Celebrating spring greens Japanese style

Learning has always been a passion of mine. Unfortunately, this thirst for knowledge rarely involves text books. These days, it takes the form of the hundreds of YouTubers that I follow, from gardeners to photographers and everything in between.

One that combines both gardening and photography is a channel based out of Japan called “Shizan style” that focuses on learning to see and experience nature through the eyes and soul of the Japanese culture.

Fine art photographer Joshua 'Gensetsu' Smith, PhD, describes his channel in the following way: “it focuses on Japanese aesthetics, photography, creativity, Japanese gardens and culture. A Shizen Style is about designing a Japan-inspired creative lifestyle infused with nature.

You can check out the channel here‍ ‍if this approach to gardening, living and photography interests you.

I have found many of his videos inspirational in so many ways. They inspire viewers to slow down and experience the finer elements of the garden that are often easily overlooked in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Whether you choose to capture your experience photographically is really a less significant focus of the channel, but I fully appreciate his approach to documenting the journey.

Spring greens in the woodland garden

His recent video exploring how the Japanese experience “spring greens” fascinated and inspired me enough to share some of the concepts with readers so we can all, hopefully, experience spring in a deeper, more meaningful way.

At the root of the video is how the Japanese describe the term “spring greens.”

While the rest of the world either uses those simple two words, or don’t even acknowledge the incredible new greens of spring, the Japanese have many ways and words to describe the emerging greens.

Discovering the intricacies of Shinryoku: A moment in time

Josh explains in the video that the greens of mid may are described as Shinryoku. The word describes that brilliant new green emerging in the woodland and gardens. It describes the leaves that have just opened and represent not just a colour but, even more importantly, a “moment in time.”

Shinryoku describes the particular green of leaves that have just opened –”tender, bright, almost shy.”

In Japan, it represents that time at the end of the cherry blossom season, but before summer heat sets in and turns the focus on the beginnings of new life emerging.

It’s a time many of us are experiencing at this very moment in our spring gardens.

However, so many of us are so overwhelmed with trying to get our gardens into shape, that we fail to appreciate the emergence that is ocurring before our eyes.

Shinryoku, or the feeling it brings, is important to experience and capture, whether it is just a memory and feeling we store in our minds or an image we capture with our cameras.

Capturing early spring in the woodland garden

Josh’s video explores the many approaches to documenting Shinryoku. Here I’ll just touch on a few and if you are interested in exploring further you can watch his video.

The first involves moving in close to exerience the translucency of the emerging leaves. Capturing the small details in the leaves as sunlight that filters through the leaves and flowers brings out the delicate veining.

To quote Josh: It is an important time when we get to capture the “beginning of something that will spend the rest of the year becoming.”

This is the time to either use a macro (close focussing lens) or a telephoto lens to move in close and use backlighting to capture the translucency of the leaves and flowers, like I tried to do in some of the images above.

This is the time, as Josh explains, that we: Capture the “beginning of something that will spend the rest of the year becoming.”

It’s an opportunity to photograph a “thing that is not yet what it will be. “

Shinrin-yoku: Looking up and Forest bathing

The Japanese concept of Shinrin-yoku or forest bathing finds its success because it encourages the eyes to look outward and upward.

The second approach is to simply look up through the leaves and the sunlight filtering through them. It works so well because, in spring, leaves are still transparent.

Josh suggests to: Find a tree. Lie down point your camera straight up. Capture the leaves’ transparency. Contrast and geometry.  Dark branches against that luminous green. … the negative space betweeen them when the sky comes through.

“You can’t look up to a canopy like that and hang on to a to do list,” he says in the video.

In our backyard in spring, I often look up through the branches and flowers of our yellow magnolia. The mellow yellow flowers light up against the backlit sky. (See second image in post.)

Later, when the massive bright yellow locust tree leaves begin to emerge, the results can be spectacular.

It’s best to underexpose the scene to capture the bright yellows and greens against a dark blue sky. A polarizing filter will further deepen the sky and help remove the bright highlights off of the waxy leaves.

Wabi Sabi: Finding beauty in combining the old and the new

In my mind, the most successful gardens are a blend of old and new. It's one of the reasons I am drawn to the aesthetic of European gardens where plants find a home inside an ancient stone urn or vines climb the walls of historic castles. 

Documenting this in our own gardens is not always easy, but if we look hard enough we may be able to find a moss-covered urn or rock. An ancient boulder or tree covered in mosses and lichens.

Now look to capture new growth up against the old tree, branch or moss-covered container. Maybe an old garden gate with a new vine growing on it. …

Josh so eloquently describes the core of Wabi Sabi in his video: “Beauty lives in the relationship between aging and renewal. Not in one or the other. The green is more alive when it is next to something that has been here much longer. The rough stone is more beautiful when something young grows through it    
This is actually how Japanese gardens work. Every element is in conversation with every other element. You don’t place a stone alone, you place it in relationship.
Apply that thinking to your photography. You are not dicumenting just the leaf, you are documenting a relationship.
Time and now permanence and impermanence. More interesting than a simple photograph it’s a conversation. It’s an about it’s not a picture of something it’s about something.”

This is the perfect time for us to get out in the garden and experience, maybe even capture photographically, what the Japanese refer to as Shinryoku.

Spring in the woodland garden: Importance of native plants

One look at a native columbine and you know they were “made” for hummingbirds.

The colours – a vibrant red and yellow. The shape – long tubular flower petals perfect for our hummingbirds’ long beaks and even longer tongues. The way the entire flower hangs off the stem.

It’s the perfect match for the hummingbird.

This week in the garden watching hummingbirds work the columbines was all I needed to be reminded of the important relationship between our native columbine and hummingbirds. In fact, it proved to be even more verification of how important native plants are to our local wildlife.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our ruby-throated hummingbirds arrived to our garden just as the columbines were preparing to open.

Columbines, along with Solomon’s seal and a handful of other natives and non-native plants, are just a few of the key plants that provide a food source for migrating hummingbirds. Flowering trees such as crabapples, serviceberries and a host of other shrubs also play a major role in helping migrating birds, such as hummingbirds.

For more on columbines, check out my earlier posts here.

For my post on helping migrating birds, see my earlier post here.

Commercial feeders are no replacement for native plants

One look at all the activity around our commercial feeders (Amazon link) and it’s easy to forget that these tiny birds that have just made their way from as far away as Central America to our backyards in the northeastern United States, Ontario and more northerly parts of Canada, are more dependent on native plants than our feeders.

In other parts of the world, including the southwestern U.S., into western Canada, a similar dependency exists with the beautiful Rocky Mountain columbines and other native plants that feed the migrating hummingbirds along their journey.

Hummingbird feeders have certainly become an important, readily available, high-energy food source that is available to migrants as they make their way to their summer breeding ground. But, it is plants like columbines that ensure hummingbirds’ survival over long stretches of uninhabited areas where feeders are not as readily available.

Not only are native plants, including columbines, important as an early food source for hummingbirds, they also feed smaller insects which can be a source of protein for hummingbirds.

Many of us might not realize that insects actually make up a huge part of the hummingbirds’ diet. In fact, leaving pieces of fruit out near a feeder to attract fruit flies can also be beneficial for hummingbirds. When it comes to feeding their babies on the nest, it’s small insects and spiders that make up the diet of both the tiny babies and their parents.

The Rocky Mountain columbines – non-native in my location – as well as the more hybridized varieties may not be as beneficial to hummingbirds in our area, but more than likely offer some of the same benefits as our native plants.

It’s always good to include at least some native varieties in your naturalized garden.

If you don’t have native columbines in your garden, be sure to put them on your list for next season. If you can still find plants are your local nursery, pick up a few and get them in the ground for the hummers. If you can’t find any plants, you can probably purchase some seed which you can try to sew directly in the garden or grow in pots.

For more on native plants and their importance in the landscape, check out my earlier posts here.

How I photographed the hummingbirds

Anyone who has tried to photograph these tiny, extremely fast and skittish little birds knows how difficult it can be.

Using an electronic flash helps to stop movement, throws a catchlight in the eye and adds a fill light to darker areas in the image, but I prefer to keep it simple when it comes to capturing images of hummingbirds.

