Fontenelle Forest - March 28

I visited the Fontenelle Forest wetlands on March 28.  More trees are starting to get leaves.  The forest floor is still very bare, but grass covers the ground in areas outside the trees.  Even with the fresh grass, the deer continue to avoid the area.

 .Robins are searching for worms.

A red tail Hawk patrols overhead.

 This muskrat is the first mammal I've observed back in the wetlands this year.

 Insects are starting to reappear.  I observed a couple of dragonflies starting a family.

How Hard Can It Be To Focus An Autofocus Camera?

The new Canon 5D Mark III is touted as having a much improved auto focus system compared to the 5D Mark II.  My test shots confirmed that it was fast and accurate.  Yesterday, I took it to my sister-in-law's 60th anniversary celebration to make the first of its photos that I intended to keep.  When I downloaded the results I found that I had the largest percentage of out of focus shots in recent memory.  How hard can it be to focus an auto focus camera?

The shots were made in a room that had a wall of windows on one side.  When I pointed the camera in that direction, I had to change settings to keep from having silhouettes.  Other than the windows, the room was fairly dark, so I kept 35mm lens set at f1.4.  A 35mm lens is usually pretty forgiving about focus but not at f1.4.

I've have plenty of plenty of practice focusing cameras.  You place the focusing spot on the sensor over the area you want to focus and press the button.  The camera makes a beep when focus is achieved and then you snap the photo.  In the case of the 5D Mark III, the camera also makes a red flash in the viewfinder at the time of focus.  It should be idiot proof.

Idiot proof solutions only work until you find a better idiot.   I guess that I qualify because I had trouble seeing the focusing spot in the first place.  I guessed and focus was confirmed with a brief flash and a beep.  When I downloaded the photos I found that the point of precise focus was not exactly where I intended it to be.

Today, I tried to analyze why I had difficulty.  

First, its very hard to see where the camera is set to focus.  The viewfinder is optically clear so the center is not visually different.  Second, the center is marked with a series of narrow black dashes.  The dashes show up fine against a white background but are hidden in many other situations.  The focus points are black squares.  The lines in the squares are a bit thicker than the lines around the circle, but they are difficult to see as well.

Second, focus confirmation only lasts a split second.  The black square changes to red when focus is achieved.  The red flash is an interesting touch, but it adds additional confusion when you don't know exactly where the black square was in the first place.  If you can't see where the black square is when the background is black it doesn't help to make the whole screen red when you are looking for a red square.

Third, the focus square changes back to black immediately after focus is achieved.  As a result, it is as hard to see as it was in the first place.

I work with software development for a living so I completely understand how easy it is to find design problems during testing.  If you don't spend enough time testing or don't listen to the testers, you end up with a product that fails in production.  If I find this problem the first time out, you would think that one of the Canon testers would have noticed it as well.  I don't intend for this to be a rant.  If Canon can't improve this problem with a firmware change, I'm sure that I can learn to live with it.  I am disappointed.  How hard can it be to test a camera to verify that an individual who has focused cameras for forty years can also focus this new improved model?

Is it Art or Is it Photoshop?

I've noticed that a certain segment of photographers think that Photoshop is cheating.  They proclaim "I shoot everything in JPEG because a good photographer gets it right in the camera.  They casually mention that they don't manipulate their photos.  They brag that they don't "Spray and Pray" - they take a single shot at the exact peak moment so they can spend their time shooting instead of sitting behind a computer.

These attitudes made perfect sense last century when film was still used.  Back then, if your camera wasn't level, the "water in the lake would all run out of the side of your photo".   It was difficult to crop photos - especially slides.  It's easy to forget that the majority of photographers paid a photo lab to make many of the decisions that are now made in Photoshop.   If you look at old publications you will see that one of the biggest changes that came with digital was that standards have gone up. 

 

I spent some time today looking at photos I took on a vacation last year.  I wouldn't be able to afford the number of shots I take if I still used film.  I take vacation photos for many reasons.  I take a photo of my car and a street sign near it so I can find it again later.  I may take a photo of a map we pass so that we have it available later when we need it.  Many of my photos are simply visual notes to jog my memory.  I never intend that the majority of my photos should ever be considered art.

I came across a vacation  photo today and tried to remember what had caught my eye as I made the exposure.  It was a night time shot that was made at the limit of my equipment and ability without using a tripod.  The ISO was 1600 and the shutter speed was 1/8 second.  Most of the image was severely underexposed and portions were overexposed.  Digital doesn't have the dynamic range to capture this scene.  If I wanted to photograph this street, I should have used HDR. 

Photomatix Pro does tone map single exposures.  I decided to see what it would do with this image.  The before and after image is shown at the start of this article. Compare the two.  Is it art?  It certainly doesn't look like a realistic photo.  But in many ways it looks more like the scene I photographed than the original image does.  My eyes saw more of a dynamic range than digital could capture and the HDR version shows these details.  I like the HDR version best today.  Your opinion may differ and I may agree with you tomorrow.  Thanks for sharing the moment with me.

Things that go Bump in the Night

Over the years, the hills of Fontenelle Forest have been visited many colorful individuals.  Karl Bodmer was inspired to paint.  French trappers visited a trading post here.  Lewis and Clark slept here.  Mormons crossed the Missouri here.  Curtis LeMay placed SAC headquarters next door.

