About six miles south from home here in Waterville, Ohio is a park just before you reach Grand Rapids. Just a parking lot and a stone pathway down a ravine to the Maumee River.

My goal was to find shadows and textures to translate to black and white images. I got some of that. Also some that demand to stay in color, some noisy squirrels, and a new feathered friend. 
My Photo Album

First thing I see when I get out of my car is this old guy demanding my attention.  Several shots later, this image is the winner.  Great tree!

Directly across the street was an old silo that also got my attention.  I snapped off a few pictures and ran it through Snapseed's grunge filter to better suit the mood this old decaying rural icon presented...

There is what I would call a flood plain just before the Maumee River that the park has designated as prairie land.  The park had recently mowed down some  of the prairie grass leaving a neat pattern.

I enjoy seeing this as shadow paths connecting darkness to light trans-versing a pathway connecting me from someplace to somewhere. I also call this "In Between".

As I was aiming to take a shot of another cool tree, I heard some screeching and fluttering of wings.  A bird lands almost directly above me on a branch.  It was being harassed by a few smaller birds and looked frazzled.  He looked around a bit, shaking his feathers and turned to look down at me just as I snapped.  

Hope you enjoyed my little road trip.  I'll leave you with my last picture I took the other morning down by Farnsworth Metropark as the sun rose.  As pretty as the sun rise was, this picture stood out more.  I took it without a tripod and shivering from the cold.  The FZ200 does a pretty nice job holding steady.
Andy

After work yesterday I grabbed the old moment-point-capture-device, jumped back in the car, and drove down some nearby roads I'd seldom travel.

I came across an old, stone gate and wall so I pulled over and snapped some shots. I found myself somewhat self-conscious thinking the people driving by must be wondering, "What in the hell is that fool doing taking photos of that old wall!?"

That's something about photography I hadn't considered before when looking at other's photos; what socially awkward situations the photographer had put themselves in for that unique shot.

I often times see instagram pictures of homes people have taken and posted... What would I think if I saw somebody outside my window taking pictures!?

I decided to stop at a nearby cemetery I used to take my kids to practice driving. I had figured the only folks they would run over we're already dead.

It was cold as the graves I was walking over so called it quits. Hope you enjoyed!
Andy

The opportunity arose later in the day to go back to Oak Openings again. My daughter Bailey who has interest in photography wanted to go so what the heck, I'm game for more trail walking!

I went to a different section of the park to get some new shots. There were several cars here but I expected this with it being nice weather, Friday, and a holiday weekend as well.

Black and white photos really seem to work with how the environment looks right now. The sun low in the sky casting long, dark shadows gave some nice contrasts to the light brown foliage that hasn't got the memo yet that spring has sprung.

I'm finding myself drawn to black and white images more. I'm not sure summertime shots of trees in full bloom or tropical locals translate to black and white photography well, but winter sure does.

Bailey found some buds that she wanted to take some macro pictures of. That's some up close shots if your not familiar. However she forgot to charge up her Canons battery before we left!

We found a patch of moss on the forest floor spotlit by some sunlight. When I got home I found that The color shots of this didn't really work for me. However taking away the color transformed it.

I thought some close ups of the moss would look cool.

We spotted a woodpecker in its hole, but it flew out before we could get a snap off. Still I got a pretty good shot of it up on its deadwood perch.

As we were leaving a bird flew across the trail ahead of us and landed about 75 yards away. I took a shot of it with my tele-zoom and here's the shot cropped a little closer. At the park I thought it was a Jay of some sort due to its tail. But it's some sort of raptor. Anybody know?

Amy woke me up early this morning letting me know the moon was out and the skies were clear if I want to get some pictures. I wasn't convinced as our bed was pretty warm and comfy. However curiousity prevailed and I threw on some clothes, grabbed my camera along with my mini-tripod, and went out to see what I could come up with.

As you can see I didn't quite have the focus correct. It was having troubles focusing on the moon through the branches of the trees. I was half awake and didn't realize what was happening. So that's where the TangledFX app comes handy!

Presto-chango! Love that app.

Since I was up I decided to grab my keys and head up to Oak Openings Metropark about 10 minutes from home. It's quite chilly; only 31 degrees, but I'm excited to have a sun finally.

I get there to find a half dozen power-walkers loudly conversing around the small lake, frightening any wildlife that might've been present. I decide to wander down a path anyway and see what I could come up with.

I decided to experiment with using HDR which stands for High Dynamic Range. The Lumix DMC-FZ200 has two ways of doing this. The first is to use what is called brackets. This is where it takes three images, each at different exposures. You then use photo editing software to combine these into one image. This way you capture the rich, dark shadows as well as the mid-tones and highlights.

The others is a built in scene-mode that takes these three images and combines them for you right in the camera. I used the former and downloaded the app called "TrueHDR" to process the pictures after I got home. However this app only uses two of the three shots. I experimented a bit but ultimately think ill stick with built in HDR process...

