Misty morning

This past week I attempted to get outside with my camera.  With the weather getting a little cooler at night it made me think that the early morning fog will start covering the fields.  I wasn't disappointed.  Early on Friday morning, Ralph woke me up as I mentioned that I wanted to travel with him to the course to take some pictures.  Initially I decided to stay in bed and forget getting up so early.  I was so tired that morning but as I lay there, I imagined the beautiful fog and changed my mind and got up.

Ralph graciously made me coffee and breakfast as I got ready.  I was still pretty tired and not really thinking clearly.  I grabbed my tripod and the camera without a thought to what lens I might need.  Ideally the wide angle would have been perfect, but as I said, I was pretty tired this morning and didn't even give it a thought.  As we were driving,  I started getting pretty excited by what I was seeing long the highway.  Beautiful "fog".  Then I started thinking about how I would set up the camera and what areas to drive to for that "perfect" shot.  It was at that point that I realized that I had only one lens with me and it was the "macro" lens.  Hah!!  Now that will be a challenge.  I had just recently watched a video that talked about the various ways you could use a macro by changing up some of the settings on the side of the lens.  Well I thought, it will be the perfect day to test this out.  Our macro lens has 3 settings on it.  I usually keep it on the 0.3m-0.5m as I use this for closeups of insects and flower.  There is also another setting of 0.5m - Infinity as well as a setting called "Full".  I decided to use the "Full" setting as I found the camera having difficulty focusing at the 0.5m to Infinity setting.  I had read as well that it's better to use "manual" focus instead of auto focus as the fog tends to confuse the camera.  I didn't really find that was the case today but maybe because it was off in the distance.

My first stop was by the pond at the entrance to Piper's Heath.  I love the pond and have taken several pictures of it this year. There wasn't alot of fog here but still enough to take a few shots.  I hope that one day the swans will be in the middle as I think this would make a beautiful picture.

This was taken around 6:30 a.m. and the colours were nice and warm. The fog add's a nice glow to an already beautiful view.  This was taken on Trafalgar Rd.  I stopped at the side and set up my camera.  It was so busy with traffic - kind of scary actually as there isn't alot of room on the side.

This is my favourite shot.  It was taken around 6:45 on a side road that runs behind the golf course. The red was so vibrant as it was shining through the tree's while the sun was coming up.  There really wasn't alot of colour in the sky but the fog magnified the colour of the sun beautifully.

Developing with style of my own

It was a rainy day today, so I thought I would spend some time working on my pictures to get them ready to include in my photobook.

While we were on our vacation, we learned a lot about using the Histogram feature on our camera and the importance of "exposing" to the right.  It makes alot of sense knowing that if we take care not to over expose or under expose your picture, you are then able to pull out the detail of what you were photographing when you developed it.

This became quite evident today as I was working on the photo's.  It took us a while to realize the benefit of this and as a result some of our shots are both under and over exposed.  I can still fix them but not to the same degree as the ones that are kept in the confines of the histogram.  As long as you don't go past the right edge, you can very nicely pull back the expose and detail that is needed.

The above picture was taken on the Big Island in Hawaii.  It is challenging to capture both the dark rocks and the light (white) portion of the waves.  Making some adjustments to the exposure and eliminating some of the shadows and also sharpening the picture, you can then get a good sense of the waves washing up along the shoreline.

This picture was taken in Kauai at Shipwreck Beach.  Pushing the Aperture to F22 allows the sun to come through in a "star" shape format.  I love doing that especially when you see it peaking through the tree's or as its starting to rise up early in the morning.  This picture was developed by splitting it into two parts.  The top of the picture (sky/sun) was left at the exposure that was set when taking it but the bottom of the picture was lightened up a bit to bring out some of the colour along the cliff.  We left the lens open for about 20 seconds which helped to smooth out the water.

Another example of the star created by setting the Aperture to F22.

Before and after pictures.  The top picture is the RAW file, which was under exposed. Pushing the exposure to the right definitely helped to pull up some colour and lighten the shot,  I also changed the camera calibration to Camera Landscape and cloned out the people walking on top of the cliff.

It always amazing me how much a picture can change with just a few changes in Lightroom.

Tree Tunnel Road in Kauai was one of my favourite inland areas to drive through.  These are eucalyptus trees that were planted over a 100 years ago.  It's a beautiful drive underneath the these tree's.  Many art shops have photographs of this road.  While you can't see it in the picture, this was a very busy road with traffic going both ways.  Ralph and I waited patiently for the vehicles to go by and then I would run into the middle of the road with our camera and tripod and take one or two pictures while Ralph watched for oncoming traffic.  Because of the age of the tree's, bald spots in the canopy were starting to show through.  Using a cloning tool, I added a few more branches to thicken it up and I also erased a few vehicles that were driving down the road.

One of my favourite bridges in California.  The Bixby bridge is located along Highway 1.  I really didn't have to do much to this shot except to crop it in a little.  The day was beautiful and sunny with really pretty clouds in the sky.  Adjusting the exposure helped to bring out the colours in the sky and along the edge of the cliffs.

Exploring my garden

I've fallen behind in my posts for the past couple of weeks.  With our truck being stolen and all the running around we've had to do, I haven't had a chance to get out with my camera.  Today was quiet in the afternoon so I thought I would take some time and see what I could discover.  The above was a fly that was sitting on the petal of one of my flowers.  I really dislike flies thinking that they are a real nuisance but when. you look at them close up you can see that they have been beautifully made by our Creator.  Isn't the colours on their body beautiful.  It almost looks like armour. They are a pretty amazing thing to look at.

Would you recognize this as a geranium?  Up close they have the most beautiful flower.  I had fun developing this one.  I really tried to emphasize the softness of the flower.

This past week we went away for a few days with John and Grace.  We golfed at a couple of beautiful courses and had a lot of fun together.  I didn't take that many pictures, but I did pull out my camera on the 18th hole as I loved the contrast of the colours of the deck chairs against the Club house.

I really enjoy watching the birds at the feeder.  Here is a young blue jay announcing his happiness at finding food.  It was fun sitting back and enjoying the show.  I had to set up my camera on a fast shutter speed to capture the movement as they are constantly moving.  Needless to say I had a few blurry shots but was happy with a few of the ones that I captured.

This photo was captured through the window at Carolyn's house.  I don't often see a female cardinal at our feeder so I was pretty excited to see this one.  Most of the body was hidden in the shadow of the feeder so I cropped it in close to focus on the face only.  She is enjoying a sunflower seed.

Driftwood can be very beautiful.  We often see it along the shoreline.  I wish that I could collect a great big pile of this and place it around the garden.  Wouldn't it be beautiful having vines growing through and around the dried up branches?

It was really nice to share some time with our granddaughters.  We really look forward to these visits and can't wait to be together again soon.