-95 were speaking with a pedestrian when they were killed by a drunk driver. Yesterday was the funeral for one of the troopers. It took a coordinated effort by police from multiple municipalities as well as state police to close roads for the funeral procession. Estimates beforehand anticipated at least 5000 police would attend. There were many different police departments - even from far away - that drove in the procession.

Here are a few photos.

This definitely ISN'T a good image. A local falconer (not the man I know) had a female Harris Hawk go missing. So I spent time searching today. Since my 100-400mm lens isn't long enough, I opted to add my 1.4x TC. With it I knew I'd be able to get a larger view in camera for identification purposes which was my main concern.

Although I did see a large raptor, I couldn't identify its species (but it wasn't a vulture). By the time I pulled over, the raptor had disappeared behind trees. But later today I came across this eagle with a band on each leg. That is my only reason to post. Unfortunately the TC adds a lot of Chromatic Aberration that isn't corrected automatically in Camera RAW. And the overall quality of images taken with the lens/TC combo isn't great by any means. But I thought it was interesting to see a Bald Eagle with two leg bands.