Here are a few more pictures that I took. I found that black and white really works well pre-greenery. Love to hear your thoughts as always.
Andy

Hey everyone.  Just got back from a week long stay in Columbus, Ohio for work.  The weather was overcast, cold and even got some snow the first part of the week.  The last few days it warmed up into the 40s F and the sun came out.  A co-worker and I spoke a little about where to take some photos around the area, and he mentioned a nature preserve called Emily Traphagen Preserve not to far from where I was staying.  The park is in Delaware, Ohio. He is a photographer as well and has some shots up on youtube.  I'll put a link at the bottom of this blog. 

It was a short drive, down passed the Columbus Zoo, off a street named "Seldom Seen Road" (for real).  There was one other car there, a man and his kids, as there was a play set near the parking lot.  I was concerned that they may have made too much noise and scared away the wildlife.  They may have, but I did captured a few good shots.

I''m going to show both the original shot and the post-processed shot I ran through Snapseed, an app for my iPad.  My wife simply does not like any photo that is processed.  She prefers the image as it was shot in nature.  I find that your memory of the shot doesn't always translate to the picture you see right out of the camera.  There are dynamics involved such as the mood you are trying to capture of the scene, a color that the camera just simply failed to capture correctly, the environment's temperature, etc.  I'm still learning, and find that in post-processing, I can turn a decent shot into something special.  I'll give more examples along with the picture below.  I'm not saying she's wrong, I'm saying its art, and with all art, it truly is in the eye of the beholder.

By the way,  clicking on all my pictures will open them in a separate window for viewing at a larger size.  I wasn't sure if that was obvious or not. I'll sometimes link to my Flickr feed too, which is found here.

What made me stop and snap this shot was the way the light colored, dead leaves were flapping in the light cast by the setting sun.  The scene around me is dark, cold, isolated.  I used Snapseed to convey this mood better in the picture on the right.  I brought more focus to the leaves as well, as they became washed out in the original.  

I felt the original didn't isolate the front cattail effectively enough.  I used Snapseed to adjust the contrast and brought some depth the image too, where the original was washed out in beige.

The scene I really wanted to explain in my picture was the contrast of textures.  The dark, silhouetted woods broken up by the light cattails followed up with the wetland pond reflecting again the dark trees.   Using Snapseed I straightened the image as it was tilted a bit, used the "dramatic" filter which richened the dark areas and strengthened the center line with some nice contrasts.  Try to see the image as textures and colors, not trees, cattails and pond scum.  See what I mean yet?

Again, in person, this tree was amazing. It's white bark stood out amongst the other trees, demanding this photographers attention.  It had an eerie, super-natural feel to it.  I thought of the Weirwood Trees from George R R Martin's "A Game of Thrones" books.  So in processing I wanted to to bring out this super natural feeling more. First I made it black and white, then added a central focus onto the tree, darkening the edges.  Than a cool filter putting drama into the background. A whole different picture, yes?  And much more interesting.  Even my wife like this one.

 I did see several woodpeckers in my walk.  And a Turkey Vulture, but that was about it.  I'll share those below.  I thank you for reading and please, share your thoughts with me!

My co-workers Youtube video of the same park can be found here.

I have a whole new respect for bird photographers out there. Damn things won't sit still and my FZ200 kept on insisting it focus on every branch in between.

Finally a nice, sunny morning to go out and do some more testing with the Panasonic DMC-FZ200.  I decided to drive a few miles up the road to the Fallen Timbers Memorial Park hoping to get a shot or two of some hawks, and whatever else looked like it would be nice to use as a subject.

You might recognize this statue from my first shots last month.  This is from directly next to the monument.  General Mad Anthony Wayne and the Indian chieftons involved in the epic battle. Camera does a nice job with colors and detail.

I walked up directly below the monument to give a more dramatic angle. They are facing the sun here, around 10:00 a.m. Great detail here. 

In the corner of my eye I caught movement and saw a buzzard flying low.  I just couldn't get the camera up fast enough and get it focused in time to pull off a good shot.

Full zoom at the Generals face. Again, the camera does a great job showing the detail.  Especially on my iPad's Retina display, which makes my lap top look like an Atari 2600's graphics!

As I was aiming up for the next shot of Johns-Manville, I heard some geese honking right above me.  I turned quickly and took the shot.  This time it turned out okay. I cropped it for a better composition.

Anyway, I was standing 1.5 miles from this factory (I looked it up on Google Earth). I went to full zoom to see the level of detail it could manage in nice sunlight.  What do you think? 

I think wow.

Some shots of an old tractor by the side of the highway that has always caught me eye as being ripe for a subject for photographing.  Below I ran it through Snapseed and had some fun with the filters. 

Hope you enjoyed my pictures and I'm getting impatient for spring to get some colors in my shots! Let me know what you think and if you know of any areas around town that would be good for exploring with my new camera!

Went down to the river yesterday and there was a gaggle of geese floating around in the cold, muddy water.  I thought I'd experiment zooming in and snapping off some pictures.  Just as I was depressing the shutter button, the two I was zoned in on decided to take off.  I wish I had known the signs as I would've loved to have caught it with the "Burst" mode.  

Well the weather finally broke somewhat Monday so when I got home from work I grabbed my FZ200 and went down to a park close to home.  43°F felt pretty good compared to what it has been lately, at least for the first 15 minutes or so.

