Ok - so the question of whether the Greater White-fronted Geese (see the next post down) would be back has been answered as I've seen them both yesterday and today (and have a few more photos baking as I type this). But for now, I'm going to bounce back to some photos I took before I saw the geese.

This chickadee was shot at Jennings Environmental Center during a short hike Anya and I took last week for my birthday. I felt the B&W conversion helped to draw out some more of the detail (mouseover the image for the color version).

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/120 sec at f/8. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Despite mentioning that I should get back to some other forms of photography, I have a stack of bird photos to share, so stop back for more soon!

- Bill

Here's a couple more from out little adventure this past weekend...

This first one is of Slippery Rock Creek from the Eckert Bridge. With much of the areas south of us getting slammed with snow, I anticipated that we would get at least a little snow. As it turns out, we got absolutely none! Not a single flake! Unfortunately, I was really hoping for a couple inches of fresh snow to cover the scene and really give it that bit of pop that only comes from fresh snow... So what do you do when the snow doesn't arrive? Well, in this case, I managed to process the shot in black and white in such a way that makes it kind of look like there is more snow than there was.

Mouseover the photo for the original color version to see the difference...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 47mm, 1/160th second at f/11. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Here's also a B&W conversion of the semi-frozen Kildoo Falls. The transformation here isn't as dramatic, but it still brings out more detail in the photo. I'm a little torn as to which version of this one I like better...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 18mm, 1/4th second at f/16. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

As I type this and look at these cool (pun intended) winter photos, I am also excitedly looking forward to this summer when we will be taking a trip north to Maine to see puffins! I just made our reservations with the boat today, so now I can start planning the other pieces of our trip soon!

I've also been thinking a bit more about the other styles of photography that I've been neglecting in my pursuit of wildlife photography recently, and I have a couple ideas forming in my head for a couple interesting shots. We'll see if they come to fruition.

- Bill

Ok - so admittedly, I intentionally have not posted in a while, but that was so that I could post my 600th post on the six year anniversary of starting my blog. A lot has happened over six years, and I've taken a ton of photographs (I honestly don't even know how many!). I have done some bigger posts for other anniversaries, so I wanted to do something similar again... but how to do it.

Then it hit me, why not take a look back at my top six favorite styles of photography. Some have been a strong interest since the start (like macro photography of spiders and bugs), while some are pretty new (videography - ok, I know it isn't technically photography, but it still requires a camera!), and some I only enjoy sometimes (landscape), though others I'd do every day if I could (underwater), and some I work hard to get (wildlife), and others that I don't work for but allow it to come to me as the subject warrants (black & white). Of course sometime I am doing multiple styles of photography all at once. But let's take a quick stroll through some examples of each style with some photos that may have gotten over-shadowed or missed for whatever reason throughout the years...

MACRO Definitely my favorite form of photography, macro gives me the chance to show things that most people overlook or never even see. Of course, a lot of the time, those things are the "creepy crawlies" and spiders that most people don't want to see anyway... but I find those things fascinating. Particularly jumping spiders - my absolute favorite macro subject. But macro can be very versatile - spiders, bugs, flowers, abstracts, underwater, fungi, just about anything. And when other forms of photography just aren't feasible because of bad light conditions or such, there are always macro subjects to be found.

BLACK & WHITE This is a style of photography that I have to admit I don't work at at all. I let this one come to me. If the scene or subject screams to me to be shot in black & white, I might see it while I'm taking the photo or sometimes not until I'm home and processing the photos on the computer and sometimes still not until months or years later looking back at the photo. The great thing about B&W photography is it can be merged with any type of photography, and as you'll see, I've tried it on just about every style of photography I do. Actually, that makes me realize that I have yet to ever convert a macro spider photo to black & white... I guess that will be an upcoming project! While I was tempted to process some new photos for this little set, I decided to just dig through the archives to find ones I'd processed previously and get them some due screen time...

