Two For The Price of One

Spring Peepers, Parry Sound, Ontario

To follow-up on my previous post regarding Spring Peeper clean-up, there is on occasion when I may find it necessary to perform little clean-up at all. The above image illustrates one such situation. These treefrogs were located far up a sandy bank of the pond among some small twigs. I do not often encounter such interactions between spring peepers and I have never photographed two in the frame with one singing before, so I was delighted to find this very co-operative pair.  As you can see it would be a nightmare to attempt cleaning up the grains of sand from the frog’s skin and I do think the grains of sand and small twigs help illustrate the environment in which these frogs were found. I did perform some clean-up of the flash generated spectral highlights as this is a night-time capture. Night-time is my preferred and most productive time of day for frog photography. Why? Most frog species are nocturnal and are most active at night.

Please click on the image to view the larger, sharper version.

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Spring Peeper Clean-up

Spring Peeper with Vocal Sac Inflated

With the frog ponds behind my home destroyed, I traveled north to the Parry Sound region to first open the cottage up for another season and to visit one of my favorite temporary ponds that is usually highly productive for American Toads, Spring Peepers, and Gray Treefrogs. The first night was very cool and only the Spring Peepers were out chorusing. Finding Spring Peepers requires a boat load of patience due to there tiny size, but they usually co-operative once you do locate them. The above little fella was found in perfect position on a small silver birch sapling and his placement on the branch would allow for a beautiful poster-like background.

The main problem encountered with photographing frogs at night with flash is spectral highlights. These are blown-out highlights caused when the light from the flash hits the frog’s glossy skin and surrounding wet vegetation. Often I will spend a lengthy amount of time cleaning up these undesirable and unnatural highlights. On occasion, as you can see in the before and after versions below, there will be extensive blown-out highlights. For this particular image there was little good skin left, on the frog’s nose, to work with to evict the highlights so I looked back through the series of images I photographed of this frog on the branch. Sure enough I was able to find another photo where the flash hit the frog’s skin at a slightly different angle resulting in fewer blown-out highlights. I now had my solution. I opened both images into Photoshop and rather than use the ‘Tile’ viewing, I opened them into ‘windows.’ I then made a quick mask of the nose in the image with fewer highlights and moved it into position on the optimized image. The remainder of the flash generated highlights were evicted using the clone stamp tool whereby I would vary the hardness depending on where in the image I was cloning.

This Spring Peeper image was created using a Nikon D800 with a Nikon 105mm Micro lens attached. The flash was a Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket (the best flash bracket I have ever used for frog photography). A small mini-mag flashlight is affixed to the SB400 with two elastics. The small flashlight makes focusing on these critters at night a breeze.

Do remember to click on the images to see the larger, sharper versions of each. The image below shows the original RAW capture straight out of the camera with no adjustments made to it, and the optimized image.

A quick reminder to folks about Denise Ippolito’s presentation for GRIPS Camera Club in Kitchener, Ontario on Monday June 3rd at 7:30 pm. Denise is a very talented and highly creative photographer with imagery bound to fill you with inspiration. If you are in the vicinity do make plans to attend.Hope to see you there

Before and After Versions of Spring Peeper

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Topaz Clarity along the Rosseau River

Lower Rosseau Falls, Muskoka, Ontario

I have been having a rather hectic week. Last weekend was our annual opening of the cottage on Horseshoe Lake in Ontario’s Parry Sound region, and there is always tons of work to be done to get it ready for the coming season. After much of the work was completed it was time to take a break and make the short drive over to Lower Rosseau Falls on the Rosseau River in Ontario’s Muskoka District. It almost felt like an autumn photo trip as many of the newly emerging maple leaves were brilliant reds and yellows.

These two images have been processed differently than usual as I having been using the new photoshop plug-in Clarity from Topaz Labs. I have only first begun to use the software but so far I am loving the way it naturally boosts the contrast in the images. To find out more about this new product from Topaz Labs please click here. And if you decide to purchase the software use the coupon code “claritynew” and pay a mere $29.99 US. That’s exactly what I did tonight!

Do remember to click on each of the images to see the larger, sharper versions and let me know what you think of the Topaz Clarity treatment.