So my intention was to shoot the FZ200 at different settings and compare using the "iA" setting where the camera selected everything, "P" (program mode) where I can change the settings, and also the "SCN" which is the scenery modes.  I also decided to shoot in both JPEG and RAW formats so I could experiment with the SilkyPix software that was included with the camera.  I've read enough that RAW seems to be the format of choice for the serious photographer. So here are some comparisons and thoughts as I begin to get to know this new Panasonic bundle of fun.  

The first photograph to the left  I just set to "iA" and let the camera determine all the settings.  I zoomed in as far as I could (24x) in optical mode. I couldn't zoom any closer, which I know the camera can do. After I got home I discovered if you set the camera to Motion Deblur mode, which I had, it locks out the Intelligent Zoom, which would normally double the 24x to 48x (effectively 1200mm zoom!)  It would be nice if the menu gave you some feedback on WHY you can't turn on the feature. It is just grayed out in the menu and you are unable to select it as an option. I had to do some Googling to figure out why.   To the right I simply used Picasa3 to crop the image at 1:1 focusing on the heron.  These are all hand held shots too, no tripod.

The  two above are shot with the scenery mode activated.  I chose "Landscape". I thought it did a pretty decent job.  I'm standing in the same spot as the first two shots by the way. I just noticed as I was looking up the properties of the shot to the left, that it is zoomed to 1296mm.  As I was in scenerio mode, it must have overrode the deblur option I had selected in the menu. Notice the detail, even at this incredible zoom level.

Now the first two images shown side by side are the same image, each shot in jpeg and RAW.   The FZ200 allows you to set the camera to take the same picture in multiple formats, which is pretty nice.  Silkypix is somewhat daunting, and I really had no idea what I was doing.  So take that into consideration when comparing.  Third image is a separate shot taken in the camera's scenery mode "Landscape".  What do you think?

I was starting to get the hang of Silkypix with this picture. I played around with the different color temperatures and contrast options.  I find that I like to slide black levels up... way up.  I noticed that same picture in the LCD screen of the camera have nice, deep blacks, but on my laptop, they tend to look washed out.  Curious what others are seeing on their monitors.  Maybe its my laptops's screen and I'm over-darkening these. I lost some of the blues too in the ice/water.

Semi-shady area under leafless trees.  I wanted the green to really pop and to darken the shadows.  Silkypix to the right, original to the left. 

I really felt the Silkypix program improved this image over the original.  Again, original seems washed out.  I had forgotten in iA mode you can adjust contrast and exposures.  Again, looking at the LCD on the camera it looked pretty good .  I was starting to freeze around this point and was rushing it a bit too. 

Well there you have it.  My first serious attempt at using the camera and post-processing these outside of my usual Photoshop Elements.  Last should speak for themselves in the captions.  Thanks for reading!  Now bring on spring and some warmer weather!

Andy
Instagram -  @amweills

So after weeks of research, hours of scouring the net for opinions, reviews, blogs, picture examples, YouTube videos, I have finally settled on the Panasonic DMC-FZ200 as my new toy. I was going to purchase a DSLR and had planned on it for some time.  But after deliberating on it for a while, I know myself well enough if its inconvenient, I'm not going to stay with it for long.  And hauling around several lenses, especially on trips, was going to be inconvenient.

And that's what sold me, convenience.  Well that, and loads of positive feedback and reviews on this little technical marvel. 600mm, 24x zoom with f2.8 aperature through the entire focus length?  No hauling monster lenses and all the expense that implies?  Sign me up!  

I've had a chance to play around with it now for a week, and, even though the weather hasn't be co-operating, I'm enjoying getting to know my new, little friend.  Hoping to share some images soon!  Here are a few practice shots as I was learning the features.

Here are three shots I took testing out the FZ200's zoom.  These are in "iA"mode, so camera is determining all settings by the way.

1. This is a wide angle shot. I've circled my intended target, a statue of General Anthony Wayne. f4, 1/1000, iso100

2. I zoomed in closer at 108mm (35mm = 600), which is the camera's maximum zoom, sort of.  Camera selected f4, 1/500, iso100.

3. The FZ200 however does have a digital zoom option.  This is 4x closer than #2 using the digital zoom.  Only good for web viewing, if you saw the real image its not the greatest, but it will have its purposes.


...

This is the same stretch of road, about 500 feet west of the statue where several homes are built up on the hill.  This image was uploaded at full resolution and unfiltered.  Shot was at f4, 1/640, 108mm.

Now this is the same image, but utilizing the "in camera" creative editing features.  This one happens to be the "miniature" filter.

Having some fun with my kid's lego set of Frodo and Gandalf. Set this on the island in my kitchen, using only the island's overhead lighting. I handheld this shot and set the camera on manual focus.  I spot focused on Frodo's face.
f2.8, 1/30, 72mm

Looking forward to getting outside when the weather breaks to put this camera through some more tests.  Seems to have quite the high learning curve but I love having all the options to play with!

Until next time!

Andrew

Proud to announce that my black and white image from Toronto made BWSquare's "Picture of the Day" through Instagram.

You can see it here!  Thanks to BWSquare and all the kind words!