Web Site Off Line

Sometime during the past week, someone at PhotoShelter, the site I use to host my Images West web site, decided to delete all of my images and accompanying information.  Since PhotoShelter also unapologetically deleted the backups of my data, it will be some time before I can find a new site host and re-do many weeks worth of work.

Entrance Island

Lock Bay Salt Marsh Birdwatching

One of the nicest spots for birdwatching this time of the year on Gabriola Island has to be the Lock Bay Salt Marsh adjacent to Sandwell Provincial Park.  This brackish tidal marsh is home to a number of bird species of waterfowl, wading birds, and songbirds, and vultures and bald eagles are often seen soaring overhead.  There are also a few resident river otters and beavers, should you be lucky enough to spot them.

I believe most of the marsh is private property, but there is a well-used public pathway that leads past the marsh just above the beach at Lock Bay.  Please use respect when visiting the park or the marsh.

Here are a few photos of birds I managed to capture on my last visit to the marsh - you can click on any of the images to see a larger version.

Lock Bay Salt Marsh, Gabriola Island

Great Blue Heron, Lock Bay Salt Marsh

Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius)

Red-Winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)

Red-Winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)

Canada Geese (Branta canadensis)

Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)

Mallard Ducks (Anas platyrhynchos)

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

All images were captured using a hand-held Fujifilm X-H2S digital camera and XF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR zoom lens.  All images are Copyright © Cliff LeSergent.

May Hummingbirds

Hummingbird season is in full swing now on Gabriola Island, with both the over-wintering Anna's and the migratory Rufous showing up in numbers.  These little avian wonders always make for great photography.  

Please click on the images to see a larger version. 

Male Rufous Hummingbird  (Selasphorus rufus)

Rufous Hummingbird  (Selasphorus rufus)

Rufous Hummingbird  (Selasphorus rufus)

Male Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna)

Female Rufous Hummingbird  (Selasphorus rufus)

Male Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna)

Male Rufous Hummingbird  (Selasphorus rufus)

 

Male Rufous Hummingbird  (Selasphorus rufus)

Gabriola Island Tafoni Formations

Much of the bedrock of Gabriola Island is sandstone, and along many areas of the shoreline the rock has weathered into honeycomb or lace patterns called tafoni. The intricate texture of the sandstone tafoni can often add interesting details to landscape images.

Malaspina Galleries

Orlebar Point Sunset

Orlebar Point Sunrise

Drumbeg Provincial Park

Entrance Island

Berry Point Tafoni

Tafoni Alligator, Drumbeg Provincial Park

Berry Point Dream Time 

Berry Point Tafoni

Descanso Bay

Tafoni Detail

Definition from www.tafoni.com:

"Tafoni are ellipsoidal, pan- to bowl-shaped, natural rock cavities. These cavernous weathering features include tiny pits, softball-sized cavities, truck-sized caves, and nested and cellular honeycomb forms. Tafoni typically develop on inclined or vertical surfaces and occur in groups."

Panasonic Lumix GH6 High-Resolution Images

During a break in the never-ending chain of atmospheric river events, I managed to get out for a couple of hours and do some tests with my new Lumix GH6 camera.  

One of the interesting features of this camera is its hand-held high resolution mode, which creates a 100-megapixel file by combining a series of hand-held photos.  An image with so many pixels allows for considerable cropping without losing too much detail; the following image is slightly less than half of the original capture when cropped to a panoramic format that better suits the subject, and should print nicely at 48 x 18 inches.

Entrance Island

Fujifilm X-Trans Artifacts

There seems to be a lot of misinformation on the web regarding the cause (and cure) for the fractal artifacts that affect some images captured with Fujifilm's X-Trans sensor cameras.  The problem stems from the inability of some image processing software, notably products from Adobe such as Lightroom and Photoshop, to correctly interpolate the RAW data due to Fujifilm's use of a non-Bayer colour filter array over the image sensor.

This is an image captured with a Fujifilm X-T3 camera and processed in Lightroom:

Fujifilm X-T3, XF 10-24mm f4 @ 24mm, 1/210 sec @ f5.6, ISO 160

At first glance, the image looks quite nice; sharp, and with lots of rich colour the Fujifilm cameras are noted for.  However, on closer inspection, the fine details in the image, such as the pebbles on the beach, look strange and distorted:

100% crop of above image

At the limited upload size, it may be difficult to discern the artifacts, so here is a 200% crop of the same image:

Now the fractal artifacts are clearly visible, with the smooth round pebbles taking on a "wormy"appearance, with jagged edges and strange elongated proportions.  A popular "cure" for this issue is the set the Details slider to zero in the Lightroom sharpening panel:

As you can see, changing the details slider does little to correct the artifacts - virtually all it does is blur them a bit to make them a little less noticeable, but this also negatively affects all the other fine details in the image, make the image soft.

So, what is the best solution to this problem for Fujifilm X-Trans photographers?  I can't answer what is the "best", but the most obvious solution is to avoid using Adobe software for processing your RAW files, because the artifacts are clearly a manifestation of Adobe's demosaicing algorithm.  A popular alternative software is Capture One; below is the same image, processed in Capture One 21.

As you can see, the wormy Adobe artifacts are gone, although as in the examples above, we are still left with interpolation artifacts from enlarging the original image beyond actual size.

Finally, here is the original image, as processed in Capture One 21:

Friday Hummingbirds

Here are a few photos of our backyard hummingbirds from Firday, April 29.  We have several pairs of both the Anna's and the Rufous hummingbirds coming in to the feeders, and it's becoming a challenge to keep the feeders full; it's been a relatively cold spring, and very few native flowers have blossomed yet, so food is a bit scarce for these little guys.

Female Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus), Gabriola, BC

Female Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus), Gabriola, BC

Male Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna), Gabriola, BC

Male Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna), Gabriola, BC

Male Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna), Gabriola, BC

Female Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna), Gabriola, BC