I used a digital SLR (Pentax K5) combined with a Pentax 300mm f4.5* lens teamed with a 1.4 converter that gave me the equivalent of about a 720mm lens on the cropped sensor. I bumped up the ISO to 1600, which added even more noise to the images.

I’m lucky that I planted the Columbines right near where I like to sit with my coffee and look out over the garden. So, I grabbed my monopod and waited… and waited.

The hummingbirds visited the many feeders I had put up around the patio but took their time to check out the columbines.

It was late morning and the flowers were in the shade while the background was well lit, so I knew it wasn’t ideal lighting. I knew I could save the RAW images in post processing with a combination of Lightroom and Luminar Neo, but wasn’t under any great expectations that the results would be anything more than acceptable.

As a result of the bright background, most of the images of the birds were underexposed. Bringing the exposure up only added to the noise in the high-ISO images.

The birds visited a few times giving me lots of opportunities to get a variety of images. I shot in continuous mode but the K5 and lens combination wasn’t ideal to capture these fast-moving subjects.

Several hours later and I could see the shade moving away and the flowers beginning to get lit up. All I could do was hope the hummingbirds would return with the better lighting. And they did.

The results with the sun on the plants and the birds proved to be much better with a natural catchlight in the eye and a faster shutter speed to better freeze the motion of the bird. In addtion, the better lighting allowed me to stop down the lens for a little added depth of field.

The results of the photo shoot was a mixed bag of good and bad. I was happy just to capture the hummingbirds at the columbines, but unhappy about the quality of images and the amount of post processing needed to make them acceptable for publication.

A lot of work was needed to get the most out of the images, including a heavy amount of sharpening in both Lightroom and Luminar Neo.

Speaking of Luminar Neo, I used its “light depth” module on many of the images to create nicer light on the hummingbirds. I also used Luminar Neo’s AI sharpening tool in a few of the images.

Finally, I decided to push Luminar Neo’s creative capabilities to see what was possible. (See image above.)

After using the light depth module to lighten the hummingbird against the surroundings, I tapped into the sunrays module to add warm beams of light on the subject.

And the result: As a creative image I think I really like the results.

Some may argue that it is too contrived, and that’s okay. I see photography as a creative expression and have no problem taking an image to its creative limits.

I enjoy nothing more on a rainy day, than sitting in front of the computer and playing with the creative aspects modern post processing programs provide photographers.

For my post on creative approaches to photography, check out my earlier post here.

What do you think? Is it too much or are you open to creative expression in nature photography?

Native plants sparkle in spring

It’s the middle of May but it’s cold, really cold. In fact, earlier this week, if you can believe it, there were overnight frost warnings here.

Frost warnings and cold days, however, are not slowing down our hardy native plantings from moving forward and actually performing very well, thank you.

Leading the way are the Mayapples that are fully stretched out and creating a lovely green carpet in the main area of our garden that they are slowly taking over. They are also blooming in a distant corner of the woodland where I can see them, but rarely wander over to that “wilder” part of the yard.

But don’t count out the lovely arching stems of Solomon’s Seal that are reaching out for the sun with their delicate little green flowers hanging down below the leaves.

Solomon’s Seal, whether it’s the straight native or the variegated variety, is a good addition to any woodland garden adding a needed sense of verticality in the spring garden and lasting throughout the summer well into fall. Not unlike Mayapple, its tattered, beigey fall look is almost as nice as it is dressed in its spring greens.

The Forget-Me-Nots are also putting on their subtle spring show with their soft, mist-like haze of blue forming a perfect backdrop to the Mayapple and geranium ground covers. These lovely, dainty little flowers are an important early source of nectar for early emerging insects and butterflies.

In the woodlands surrounding our home, massive waves of Forget-Me-Nots fill sunny spots on the woodland floor spilling over the deer paths that zig zag through the forest.

And, while spring greens are always a joy in the woodland garden, let’s not overlook the hints of colour that are already poking through the greens.

Just in time for our hummingbirds’ arrival, our native columbine are about to explode in red-and-yellow flower. A favourite early source of nectar for migrating hummingbirds, Columbine are another early spring favourite that needs to be in everyone’s woodland garden.

In the image above, Foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) grows happily alongside a Columbine as part of one of our many newly created little woodland vignettes from last year. These were created from cut branches pruned from our larger trees and, rather than disposing of them, we “planted” them in the ground and planted woodland plants around them. Over time they will break down and add nutrients – various fungi – to the soil. For more on our woodland vignettes (log planter), check out my post previous here.

Joining our Columbine, of course, are the always popular bleeding hearts. Our clumps are already blooming in the back garden where they get maybe six hours of sun while the leaf cover is still sparse.

Both the Columbine and bleeding hearts are a photographer’s delight so make sure to get out and document them before they past their prime.

Right beside the Columbine, our foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) is preparing to put on a show. It’s the first year with foamflower, so I’m looking forward to experiencing it in the garden and photographing it at its prime.

Throughout the garden, ferns are unfurling, the eastern redbuds are beginning to put on their magnificent show and the Flowering dogwoods are hinting at what’s still to come.

I’ll let the following pictures tell the rest of the story.

Dead hedge vs brush pile: Both can create excellent habitat

What do you do with hundreds of non-native trees and shrubs that need to be removed and disposed?

Well, you could do a lot worse than using them as building blocks for what is known as a “dead hedge.”

That’s exactly what my neighbour, Peter, has done with a grove of buckthorn that quickly spread across the back of our properties.

While I yanked mine out and threw them on the top of our massive brush pile, Peter used the larger ones as fenceposts while the smaller trees and branches became the horizontal “filler” for the hedge.

It’s made by stacking branches and garden waste between the posts, which don’t have to be dead trees. You could just as easily use store-bought wooden or even steel posts for the vertical support.

Think of it like a very vertical brush pile, but with a more utilitarian role to play in the landscape.

Using a dead hedge like a fence doesn’t just block views, it creates safe shelter for birds, small mammals, and beneficial insects as well as hangouts for snakes, toads etc.

The dead hedge fence can turn even the smallest yard into a living habitat and act, not just as a boundary wall like a traditional fence would do, but as n inexpensive way to block a distracting view or eyesore. Now, some would say that the dead hedge in itself an eyesore – and I can understand that argument – but read on for ideas on how we can turn the dead hedge into a living one.

As the dead hedge slowly breaks down – replaced by newer garden material – it feeds the soil and supports fungi and microorganisms in the soil.

The result is another new home and safe place for birds, chipmunks, squirrels and any other living critters that can make use of the structure. Native bees, too, can also take advantage of the dead wood to lay their offspring, especially if you take the time to drill holes in some of the larger branches.

It probably wouldn’t provide the same potential habitat that a large brush pile provides, but its vertical space and dense branch structure provides safety for birds and small mammals looking to escape predators.

Set up a bird bath or bird feeder nearby and you will likely get lots of action.

Turn the dead hedge into a living one

I’m thinking the dead hedge would be the perfect place to grow flowering annual and perennial vines to hide the woody brown mass and create a colourful vertical spot for local wildlife to hang out. Vines that attract hummingbirds would be a great choice. In a shady area, consider flowering hydrangea or, even better, Virginia Creeper that offers fruit and lovely fall foliage.

Over time, the dead hedge can be built out so that it stretches across a larger area in the yard creating a natural source of privacy, a sound wall that fills with bird song, or a natural wall to create a shady wind break area and the perfect spot to grow woodland flowers.

Safe spot from predators

I’ve added a hanging bird/wildlife water source and a bird feeder nearby to introduce a greater variety of birds and other wildlife to the dead hedge, which gives our feathered friends and other wildlife a quick and safe escape from potential predators.

While the dead hedge may act like a barrier of sorts for larger mammals such as deer, it allows smaller animals to pass through it with relative ease – everything from red and grey squirrels and chipmunks, to possums, weasels and mice.

Adding to the beauty and usefulness of the dead hedge, is the fact it is free to anyone who wants to take the time to put it together.

Another benefit of the dead hedge/fence is that it does not need to go together in one season –although if you had enough material it certainly could be built in a single season. It’s probably better to think of a dead hedge as a long-term project that can be added to on a yearly basis both vertically and horizontally until you get the hedge to a point where you are satisfied. From that point, simply add to it with your annual pruned branches or garden waste.

Your backyard wildlife will thank you.

