MS-ICE – Microsoft Image Composite Editor

Posted on 2011/06/01 by birds n' bugs

Well, I’m back from a holiday in the UK where I was using a netbook for image storage and occasional internet access.

I don’t usually shoot panoramas as a matter of course but there are times that just cry out. One of those is the sweeping view from Edinburgh Castle on a sunny day. I didn’t have a tripod or monopod with me, just my D300 with the kit Nikkor 18-105mm lens. So, I just twisted from my hips to the left and started shooting making sure I had some overlap in each frame. When I got back, I just pulled the 12 straight from the camera jpegs into a subdirectory and opened MS-ICE which is a free download you can find on the net at the MS research site.

Once you open the directory and select the files, it’s pretty much automatic. Here is a very much reduced image from the system:

this is a 200 KB image resized from a 12MB original MS-ICE stitched Pano. Just to show you the kind of detail it’s capable of, here is a small cropped section of the skyline about three quarters of the way across from the left.  The tower is about the highest thing you can see on the horizon.

and here is a resized version that shows the only easily seen discontinuity in the stitching.  It’s the crane approximately one quarter of the way from the left.  This is a straight 11:9 crop and shows the jaggies that you get from not using a level tripod to create the original images.  You can also see the curved border as the images are stretched and converted for stitching.  Leave a little space when you shoot and you can crop these out easily.


You can see that it’s not perfect and would need some touching up with your favorite post processing package but, for ease of use and a total cost of free, it’s a fantastic fun program.

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Charlotte County Extension Demonstration Garden

Posted on 2011/04/24 by birds n' bugs

There are actually two of these gardens.  One is near the Extension Office Campus near their headquarters on Harborview Rd which is very well kept.  The other is older and smaller and located in Punta Gorda at the end of Carmalita St where it intersects with and ends at Florida Ave.  It looks somewhat abandoned but is still an interesting place to go looking for bugs.  I stopped by the other day and it was busy with spiders, lovebugs and butterflies.  I think the lovebugs – Plecia nearctica actually like this location because it is so convenient to I-75, one of their favorite locations for playing windshield suicide.  Here though, they are seen feeding.

Because of the variety of foliage and flowers in these demonstration gardens, an abundance of pollinators are attracted so there are plenty of oppurtunities to shoot the butterflies, bees and wasps that are attracted.  Here are a couple of butterflies.  A sulphur and a skipper who found it irresistable.

   

Of course, the presence of the pollinators brings their predators so there are plenty of spiders spinning in the bushes.  This Green Lynx Spider – Peucetia viridans is a hunter.  It is capable of webspinning but prefers to track and attack without first capturing it’s prey in a web.  In this shot it has seen me paying attention too it and has begun to retreat to the end of the leaf.  It has attached, and is spinning, an anchor line to the leaf in case it has to jump in a hurry.  You can also see that it has spiky legs for holding on to it’s prey.

I also found a couple of other spiders.  I haven’t identified them completely but the one on the left is an agriope with it’s typical semaphore weave at the center of its web.  These are called semaphores and some folks believe they are to warn birds away while I think it’s more likely to look like a flower of some sort and attract insects.  The other is an orchard spider of some sort who has managed to capture a couple of lovebugs.

    

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Great Southern White – Ascia monuste on Sweet Basil

Posted on 2011/04/22 by birds n' bugs

We have a pot of Sweet Basil near our back door which attracts butterflies. The Great Southern White – Ascia monuste is a common white butterfly around here and just seems to love the stuff. I was out shooting the bees in our magnolia tree when a couple started feeding on the basil.
 
The male is paler than the female.  She has the darker hindwing.  The upper wings on both are pretty much pure white with some black edging.  Both have the pretty blue antenna clubs which are a mark of the species.  Just click on the picture to see a larger view.  Both shots Nikon D90, 105mm f2.8 VR and SB-800 speedlight.

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More wildflowers – Punta Gorda Nature Park

Posted on 2011/04/14 by birds n' bugs

This morning, I was off for a walk at the Punta Gorda Nature Park which isn’t much more than a mile or so long path around Fire Station #3 and the water plant for Punta Gorda Isles. Still, it is a pleasant place with a lot of small wildlife.  It wasn’t too active when I got there.  It is a preferred place for joggers and they tend to scare off the bigger wildlife as they trot.

This is wildflower season though, so I put  the 105mm Micro-Nikkor on the D300, stuck my SB-800 in my pocket and started my walk.  I quickly discovered that the flash batteries were pretty much dead and recycle times were unacceptable.  I didn’t have any spares with me so I put the compact SB-400 on the camera instead.  Here are a couple of Indian Blanket flowers – Gaillardia pulchella.  Folks up north have to buy these for their gardens.

The one on the left has some new buds at lower left while the one on the right has a fully mature head next to it which will soon dry out and drop seeds.  Another brilliant wildflower is the Coral Bean Plant – Erythrina herbacea which has bright red flowers which ultimately produce bright red beans as seeds.

In addition to the pretty red flowers the whites were also abundant.  Here is a pretty Spanish needles – Bidens Alba and a cluster of small asters.

