February 2012 Wallpaper

1680x1050 feb 2012 900x562 February 2012 Wallpaper

When did February arrive?   Where did January go?  Yikes!

Here’s an image taken a couple of weeks ago in the backyard.   Not a big departure from January’s I admit but I can’t help stare at water…

If you like the above image you can download it to your computer and use it as your desktop or tablet wallpaper. A few of the common screen sizes are available:

Download the 1024×768 version here. (Perfect for your iPad)

Download the 1280×1024 version here.

Download the 1680×1050 version here.

Technical stuff:

Canon 5D Mark II, 100-400mm f/4.5 at  f/9 and 250mm. 0.6 second exposure. ISO 160. (0.9 ND and polarizing filter)

Processed with Lightroom 3: bit of fill light and black point, clarity +43, vibrance +0.  (And I just noticed some dust spotting might have been useful…  sigh!)

Sudbury River Sunrise

wpid2934 20121 580 1398 merged Sudbury River Sunrise

Didn’t get out last Wednesday (the weather was pretty awful) and the previous week’s exploration yielded little in the way of images but I did continue my weekly attempt to photograph something new – in this case the Sudbury River in Sudbury (not far off of Route 27).   Nothing special here, especially considering what I could have done yesterday with the wonderful fog we had — but unfortunately the business of having a business prevented me from getting anywhere near a camera until long after the sun burned off all of the good stuff…  Sigh.

Anyways, in a rush to get out of the house I forgot to bring my graduated neutral density filters (and my hat) so when this scene began to present itself I had to go to “plan B”.  Consequently these first two images are HDR composites from 3 separate exposures.  I wasn’t sure if I liked the B&W version better so I posted both here.  Other than the HDR, which manages to keep the dark ice and the brilliant rising sun all within the exposure range, little was done to the image beyond the usual tonal tweaking.

wpid2936 20121 580 1398 merged 2 Sudbury River Sunrise

I’m not what you’d call an expert with the HDR tools, but I’m still trying to figure out if the halo around the trees is an optical illusion or a processing artifact.   When I zoom into the image in Lightroom, I don’t see the halo…   Something to ponder on a rainy day…

A rising sun doesn’t give you much time to find good photographs.   The image below is the first of a few exposures I made trying to capture the warm glow of the sun rising on the ice.  Unfortunately by the time I managed to get a better composition lined up the sun was too bright and lacks the warmth and evenness that this, admittedly uninspiring, version does — but it’s always a challenge to race the sun.

wpid2938 20121 580 1401 Sudbury River Sunrise

Ice Hats

wpid2915 20121 263 1293 Ice Hats

A quick study from this morning on the relationship of rock, ice and water…

wpid2917 20121 263 1300 Ice Hats

wpid2919 20121 263 1304 Ice Hats

wpid2921 20121 263 1313 Ice Hats

wpid2923 20121 263 1314 Ice Hats

wpid2925 20121 263 1327 Ice Hats

wpid2927 20121 263 1334 Ice Hats

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