It’s May 5th and the Orioles and hummingbirds are back in town

Every spring I look forward to the explosion of colour our creeping phlox provides in our front garden.

In fact, it is the introduction to our garden – the first plant you come across as you approach from the street. I like to let it go wild and weave in an out of the river rocks and boulders across the front. It even cascades over the side of the boulders along our driveway and creates a colourful vignette for a week or two.

This is a native plant that deserves a place in every garden. It’s an early source of food for pollinators and welcomes spring like no other groundcover can. It’s best to treat it like a ground cover and let it run through the garden, around plants, rocks and tree stumps.

It’s well behaved, yet can fill out a space in a relatively short period of time – a couple of seasons and your small patch has doubled or tripled in size.

In my opinion, trying to grow it in a small clump like many traditional perennials just doesn’t do it the justice it deserves. This beautiful plant commands attention in the spring while in flower, but lays back in summer to form a lovely moss-like low growing, highly textured ground cover that makes the perfect backdrop for your summer-flowering plants.

• For a more detailed post on creeping phlox and other great substitutes for moss in the woodland garden, be sure to check out my earlier post here.

Of course, the creeping phlox isn’t the only plant making an appearance as April gives way to May.

Our woodland understory trees – serviceberries, Eastern Redbuds and pin cherries – are just starting to bud out, and with them have come the birds. I’m looking out the window and seeing five Baltimore Orioles working the feeders stocked with oranges and jelly. The hummingbirds have returned and my Merlin app tells me a variety of warblers are working their way through the upper tree story. They are joining our regulars – juncos, cardinals, chickadees, blue jays, woodpeckers, nuthatches, various sparrows, goldfinches and wrens.

• For my full post on serviceberries click here.

• For my earlier post on three of the best Carolinian forest trees including the Eastern Redbud click here.

if you look closely in different parts of the yard, you’ll see the native columbines just getting ready to offer their lovely little blooms to the hummingbirds and other insects.

The bleeding hearts too – a photographers’ dream plant – are just starting to bloom alongside trilliums, Solomon’s seal and the May Apple.

Of course, the various hosta and ferns are a few weeks away from putting on a show. Each day they reveal just a little more of what’s to come.

Tick problems and remedies

Unfortunately, all this excitement brings with it a dose of reality in the form of an epidemic of ticks.

These things appear to be everywhere this year.

They are in their nymph stage and are extremely difficult to see. Our dog, Colby, has to be kept on the patio to keep the ticks off him and we are having to take extra precaution every time we wander into the garden.

We have never experienced a tick infestation like we have this year. Earlier this week, I spread 12 Thermacell Tick Control Tubes (Amazon link) throughout the property, but apparently they take continued use over a full season or two to really knock back the tick population.

I’m sure they will have an immediate affect, but it may not be enough to knock back the numbers sufficiently this year to make a huge difference.

Ticks, as most people know, can be dangerous and are capable of transmitting diseases like Lyme disease. Here is a link from the Lyme disease organization on repellents to keep ticks off your body when hiking or working in areas where ticks are found.

The concept of the Tick Control Tubes is actually fascinating as they target ticks through a host carrier like mice and chipmunks.

The general concept is that the mice and chipmunks take the cotton out of the tubes to use as bedding. When the ticks are carried down to their lairs, they are killed by the active ingredient Permethrin actually extracted from chrysanthemums.

So far this spring, we have had to remove three ticks that have latched on to us. We used a special tick removal tool to take them off, and several more were discovered before they had a chance to dig in. For more information on Tick Removal Tools check out this Amazon link. I highly recommend having one of these tools available even if you do not have a tick problem. These inexpensive devices are vital if and when you discover a tick has burrowed into your skin. Without these tools, the ticks can be tricky to remove.

Please take a moment to check out my earlier post on dealing with ticks in the woodland garden. I have updated the original post to include more information.

Week Two

Barrenwort/Epimedium takes centre stage

It’s the end of April and Epimediums are stealing the spotlight in the woodland garden.

I know – not native – but they are a great source of nectar for wildlife, and boy are they a lovely addition to the early spring woodland garden. I have two varieties (there are hundreds). Their lovely yellow and rose blooms standing on thin stems and dancing in the wind give the early spring woodland garden an ethereal feel.

We have clumps planted both in the back and front gardens where they are spreading nicely.

For my complete post on Epimediums click here.

These early spring bloomers are great for dry-shade and splitting the clumps is the perfect way to spread their joy around the garden. Although the flowers are a welcome addition in spring, it’s their foliage that makes these plants so desirable. Not unlike hostas, the lovely foliage provides the real interest throughout the gardening season. Spring, however, is the time to enjoy the flowers.

Joining the Epimediums at this time in the woodland garden are native trilliums that bloomed this week, and the sudden emergence of Solomon’s Seal stems just waiting to unfurl.

Moss and moss-like ground covers should be an important part of any woodland garden. For more on growing moss and moss-like ground covers, check out my earlier post here.

In other parts of the garden, ostrich ferns have begun to unfurl their soon-to-be massive fronds, while the more delicate maidenhairs reveal themselves in much more subtle ways. violets are everywhere and forget-me-nots are beginning to make their presence known not by their flowers but certainly by their foliage.

Everywhere, the spring greens are lighting up the woodland and nothing is a more welcome sight than our trio of clump birch trees that I like to refer to as my mini-birch grove. They bring a lovely view outside our main window in the kitchen and allow me to look out into a sea of green interrupted only by the birds that flitter about in search of insects. Click here for my earlier post on the mini birch grove.

The full impact of spring is yet to be felt here, but just a few more warm and sunny days and it will burst in all its glory.

Even the birds are brimming with excitement. The Merlin app is telling me there are a huge variety of birds in the yard, including warblers which I have yet to spot while out with the camera. Hopefully, they’s get lower in the trees and allow me to capture their elusive beauty.

Interested in exploring epimediums further, be sure to check out my post here.

Still waiting for the hummingbirds and orioles but I am seeing reports of them all around us and our feeders are out a ready to welcome them.

Speaking of birds, I have decided to finally give up our main central bird feeding station in the yard. Actually, our friendly and overweight racoon made the decision easy for me by literally breaking our main pole that holds a variety of feeders.

The pole was probably pushing 25 years old, so the decision to let it go wasn’t difficult. Instead of the single pole, I’ll be moving to individual feeders around the yard. I’m hoping if I use tough feeders, I’ll be able to keep the critters off them for the most part.

Time will tell.

In other excitement in the garden this week, Colby, our very large flat-footed retriever, almost lost his eye after deciding to ignore my strict warnings not to chase the chipmunks. I guess he figured that it was worth the risk to go on the chase of the little chipmunk hanging out at the downed feeding pole. Colby not only missed the chipmunk, but ran into a concrete planter, knocked it over and taking out a chunk of skin and fur under his eye.

Turns out, he is perfectly fine, but it’ll take a couple of weeks to get the fur back. In the meantime he looks like he lost a round with one tough boxer.

Colby is a real handful in the garden and I think the whole wildlife thing is very new to the big guy. For the most part, he Is being very good around the squirrels and chipmunks, just watching them from afar. However, If they get too close to him, I’m thinking he might be a real handful.

It’s important for him to get used to having lots of wildlife around, from rabbits, to deer and everything in between. His prey drive is high, so I’m fearing he will have to stay on a leash with us anytime we are in the back yard.

Here are a few more images of the garden at the end of April.

Learn to see the small treasures our gardens provide

Part one of a series

In our woodland garden, early spring is certainly not the most picturesque time.

Without the foliage from the ground on up to the heavens, it’s not much more than a vast space of brown leaves and unappealing bare stems. And to make matters worse, it’s open for all to see more or less in it entirety.

It’s a good time to look around and recognize the areas that could use a little help. Maybe an evergreen in that corner to block an ugly view or a small privacy fence to break up the view of your neighbour’s BBQ. Other than that, it’s easy to look aside and yearn for the summer when everything is dense, green and in full bloom.

Anyway, at this time of year, most of us are too busy bringing out chair cushions, garden statues and other garden accoutrements from the shed to really look at the early spring garden.

But, it’s worth a look –and a close one at that.

