Wednesday Landscapes, 4 July 2018

[Leslie Reid]

You are invited to upload one or more of your landscape photos and, if you’d like, to accompany your image with some commentary: challenges you faced in making the image? your intent for the image? settings? post-processing decisions? why you did what you did? the place and time? or an aspect you’d like feedback on? And please feel free to ask questions of others who have posted images or to join the discussion. If you don’t feel like using words, that’s OK too—unaccompanied images (or unaccompanied words, for that matter) are also very much welcomed. As for the technicalities, the usual forum guidelines apply: files < 1 MB; image size <1000 px maximum dimension.

 

I’ll start off with the excuse. It had been a foggy, drippy morning—the kind of weather that you really don’t want to be changing lenses in—and I’d been out taking macro photos of very small fungi using a 60mm macro lens and focusing rail. Imagine my surprise when the fog lifted and I was confronted by a beautiful coastline in the absence of an alternative lens (60mm on my APS-C is the equivalent of about 100mm on a full-frame camera). So one does what one has to do, and I stitched together a double-tier 6-image panorama. I take that back. Lightroom stitched it together. Judging from the file size, there are enough pixels involved here to make a print the size of a billboard.

[andy_szeto]

SheiPa National Park, Taiwan

[Laura Weishaupt]

It had been a foggy, drippy morning—the kind of weather that you really don’t want to be changing lenses in—and I’d been out taking macro photos of very small fungi......

 

Sounds like the beginning of a great mystery novel.:D

 

Sounds of bugs fill the forest and fields of wild flowers in the heat and humidity of summer nights. But fireflies put on a light show. It is dazzling and goes on for hours. So, in honor of our 4th of July holiday, here are some of nature's own fireworks from part of my back yard.

 

[blurrist]

[mikehegarty01]

Palm Creak Conway Ar.

[michaellinder]

[brian_niemi1]

Ojai, California

[JDMvW]

waiting for darkness

[Deborah Vallette]

[sallymack]

Mudscape, anyone?

[sallymack]

Sounds like the beginning of a great mystery novel.:D

 

Sounds of bugs fill the forest and fields of wild flowers in the heat and humidity of summer nights. But fireflies put on a light show. It is dazzling and goes on for hours. So, in honor of our 4th of July holiday, here are some of nature's own fireworks from part of my back yard.

 

What a shot! I have no idea how you managed it. . . Fireflies are cool.

[michaellinder]

 

If you like fireflies, try going to a densely wooded mountain. Ask the local experts (if necessary) if there is firefox in the woods. Firefox is a bioluminescent lichen. If you can position yourself and your camera near the base of the mountain so that you can look up the slope toward the summit, and if it's nighttime, look up and revel in the trails of light. And don't forget to click the shutter a few times!

[Laura Weishaupt]

Sally Mack says, "What a shot! I have no idea how you managed it. . . Fireflies are cool."

 

Nothing special here. Tripod, shutter cable, bulb setting, ISO 1600. Open the shutter, count to 90, or so, wave off the skeeters, and try not to trip over anything while groping around the yard in the dark. They were in many of the trees, and might show up better in a longer exposure. I have an area of tall wild flowers that is about 1/4 acre. It's all about 4 ft tall right now and the fireflies are concentrated there. They also come up from the grass. It's like billions of little x-mas lights going on and off everywhere. I heard some deer in the woods and hoped that they would come out. I had the camera pointed towards a regular travel path in hopes of any denizens of the night showing up in the frame, but not this time. No bats either, which is a real shame. The session yielded decent results for a first time.

 

Sally's mud shot reminds me of images from Mars. It makes me think of some very ancient water course washing down from Olympus Mons .....really nice.

[Glenn McCreery]

View of a marsh near Driggs, Idaho with a yellow-headed blackbird in the foreground and the snow covered Teton Mountain Range in the background. The photo was taken on June 2, and now, one month later, the high temperature in Driggs is supposed to be 88 F today. I prefer having some snow.

[Wilmarco Imaging]

http://www.wilmarcoimaging.com/img/s/v-3/p2955794824-4.jpg

Indiana

Nikkor SW 120/8

Kodak Ektar 100

[Greg M]

Landscapes of two different sorts, first a July 4 light show in the sky before dawn, with an 18mm superwide..

 

 

and the evening before, one of a few thunderheads I captured and processed in monochrome via Adobe Camera raw.

 

[Gus Lazzari]

8 Element Leitz Summicron 35mm f/2 shot at f/5.6 mounted to a Leica M9 - ISO 160

Focused on the foreground leaves - Post processed using the discontinued Picasa...

 

Yosemite Rock

Edited July 6, 2018 by Gus Lazzari

[Sandy Vongries]

GXR 15.7 - 55.5

[sergtum1958]

Russian Volga

 

DSC09207 by Mr TTT, on Flickr

[michaellinder]

Sally Mack says, "What a shot! I have no idea how you managed it. . . Fireflies are cool."

