Week 52 - 52 Photographs

Here I am at the end of 2024 and my last favorite photograph of the week.

This week is a photograph of a robin I took on a morning walk at Manchester Meadows Park. I like the over the shoulder look the bird is giving me.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

Week 51 - 52 Photographs.

This was a good week for photography. A lot of different subjects and one new location to try out.

But my favorite photograph for the week came from Manchester Meadows Park, a place I go to every day to walk Roxie and to photograph whatever I see.

This week it was the rising sun on a foggy morning.

I posted the photograph on three Facebook groups and was surprised by the response on one of the groups. It had the highest number of responses and positive comments of any previous photograph I’ve posted.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

Week 50 - 52 Photographs

This week’s photograph was taken on the 124th, the last day of the week.

The week got off to a very slow start with cold and rainy days. The first day I got out to shoot was Thursday. I did get some very nice photographs of a Northern Mockingbird, but was happy to get this strange photograph so I didn’t have to post yesterday another Northern Mockingbird.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

Week 49 - 52 Photographs

Well this week got off to a very slow start. Cold weather and a sore foot kept me from going out to shoot.

Finally, at the end of a walk on the 6th, I spotted a Northern Mockingbird and was able to get this photograph.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

Week 48 - 52 Photographs

When you get up before the sun, you often can see some remarkable sights in the sky.

This week’s photograph of the moon and Spica was taken at 5:18 am. Spica is that little white dot just below the moon.

Spica is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo and one of the 20 brightest stars in the night sky. It's also known as Alpha Virginis, and is located about 250 light-years from the Sun.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

Week 47 - 52 Photographs

Back to my Week 10 subject for this week’s favorite photograph.

Roxie napping on a November afternoon. My favorite subject to photograph but one that I don’t do very often.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

Week 46 - 52 Photographs

 This week’s favorite photograph was taken on the first day of the week, Sunday, November 10th.

I usually see numerous Northern Mockingbirds during my walks at Manchester Meadows Park. And over the last year and a half have gotten some very nice photographs of them. But this one could be my all time favorite. 

Usually a Mockingbird will fly off whenever I get too close. But this Mockingbird just did not want to leave where it was perched. So I pointed my camera at him/her and got this photograph. It looks perturbed that I am photographing it. It looks grumpy due to my interruption of its morning by taking a photograph.

So, here is the Grumpy Old Northern Mockingbird photographed by a Grumpy Old Photographer.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

Week 45 - 52 Photographs

This Week’s photograph was taken using the Live ND feature on my Olympus OM-5. Rather then carry a selection of ND filters around with you and screwing one or more onto the front of the lens, you can select from four different ND values; ND2 at -1EV, ND4 at -2EV, ND8 at -3EV, or ND16 at -4EV.

In use Live ND takes multiple short exposures which are then combined into a composite image that simulates a long exposure.

This is only the second time I have used this feature and for certain situations it works quite well.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 photographs - Week 44

Most of the time I photograph the moon I use a telephoto lens to get as large as an image of the moon as I can.

However there are times when a wide angle lens does the job. And this was one of those times. 

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 43

There is nothing like a nice early morning paddle on the Catawba River in late October.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 42

I almost did not choose this photograph. But after thinking about it for some time, I made a last second switch.

As someone commented on one of the posts I made with this photograph “It looks like fireworks.” And so it does.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 41

The fall color has started to appear. And with it comes the return of the heron at Manchester Meadows Park.

I couldn’t resist this photograph of the heron with the fall color in the background and the mist rising off of the pond.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 40

Another difficult choice this week, but this photograph of a Song Sparrow at Manchester Meadows Park was my favorite of the week.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 39

It was a very light week photography wise. We had several days of rain which curtailed my desire to go to shoot. But by Saturday the rain finally stopped.

This is one of the most unusual photographs I’ve taken and could end up being the most unusual of the year.

