Recently I have been working through my photography catalog for the purposes of overhauling my website. At the same time, I’ve been recognizing that some images can be repurposed for graphic t-shirts and coffee mugs. My latest design is shown here; the left version is intended to be printed on light backgrounds and the right version is intended to be printed on dark backgrounds.
For this particular work, I used Adobe Photoshop and multiple plugins by Topaz Labs. To adjust the color palette and to enhance the details, I commonly use Topaz Adjust and Topaz Detail.
Here’s the original digital photo from ten years ago. This was probably the first time I had ever taken a digital SLR on a backpacking trip. Because I had not yet learned the features of this camera, I neglected one of the most remarkable features of the Canon 5D mark II … the first DSLR camera capable of 1080p high-def video. To this day, I regret that I did not capture any video in this remote unique landscape.
If you look closely (click on the image to see a larger view) toward the top right of the image, you will see blue blazes painted on the rocks; these blazes mark the hiking trail … a very narrow trail with a potentially nasty drop-off.
All photos in this post were created this morning in Boston.
Considering that the peak bloom in Washington D.C. is at least a week early this year, I am a bit surprised that the timing of cherry blossoms in Boston is looking to be far more normal.
Washington D.C.
“Peak bloom” of the cherry blossoms in Washington D.C. generally pertains to the Yoshino cherry trees.
(According to the National Park Service) This year, peak bloom occurred about March 20, compared to last year when peak bloom occurred April 1. The March air temperatures this year were about seven degrees (f) warmer than last year.
Several years ago, I was in D.C. for the cherry blossoms when spring temperatures arrived earlier than normal. Fortunately for me, I caught the peak bloom just a day or two before a wind storm knocked most of the blossoms off of the Yoshino trees on March 25.
Branch Brook Park, Newark NJ
A 360-acre park, Branch Brook hosts 5000 cherry trees, the highest density of cherry trees anywhere in North America. With numerous varieties of cherry trees, they do not all bloom at the same time and peak season can last two to three weeks.
As I visited Branch Brook in 2019, the trees were spectacular around April 11.
In 2020, in the interest of social distancing for COVID-19, the park was formally closed to visitors. I can find no information regarding the timing of the cherry blossoms.
Boston MA
A bit akin to Branch Brook Park, Boston has a variety of different trees such that “peak bloom” in Boston is not a singular period of three to five days. Furthermore, Boston’s flowering trees include species other than cherry trees. The Back Bay area is known for Magnolias that bloom at the beginning of April, a dozen varieties of cherries, followed by Kwanzan Cherry that bloom near the end of the month, and then joined by Flowering Dogwood.
In 2019, cherry blossoms along the Charles River Esplanade were stunning around April 22.
Today in 2020, along with the blooming of Magnolias, both Haigan and Weeping Haigan cherry are just now blooming. While I did see two other cherry trees blooming, most cherry species have not yet begun to bloom in Boston.
Mid-October 2018, I photographed Wakefield Massachusetts using an aerial drone. As the autumn colors were not well developed yet, I returned a week later to make the same photo again. That’s the first photo here, October 23, 2018.
Some renovation work was in progress that day. You can see scaffolding against the steeple and one of the tall windows is laying on the grass.
In the evening later that day, a lightning storm passed through the area and this presumably sparked the fire that destroyed the First Baptist Church. The next day, I again put the drone in the air to photograph the aftermath of the fire.
Today is the one-year anniversary of that fire, so I returned to again make the same photograph, but without the church.
Rumney Marsh photographed with an aerial drone (sUAS)
I first visited Rumney Marsh in the month of May. Although I discovered some great photo compositions, the marsh was mostly brown. Presuming that the grasses would fully transform the landscape into a greener palate, I vaguely planned to return some weeks later. Shown here below is my first image from the May visit:
Rumney Marsh in the month of May
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This year, spring in New England has featured more rain than normal. Dry days are a bit like currency – have to spend them judiciously. Five or six weeks later I returned to the marsh on a dry day and found the green grasses covered the land, as expected. Unexpectedly, coastal clouds were lingering and the water reflected white sky (not blue sky).
Rumney Marsh (June) under cloudy skies
While that is a nice image, … I had imagined the water reflecting a blue sky. So, I returned later that same day after the clouds cleared away. That final image is shown at the top of this article.
In all three instances, the image required post-processing for HDR, particularly because the buildings on the horizon were too bright. So each of these three instances is a combination of multiple exposures, simply to control the dynamic range of light.