But flowers weren’t the only thing out.  As I walked the path I noticed a Black Vulture up in a pine tree.  Taking pictures of pure black or white birds isn’t easy but, since it was there I decided to try for a shot.  I quickly found that the shadows were harsh and it was difficult to pull any detail from the shadow areas which of course included the head.

Even though I used the flash on this one to try and get some fill light, the SB-400 just wasn’t strong enough to do the job. It had worked well on the flowers though.  The SB-800 flash would have worked very well but without batteries, it was just a weight in the bag.  So, the moral is always check your batteries, even if you are just going for a walk.

One problem using the SB-400 instead of the SB-800 was the lack of the TTL-FP function in the SB-400.  I was not able to control the background detail because the flash limited me to a highest shutter speed of 1/320 second.  This in turn creates problems in controlling the effect of bright sunlight as ambient light.  The TTL-FP capability of the higher end Nikon Speedlights make them a better choice for closeup work.

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Eastern Lubber Grasshopper – Romalea guttata

Posted on 2011/04/09 by birds n' bugs

While out at Oilwell Grade the other day I found a cluster of Eastern Lubbers in the nymph stage of their life.  At this phase of their life, they are very small and predominantly black with a yellow or orange stripe.

Once mature though they are one of the larger and more colorful of our grasshoppers.

Posted in Bug, Park - Babcock Webb WMA | Tagged | 2 Comments

Wildflowers at the end of Oilwell Grade

Posted on 2011/04/06 by birds n' bugs

Recent rains brought the wildflowers out. Not the big showy ones, just the little ones you find in the grass and brush. The south end of Oilwell Grade is a mixed area with the lake, marshes and pine flatwoods in a concentrated area as can be seen here.

While you don’t see much color in this overall picture, if you look a little closer you soon see the brightness of small flowers all around you.  All of these were taken within a few yards of each other.

   

Unknown                                           Purple Thistle

   

Narrowleaf Blue-Eyed-Grass

   

Unknown                                           Marsh Pink

   

Blister Beetle – Epicauta strigosa

The insect on the penultimate one is a blister beetle.  With  the exception of the thistle, I have no idea what the names of the flowers are so, a little help would be appreciated.

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Nosy Neighbor – Northern Cardinal – Cardinalis cardinalis

Posted on 2011/04/05 by birds n' bugs

This young fellow has been hanging out around my house lately. He is making frequent visits to some of our border plants hunting seeds and sees his reflection in our windows. Today, he was sitting right outside between attacks and I managed to get so close from inside that I could get this shot through the window with the 105mm Micro-Nikkor on a D90. The quality is a little less than I like because of shooting through double glazed, bronzed windows but, he’s still pretty cute.

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Boat-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus major)

Posted on 2011/03/30 by birds n' bugs

OK, the airshow is over so back to birds ‘n bugs.  This lovely couple are Boat-tailed Grackles.  The male is young and not quite so irridescent as he will be in maturity but, the boat tail is still there.  The female in lovely shades of brown.

   

These guys eat just about anything.  In fact, they are accomplished scavengers and dumpster divers and are are frequently seen in the vicinity of fast food restaurants.  They range along the coast from eastern Texas to Southern Maine and covers most of the Florida Peninsula.

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Heavy Metal Jet Team – Florida International Airshow

Posted on 2011/03/29 by birds n' bugs

After seeing the Heavy Metal Jet Team on Friday, I was interested in seeing their show from the viewing area.  They’re an excellent precision flight team.  I particularly liked the rolls over the smoke trail of the diamond at the end of the routine.  In this shot, they are close enough to look like L39 biplanes.

Their formation work and timing on split maneuvers were excellent as well.

   

I did notice one flaw in the narration though.  The lady told us that the L39 was flown by the Libyan Air Force.  Not so much right now, I would guess.

I really liked the show but, the L39 doesn’t seem to allow the sort of quick transitions of the service precision teams.  I realize it takes a lot to do those sorts of shows but, I really missed the sight and sound of F16s or F18s ripping the sky apart.  So, with no disrespect to the Heavy Metal Jet Team, I really kinda miss these guys.

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Eastern Airlines DC-7B – N836D – Florida International Airshow

Posted on 2011/03/29 by birds n' bugs

On Friday, I managed to get a couple of pictures of a restored DC-7B in Eastern Airlines livery.  At the show, I went to get a few detail shots and leave them a few shots from the arrival.   Here are the arrival shots again.

I really like the art deco logo that Eastern used at the time so I made sure to get a shot.

   

While shooting these I noticed a little anomaly.  See the name behind the cockpit window?  I had never seen any other aircraft named Clipper anything except for Pan American which named all it’s aircraft after the original Clippers.  It turns out that this aircraft had been redecorated as a Pan Am aircraft for a TV pilot and the name was left on as it returned to Opa Lokka where the Historical Flight Foundation maintains and operates N836D.  You can actually fly on this aircraft on charter flights.  You can see a lot more pictures of this aircraft in both Pan Am and Eastern Livery at this photo site.

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