This has a sort of cosmic look to it. One person has suggested it looks like a planet floating in cosmic dust.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 38

Went back to the Rock Hill Velodrome this week and again I apparently went at the wrong time or during the wrong event. Not much action. 

But I did get this photograph using a slow shutter speed and panning with the subject. I really need to practice this more.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 37

Well another week another difficult choice. I had three great candidates for this week’s photograph. But I just couldn’t resist this photograph of a Grumpy Old Northern Mocking Bird.

I’ve photographed quite a few Northern Mocking birds but this one is special because it makes me laugh every time I look at it. I don’t know why this particular Northern Mockingbird is so grumpy. Perhaps it got up on the wrong side of the nest or perhaps I’ve photographed it before and it’s expressing its displeasure at me taking yet another picture of it. Either way, it’s my favorite photograph of the week.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 36

Well another week with a difficult choice. I had to choose from four of my favorite photographs this week. 

This week’s photograph was taken early in the morning on September 1st. It’s the time of the year when the early morning sun casts nice long shadows. Roxie and I were out for a walk and the long shadows of us made for a nice photograph.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 35

The end of August can only mean that fall is around the corner. And to celebrate my favorite season, here’s a sample of what’s to come.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 34

Another surprise this week. The heron was back at Manchester Meadows Park and as I was walking around to get a different angle on it, I saw this Green Heron. These are very elusive birds and I’ve only seen them twice before, once at this park and once at Nygren Wetlands. I was able to get a few photographs before it took off. 

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 33

Well, this was an unexpected subject. Late last year during my early morning walks at Manchester Meadows Park I would see a heron hanging around the pond. I got a great many photographs of the heron and was sad when it stopped coming.

Yesterday the heron was back and as I was photographing it, an egret flew in. Was I surprised. I had never expected that an egret would be hanging around that location. So here’s one of the photographs of the egret. I hope it continues to come back.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 32

Well, I had this week’s photograph all ready to go and ended up changing my mind. You can see it on my Flickr page HERE  if you’d like.

Several days later a Cardinal showed up for breakfast. Now they usually do not hang around and if they sense any movement they disappear very quickly. But the Cardinal got comfortable in a good location for a photograph. I was able to get several images. This was the first and I think the best.

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“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.”

52 Photographs - Week 31

This week’s photograph is from the parking lot at the local Publix grocery store. Walking back to the car after shopping, I noticed this oil slick and mask. All I had with me was my iPhone so this might possibly be the only iPhone photograph in this collection.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.”

52 photographs - Week 30

We’ve had a lot of rainy days recently so this week’s photograph is of a rain drop.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

A Focus Stacking Story…

I haven’t done macro photography for some time. Most recently I did use some extension tubes with the 12-200mm lens to do some macro photography, but it is not the best solution. 

This past week I bought the Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro lens on sale from B&H Photo. It’s a very nice small, lightweight lens. I’m having fun trying to figure out how best to use it.

It is the only lens I have that is compatible with the OM-1 in-camera focus stacking. So I thought I’d give it a try after watching a couple of YouTube videos on the subject. Ideally you should use a tripod, but if you’re steady, you can hand hold the camera to produce the in-camera focus stack.

This morning I tried the in-camera focus stack feature. The camera creates 15 jpeg images at different focus points and stacks them into a single focus stacked image.

Looking at the stacked image on the camera’s screen, I was not happy with the result.

In-Camera Focus Stack

As you can see, the bottom third of the photograph is clearly not in focus. Now I thought that it could be because it was hand held or that the settings I used were not correct.

I then used Affinity Photo and imported the same 15 separate images and used Affinity’s focus stacking feature and wow, what a difference.

Affinity Photo Focus Stack

I’ll have to do some more testing, but it looks like Affinity Photo is how I should be processing my focus stacked image.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 29

On Tuesday I thought I had the photo of the week. A wonderful image of a Carolina Chickadee just outside the front door up in a tree. I thought there’s no way I can top that. (See previous post.)