Lower Rosseau Falls, Muskoka, Ontario

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Last Chance to Enter Sigma’s Scholarship Contest

Rosseau River, Muskoka, Ontario

The April 30, 2013 deadline to enter the Sigma Canada Scholarship Contest is fast approaching. If you are a student enrolled in an accredited Canadian University or College photography program and photograph with Sigma lenses you still have one day left to enter for your chance to win the grand prize of $3000 towards your tuition or a $1000 gear package from Gentec International, the distributor for Sigma lenses in Canada, for the second prize finalists. To find out more about the contest and how to enter please click here.

Sigma lenses are extremely well made and produce stunning results. The images accompanying this post were photographed with the Sigma 8-16mm f4.5-5.6 DC HSM an ultra wide-angle lens that produces very sharp images with well controlled distortion. Please click on each of the photos to see the larger, sharper versions and check out the results.

Best of luck to all who enter the contest

Rosseau River, Muskoka, Ontario

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Top 12 for 2012

Male Bullfrog in wetland on Horseshoe Lake, Ontario

Looking back over the past year I realized I probably photographed a little bit more wildlife than landscapes, which is some what different for me. Mostly I was photographing frogs and toads for various chapters in the frog book that I am currently writing. As a result it is easy to see why my top 12 images from 2012 contains a few frog photos

Here is a selection of a few of my favorite images created in 2012.

Tiny Marsh Provincial Wildlife Area, Ontario

Eastern Massassauga Rattlesnake, Killbear Provincial Park, Ontario

Rosseau River at Lower Rosseau Falls, Ontario

Over-under juvenile Bullfrog

Willet on Liebeck Lake, Ontario

Horseshoe Lake wetland at sunset, Ontario

Common Loon with chick on Horseshoe Lake, Ontario

Zimmerman’s Poison Frog

Beaver Pond, Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario

View from the dock at sunset, Horseshoe Lake, Ontario

White-breasted Nuthatch

The White-breasted Nuthatch image above represents the last photograph captured for 2012. It was visiting my suet feeder set-up frequently yesterday while I was out in the blind for another round of winter songbird photography.

Wishing everybody all the best in 2013.

Happy New Year!!!

Please remember to click on each of the photos to see the larger sharper version.

See ya soon!

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A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That

Crepuscular Rays

Been swamped lately not too mention switching my computer over to a much more powerful system which has not been going well at all. I decided to upgrade to Photoshop CS6 but need to contact Adobe due to verification failure warnings. You gotta love it when you download legitimate software, yet cannot install it, because after the license key is verified Adobe warns that the software “appears to be counterfeit.”  After trying to resolve this issue through the ‘chat’ feature of Adobe’s customer support center I have been informed that I need to call Adobe on Monday to fix this issue.

In the meantime, I thought I would share these images that were captured during the summer and processed just prior to my photoshop issues.

Please click on the photos to see the larger, sharper version of each.

A Fractalius Rendering of Autumn Sugar Maple Leaf on Interuppted Fern

Black & White  Swirling Pattern in Granite

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Autumn’s Frosty Details

 

Frosted Oak Sapling

Yikes! I was going through some old folders of photos the other day and I came across this series of frosty photos that were photographed during one final walk at the cottage prior to closing up for the winter – way back in 2009. Not sure if it I forgot about them, never found the time to optimize them, or waited for them to get better with age. Each photo was created with my Nikon D200 and the Nikon 105mm Micro lens firmly mounted on a tripod. The images with the Sugar Maple leaves on Haircap Moss were essentially set-up. Often when it looks like there will be frost in the forecast, I will typically look for a few colorful leaves that are in decent condition and lay them out on the moss for a preconceived compositional idea. While I lay sound asleep the frost does its thing, and I awake before the sun has a chance to melt the frosted elements.

Please remember to click on the photos to see the larger, sharper version of each.

Autumn Sugar Maple Leaf on Haircap Moss with Reindeer Lichen

Autumn Oak and Frost

Autumn Sugar Maple Leaf on Haircap Moss

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Intimate Autumn Landscapes

Stubb’s Falls on the Little East River

Several weeks ago I met up with fellow landscape photographer, the very talented Kyle McDougall at Stubb’s Falls in Arrowhead Provincial Park near Huntsville, Ontario. After spending numerous hours at this location we ventured a little further north to Brook’s Falls near the town of Emsdale. I am just now finding the time to process a few of the image files from this day. We were blessed with some lovely autumn colour and beautiful overcast light which makes for perfect waterfall photography conditions. Most often after I photograph a few images of the grand scene before me, I will often seek out the more intimate scenes that are not so readily apparent. My favorite lens for such intimate landscapes has always been the Nikon 80-400mm VR lens> On occasion I will use my Nikon 12-24mm lens when I wish to compose an intimate landscape image within tight quarters. Below are a few intimate landscapes from the trip to Stubb’s Falls and Brook’s Falls. Please take a moment to indicate your favorite of the bunch.