Flowers blooming on Cherry trees is a harbinger of spring because Cherry trees bloom first, before other flowering trees. While these blooms are a much anticipated spectacle, predicting when the cherry trees will bloom … is difficult business.
From Macon Georgia to Boston Massachusetts, you can visit well-known groves of cherry trees. The trees bloomed in Georgia last week. Unfortunately, I missed it because of car trouble.
The very first blooms appeared in Macon GA around March 10. The very first blooms appeared in Washington D.C. just a few days ago.
The general blooming of Cherry trees in Washington D.C. has not happened yet, but should begin by end of this week. Midweek temperatures this week are still cool with overnight temperatures close to freezing. The current weather forecast tells that the temperature will warm this Thursday. So, blooms should be popping this coming weekend.
The best-known location around D.C. is the tidal basin, shown in the photo above. As you can see in this late-day photo, it can draw a dense crowd. You will not find crowds like this early in the morning.
Stopping at a coffee shop downtown, I put a quarter in the parking meter. When I returned, 20 minutes remained on the meter, so I took a short walk. That’s when I happily discovered art on a utility box … and another … and another.
While I prefer a camera with interchangeable lenses, at times like this I am happy to have a mobile phone with a camera. My phone-camera is not a great camera, but as the saying goes … the best camera is the one you have with you.
I must also note that Android / Google Photos includes some photo post-processing functions that I rarely use but did use here. The leftmost image was badly overexposed. The problem was very well solved by applying “auto”.
(No, I’m not giving up my big interchangable-lens cameras.)
(Left) Panasonic Lumix G3, and (right) Panasonic Lumix G85
Panasonic has long maintained two similar MFT camera lines, DMC-G series and DMC-GH series. In general, the G series has been intended as mid-level cameras while the GH series has been a bit more high-end, but the differences have not always been obvious. All of the G and GH series cameras are system cameras with interchangeable lenses and hot shoe for external flash.
While I do own and use DSLR cameras, I have used Panasonic Lumix cameras as smaller alternatives. My typical day kit (less gear than a multi-day kit) includes a camera body, two lenses, and minor accessories. My Lumix G series kit is half the size of my DSLR kit.
While camera features improve with each generation, the MFT image sensors in the Lumix cameras seems to not change very much. The resolution has remained 16 MP up until the new G9, which introduces 20MP in the same FT/MFT format. In low-light, the RAW image noise is less than excellent but isn’t bad. Comparing the G3 to the G85, I see a small improvement in the newer camera, but it is small. It effectively gives me one more stop; the G85 noise at ISO 3200 is comparable to the G3 at 1600.
Features
After considerable study, here are the notable feature changes (notable in my opinion) starting with the G3 and moving to the very latest G9 (which I believe will ship later this month).
The G5 camera layout and handling is essentially the same as the G3
9 fps vs 6 fps
“Live MOS” image sensor has technical speed improvements, but same resolution.
Video recording supports MP4
Higher resolution in both the LCD display and the EVF
Eye-sensor below the EVF
Larger handgrip
The G7 layout and handling is significantly updated (compared to the G5)
4K video recording
OLED touch screen
4K photo mode
Wi-fi
The G85 camera layout and handling is essentially the same as the G7. Here are the important feature enhancements in the G85.
In-body image stabilization (sensor-shift type)
9 fps vs 6 fps
49 focus pts vs 27
Higher resolution in both the LCD display and the viewfinder display
The G9 camera layout and handling is new and includes an monochrome LCD info screen on top of the camera. This is a breakout camera that exceeds the G series moniker.
20mp MFT sensor
20 fps
225 autofocus points
Much larger viewfinder (EFV)
UHD/4K video up to 60 fps
6K photo mode
80MP image achieved by shifting the sensor 1/2 pixel and then combining the two images together.
Optional battery grip (for better handling in vertical orientation)
USB 3.0
Both Wi-fi and Bluetooth
More than 5 ounces heavier than the G85; a bit smaller and lighter than GH5
I love autumn in New England. The colors of the leaves here are world famous. The reason is the large number of sugar maple trees and a good number of red maple trees.
If you are planning your fall vacation, there are a some good web sites that can help, but most are simply reporting the foliage as it is right now rather than forecasting when peak color will manifest.
Here’s a reasonably good map that I found helpful:
Do keep in mind this is based upon past years and not necessarily an accurate prediction for this year. As they say in the stock market, past performance does not guarantee future results.
