City of Light

Yesterday evening downtown Brattleboro was lit up for the monthly first Friday Gallery Walk, a chance for local artists and craftspeople to show their work. Because of the coming holidays this was a particularly festive occasion. The sidewalks packed with revelers and street musicians were filling the air with their music.

This is a view down from a parking lot on the lit-up Centre Congregational Church on Main Street with the post office parking lot in the foreground. The sky reflects the bright lights from the streets and buildings. Taking this photos was a bit tricky as the dark areas required a slow shutter speed.  I balanced my camera on a chain link fence and in order to prevent camera shake used a remote control cable l to take the three photos for this composite.  I am pleased with the result: the dark sky as well as the highlights on the building and the white postal trucks are showing good detail.

Tomorrow I am planning to get back to birding, will take a trip to the coast if the forecast for sunshine tomorrow holds. Right now it doesn't look very promising with first-of-the-season light snow falling.

Continuing my experiments with HDR

There is not much going on right now, birdwise I mean; so am continuing my experimentation with HDR photography. These photos were taken during a walk along the West River Trail this morning. The sky was clear initially but then became populated with heavy rain clouds. Fortunately the rain held off until we got back home.

This is an image of the cornfield by the Retreat Meadow behind the Marina Restaurant. Great for birding most of the year: sparrows along the perimeter, indigo buntings in the corn plants, ducks and geese in the puddles and shallow ponds along the far side, raptors overhead, crows any time of the year..

The trail is an old abandoned railroad track. It is broad at first but then narrows for a stretch as it passes beneath the I91 bridge over the river. .

These curlicues are spray-painted on a cement bridge abutment. I have no idea who did it or why but was intrigued by the three-dimensional feel of it.

HDR Images from Newfane, Vermont

Here are some images from Newfane, Vermont, using HDR imaging

It's one of those picturesque Vermont towns - you'd think this is the way it must have looked like in the 18th century, except for the cars and the ubiquitous overhead electric cables.

The West River off Rte 30 on the way into Newfane

Black Scoter

Thanks to JoAnne Russo, who posted a report in the VTBird list,  I was finally able to see and take a photo of an adult male Black Scoter which was swimming around by himself on a small pond in Newfane, VT. It's another life bird for me and I had been looking for one all  fall after reading various reports in the VT, NH and Mass birding lists.

The water was clear enough to show his big paddle-like feet

Well, enough. It's off for the holidays!

Trying HDR photography and saying good-bye for the year to a Great Blue Heron

I have been experimenting with HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging. It's a technique of fusing several images taken with different exposure, i.e. over-, under- and correct exposure, resulting in an image which contains a wider range of very dark and very bright areas than would ordinarily be possible. Since there is always a small delay between each exposure the images are best taken with the camera on a tripod. Handheld images, like mine,  usually result in some ghosting and are never quite sharp.

Here is my first effort, a view from our deck on the wetland next to our house. I used a demo version of Photomatix. The sky often comes out gray and has to be corrected in Photoshop. In fact most images require further editing in Photoshop:

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Here is a landscape taken in late afternoon sunlight:

After

Before

A mall in Keene:

The technique is derived from 3-D imaging in video games and many of the images on the net are still reminiscent of a toy-size model set-ups. One give-away of an HDR image is the appearance of a sky with unusually dramatic cloud formations. Here is a site that explains the technique and has some good examples along with  tutorials: Stuck in Customs. I am not sure how far I am going to go with this. I generally prefer more natural-looking images but it might be fun in the winter when there are not many birds around.

While walking on the railroad trail behind the shopping mall in Keene a Great Blue Heron suddenly appeared overhead. It was the same one I had been observing for much of the summer and fall, first as a juvenile and now as a grown bird. He'll soon be off going south.

Good Birding! And Happy Thanksgiving. For us it's off to Michigan again for a week to visit family..