Was I wrong. Saturday morning I saw a Green Heron at Manchester Meadows Park. I’ve photographed one before at Nygren Wetlands in northern Illinois. This was the first I’ve seen here and was quite a surprise.

I wasn’t able to get very close to it and it was a dark, grey day so I had to up the ISO and use Topaz Photo AI when I processed the image. And I was very happy with the result.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

Sometimes it’s Just Luck…

Every morning my sister puts food out on the front stoop for the birds and squirrels. Occasionally I try to shoot some photographs of the birds. I’ve never been happy with the results as they usually just grab some food and take off.

The other day a Carolina Chickadee had come around but a squirrel was busy grabbing a bite to eat. Well, instead of flying off, it went up into the tree right outside the door and hung around waiting for the squirrel to take off.

So I grabbed my camera and shot some photographs through the glass storm door. Not ideal conditions, but I was very happy with the results. All photographs below were shot at high ISO and cropped. Some were cropped a bit and some cropped a lot. And all photographs were run through Topaz Photo AI to remove noise and do a little sharpening.

The full frame image

The cropped image

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 28

I had several good candidates for this week’s photographs; birds, a deer, a turtle, and a Japanese Beetle on a rose. (See following post)

But I chose this image of Blackwell Switchgrass from Manchester Meadows Park. 

I love the rich reds and greens of this photograph. I also love the way the grass flows both left and right.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

A Macro Photography Story…

Years ago, think mid 1970’s, I started shooting some macro photographs. The lens I used was the Nikon 55mm f/3.5 Micro-Nikkor. The camera, obviously a Nikon was probably a Nikon FM. And I was shooting Kodachrome 25, the absolute best color transparency ever.

My subjects were mushrooms, other fungi and wild flowers. I used natural light and sometimes used a small white card or aluminum foil to fill in shadows or just to increase the amount of light I had to work with. Here are three examples.

Recently I joined three local photographers for a macro photography outing. I no longer have a macro lens but do have 10mm and 16mm extension tubes. So I used those with my 12-200mm lens.

One of the photographers along for the adventure was shooting with a speed light mounted on her camera and a large diffusion hood attached to the speed light. Apparently that’s all the rage these days. If you’re going to shoot macro photographs, that’s a must have. Do a search on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean.

I will say that the results she got were fantastic. But to me, it seemed a bit much.

So I decided to try a somewhat different approach. I bought a small speedlight, a Godox TT350, and mounted it on my camera. I added the rectangular snap-on diffusion dome to the speedlight.

Did a few quick test shots of a flower to dial in the power setting on the speedlight and the ISO, shutter speed, and f-stop on the camera. Once that was done, I went back out and photographed a Japanese Beetle on a rose. I was quite happy with the results.

ISO 400, 1/250 @ f/11

ISO 400, 1/250 @ f/11

Now there are disadvantages to using extension tubes rather than having a macro lens. The first is that you only have a certain working distance, there is no flexibility to go in closer or further away. You could use just one of the extension rings to change the camera to subject distance, but then the degree of magnification would also change.

The second is that you cannot use that combination as a regular lens. With a macro lens, you don’t have to just shoot macro photographs. You can use it like any other lens. I’d have to remove the extension tubes in order to do that. 

But extension tubes are a very good inexpensive way to get started with macro photography.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 27

This week’s favorite photograph is of two turtles sunning themselves at the Manchester Meadows Park pond. I’ve been going to the park almost every morning for the past year to walk Roxie and this was the first time I’ve seen turtles there. I’m guessing it’s because the water level is low enough to expose the stone object on which they are sunning themselves.

This photograph was taken with my Olympus OM-1 and the Leica DG Vario-Elmer 100-400mm at 400mm. ISO 800, 1/320 at f/8. 