WILDLIFE Wildlife photography spans a number of areas for me... birds, reptiles and amphibians, mammals, truly wild, and zoo kept animals. All of it is a huge draw to me. Luckily, Anya and I have moved to a place where we get exposed to so much more wildlife than we did before. As such, I was able to pick this entire assortment from photos I've taken right here on our property or close by (technically the owl and the snake were from the local park where we go to walk the dogs). This is definitely what I probably consider one of my most difficult forms of photography. The amount of patience and luck required are simply staggering at times, and the time investment is one I wish I could devote more effort to. But as I said, luckily all of this is right outside our door, so the convenience factor certainly is helping me to improve and get better shots all the time!

UNDERWATER Well - what can I say about underwater photography other than I wish I could get to do it more often! It is a very challenging form of photography, and quite often by the time I'm getting into a groove and starting to feel like I'm able to get more creative with my shots, that's exactly when the trip is over and it will be another year before I get to try again. Honestly, if I could go diving every day, or even every weekend to hone my underwater photography skills, I would. For now though, I'll just have to be happy with the once a year that I do get to go experience and record such amazing things!

So there you have it... six styles of photography, six years worth of trips, experiences, passion, sights... all recorded and shared here in 600 posts. Amusingly enough, at three years, I made the claim that I looked forward to three more years but figured a site redesign was in order before then and I'm still using the exact same site. I do think that needs to change, but part of my reluctance is the fantastic compendium that this site has become for me. I quite often refer back to old posts to share things again or even just a reference for myself. So hopefully I can figure out the challenge of upgrading this site while maintaining the integrity of all of the history that I've built here. For now though, I'll focus on continuing to capture and share photos like these!

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

PS: If you are interested in exploring further into some of these examples, the section headers and the "button" below are links to the history of posts that have been tagged with that label, so if you want to see more of any specific style of photography, just click and explorer!

While that last shot really made me look at multiple ways to convert the image to black and white, these two were much easier as these conversions really stuck out for me and worked perfectly for what I wanted to portray with the conversion...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 27mm, 1/120th second at f/8. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro using Preset 030 - Film Noir 1.

Mouseover the images to see the original color version.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 27mm, 1/120th second at f/8. ISO 800. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro using Preset 020 - Fine Art (high key, framed).

And as a bonus, here's a heavily cropped shot of a Peregrine Falcon sitting atop another piece of driftwood. This particular piece was probably 200 yards away, so the sharpness produced by my Canon 100-400 Mark II lens was definitely very surprising. I really expected any of the bird photos at this distance to be completely useless, but surprisingly I was able to salvage at least a couple for slightly more than identification photos.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/200 sec at f/11. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

We'll get back to the underwater shots here soon - I still have some gems to share from that trip (and hopefully at least one more video if I can get the motivation to put another one together).

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

And now for something completely different... </Monty Python>

Well, to be entirely accurate, we'll look at six rather similar things that are still pretty different in their own respect. We'll take a little break from the underwater photography and look at some photos taken just this past weekend in Presque Isle State Park. Anya and I went to the park to do some birding, and while we didn't see much in the way of birds, we did see some cool driftwood on the beach at Gull Point. As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to do some black and white photography of it.

What I didn't realize was that picking which B&W conversion I liked the best would be a very big challenge.

Original Color	Preset 001 Underexposed (EV -1)	Preset 005 High Structure (harsh)
Preset 010 Low Key 2	Preset 020 Fine Art (high key)	Preset 024 Full Contrast and Structure

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 26mm, 1/80th second at f/8. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

As you can see from the original color version, it was a heavily overcast day, and even the horizon between the sky and the surface of the lake blended into each other and vanished. I wanted to either eliminate the sky or somehow draw some detail out of it. I think each of these conversions were at least partially successful in that goal, but I was amazed at how each conversion produces almost a completely new feel to the scene.

Mouseover each thumbnail to display the larger version, then cast your vote below for your favorite.