Listening and observing the music of the garden

I often ask my friends if they still listen to music. When I ask that question, I don’t mean have the music on in the background while they are surfing the net or getting household chores done. I mean really listen like we did as kids when we got home with a new piece of vinyl or the latest CD. Remember when we would darken the room, close our eyes, drop the needle, clear our minds and really listen to the music.

Those days are slowly disappearing. Most of us are too busy to devote that kind of time to a single album let alone a song or two.

Seeing – and I mean really seeing – is also slowly disappearing from our daily routines.

So many of us are too busy cleaning up the garden to actually take the time to actually see it. The result is often not only a missed opportunity, but a growing inability to appreciate the smaller things in the garden – the emerging rosettes of our favourite native plants, the tiny leaves of the columbines before they get large enough to flower, the slow unfurling of our ferns.

I am as much at fault as anyone. Like you, I’m always anxiously awaiting the flower to emerge, while overlooking the beauty of the foliage. (For a greater understanding of the role foliage plays in our gardens, check out my posts here and here.)

Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson, as well as many others, have devoted entire books on learning to see. Seeing requires us to do more than simply opening our eyes to what our gardens offer. I think it requires a more active role on our part. Getting down on our knees, not just to clean an area around our plants, but to appreciate the tiny little worlds and truly experience the garden.

Get up close and personal, take in the earthy smell, listen to the natural sounds – the wind blowing through the trees, the birds, the spring peepers, the bees even those pesky mosquitos.

Seeing – I mean really seeing – can involve all our senses.

Last year, I decided to fully explore the spring woodlands (see: A walk in the woods) around our home. It was an incredibly enjoyable and educational experience wandering through the spring woodlands and watching it emerge over the course of weeks… months. I learned to see the natural woodland in a new way and was inspired to take what I learned and bring vignettes back into our woodland garden.

This year, I plan to experience spring in our own woodland where I’ll explore the art of seeing in the comfort of my own backyard woodland.

If your garden is more traditional, it doesn’t mean you can’t experience many of the same enjoyments and be inspired by the emergence of your garden plants, trees and shrubs.

Just make the commitment that this is the year you are going to really begin trying to “see” and fully experience the garden, starting from the ugly brown phase through to summer with its explosion of colour, wildlife and visual fireworks.

Come and join me on this journey in the spring woodland where each week I’ll unveil new surprises both visually and through my, hopefully, inspiring and descriptive accounts of my experiences.

Our backyard birds are getting busy

We start this exploration in late April just as many of the plants emerge. At this time neither the hummingbirds, nor the orioles or warblers have invaded the area but they are very close. Our hummingbird and oriole feeders are out and ready for visitors.

Although many of the migrants are still on their way, our backyard feeders are bursting with birds from goldfinches to blue jays, cardinals, house finches, juncos, chickadees, a host of woodpeckers, sparrows and even a colony of crows that visit the backyard on a regular basis.

The following are just a few images of the birds that are hanging out in the yard at this time of the year.

Seeing the garden – I mean really seeing the spring garden – can often be expressed not literally but in abstract form. In this ICM (intentional camera movement) photograph, I was able to focus on the white birch trunks without the distractions of green leaves. Later in spring, this image would not be possible because of the foliage that would block the lovely white trunks.

Learning to see different areas of the garden in a more abstract form can be a rewarding artistic experience that forces you to try new ways to use your camera.

If spring in the garden means nothing more to you than the time you have to spend hours in the garden working to get it ready for the “big show,” take a moment to relax, and really see it, experience its hidden beauty, and consider capturing that beauty in a photograph.

Celebrate spring with these outstanding new features from Luminar Neo

The difference between a very expensive lens and the inexpensive consumer version often comes down to which lens can render a softer, more pleasing out-of-focus background.

Fast, expensive lenses deliver on both sharpness when it comes to the subject as well as the ability to soften the background translating into what most photographers describe as beautiful bokeh.

Those smart phone images that have become so common on social media often lack any real bokeh. Instead, everything is sharp from front to back. The same can be true for most point-and-shoot camera results. That can work in many cases, but if you have always wondered why more experienced photographers’ images always have a beautiful look to them, chances are the bokeh of their lenses plays a significant role.

(If you are interested in checking out or purchasing Luminar Neo, please consider using my discount code here.)

In the past, not having access to fast and often expensive lenses, means those beautiful, soft-background images were unattainable.

Luminar Neo’s new spring feature package has changed all this.

From portraits to landscapes, beautiful bokeh can change everything

Now, Luminar Neo can turn your smartphone and inexpensive kit-zoom photos into images with a beautifully soft creamy bokeh. Even better, you have complete control over the bokeh effect in your images.

Originally released as part of its “Portrait tools”, Luminar Neo’s Bokeh module fits just as easily in a nature, wildlife and flower photographer’s tool box.

I remember when Lightroom first introduced a similar feature and it changed the way I saw many of my older photographs. I spent weeks going back over images with distracting backgrounds and seeing how the software could improve the images by softening the background.

Now I can do the same in Luminar Neo for a fraction of the price. And, I have to say that Luminar Neo’s new bokeh module is better and works in the same three-dimensional way as Luminar Neo’s outstanding Light Depth module works.

The bokeh module and the light depth module combination can literally transform your photography from boring to spectacular without the purchase of expensive cameras and lenses.

If you have not read my post on Luminar Neo’s light depth module, you can check it out here.

I think the following before-and-after pictures best tell the story.

The above images illustrate how Luminar Neo’s new bokeh module can improve nature images by creating much more pleasing backgrounds that allow the main subjects to stand out. These are important features in nature, flower and wildlife images, but they are also critical in other forms of photography from street photographs to travel and especially portrait images.

In fact, Luminar Neo chose to locate their bokeh module in their portrait tools where they thought it would be most useful. So, for those looking to improve their people pictures – whether that is professional work or just shots of your kids or family on vacation – Luminar Neos new bokeh module is certainly worth further investigation.

For people shooters (not my specialty) Luminar Neo has actually unveiled many new interesting modules to enhance your portraits.

Earlier this month Luminar Neo rolled out its new upgrade focused on portrait photography on both desktop and mobile. The mobile update inclues the Bokeh AI module discussed above along with new Face AI features such as Face Light and Face Slim. In addition, Blemish Removal has been significantly enhanced.

Desktop updates include Bokeh AI discussed above for nature and garden images, In addition, with Face AI users can control Dark Circles under eyes with an improved tool that is simple to use, as well as expanded capabilities for Face Skin smoothing, Body Smoothing and Shine Removal and a brand new Blemish Removal tool.

The is also a new Mask Feather feature that softens mask edges for smoother blending.

If you are interested in purchasing Luminar Neo (which offers a one-time purchase model rather than paying monthly) please consider using my discount code here.

Steps to discourage ticks in the garden

There was a time as a young boy and teenager growing up in Southern Ontario when ticks were not a thing. In fact, I remember only a single location where ticks were present in Southern Ontario – Longpoint Provincial Park.

It just so happened that Longpoint on the Lake Erie coast was my favourite summer hangout. The beaches were the best around and on good days we could ride the waves.

And, although I spent a lot of time at Longpoint Provincial Park, still, I never encountered a single tick. In fact, during my entire childhood, through my crazy teen years and right through my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s …, I never even really thought about ticks.

Those care-free days are gone.

It wasn’t until more recently that ticks have become an issue in our neck of the woods.

And have they ever.

Today, as I write this post, ticks have become a serious problem not only in this area but in our own backyard.

Last year, I needed precautionary Lyme disease medication after discovering an engorged tick on my leg (see image below). It had to have been attached for at least 24 hours. This year, after a little garden cleanup, my wife has already had two ticks attached and we have pulled a number both dead and alive off our dog. More recently, I have had to remove a tick off my back and have found several of the tiny sesame-sized ticks crawling on my hand and foot after going into the garden.

Not all the ticks may have been picked up in our yard, but I’m guessing most originated in the dry ornamental grasses and fallen leaves in the yard.

Of course, having a massive black dog is certainly a tick magnet, but even without Colby to bring ticks into the yard and eventually into the home, transitory animals and birds spread these little critters from property to property.

Ticks are one of the reasons I welcome Opposums on to the property whenever I see them. They are known to devour ticks by the hundreds even thousands.