I also used the 2X Digital Teleconverter and cropped the image by about 45%. The Olympus Digital teleconverter doubles your focal length on your lens. In this example I was zoomed out to 400mm and when choosing the 2X digital teleconverter it made it a 800mm focal length. It’s amazing what the Olympus OM-1 can produce.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

The Accidental Focus Stack…

I’ve always thought about doing a focus stacked image. For those who don’t know what that is, here’s an explination.

Focus stacking is a technique designed to achieve a deep depth of field by blending (or stacking) several images together. Each stacked shot is focused in a different spot, so the combined depth of field is deeper than the depth of field produced by any of the individual images.

There are several methods to achieve a focus stack depending on your camera body. Some cameras, like the Olympus OM-1 allows you to create the focus stacked image in camera. The OM-1 also allows you to focus bracket resulting in individual images to be stacked using software, like Affinity Photo. And you can do a focus stack by manually changing the focus point as you shoot images.

All of the above methods require a camera on a tripod for optimal results. And since I never have a tripod with me, I’ve never done a focus stack. Until today. 

All images were shot hand held.

This morning I saw a flowering plant I had never photographed. I had my OM-1 with the Leica DG Vario-Elmer 100-400mm lens. So I zoomed out to around 300mm and took a couple of shots. I reviewed the result and saw that the focus was on the far side of the plant.

It was OK but most of the plant was out of focus due to limited depth of field. So I took a couple more shots with the focus on the near side of the plant. I thought that would be OK.

But when I processed the images I still did not like the results. So I thought, why not try to see if I could focus stack these two images in Affinity Photo. I was thinking that even tho the images did not align, Affinity Photo might be able to align them.

And sure enough Affinity Photo did a good job on stacking the two images. It’s not a perfect focus stacked image, but it sure looks better than either of the two original images. Something to keep in mind for the future.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 26

This week’s photograph is from one of my favorite places to photograph pelicans. I was in Wisconsin for a brief visit and after meeting friends for breakfast on Tuesday, we went to the Rockton Dam to see if the pelicans were still there. For the last couple of years it has been the place to go to photograph these amazing birds. Here’s a link to a PDF book I produced from past photographs: A Pod of Pelicans.

Fortunately there were a few pelicans in the area despite all the rain they’ve had which resulted in a fast flowing river. Every time I’ve photographed pelicans I always get some interesting photographs. This particular photograph I captioned “OK, get busy. The supervisor flew in.”

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 25

This week’s photograph is from a meet up with three other members of the Rock Hill SC Facebook group. Kiska Thompson set it up. We met at River Walk to do some macro photography. Along with Kiska was Connie Bauman and Cammie Marshall Brazzell.

I no longer have a macro lens but I do have two extension tubes. So along with my 12-200mm lens off I went. And I was pleasantly surprised at the results. I need to spend more time perfecting the use of that setup.

So with that said, here is this week’s photograph, a Hairy Scarab.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 24

OK, so it’s not just one photograph this week It’s a triptych of a Canada geese family I’ve photographed twice at Manchester Meadows Park. The first photograph I took of this family I have uploaded to my Flickr page: Canada Geese family.

I thought just one photograph would not tell the story I wanted to tell with these photographs. First one young goose takes a drink of water and then the other one takes a drink of water. 

So I created this triptych using Affinity Photo. I think this might be useful in future projects when one photograph does not tell the whole story.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“

52 Photographs - Week 23

 Well this week got off to a slow start. First rain then more rain. Then a couple of appointments. I didn’t think I’d get anything worthwhile this past week.

But the other day I photographed this plant. I used Pl@ntNet to identify it and it is Wild Garlic, Allium vineale L.. Who knew?

Allium vineale (wild garlic, onion grass, crow garlic or stag's garlic) is a perennial, bulb-forming species of wild onion, native to Europe, northwestern Africa and the Middle East. The species was introduced in Australia and North America, where it has become an Invasive species.

I love the purple colors contrasting with the green background.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.“