Neal Osborn
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Regan – The truth in your question stings. It is getting pretty difficult to find time to fish as of late. Spontaneous for me means anything not pencilled in on my calendar at least 4 months in advance. Sadness as the tear rolls down my cheek.
In the future we have decided to find a location half way between Iowa and Georgia were we can meet annually for small mouth fishing. Any thoughts? Anyone?
Mike – sadly, this was all fishing on the darkside. Old school. It was impossible to fly fish with three guys in a bass boat and furthermore, all the fish were holding at least 20-30 feet. We only managed a few smallies and it was difficult fishing, oh well.
Here are a few pics from the (non)Epic Rainy Lake trip. Overall, it was great to fish with my Dad and Brother again; it has been way too long. The weather was spot on perfect (darn-it, ha) and no wind, no chop, no chill. The small mouth were deep (DEEP) and very picky. We still managed to catch some nasty Minnesota lake fish. I also had a chance to shoot a local band on Saturday evening and I even managed to turn it into a location shoot. The long island ice tea’s helped!
The band – Rock It Science (80’s)
Scenery – gorgeous
My brother – hung over after a full night of Rock It Science and LIIT! Time to go home.
Food shot – local donuts on the drive back.
Thanks Y’all.
Gary, I know very little about bugs/insects, but I think you might be right about the smaller spiders being amorous males. That would make more sense. Talk about small man syndrome, LOL.
Stock image I found (Amorous = inclined toward or displaying love; “feeling amorous”)
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-amorous-spider-image1955022Henry . . . simply amazing and refreshing photos. It is very cool to see stuff out of the ordinary and the set you offer truly speaks to the “itinerant” aspect of this board.
Tim . . . this is a very special project and we are loving the documentation. Man, another nerdy detailed doctor (to be) on the board, ha. Seriously though, this is a wonderful thing for those of us not familiar with that part of the country. ALL of the pictures are wonderful and document the trip well.
I am loving your blog as well! http://fishingphd.wordpress.com
Joel (and others) . . . you can see Tim’s photos on his blog.
Great looking fly Michael. Every time you discuss your tube flies it makes me want to start tying them myself.
Tibor!
Preface: I’m very biased! Reels are to me like cars are to my motor-head friends. It matters most for saltwater and big game fishing. I just love the sound of a Tibor when a hog blasts off my line. I even have a Tibor on my little 3 weight fiberglass rod, it’s way overkill and I have yet to have a fish take me in to my backing.
Brett – this is my relaxation, hahahaha.
Jay – I posted some thoughts on histogram management and tips I’ve picked up. I would love to hear what others have to say.
Quick Summary: The histogram is just a tool to measure pixel density in light of exposure. Good photographs can have terrible histograms and good histograms can result from bad photographs. It is like an annual financial summary of a mutual fund – it just reports the outcomes so that you can manipulate the details.
A histogram is a technical measure of a photograph. Let me be clear – it is specifically a pile up of the pixels in a picture based on their density. All modern digital camera sensors capture pixels on the sensor and these are translated to an image. A good example to start is the black and white image. Basically the colors include black, grey, and white. Same goes for color images but more data. So, if you shot an image with lots of black and only a marginal amount of grey and white, then the histogram would pile up those black pixels on the left (the black side). If you shot a high key b&w with lots of whites and few blacks and greys then the histogram would pile up on the right (the white side). And so it goes, lots of grey pixels means middle of the histogram. With color it is the same except that the RGB channels each have their own pixel density and thus separate histograms which merge onto each other.
However, it gets complicated when you introduce the concept of exposure to the histogram, and the two are not mutually exclusive. You need to avoid over exposure (i.e. blown whites or blinkies on the right) and underexposure (i.e. blown blacks on the left). Thus, the histogram acts as a numerical count of 1)each pixel density and 2)where the pixels are being placed. This is an important concept because the equation of pixel placement + pixel location translate to density and exposure which directly translate to interpretive data. In other words art! This gets at your question about the SHAPE of the histogram and that’s where it all starts. It’s like learning to read a river, once you know the landmarks you can better position yourself to catch a fish. Knowing “where” and “how” you want the histogram to look allows you to manipulate your camera to actually get that result. And that is sometimes a problem when shooting in automatic mode because the camera has a specific set of algorithms to give a generic histogram. While this is often desirable, it can be frustrating when the output is not what was intended.
Also, the histogram tells a story about the picture’s “definition” and “information”. Now here is where it gets complicated. Basically if all the pixels are in a pile in the middle of the histogram that is good, but not necessarily art. Think of it like a pile of stones and the histogram as a shovel; if the stones/pixels are all piled in a nice clump then it is easy to shovel them up. That is good. However, as the pile scatters the stones (or information) start to reach the far left and far right and you won’t be able to shovel them up. That is bad (blown = no data).
The histogram has NOTHING to do with color balancing! It is only a measure of the information (pixel density) and exposure. You can dial exposure compensation up and down and that will only move the histogram left or right respectively, but it will not change the shape of the curve and it will not change the color balance (i.e. white balance).
Then there is the concept of dynamic range and contrast. That is what I was discussing in my previous post. This is the range of dark, mid-tone, highlight that the eye and the sensor can see. In my previous example notice that Brett’s original image has a good histogram but it lacks dynamic range and contrast, it’s flat but well exposed. What I did in the markup retouch was to exaggerate all the pixel data (on purpose) to spread out the histogram with more dynamic range.
Finally, the vertical axis on the histogram is also important. It is a measure of saturation density. Overexposed images will have tall peaks (desaturation) and underexposed images will have short peaks (saturated). That is a gross oversimplification and honestly the vertical axis is a discussion for another time – tough stuff trying to manage that aspect with flash/ambient-light, etc.
Now here’s the funny part! I don’t use the histogram much anymore. I mainly check to look for blinkies or blown blacks/whites and to adjust exposure compensation. Then I rely on my mind’s eye to decide what I want to photograph and how I want it to look. A dark mysterious image will be piled on the left, a bright poppy image will be piled on the right, and my medical images are generally in the middle and slightly to the right. You get a feel for what you want and then rely less on the histogram.
Examples:
Dark image with lots of shadows. Artsy.
Histogram – piled to the left
Bright image with outrageous highlights and purposely blown background.
Histogram – piled to the right
Mid-tone image – artsy, but in a different way, very little shadow/highlight density.
Histogram – notice the separation of RGB histogram density.