I’ve read multiple suggestions online that the color could be particularly vibrant this year, considering this year’s temperatures and rainfall. Eastern Massachusetts experience significant drought during 2016 … but not so in 2017.
Also consider the night temperatures are still warmer than usual. Tonight, temperature will finally drop into the 40s but warmth returns this weekend. This may mean peak color will be a bit later than usual.
In this particular case, standing on a tall bridge (with pedestrian walkway) provided a spectacular view.
Where to stand? I do ponder this question in advance whenever possible. But sometimes I don’t have detailed information in advance. If I recall correctly, on the day of this parade of sail, I did not know precisely where the ships would be sailing and realized the potential of the bridge only that morning when I arrived at the waterfront.
The question of where to stand sometimes involves the location of the sun. In the morning, sunlight will be coming from the east or southeast. Later in the day, it comes from west or southwest. That can be extremely important if my photographic expectations are front-light, back-light, or side-light.
A staged event, such as a parade of sail, will generally have a fixed start time that is outside of my control. In that case, perhaps the biggest question is whether to stand on the left bank or the right bank. For a recent Sail Boston event, I knew that the ships would be sailing into Boston Harbor through a channel between East Boston and South Boston; I had to choose one location, as travelling between the different locations was impractical.
I first began photographing tall ships during SailBoston 2000. Since then, I have photographed tall ships many times from Philadelphia PA to Camden ME. SailBoston 2017 was not to be missed, being the largest gathering of tall ships in the northeast since 1976.
As the weather for the grand parade of sail was a big foggy, the resulting images were low contrast. If your camera is capturing JPEG images, then you might change the camera settings to increase the contrast. But for those of us who are sticklers for image quality and therefore capture RAW images, the camera setting for contrast doesn’t actually do anything. Here’s how I post-processed RAW images using Adobe Lightroom.
Original low-contrast image before post
(click on the image to see the full-resolution image.)
When lighting is low contrast, you have a choice of keeping that or compensating for it. If you choose to compensate, the most important step is usually to lower the black point. Essentially, low contrast implies that the darkest parts of the image render as a lighter tone and the brightest parts of the image render as less bright. Dark isn’t particularly dark and bright isn’t particularly bright.
With the original settings shown on the left, notice that the histogram at the top shows none of the image information extends to the far left. None of the image falls into the leftmost one third, the region of darkest possible tones. To pull the dark tones to the left, use the black clipping slider control. The settings on the right show the modified histogram.
Adjustments in Adobe Lightroom
Lightroom divides tonality into five regions, black, shadow, midtone, hightlight, and white. If you hover your computer cursor over any of the five relevant slider controls, the corresponding region will be highlighted in the histogram.
Dragging the black point to -60 is relatively heavy-handed and tends to drag the shadow areas down. Although I have raised the shadow brightness here, that is primarily to hold the shadows closer to the original brightness, compensating for the drag of the -60 black point.
Further increasing the overall contrast, I have raised the overall exposure brightness and the highlights. And I have made minor adjustments in color, to compensate for a slight green cast and slight yellow cast.
In addition to the overall image adjustments, I have made a few local adjustments. The hull of the Eagle was bit dark, due to the angle of the sun; so I brightened the hull slightly. The sails of schooner Adventure picked up a slight blue cast from the environment; so I moved that color slightly toward yellow. The white stripes of the American flag also picked up a bluish cast; so I moved that color slightly toward yellow, reduced the color saturation, and added a touch of brightness.
Finally, the foreground water appeared to be less bright, perhaps due to shallow depth. I applied a gradient filter to the foreground and bumped up the brightness to match the rest of the image.
Maybe these adjustments seem like a lot of work. But the overall image adjustments can be quickly and easily copied to other images. If the natural light of the day hasn’t changed, these adjustments are appropriate for many images, not just the one. Wherever the light did change, I have to make small adjustments and then apply that set of adjustments to a group of images.
With more than fifty ships in the parade of sail, I shot 250 images. I don’t give detailed attention to every single image. Duplicating adjustments to a group of images is a necessary time saver. And, of course, I will give the most attention to my favorite images, those that might be submitted to publishers or printed for wall decoration.
If you are in the Boston area during August 2017, stop by Boston City Hall and check out my exhibit of tall ship photography at the Mayor’s Neighborhood Gallery (2nd floor).
