This morning we turned the heat on for the first time. A sure sign the seasons have changed. Also we are acclimated to southern living, cold certainly doesn’t describe where I live 😆.
The tropical Moon Flowers are still blooming nightly with at least a dozen this morning. It’s pitch black when I’m up and moving now, another sign of the changes.
Specs; OM-1 (1), OM 12-100, Lightroom, DxO Filmpack.
The small dinosaurs have hatched now. They grow fast, but until then they are hard to find. And once you do they are fast. Small Anole are less than an inch when we first find them.
I want to say these are two different lizards from the thick plants out in the big arbor area. Not like they have name tags so maybe not.
During the summer, when it’s hot and humid, these are my preferred wildlife to photograph. The air conditioners are close and it shows the temperature as over 100 right now.
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Specs; OM-1 (1), OM 12-100 f4. Finished in ON1 Photo RAW, Topaz.
I don’t use any macro gear, yet. Ellen does have an OM 90 mm macro lens but I’m not ready for limiting myself to a prime lens.
This is the outlier. He moves around the edges of this rookery.
Great Blues are solitary for most of the year. For about 4 months starting in January here they pair up in swamps. Otherwise the stay alone. Also few others bother them.
What you don’t see here is the wider view. There are hundreds of white birds all around. He just stays away.
Best viewed large.
Ellen likes fresh vegetables, local farm raised meat, and eggs. Going to the local Farmers Market is part of her weekly routine. There’s also a farm here that grows flowers. Each week they bring in the most recent blooms from their acres of wild flowers.
Below is this weeks crop. Pretty impressive.
This image was finished with ON1 Photo RAW. It was shot indoors, no flash. Using ON1, rather than Lightroom was a test. The flow was to use multiple softwares that have specific strengths that general editors do not and see how well the flow worked. Most editors don’t ’play well with others’. This is one of Lightroom’s strengths.
The work flow was;
The end result was this image, just about the same as Lightroom would have made. And it actually took the same time I would have spent in Adobe. ON1 is faster than Lightroom (much faster) and has the same interactions with other imaging systems so it’s really nothing different than I would have done in LR.
If the editor works smooth the transition is not all that much different than if I had done the work directly inside an editor. Except these softwares do the function better, they’re made for specific purposes, not a one size fits all.
OK, this is now much longer than I had planned so I will go to the final goal in post processing for me. The best I can get is using special software on multiple images. Basically get the first image in a series, like a Heron in flight over a swamp, the way I want. Then have all the other images in that series get the changes ‘pasted’ to them. Consistency across them all. With the flow above it’s easy, even using multiple softwares, if the editor ‘plays well with others’.
ON1 is getting pretty close, and works fast, at an inexpensive one time purchase.
The Tricolored Herons are the main residents inside the thick swamp brush. Nesting in there is tight and of course that leads to trouble.
Since the leaves cover everything you never know what’s happening. Heads pop out, birds walk flapping and squawking. 😝 That’s all you can see. You can get some funny shots though as they pop in and out all whipped up.
No little Chippies here. Massive trees are common in the Lowcountry. The super sized birds fit in like they’re Sparrows.
A Black-crowned Night Heron set on a long branch of a swamp tree. Behind him in the wood line are multiple nests. It’s like a small enclave close to, but away from, all the swirling Egrets.
Typically Night Herons are one of the last wading birds to mate each year. I have seen a few young ones around, so this years season is probably coming to an end.
The Trumpet Vines out back are becoming trees. A friend built big arbors for us over the years. Sturdy, we knew what was coming. The last arbors collapsed under the weight.
To be perfectly clear, Ellen and our neighbor are responsible for everything here. I photograph the end product… and the critters that take up residence.
Photographed using the OM-1 (1), OM 12-200.