Last year, after taking our dog into the nearby woodland, we discovered he was covered with ticks and, as a result, seemed to have an allergic reaction to being bitten in and around his face.

Now that was not a whole lot of fun.

Thankfully, he was on his regular tick medicine from the vet and the situation cleared itself up over a short time.

Bringing a boat load of ticks into your living space via your dog, however, is not something most of us want to do.

For more information check out this post about using Permethrin on your clothing https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/sawyer-permethrin-premium-insect-repellent-review/

Reasons for the rise in ticks

I’m no expert, but I can’t help but think the rise in our local tick population is the direct result of climate change. In past years, our bitterly cold winters killed any chance of ticks migrating north from our southern neighbours. But, as our winters warmed, new animals appeared along with plants and, of course, ticks – lots and lots of ticks.

Once established in the area, they are impossible to exterminate and, because they can potentially spread Lyme disease, they are not something to be taken lightly.

I had hoped this year’s severe winter would diminish the local tick population in the area. Instead, the deep snow cover, like a nice warm blanket, actually helped the ticks survive winter and left us with even more of the critters this spring.

The very nature of a woodland/wildlife garden almost guarantees you are going to have ticks if you live in an area where ticks are a problem.

In the entrances to the woodlands surrounding our home, large signs (See top image) warn that there are ticks in the area and to take precautions both for your own well being and for your pets - primarily dogs but also cats.

In fact, in hindsight, I’m thinking we may have lost one of our cats from a tick bite. Cats can get a number of diseases from tick bites.

According to Petmeds: Cats can contract several dangerous illnesses from tick bites, most notably Cytauxzoononosis (bobcat fever), Hemobartoneliosis (feline infectious anemia), Lyme disease, Ehrlichiosis and Anaplasmosis. Severe anemia, high fever, lethargy, and loss of appetite are symptoms. Regular, year-round tick prevention is the best protection. 

Tips to deal with ticks in the garden

So how do we deal with them?

First off, it’s important not to use general insecticides to control ticks. Doing so will only eliminate other important insects that call your garden home.

Take the following steps before resorting to the use of any harsh insecticides.

Take a multi-faceted approach to controlling ticks

I think keeping ticks at bay is probably best accomplished through a series of actions meant to deter them from areas of the garden where you and your pets like to hang out.

A first layer of defence can be the plants we choose to place near the areas we most frequently visit – near the patio or deck or other sitting areas and pathways around the garden.

Ticks are known to hang out in ornamental grasses or any long grass so it’s probably wise to keep long grasses in areas of the garden where you won’t brush up against them on a regular basis. But, it’s not just ornamental grasses where these tiny insects can hide. Any foliage could be home to these little critters.

Use plants as a first defence

With this in mind, there are plants we can grow that are said to actually help repel ticks. Don’t expect miracles from these plants, but if they help even a little they are definitely worth adding to your garden, especially in heavy traffic areas.

The following is a list of six suggested plants that help deter ticks in your yard.

1. Lavender,

2. Mint

3. Marigolds

4. Catmint

5. Rosemary

6. Chives

Tick removal tool is critical addition to your kit

If you or your dog get bit by a tick and it is still attached, it helps to have a tool to remove it as quickly and painlessly as possible.. This premium tick remover (Amazon Link) will get the job done. It’s always a good idea to have one of these tools available even if you have never had to remove a tick.

Sprays to keep ticks at bay

The next line of defence I like to use is a spray – Mosquito Barrier – that is said to keep mosquitoes, ticks and fleas from attacking you and your pets. It’s important to note that this is not an insecticide and only acts as a deterrence.

Its primary use is to form a barrier against mosquitoes, but it’s listed to be effective against fleas and ticks as well.

Mosquito Barrier (company web site) comes in concentrated form so although it may appear expensive, a single bottle can last several years. Its main ingredient is industrial-grade garlic which gives off a powerful odour on application but eventually mellows out to a pleasant garlic smell – and who doesn’t like a little garlic.

In a small yard, you can spray generously around the perimeter of the property on plants, fences, trees and walls. In larger yards, it is probably better to just create a boundary around the areas you and your pets tend to hang out.

We like to give the area a spray about once a week and top it off after a rainfall.

So far, we have found it helps keep the mosquitoes aways so I’m sure it’s having some effect with ticks and fleas. I plan to use the spray much more this year directly on plants around the patio. The spray is available through Amazon, (link to Mosquito Barrier) but we purchased our bottle at our local RAW dog food store.

Safe botanical/herbal sprays specifically for use on dogs and clothing

The next line of defence is a botanical-based spray used directly on both our pets and our own clothing to repel ticks. Again, it’s important to note that these are not insecticides they are a repellent. The main ingredients are essential oils that repel ticks and fleas safely.

If you don’t want to spray your dog directly, consider spraying a cloth and rubbing the cloth over the dog’s legs, chest and head being careful to keep it away from their eyes.

Using mice to control ticks

Tick control tubes made by Thermacell are another defence that you may be interested in. Although these DO use an insecticide and are more aggressive than botanicals and other deterents, some users swear by them. They work in an interesting very targeted way by using garden mice to kill the ticks.

The concept is that mice take the cotton stuffed in the tubes laced with a natural insecticide and use it for bedding in their lairs. When ticks attach themselves to the mice and are taken back to the lair the insecticide kill the ticks without injuring the mice and their offspring.

I’m a little Leary about this approach but plan to try it this year to see how well it works.

Using harsh medicines to control ticks

Finally, using a focused medicine to protect your dog and cat from ticks is often a necessity, if you live in an area where ticks are abundant. If you live in an area where ticks are not a problem, you could probably skip this final defence method.

Not all dogs and cats react positively to taking these drugs or putting the medicine on them. The decision to go ahead and use these medicines should be made after discussing the possible cons with your veteranarian.

It’s important to note that the medicines do not kill the ticks until they actually bite the dog or cat. At that point the ticks die. Even while on the medication, it’s not uncommon to see a tick crawling on the dog. If you see one, just pick it off and dispose of it.

For more ideas on how to control ticks, you might want to check out this Amazon page of potential solutions.

Was the Pentax VS20 a digital precursor to modern-day Pentax 17 half-frame camera?

Say what you will about Pentax cameras, but this venerable Japanese company is not afraid to take risks. Unfortunately, not all of the risks prove successful.

The recent Pentax 17 half-frame camera might be a case in point. Although it did meet with initial success as one of the first film cameras to be released in recent times, with the exception of an avid hipster fan base, collectors and film enthusiasts – which, mind you make up a sizeable number of photographers – I’m not sure the camera attracted sufficient users to call it an overwhelming success. Add that to their even more recent Monochrome DSLR experiment, which has proven moderately successful to a narrow group of BW digital enthusiasts.

No one is saying these cameras are not great, only that their narrow base might not be enough to take the cameras over the top in regards to overwhelming success.

The concept behind the vertical shooting “Pentax 17” was twofold: first double the number of pictures out of a roll of 35mm film to save costs, and second; provide users with instagram-ready images already in the vertical/portrait format to perfectly fit the smartphone aesthetic on social media. All this wrapped up in a nicely built, pocketable camera that looks as good in your hand as it does on the table of your favourite trendy coffee shop.

Bravo to Pentax engineers and designers for throwing caution to the wind and producing cameras no other mainstream camera company dared create.

Pentax’s forgotten digital social-media gem

To be honest, Pentax already had experience creating a camera that specialized in vertical images. In fact, it could be argued that their first attempt made a whole lot more sense than their latest film-based endeavour.

Head-to-head with the smartphone

The problem, like many of Pentax’s adventures, was their first attempt was just too far ahead of its time.

The Pentax Optio VS20 was officially announced by Pentax/Ricoh on January 25, 2012 – just as 14-million or so smartphones with their built-in cameras saturated the market. Pentax’s answer was a pocketable camera with a 20x optical zoom and separate portrait and landscape shutter releases complete with zooming mechanisms and separate tripod sockets. For more information, check out the Pentax/Ricoh official site.

Now, you would be hard-pressed to name a smartphone that packed that much of a punch.

For many camera enthusiasts and reviewers, the Pentax VS20 digital camera with its dual shutter releases – a traditional release and a separate vertical/ portrait release – was nothing more than an unnecessary gimmick to sell their latest travel camera in a large field of new digital camera releases.