When you have a minute or two please do check out the additions to the blogroll which now include direct links to the blogs of Kyle McDougall, Mike Grandmaison, and John Shaw. In addition to these updates to the blogroll we now have a Twitter page. Click here for the Twitter page.

The November issue of Denise Ippolito’s Creative Photography eMini-Magazine is now published. Please follow the image-link in the side-bar of the blog to be taken directly to the emini-magazine. If you would like a real treat head over to Denise’s A Creative Adventure Blog for an amazing collection of images from her recent travels to the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island.

Please remember to click on each of the photos to see a larger, sharper version.

Stubb’s Falls on the Little East River

Magnetawan River at Brook’s Falls

Magnetawan River at Brook’s Falls

Magnetawan River at Brook’s Falls

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Horseshoe Lake Sunsets

 

Horseshoe Lake at sunset

 

I have been busy catching up on my processing of images captured throughout the summer and thought I would share a collection of sunsets from Horseshoe Lake. The above image was created after an evening session of photographing Bullfrogs at dusk. While I was packing away my gear to begin canoeing back to the cottage I turned around to notice this impressive sunset and cloud formation in the sky. Since I was in the canoe and my tripod was back at the cottage I cranked up the ISO to 800, activated the Virtual Horizon feature on the Nikon D800 and fired away. With no grad filters on hand I exposed for the highlights and later in photoshop revealed a touch of detail from the shadows.

The two images below were photographed one after the other. Since the colours were somewhat lacking on this night I chose to use a Cokin Blue/Yellow Polarizer on the first image to add some colour to the scene. The final image portrays the natural colours as they were that night. Please do take a moment to indicate which of the two scenes is your favorite and why.

Remember to click on the photos to see the larger, sharper version of each.

Horseshoe Lake with Cokin Blue/Yellow Polarizer

Horseshoe Lake un-filtered

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Willet vs ATVs on Liebeck Lake

Western Willet on Liebeck Lake near Parry Sound, Ontario

During my last trip up to the Parry Sound Region I decided it was time to take my 5 year old daughter on an excursion to Liebeck Lake. This is a small, cottageless lake found deep in the forest near the family cottage on Horseshoe Lake. A trail extends through the woods for roughly 3 kilometres before arriving at the lake and then the trail continues for about another kilometre as it follows the shoreline of the lake before it comes to an end at the Seguin Trail. Despite what you will read below we did have a wonderful time and my daughter was given the piggy-back ride all the way back to the cottage, which I promised her if she would walk all the way out to the lake with me.

Liebeck Lake is a beautiful lake and the water level of the lake is somewhat controlled by beaver dams. Once, about 10-15 years ago one of the dams sprung a leak and the water level dropped quite a bit. History repeated itself this year. During my visit to the lake with my daughter we were able to explore the newly exposed shoreline which is essentially a large mudflat now. While there I noticed a lone western willet feeding on the mudflat and shallows and I was able to get a few decent photos despite the relatively harsh lighting. When the lake level drops like this it exposes part of the areas history with the logging days of the late 1800s and early 1900s evident in the many dead-heads that are usually submerged when the lake levels are normal. These dead-heads tend to make interesting photo subjects themselves.

Please do remember to click on each of the photos to see a much larger, sharper version.

Dead-head on newly exposed shoreline of Liebeck Lake

Dead-heads on newly exposed shoreline of Liebeck Lake

A lovely trail leading us through the woods to a beautiful, quiet lake; the newly exposed shoreline covered with a multitude of Moose and Black Bear tracks and sandpipers arriving at the newly exposed mudflats to feast before continuing their migration south. Not so my friends! When I swing my camera to the left all you can see is a mudflat chewed up by thoughtless folks who have taken their ATVs out for a joy ride in the mud. The lovely quiet trail now looks more like a hideous logging road. Don’t get me wrong now…I have nothing against ATVs, they do serve a purpose but when the folks that drive them off through the woodland trails and wreck havoc on them or destroy shoreline habitat like you see in the photos below I get pissed off. Their are designated trails for ATVs and there are folks who abide them and respect nature and then there are the others…..

ATV damage on Liebeck Lake

What was once the lovely woodland trail to Liebeck Lake

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