Category: Photo-tech

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Photographing Dragonflies at St. Marks NWR

Many photographers and birders visit Saint Marks National Wildlife Refuge to take photographs of birds. Some also take pictures of the beautiful butterflies and moths that are present much of the year.

Another interesting flying insect at St. Marks NWR is the dragonfly. This amazing prehistoric creature can be quite difficult to photograph due to its behavior and the weather conditions at St. Marks.

This blog will discuss the techniques I use to photograph this amazing creature.

Continue reading “Photographing Dragonflies at St. Marks NWR”
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Planning for Milky Way photography

Capturing good pictures of the Milky Way in Florida can be quite a challenge. Rain, clouds, fog, insects, and bright moonlight are a part of life here. Did I mention snakes? Alligators? Lighthouse ghosts? “Area X”?

This year I had made several attempts to frame good shots with the bright galactic core near terrestrial objects, without much success. As the season progresses the Milky Way gradually moves to the west and the galactic core moves to the south. With the passing of the autumnal equinox in September, it looked like I would not get good images this year.
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The lighthouse and Milky Way at moonrise.

When I photograph the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge lighthouse and the Milky Way I try to avoid using electronic flash or “light painting” with a flashlight to make the lighthouse and trees more visible.

I used a flashlight in my early Milky Way photos but once during post-processing I noticed there was an owl atop of the lighthouse and decided to quit using artificial lights at night. The last thing I want to do is blind or disturb the wildlife.

Continue reading “The lighthouse and Milky Way at moonrise.”

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Improve terrestrial milky way photos using image stacking

Photos of the milky way are more interesting if there is some kind of terrestrial object in the foreground to indicate the location.

Lighthouse and milky way from 11 images with 20 second exposure processed using image stacking. (09-18-2017) - St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.

Lighthouses make great foreground objects not only because they show the location of the photo but the idea of this beacon shining over the vast ocean and the vastness of space is very compelling.
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DarkTherapee and the Gimp

“DarkTherapee” is what I call my raw image development workflow and makes use of the FOSS (free and open source software) programs darktable and RawTherapee. The two programs complement each other very well and provide an incredible array of features.
When I first started developing raw images I used RawTherapee but soon discovered darktable and started used it for all my image processing.
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Infrared photography at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge

My first attempt at infrared photography took place at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge for a very simple reason: the sweeping landscape, clouds, and ocean could help make any photo look good.

Most modern digital cameras can record infrared. To find out if yours does simply point your IR remote control toward the lens of your camera then either take a photo or watch “live view” while while pressing some of the remote buttons. If you see light from the remote then you camera will work, at least to some degree.

Getting setup for IR photography can be as simple as buying an infrared filter for your lens. There are a number of filters available but I got the Hoya R-72 which is probably the best for beginners. Continue reading “Infrared photography at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge”

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