Boyson Trail

I have been on many mornings going out with my camera on the Boyson Trail. The trail goes from near Bowman Woods winding along the Indian Creek through Thomas Park ending at
Hanna Park.

On these walks I take pictures of whatever catches my eye that morning. I don't take a lot of pictures and sometimes I don't quite get the shot I wanted. The nice thing is that I can try again the next time I am on the trail. I will be posting pictures off and on from this trail as we go through the year as a way to see how it changes through the different seasons.

The lens I have had on my camera for these walks is my Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Zoom. This lens is not as sharp as my macro but is a better walk around lens.

This first photo is of a squirrel with a nut in his mouth. He chirpped at me until I noticed him and then he ran into the tree. He is not as sharp as I would because I had my camera set too slow because I had been taking pictures of some wildflowers along the trail. The settings for this photo were iso 200, f/8, 1/12sec

The second photo is of two bees on a yellow wildflower. This photo is much sharper than the squirrel but is not as sharp as my macro lens. I took this photo after I had taken the squirrel photo. My setting for this photo were iso 100, f/9, 1/50sec

These are the only two photos that I am going to share this week from my walks along the Boyson Trail. I will be back on Boyson Trail and there will be more photos. This is a very popular trail here I have never been on the trail when I did not run into a lot of other people on it as well.

Out early one morning

This past week it has been much nicer so I have been out more to taking photographs. I have been heading to near by park first thing in the morning sometimes before coffee. Usually this time of year the parks flower beds are over flowing with flowers but this year they are not doing as well because of the very hot and dry weather we have been having.

Here are some that I took Friday morning at Noelridge park using my Macro lens using natural light. The reason I chose these to share is that they are bright and cheerful to me.

Here is a Sunflower. I like the way the leaves are pointing both right and left and that there are still a few dew drop still on it. My settings for this photo were: iso 200, f/11, 1/80sec

Here is a bee on a Sunflower. My setting for this photo were: iso 400, f/11, 1/125sec

Here is a close up of the same bee. My setting for this photo were: iso 400, f/11, 1/64sec

Here is the center of a lily with an ant on the petal near the center. I just love the color of this photo. My settings for this photo were: iso 400, f/11, 1/50sec

One photo different edits

This week has been busy and hot so I have been out to take photos mainly in the morning, before I have even had coffee. I decided look at what different forms of editing can do for a photo.

I took this wildflower this week at Lowe Park here in Marion. It is a pink cone flower that is fairly common. The setting for this photo was iso200, f/5.6, 1/100sec

This was the basic image.

I wasn't happy with this photo because the background had too many highlights.

I decided to try Gray scaling the background.

I still wasn't happy with this the background was still too distracting because of the highlights.

I had suggested to me try darkening the background.

This was better but I felt there was too much background so I cropped the photo.

This version of the flower I think is the best I can get this image. I also upped the color saturation a little bit as well. In this version the flower attracts your attention while the background is not totally nothing it does not distract.

How can I improve this photo. There is not much I can do to make this a really good photo but I did learn several things. I will make sure I have a cup of coffee before I head out so I will be a bit more awake.  I definitely will pay more attention to what the leaves in the background are doing in the light. I will set me camera to slightly underexpose the flower so I can do more in editing the photo. I probably would choose I more perfect flower.