Fall Colors in South Florida - DPChallenge Forums

11/14/2005 10:01:42 PM · #1

Getting kind of depressed seeing all these great shots of fall colors. Took the boat up the river this weekend, and all there is to see is green.

Still waiting for the polarizer. Don't have a good telephoto. Not great at getting steady images from a boat. I'm under no delusions that these are good, but thought I'd share anyway. Wish I could have gotten a good shot of the 8' alligator that we cruised by. I'm beginning to understand about equipment envy! I thought everything would be fine, once I got this camera. Now I just want more, more, more...

RonB

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

11/14/2005 11:02:18 PM · #2

I like them. Of course, I may be just a wee bit prejudiced, what with me living in central Florida myself. I do try to get out onto the St. John's River a couple of times a year for just this kind of experience.
Still - what impresses me most is the way the clouds in the first photo almost form an outline of the trees for nearly the entire left side of the frame. Serendipity? Anyway, I think it adds a nice touch.

Nice capture on the egret in photo #2.

Number 3? Yeah, that happens far too often.

11/14/2005 11:30:10 PM · #3

I really like the first shot. Feels like typical old florida. The colors and composition work nicely. And I understand how you feel...being from the cold white north originally, fall is the one season that I miss. I live near St. Pete now, but try to get home at least every other year in the fall.
Did the gator you missed look something like this?

Got these shots at Sanibel Island this weekend. This big old guy was sunning himself in a ditch about 5feet from the road.

Edited to try to fix thumbnails but still not working....

Message edited by author 2005-11-14 23:33:18.

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm F2.5 ASPH

11/14/2005 11:34:49 PM · #4

Ok, here we go...got it fixed!

RonB

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

11/14/2005 11:37:24 PM · #5

ArpeggioAngel, use the last icon on the message creation frame to insert thumbnails - oops. Never mind. You fixed them yourself. Nice shots of Florida's natives.

Message edited by author 2005-11-14 23:38:43.

Olyuzi

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7

11/15/2005 02:11:04 AM · #6

Have you seen any of Clyde Butcher's work? He's photographed much of the Everglades and his prints are absolutely beautiful. However, he uses a large format view camera (not digital) and so gets great detail in his images. YOu can check him out on the web at:
clydebutcher.com

I live on Long Island and do a lot of my photography along the shore. In the summer months it's almost impossible because of all the bugs out, but honestly, I don't know how you Florida photogs do it cause you have a lot more bugs, snakes, gators and what not than we do up here. I don\'t think I\'d be able to hold the camera still in that hot humid mosquito infested environment down there. Not trying to bad mouth south FLA (my parents live there), but it would seem to be very uncomfortable in the summer months with the extremes of heat and humidty.

I have done a lot of shooting of egrets too and I find them to be the most challenging of all wildlife subjects so far. I don\'t know about the ones down there, but up here egrets are so skittish we can\'t get within 50 feet before they take off so most of the bird photogs up carry humongously expensive and long heavy lenses (with a tripod). I think the best idea is to set up behind a blind and wait for them to come to you and then snap away.

Besides not being able to get too close to egrets I find that along with their small size relative to the frame along with their very bright whites make them very hard to expose properly. Your second shot is a good example of what usually happens. The white of the egret gets blown out because the camera\'s metering is influenced to a great extent by the darker background and so attempts to open up. My suggestiong would be to use spot metering and take your reading off of the white of the bird\'s feathers only. Also, maybe using a flash if you can get one powerful enough to throw some light on the bird will allow you to use smaller aperature.

Also, hone your panning technique with these beautiful, but slow flying birds.

Great first shots with your new camera. Good luck, have fun, and don\'t forget the bug repellent! :)

parrothead

Canon EOS-40D

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX Aspherical DF for Canon

11/15/2005 02:17:16 AM · #7

Great stuff roxanne! I wish I was there!

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

11/15/2005 09:47:36 AM · #8

Thanks everyone!
Katherine, yes it looked like that. The one that scared me was a slightly smaller gator that lunged from the bank as we passed and swam right at us, yikes!

Ron, Do you ever get over to the Oklawaha? Haven't been there yet, but my husband says it's amazing.

Olyuzi,
Thanks for the link! You might not believe it, but the only time we encounter bugs on the water is if we get into the no-see-ums in the mangroves. This was 8 miles round-trip, through a huge nature preserve and the only bug that bothered us was a curious hornet that followed us most of the way. Likewise, the day before, we went into the woods and only saw a couple of mosquitoes. I guess we've been lucky.

Thanks for the tips on the egret. This one happened to be very large (about 3' tall). I didn't really try very hard, because I was so far away and didn't even think it would turn out at all. Next time I'll take your advice. For now, this lense is the full extent of my equipment. We have a telephoto and a macro lense on our wish list.

I'll extend the offer I made to skiprow to everyone. Anyone who wants to take the nature cruise in our little boat is welcome to come visit.

Cheers,
Roxanne

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

11/15/2005 09:54:07 AM · #9

In the words of Kermit the Frog, 'It's not easy being green'.

All this means is that you need to be a bit more creative in the composition to make it work. I think you've done quite well with the ones posted.

Keep it up!

CNovack

Canon EOS-600D/T3i Rebel

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

11/15/2005 10:28:29 AM · #10

Originally posted by greatandsmall:

Getting kind of depressed seeing all these great shots of fall colors. Took the boat up the river this weekend, and all there is to see is green.

It may not exactly yield fall colors but the Gaylord Palms Hotel does this every year - make an entire Winter Wonderland of ice bridges, victorian villiage, slides, etc. out of 2 million pounds of Ice The following link has 3 pages of photos from the 2004 exibit. //www.wdwinfo.com/Photos/ICE-gaylord/

11/15/2005 11:01:00 AM · #11

Originally posted by C Novack:

//www.wdwinfo.com/Photos/ICE-gaylord/

Thanks! Fixed Link. That definitely looks like it's worth checking out.

11/15/2005 11:10:24 AM · #12

I have heard about that at the Gaylord Palms and always wanted to go. Maybe this year I will finally get a chance!

11/15/2005 11:30:15 AM · #13

Katherine,
I really like your work. Especially got a kick out of this one.

The reason being, that this has been my desktop image since I took it last week.

Message edited by author 2005-11-15 11:31:57.

KaDi

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

11/15/2005 01:35:54 PM · #14

Originally posted by greatandsmall:

Getting kind of depressed seeing all these great shots of fall colors. Took the boat up the river this weekend, and all there is to see is green.

It's all in how you look at it. =)

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

11/15/2005 01:41:59 PM · #15

Originally posted by KaDi:

It's all in how you look at it. =)

So...I should look at life through a rose colored filter? I like that idea:^)

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

11/15/2005 01:42:40 PM · #16

Originally posted by greatandsmall:

Originally posted by KaDi:

It's all in how you look at it. =)

So...I should look at life through a rose colored filter? I like that idea:^)

... or a blue/gold polarizer.