 

Nothing special here. Tripod, shutter cable, bulb setting, ISO 1600. Open the shutter, count to 90, or so, wave off the skeeters, and try not to trip over anything while groping around the yard in the dark. They were in many of the trees, and might show up better in a longer exposure. I have an area of tall wild flowers that is about 1/4 acre. It's all about 4 ft tall right now and the fireflies are concentrated there. They also come up from the grass. It's like billions of little x-mas lights going on and off everywhere. I heard some deer in the woods and hoped that they would come out. I had the camera pointed towards a regular travel path in hopes of any denizens of the night showing up in the frame, but not this time. No bats either, which is a real shame. The session yielded decent results for a first time.

 

Sally's mud shot reminds me of images from Mars. It makes me think of some very ancient water course washing down from Olympus Mons .....really nice.

 

Laura, did you happen to see my comments about Firefox?

[Laura Weishaupt]

Laura, did you happen to see my comments about Firefox?

 

Yes, Michael, I did, and I read it with great interest. I'm not familiar with it, and have never seen it in the dark. Honestly, I'm not in the woods in the dark much anymore. (though I'm often either in the woods, or in the dark :rolleyes:). When I find the time I'll do some looking around to see if it lives around my area.(eastern PA). I've not even heard anyone around here mention it. I'm not surprised that bioluminescent lichens are out there, and from your description, it sounds very cool. It would look great under blue light, but that's a different landscape photo, for sure.

[charles_stobbs3]

I remember seeing bioluminescent rotting wood (not sure what species). People used to gather it and place it at a boat launching site to guide them back if canoeing at night.

[Vincent Peri]

...bioluminescent rotting wood...). People used to gather it and place it at a boat launching site to guide them back if canoeing at night.

 

Hmm... not a bad idea...

for humans...

http://bayouline.com/o2.gif

[michaellinder]

Yes, Michael, I did, and I read it with great interest. I'm not familiar with it, and have never seen it in the dark. Honestly, I'm not in the woods in the dark much anymore. (though I'm often either in the woods, or in the dark :rolleyes:). When I find the time I'll do some looking around to see if it lives around my area.(eastern PA). I've not even heard anyone around here mention it. I'm not surprised that bioluminescent lichens are out there, and from your description, it sounds very cool. It would look great under blue light, but that's a different landscape photo, for sure.

Yes, Michael, I did, and I read it with great interest. I'm not familiar with it, and have never seen it in the dark. Honestly, I'm not in the woods in the dark much anymore. (though I'm often either in the woods, or in the dark :rolleyes:). When I find the time I'll do some looking around to see if it lives around my area.(eastern PA). I've not even heard anyone around here mention it. I'm not surprised that bioluminescent lichens are out there, and from your description, it sounds very cool. It would look great under blue light, but that's a different landscape

Landscapes of two different sorts, first a July 4 light show in the sky before dawn, with an 18mm superwide..

 

 

and the evening before, one of a few thunderheads I captured and processed in monochrome via Adobe Camera raw.

 

 

Greg, I'm very impressed by the color image; the b&w doesn't work for me as much.

[Leslie Reid]

I remember seeing bioluminescent rotting wood (not sure what species). People used to gather it and place it at a boat launching site to guide them back if canoeing at night.

That is really interesting! It's probably from the same wood-rotting fungus that creates Michael's foxfire--I've never seen it, but I keep searching. But we're woefully lacking in fireflies out here on the other coast--we've got the genus and they glow, but only in their larval form as "glow-worms"--nowhere near as magical as a backyard filled with flying lanterns.

thunderheads

Mudscape

and I would have tagged Michael and Debbie, too, if there had been something taggable in the posts--for some reason I'm particularly enjoying the B&Ws this week (which isn't to say I'm not enjoying the rest, too!) Hmm. I may be doing some B&W conversions over the next few days...

[Laura Weishaupt]

That is really interesting! It's probably from the same wood-rotting fungus that creates Michael's foxfire

 

Michael was referring to a lichen, not fungi per se. (yes, yes, I know that lichens are a symbiosis of algae and fungi, so don't anyone hit me with wet noodles ;)) There are many species of bioluminescent fungi, and the mycelium will have that quality also. That would account for glowing rotting logs. Any of it would make for interesting landscape photos.

[michaellinder]

↑

(Leslie): That is really interesting! It's probably from the same wood-rotting fungus that creates Michael's foxfire

 

(Laura:): Michael was referring to a lichen, not fungi per se. (yes, yes, I know that lichens are a symbiosis of algae and fungi, so don't anyone hit me with wet noodles ;)) There are many species of bioluminescent fungi, and the mycelium will have that quality also. That would account for glowing rotting logs. Any of it would make for interesting landscape photos.

 

(Me): Each of you are considerably more advanced in biology than me. I've learned a lot from you. Thanks!

[Greg M]

Thank you Michael.