- Bill

Another poll from a couple shots taken at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. This one was taking on the Ledges Trail - Anya spotted this lone mushroom nestled among the roots of a large tree. I quickly picked my angle and took a first shot, then decided that I wanted to clean up some of the leaf litter to try and declutter the shot. Finally, back home when processing the photos, I decided to declutter further by processing the photo to black & white. Mouseover the thumbnails for the larger view, then pick your favorite below.

Original	Decluttered	Black & White

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 55mm, 2.5 sec at f/22. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W processing in Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Nik Silver Efex Pro.

- Bill

As much as I like the Barred Owl photo with the branches and leaves partially obscuring the owl, there is definitely something to be said for crisp clean close-ups. I was amazed with how cooperative this owl was, and though the six minutes went by really fast, I also felt that it lasted forever at the same time.

The lighting was a bit odd as it was getting on towards sunset, and the camera picked up the color temperature in an odd way. When I got home, I wanted to process the photos to look like how I remembered it - a bit warm due to the orange-ish setting sun. However, the camera had picked up a cooler 4300K color temp that just looked a bit too cool for my tastes. I tried several different settings, and personally I liked the 5200K the best, but I intentionally processed some extras to share here to show the difference.

Mouse-over the thumbnails to compare how the different color temperatures affect the photo...

4300K	4700K	5200K	5500K

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/400th sec at f/6.3. ISO 1600. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

While I was processing the photos, Anya came in and said she thought this photo would also look nice processed as a black & white. When I fired up Silver Efex Pro to see what it would look like in B&W, I found that I was just as happy with multiple versions of the photo that way too. I processed a couple in a "high key" (brighter with more whites) style and a couple in a "high structure" (darker with more contrast and sharper lines) style.

Same thing applies, mouseover the thumbnails to see the different versions...

High Key 2 Preset	Fine Art Preset	Fully Dynamic (Harsh) Preset	High Structure Preset

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/400th sec at f/6.3. ISO 1600. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Now comes the fun part (as if looking at a bunch of cool photos of an awesome bird wasn't fun enough)! Pick the versions you like best and vote for them below. I've opened up the voting so that you can vote for as many versions as you like, but ideally, I'd suggest picking one color and one B&W... but honestly, if you can't narrow your choice down to just one of each, feel free to vote for as many as you like!

So this encounter with this owl was just the beginning to a very productive photography weekend, so be sure to check back frequently as I'll hopefully be posting daily for a bit to get through all this rush of new material I have (and hopefully I'll also be out collecting more as well)!

- Bill

A nice shot of some Atlantic Spadefish (Chaetodipterus faber) in both color and black & white... take a look, then cast your vote for which version you like better!

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 38mm. 1/200 sec at f/8. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in eTTL mode. Raw conversion in Adobe Camera Raw.

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for voting!

- Bill

Ok - so admittedly, I had two years of rust on my underwater photography skills when I went on this trip, and it definitely showed. I've had to do some work to salvage pretty much every photo I've kept so far, and each one has needed a pretty heavy dose of cleanup. Then I came to today's photo...

I was about to delete this one; at first glance, it is a complete loss and on any other day, I very well may have just hit the delete key and not thought twice about it. But for whatever reason, something caught my eye, and I wondered if I could recover enough from the file to make a worthwhile image. I ran it through a number of adjustments within Adobe Camera Raw, and then finally processed it into a sepia tone using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.

I found the end result pretty pleasing to be honest...

1. Straight out of the camera		3. Attempted color correction in ACR
2. Initial corrections in ACR		4. Final result after Silver Efex

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM AF at 14mm, 1/250 sec at f/5.6. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port with dual Ikelite DS 161 Strobes in eTTL mode. Raw conversion Adobe Camera Raw, additional processing in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro 2

What do you think? I think it has the feeling of a pirate's treasure map or such... it just seems fitting and really is a vast improvement from the original. Plus I must have a thing for photos of nurse sharks processed in sepia tone...

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

Here's another I converted to black and white...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/20 sec at f/8. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Silver FX (mouseover for color version).

- Bill