One highly respected on-line review put it succinctly: “While ideally each new camera should have a special, unique feature that sells it on its own terms and distinguishes it from the pack, depressingly most don’t. But, in the case of the Optio VS20 from Pentax we don’t quite know whether to rejoice in or ridicule its points of difference.”

Whether photographers of the day ridiculed or admired the camera, it’s almost as if the Pentax designers knew that the world would eventually be obsessed with vertical/portrait images in the never-ending search for as many social-media “likes” as possible.

Today, smartphones dominate that market, but there was a time when the very nicely built, easily pocketable little VS20 travel camera may have competed with that same market.

If the VS20 included modern-day bluetooth capibilties to quickly and easily transfer images from the camera to your smartphone, it may well have become the darling of social media.

Instead, it faded into the history books along with so many other excellent point-and-shoot cameras.

But back to why this camera might be worth considering again today.

For one thing, the new film-based Pentax 17 will set you back $400 or so dollars, while the digital equivalent can be purchased for a fraction of that. I got a mint condition never used version – for a mere $35 Canadian, quite possibly the best deal ever for the camera – but typical used versions go for about $100.

Feature-packed camera

Not only was the camera already designed to shoot vertical images, it sported a highly sought after 16 megapixel CCD sensor and an Intelligent Zoom function that extended the core 20x optical range (22.-580mm in 35mm terms) by 144x to provide a lens reach of a ridiculous 4032mm in terms of a 35mm film camera. You might not want to push it that far, but in case of a once-in-a-lifetime picture, it’s nice to know the possibility is there for the taking.

Oh, and have I mentioned that it even sported two tripod socket mounts for more serious photographers who were either looking to achieve the ultimate in sharpness, or just wanted to be included in the picture. (It’s also wise to use a tripod when you are extending the camera’s lens to these extremes.)

Again, you’re not going to get that type of reach on your average smartphone.

Add a CCD-based sensor

And, yes, you read that right the camera was equipped with a 16mp CCD sensor. If that means nothing to you, a little research will quickly unveil the cult following for CCD-sensor-equipped cameras that are said to be able to obtain a more film-like image quality.

I can’t say the results a film-like, but I can verify that the jpeg images coming out this camera are very natural with excellent colour and depth. Unfortunately, it does not shoot in RAW.

Hipsters everywhere must be losing their minds to have missed such a great little CCD-based social media darling camera.

But, it’s not only hipsters. Any photographer looking for an everyday carry might want to take the time to track down this sweet little travel camera from 2012 that sports a host of goodies under its hood.

Features galore

Let’s take a Quick Look at what this camera offers.

I’ve never really been a fan of the Optio series of Pentax cameras because they lack many of the ultimate control more advanced photographers look for in a serious camera.

The VS20 is no different – lacking the ability to put the camera in shutter or aperture priority let alone in fully manual. That aside, the camera’s multiple modes are enough to satisfy most photographers’ wants and needs.

The trick is, like many point-and-shoot style cameras to learn how to get the most out of these cameras’ shooting modes.

And, like most cameras in Pentax’s Optio line, the VS20 sports a plethora of modes – 20 to be exact –, presented across two screens and tabbed through using the multi directional pad.

The intelligent Auto Picture mode and Program Auto join with natural skin tone portrait mode, handheld night snap, night scene portrait, night scene, digital panorama, plus the self-explanatory landscape, blue sky, sunset, flower and digital shake reduction options. The second screen and second dozen options cover kids, pets, generic portraits, food (enhances saturation and contrast), fireworks, surf and snow, sport, plus the digital effects filters which comprise fish eye, sketch and miniature, along with text mode and frame composite mode – adding a border to your image but fixing the pixel count at 3MP at the same time.

More serious photographers will choose the “program Mode” where we can narrow or enlarge the focus area, as well as activate AF tracking. Exposure can also be tweaked between +/- 2EV, the camera’s dynamic range can be adjusted for highlight correction, shadow correction or both, plus the likes of shake reduction, face detection, blink detection and the digital zoom implemented if desired.

That’s just a taste of what this highly useable, should I say '“enjoyable” camera offers users.

There is a standard (for its era) 3-inch, square-ish 4:3 aspect ratio LCD with anti reflective coating to compose and review stills and 1280x720 pixels video clips. The screen still holds up as a higher resolution than one would expect of an entry-level snapper of this era at 460k dots.

The black faceplate on the back adds a little sophistication to the camera’s aesthetic – with white being an alternative choice on some cameras.. There’s also a gentle curve to one end by way of a hand grip, plus a rubber pad at the opposite end for those preferring the two-handed approach when lacking a tripod.

The camera also features an extremely good macro feature that allows the photographer to get extremely close-up images. Perfect for flower and insect photography.

Image quality

All of the images in this review were taken using the 16 megapixel “best” JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 4.5Mb.

Is this camera capable of matching what you would get out of your mirrorless camera or DSLR? Of course not. Is it capable of capturing your garden in full bloom, the critters that share it with you as well as your pets, children, grandchildren and even your next vacation – absolutely.

Not only is it more than capable, you might find using the camera is actually fun. It is certainly small ebough to fit into your pocket so you have it with you wherever you go.

That’s not to say it’s the perfect camera.

Pentax’s VS20 was never considered an “expensive” camera with an original retail price at about £199.99 / $249.95 new. Today’s prices on the used market make it an absolute steal if you can find one in good shape. (I got mine for under $50 Canadian virtually brand new and never used.) Ebay.com has them listed anywhere from around $60 to almost $200 U.S..

That said, the focus is slow. As a result you may find some of the images are not sharp - it’s a little hit-or-miss at times if you are snapping pictures quickly. It’s important to give the camera time to get focus before clicking the shutter. You might want to turn the “beep” up so you get an audible assurance before clicking the shutter. Also, because you don’t have complete control of the shudder speed, don’t be afraid to use the built-in flash or a tripod to ensure sharp images.

Images maintained detail into the corners for the most part at maximum wideangle, with minimal if any barrel distortion too. Brighter conditions can result in over exposed highlight detail plus there can be some pixel fringing between areas of high contrast, but the latter only becomes an issue on close inspection.

In terms of low light performance, the camera can be used up to ISO800 with acceptable results. Higher ISOs begin to degrade the images more than you would want, unless it is a critical shot. If you have access to high quality post processing software, these high-ISO problems become less important.

Having said that, the camera has a night scene mode and, as long as you have a steady surface at your disposal, it’s possible to achieve really quite acceptable results in low light situations.

One last annoying problem I have discovered. The four-way button is easily pushed with your thumb which, in my case, sends the camera into a 10-second timer mode causing me to miss a couple of shots of birds and other wildlife. Not a big deal if you are aware of it, but it did cause me to miss a couple of potentially good shots.

Specifications

Camera Type: Super Zoom Compact CameraSensorTypeCCDSize1/2.33’’ CCDTotal Pixelsapprox. 16.00 megapixelsEffective Pixels

16.56 MP

Still16M (4608x3456), 12M [1:1] (3456x3456), 12M [16:9] (4608x2592), 7M (3072x2304), 2M [16:9] (1920x1080), 640 (640x480)Movie

Compatibility AVI (Motion JPEG)

Resolution :

• HD: 1280(1280 x 720): approx. 30/15 fps.

• VGA: (640 x 480): approx. 30/15 fps.

• 320:(?320 x 240): approx. 30/15 fps.

SensitivityAuto ISO, manual (80 ? 6400 ISO)

Shake ReductionCCD-shift Shake Reduction

LensFocal Length 5-100mm, equ. to 28-560mm in 35mm, aperture : F/3,1 - 4,8

Digital Zoom

• Optical Zoom:20X

• Digital Zoom: Approx. 7.2 X

• Smart Zoom Approx. 30x at 7M, approx. 144X at 640 (including optical zoom)

Construction11 elements in 8 groups (1 aspherical elements )

Focusing SystemTypeTTL autofocus with contrast détention

FunctionsManual Focus, Infinity-landscape

Focus Range (automatic)

AF points

Standard

1.6m - infinity (at tele setting)

3-point AF, Spot AF, Auto tracking AF (anticipating moving subject), 0.4m - infinity (at wide setting)

Macro

0.1m - 0.5m (at wide setting)

Super Macro

0.01m - 0.2m (middle zoom position)

ScreenType3’’ LCD Colour screen

Resolutionapprox.460K points

ShutterTypeElectronical shutter with sheduled automatic exposition

Speed1/2500  - 1/4 sec.  4 sec max. (Night Scene mode setting)

Exposure systemMeteringMulti-segment metering  

Exposure Modes Auto Picture, Program, Natural Skin Tone, Handheld Night Snap, Night Scene Portrait, Night Scene, Digital Panorama, Landscape, Blue Sky, Sunset, Flower, Digital SR, Kids, Pet, Portrait, Food, Fireworks, Surf & Snow, Sport, Fish-eye, Sketch, Miniature Filter, Text, Frame composite, Movie, Green.

