Well, not wandering so much as on my way to the dentist, and then sitting in the waiting room lol.
I arrived and noticed that one of the surest signs of spring had popped up … the fenced in chunk of the parking lot known as the “garden center” … all of our major grocery stores do this every year, so it must be wicked profitable.
F900EXR 4.6mm (25mm efl) 100iso f/7.1 1/400
The clarity of this lens really shines when you process the RAW images in Lightroom. The fence tines are crystal clear with no edge artifacts visible at all. Quite lovely and deserving of a light touch on the sharpening sliders.
f900exr 69.7mm (377mm efl) 100iso f/6 1/240
I sat down in the waiting room and was immediately told that it would be a few minutes, so I pulled the cam out of the jacket’s inside pocket and started shooting the gulls. This was through a thick, double-pane commercial glass window, so these are not the shining star of clarity, but it amused me to shoot these so you are seeing them against your will :-)
I processed these with Perfect Effects Free Edition in Lightroom and I happen to favour the dark glow (Horton) effect, so you will see it often when the pixel quality does not encourage a straight up processing. Ever wonder what the top of these light standards looks like? My guess is it’s pretty disgusting :-)
f900exr 92mm (500mm efl) 100iso f/5.3 1/850
A similar scene across the parking lot. These crops you are seeing are not quite 100%, but the are certainly aggressive. The HS50 would have been a far better choice, but alas it does not carry as easily.
f900exr 92mm (500mm efl) 100iso f/5.3 1/800
Then I started trying to capture the flying gulls … they tend to turn often and swoop through the frame really quickly, so the odds of actually getting a focus lock and capturing them is really low. At least over a parking lot like this. Shooting over a lake or river is quite different as they go in straighter lines for longer.
Eventually, I got one shot, but it did not lock focus perfectly. Still, I really like the image as it epitomizes the BIF genre. So here is another fairly aggressive crop. The first is presented with fairly heavy sharpening and noise reduction to get a reasonable looking image. I like it, maybe some of you will too. The second is a reinterpretation in perfect effects using the “infrared” effect, and wow … did that one ever work. I went back into Lightroom and added a bit more glow and some grain to give a B&W infrared effect. All in all, these are my favorites from this shoot.
f900exr 92mm (500mm efl) 100iso f/11 1/280
So a little fun at the dentist’s office.