As more people moved nearby, animal life became less diverse.  Wolves were exterminated.  Mountain lions were pushed back to the Rockies.  The bears disappeared and the bison killed.  The eagles were nearly exterminated with DDT.  It is difficult to live around modern man. 

Glaciers swept through north east Nebraska several times.  They ground mountains into dust as they moved forward.  This dust blew into steep loess hills along the Missouri, including the majority of Fontenelle Forest. Ancient man arrived in time to complete the extermination of the huge mammals that inhabited Nebraska.

Fontenelle Forest is visited by hundreds of students each year.  They learn about nature and the history of this place.  In 2009 the forest hosted several life size models of dinosaurs.  They were placed throughout the forest in settings that were as natural as possible.  In this environment, it was easier to imagine that they were real.

When I visited the exhibit I wondered what it would be like to wander through the forest at night and encounter these huge reptiles.  I wondered how they could be photographed using multiple speedlights. The forest is closed at night so it wasn't possible to visit then.

The Fontenelle Nature Association Photographers Club asked me to present a program.  I received permission to visit and photograph the dinosaurs at night.  I demonstrated various lighting techniques including painting with light and taking multiple colored flash exposures in various positions while the shutter remained open.

After my demonstration, the members of the club scattered to the various dinosaur displays and used their own cameras, tripods and lights to make their own photos.  It was a challenge to set up and focus camera in the dark while others in the group painted and flashed the reptiles.  I was impressed with the variety and creativity of the results.

Whooping Crane

I had the pleasure of meeting one of the world's most endangered species today - a Whooping Crane.  The meeting was even more special because it was in the wild - not fenced in a zoo.  I shot a few photos and left thankful for the chance encounter.

New Shoots and Leaves

Spring has arrived in the Fontenelle Forest wetlands!  I was told that it was unlikely for the trees that spent the entire summer in water to survive.  Apparently some of the trees didn't get the memo and have already started to bud and bloom. Even if the majority of trees are dead, the forest has survived.

The forest floor is still barren but much of the wetlands is now covered with grass.  I saw a couple of snapping turtles swimming in the stream.  There were large numbers of insects in the water along with a few frogs.  Some of the red winged blackbirds have returned. Robins are searching for worms. This is a complete reversal from my last visit earlier in March.

Beaver activity has spread to areas that were untouched before the flood.   I'm convinced that the beavers took full credit for the flood last year and will want to repeat their success this year.  This photo shows old and new evidence of beavers

The watermark from the flood isn't that evident close up.  When you look from a distance it is impossible to miss.

Fontenelle Forest Wetlands - The End of the Beginning

For tens of thousands of year water has ruled over the wetlands that now comprise part of Fontenelle Forest.  Spring floods could quickly alter the landscape.  We know they even moved the Missouri River because a couple of these moves left small lakes in the wetlands.  These changes happened quickly.  The river flooded for a few days and portions of the wetlands ended up on either the east or west side of the Missouri.  The wetlands quickly recovered from these floods - most of the vegetation could withstand the brief immersion.

When the sides of the river became Iowa and Nebraska, man tamed the river.  It was straightened so it is now many miles shorter.  Dams were built to capture the extra spring water. Levees were built so the river cannot escape its banks during the regular seasonal changes.  The fortifications were designed to stop even the greatest amount of water that could be imagined - the "hundred year floods".  The system worked - the hundred year flood of 2010 was largely contained.

2011 was different.  The dams intended to store the surplus spring water were already full  so that the lakes they created could provide maximum recreation and a constant supply of electricity.  The silt that had given the Missouri it's "Muddy Missouri" title had been collecting behind the dams and had reduced the water that they could hold.  Record amounts of snowfall in the north meant that the spring thaw would produce another hundred year flood.

By the time that officials realized what was happening, it was too late to let the dams do their job.  When the dams were filled nearly to their busting point, all the remaining surplus water was sent rushing downstream.  The levees kept the water from causing temporary flooding along the banks, so any severe flooding was moved south until it reached the point of least resistance.  While they deny it, it is evident that officials decided that the farms of southern Iowa and Nebraska were a better place to flood than anywhere near their own homes.  So the wall of water came and if these levees didn't break naturally, the officials made sure that it happened anyway.

The muskrats and beavers in the Fontenelle Forest wetlands don't vote so their homes were included in the expendable area.  The resulting flood was longer and deeper than anything this area had ever experienced.  The wetlands were covered in the spring and remained covered until fall.  Trees and wildlife that could have adapted to a shorter flood were wiped out.

Plants and animals weakened by the flooding  were immediately subjected to a Nebraska winter.  March arrived to a bleak landscape containing very few living plants and animals. 

I'm confident that this is the beginning of regeneration.  Spring will be the first chance for the plants to begin to grow again.  Insects will return and the birds will stop for a bite eat on their way north.  Animals that eat plants will start to reappear soon to be followed by the carnivores that eat them.  The bleak landscape marks the beginning.  March has been unusually mild so conditions are soon right for seeds to begin to sprout and shoots and leaves will soon appear.