Compensation+/-2EV (1/3 EV steps)

FlashType Integrated auto flash control

Automatic activation in low light conditions.

ModesFlash-on and Flash-off modes "Red-eye" reduction function

Effective Range

Flash range Wide: approx. 0.2 ? 5.1m (ISO Auto) Tele: approx. 1.6 ? 3.3m (ISO Auto)

Exposure ParametersModes Mode: Standard, self timer,burst shooting, high speed burst (L,M,H****), Remote control DRE: "Dynamic Range Enlargement", shades compensation: high lights 

Face Recognition Face recognition AF&AE is available for all modes up to 32 faces, Smile Capture, Blink Detection, animal recognition

White BalanceAuto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Manual setting

Digital Filter B&W/Sepia, Toy Camera, Retro, Color, Extract Color, Starburst, Soft, Fish-eye, Brightness, Miniature, Natural Skin Tone, Sketch

MovieRecording

Sound : Yes

Movie : Shake reduction Mode (SR)

Duration : Depends on memory card capacity

Resolution :

• VGA (640x480), approx 30/15 fps

• QVGA (320x240), approx 30/15 fps

• HD 1280 (1280 x 720p), approx 30:15 fps

EditingRecord as pictures, spilt movies.

PlaybackDigital Filter

B&W/Sepia, Toy Camera, Retro, Color, Extract Color, Starburst, Soft, Fish-eye, Brightness, Miniature, Natural Skin Tone, Sketch

Options

Slideshow, Image Rotation, Stretch Filter, Small Face Filter, Digital Filter (B&W/Sepia, Toy Camera, Retro, Color, Extract Color, Starburst, Soft, Fish-eye, Brightness, Miniature, Natural Skin Tone, Sketch), Frame Composite, Movie Editing, Red-eye Compensation, Resize, Cropping, Image Copy, Protect, DPOF, Startup Screen

StorageInternalApprox. 16MB

ExternalCompatible with SD, SDHC, SDXC memory cards

File Format

Photo format : JPEG (Exif 2.3), DCF 2.0, DPOF, PRINT Image Matching III

Video format : AVI (Motion JPEG), with sound

Special FeaturesFeatures

Text size: Standard, large

World time : 75 cities, 28 time zones

?Language

English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Greek, Russian, Thai, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese

PrintingFormatInterfaceInterfaceUSB2.0 (Hi-Speed), PC/AV terminal (NTSC/PAL, mono)

PowerSource

Battery : Rechargeable D-LI122 Luthium-ion battery

Optional AC adapter also available

PerformanceRecording capacity approx. 200 shots and 180 min in play mode.

DimensionsHeight60mm

Width108mm

Depth34mm

Weight191g (charged with battery) Approx. 170g (body only)

CompatibilityPCWindows XP SP3, (SP3), VistaTM and 7MacOS X 10.3.9 or aboveAccessoriesIncluded SoftwareSoftware: (CD-ROM) S-SW121

Kit ContentUSB cable I-USB7, AV-IAVC7 video cable,  rechargeable battery Li-ion D-DLI92, battery charger D-BC92, O-ST104 strap and software.

OptionalOptional AC adapter

My first impressions of the Lensbaby Velvet 56.

If you wanted to pick the perfect partner for flower photography, it would be hard to beat a Lensbaby.

“What the heck is a Lensbaby,?” you may ask.

Think a specialized lens (system) that is almost designed specifically to photograph flowers. And, not just your typical flower photography, Lensbaby is all about encouraging photographers to take a creative approach to flower and garden photography using built-in, selective-focus techniques.

Suffice it to say that Lensbaby offers a selection of different lenses for most of the major camera brands that uses various “selective-focus” techniques giving photographers incredible opportunities to expand their creative approach to flower photography. Although the lenses are not limited to flower or garden images – they also excel at portrait and landscape photography – there is no question that garden and flower photography is certainly their sweet spot.

In the company’s own words: “Lensbaby revolutionized creative photography forever with our unique award-winning creative-effect camera lenses. Known for their distinctive in-camera effects, our lenses and optics allow photographers to highlight specific areas of an image while creating effects that can't be mimicked.”

This post is going to focus on my first impressions of the Lensbaby Velvet 56 after taking it to the local public garden greenhouse and putting it to use for a couple of hours one afternoon in the cold of winter.

Lensbaby lenses have been around in different forms since 2004, but they have taken giant steps in just the past few years with the introduction of their Velvet series of lenses – the 28mm, the 56mm and the 85mm.

Check out Amazon for the complete listing of Lensbaby lenses and accessories, including a book about using the various Lensbaby products.

Lensbaby describes the effect as: “The Velvet effect is … designed to produce images with a uniquely soft and velvety appearance, reminiscent of classic portrait lenses from the past. They combine a sharp central focus with a smooth, ethereal glow in the out-of-focus areas, resulting in images that exude a romantic and timeless quality. The Velvet effect is particularly well-suited for portraits, still life, and any subject where a touch of artistic flair is desired. It adds a sense of depth and emotion to the image, enhancing its storytelling potential and evoking a sense of nostalgia. With its distinctive rendering and dreamy aesthetic, the Velvet effect allows photographers to create images that are both visually stunning and emotionally compelling.”

Okay, no mention of flower and garden photography, – a real miss on their part – but trust me, you will love the results.

So here are just a few more images made with the Velvet56 in just a few short hours in the greenhouse. All the images were made, handheld with an Olympus EM10 digital camera.

Although shooting handheld is a lot easier and fun than lugging around a tripod, I prefer to use a tripod if possible to ensure accurate focus and to force me to slow down and fully explore the possibilities each flower offers.

Lensbaby lenses are all manual-focus and can be difficult to get pin-point focussing accuracy at times because of their inherent soft-focus attributes. Focusing the lenses closed down (at f8 for example) and then opening them up to f5.6 -f2.8 prior to capturing the image is always a good idea. I find using a focusing aid such as a hoodman (amazon link) on the back of the camera’s focusing screen can go a long way to ensuring proper focus.

Learning to use the Velvet line of lenses is not difficult. Besides having to manually focus the lenses like vintage manual focus lenses, and setting the f-stop manually, the lenses simply mount on your camera and are ready to use. In most cases it is best to set your camera to use aperture priority. This way you can let the camera choose the ISO setting and the shutter speed to get proper exposure.

In conclusion, I recommend anyone who is serious about flower or garden photography to seriously consider adding one of the many Lensbaby lenses to their camera bag. The lenses are often available at very good prices on places like Facebook marketplace, e-bay or other on-line locations.

You can also check out camera outlets such as KEH, BH cameras and Henry’s cameras.

Buy locally grown for the best seed

Trying to save a buck when it comes to bird seed is not a wise decision… for a lot of reasons.

I found that out recently when I decided to pick up some cheap bird food at a local store known more for, let’s say, its car parts rather than bird food.

The specialty bird store I usually buy my seed from is in the next city over and involves a 20-minute drive, so I kept putting it off until it was too late and I needed to quickly restock my supply before a snowstorm hit.

The result is a large bag of bird seed that is maybe okay for the local squirrels and mice. (I’m actually putting the seed beneath our owl box hoping to attract mice to it to provide a ready-made food source for our little screech owl who lives in the yard.)

But, in searching the internet for a closer specialty store that stocks the seed cylinders I love so much, I discovered The Urban Nature Store – a Canadian-based bird and nature store that just happens to be located right in the small town where I live.

Turns out it’s been hiding just a couple kilometres away in plain sight for close to a year.

Why is this important? Because it verified what I already knew but choose to ignore to save a buck – high quality bird seed makes all the difference in the world. Not only high quality seed, but preferably seed that is locally sourced.

Not only will a higher quality of seed attract more birds to your yard, it will attract a greater variety of birds.

Let me explain.

On my first visit to The Urban Nature Store, I picked up a bag of nyger seed and a 25-pound bag of what they call their “no-mess blend” of bird seed.

My existing nyger seed was bringing in a grand total of zero gold finches, juncos or even sparrows, but within one day of filling the feeder with this new nyger seed, I had flocks of Juncos waiting in line to get their fill of this black gold. Today, I have a combination of juncos goldfinches and chipping sparrows lining up at the nyger feeder to get their fill of this important, high energy winter food source.

There is a good reason why the old nyger proved unattractive to our backyard birds – it had simply dried out probably before I even brought it home. (For more on Nyger seed, go to my earlier post here.)

A few days after refilling the nyger feeders with this locally-purchased seed, I emptied our regular feeders at our main feeding station that was full of the cheap seed and replaced it with the no-mess blend seed from The Urban Nature Store. I also put one of the store’s seed cylinders up and within hours the feeding station was boiling over with birds lining up for a taste of this new seed. Cardinals, Blue Jays, Goldfinches, Dark eyed Juncos, mourning Doves, sparrows and a mix of woodpeckers including red-breasted and downy, just to name a few.

This was more bird action than I ever really got from even the best seed from my “other” specialized bird store in the next town over. This was truly remarkable.

The mess-mix is packaged in Canada using local and international ingredients, and combines sunflower hearts, peanut halves, dried cranberries and raisin. The mix is perfect for those who want to serve a variety of premium seeds with no messy leftovers. No shells means everything is eaten. The Nature Store reports that the seed mix is very popular with cardinals, chickadees, warblers and finches. Not sure about warblers, since they are primarily insect-eating birds.

And, since I have been using this seed, the number of birds at our feeding stations has only grown steadily.

“So what’s the difference?” you may ask.

Besides being a high-quality seed, an important difference is where it was sourced and the closer to home the better. This happens to be a Canadian-based store that sources much of its seed locally.

Who knows where big box stores source their seeds from, and I know that the other “specialized bird store” I purchased my seed from in the past was American based and likely sourced much of their seed from the U.S.

The closer you can purchase your seed, the more success you are likely to have. If you are based in the U.S., look for seed that was sourced nearby. The same holds true for U.K. based readers.

In the case of nyger seed, which mostly comes from Africa, the critical factors are how old the seed is and, if it has been overcooked in ovens that remove the natural oils that give the seed its nutrients. Purchasing from a specialized bird food store helps guarantee high turnover and is less likely to leave you buying old seed that has not been handled properly.

Not only has the seed from my local Nature Store been a magnet for local birds, the seed cylinder that I purchased is still going strong more than a week after mounting it, despite continued snow and rainfall that often prematurely weakens other seed cylinders I have used in the past. The fact it has held up so well means an extended run for the woodpeckers rather than the seed cylinder breaking up and falling to the ground for the squirrels and other critters.

If you have taken the time to check out The urban Nature Store link here, you will find that it is a wholly-owned and operated chain of Canadian stores with its head offices based in Toronto. It does offer mail-order for some products for anyone who does not live near one of its 9 store locations in

• Ancaster/Hamilton

• Etobicoke/Toronto West

• Kingston

• Markham

• Mississauga

• North York/Toronto East

• Oshawa

• Pickering

• St. Catharines

I encourage all my readers to check out their impressive web site and support a truly Canadian company.

However, I recognize that we have many American and UK followers who cannot or choose not to purchase from The Canadian based Urban Nature Store.

All I am saying is that whenever possible – especially when it comes to purchasing bird seed – buy it from a local supplier. If the results I am having means anything, It really does make a difference.

Fresh bird seed that comes from a locally sourced supplier can make all the difference in the world to your bird feeding success.

Using Ai as a learning tool

Whatever you think of Ai, there’s no denying that it is here to stay. The question many are asking is: Will AI be used for good, or for evil?

The answer to that question is still being written. Luminar Neo, however – unlike many other photo processing programs – is putting its support on the side of good.

To be more precise, Luminar Neo is tapping into the power of AI to use it as more of an educational and learning tool, than one to dramatically manipulate images.

At least that is my initial impression after putting it to the test with a number of my images. The focus seems to be at least as much about education as it is about transforming images.

Understanding the capabilities of modern photo editing programs and techniques has never been more important.

After all, getting the most out of our images, whether they are from our latest vacation, pictures of our kids, grandchildren or flowers in our garden, is the goal for most of us.

The before and after pictures of the red barns are examples of how, with a little knowledge, we can transform boring images into dramatic ones simply by understanding a little about post processing techniques.

So how does Luminar Neo’s AI assistant help us achieve similar results?

The image below shows one of three suggested edits from the Luminar Neo AI assistant module. The image is much better than the original, but falls short in comparison to the full edited version at the top of the page.

Over time, however, we the AI assistant teaches us how to achieve desired results by explaining what tools were used and making suggestions on how the image can be improved.

How it works

Luminar Neo’s AI Assistant is available in both the Presets and Edit tabs and users can simply input text prompts to get AI Assistant’s editing suggestions. 

There are two types of prompts.

 Action prompts, like “Enhance this photo,” provide tailored recommendations with three adjustment sets and live previews, while How-to prompts, like “How do I remove this object?,” offer step-by-step guidance and buttons to quickly find the right tools in Luminar Neo.

 It’s like having a personal editing advisor at your fingertips, helping you explore creative possibilities and discover the best tools and workflow for every image. You can use text commands in all Luminar Neo languages.

Back to our discussion about using AI in our work flow.

Knowledge about the tools available helped me create the top image. The original image’s sky was replaced and dramatic lighting was added in Luminar Neo’s Light Depth module.

In the past, we took pictures, today we make images

In photography, we often talk about “making” images rather than simply taking them. In the past, that most often was referring to “making” images in-camera during the analogue era of photography. Making images today with modern post processing can be taken a step further to include anything from minor enhancements to the photograph and removing distractions, to completely changing the image by adding elements not in the original image.

I’m not here to debate the validity of the different “levels” of enhancement, except to say that every photographer has to define the line they are not willing to cross. If you take a photojournalist approach to your photography, only minor enhancements are appropriate. If, however, photography is more a creative outlet for you, the same restrictions would not apply.

Important note: If you are looking to dramatically transform your images using ai, chances are you are not going to find those capabilities in this version of Luminar Neo’s AI module.

What you will find, however, is the ability to make positive, yet more subtle, changes to your images, while at the same time getting a thorough education on, not only what the program is doing to the image, but how the photographer can take control of the post processing and add their own creative effects using Luminar Neo’s wide range of creative modules.

For the beginning photographer who has not yet perfected the art of post processing, this Ai module is a tool that promises to transform their images over time and equip them with the knowledge they need to “make” outstanding images.

It might be the best use of Ai in any photographic post processing program. Understanding how to use post processing tools is much more important than just telling your computer to do the work. Luminar Neo does exactly that by adding three informative text-based explanations of changes it suggests for the particular image.

A good illustration is this image of a baby picking flowers at a local garden.

Once the Ai module is opened in Luminar Neo, the photographer is faced with two questions: 1) Typing in a command to enhance the image; or, asking the ai module how to use the tools available in Luminar Neo to make changes to the photograph.

The first suggested prompt is a simple one and a good starting point: “Enhance this image.”

If you choose this prompt, the program goes into action generating three different suggestions to enhance the image.

For this image the suggestions range from boosting the highlights and shadows and adding more golden light, to increasing depth of field and making colour harmony adjustments.

Other simple commands that are available to users include changing the photograph to a B&W image.

More important are commands to teach the user how to change the image. Questions such as: how do I remove distracting elements in the image, or how do I improve the skin tones in the image?

The result is a list of suggestions the program makes to guide the user to the appropriate modules to make the changes themselves. The result, a better understanding of the capabilities of the program and how to use it to make the images you originally envisioned.

Luminar Neo is continually improving their Ai features and will certainly further refine many of the features in their recently released AI module.

Meanwhile, beginner photographers have a built-in assistant to help them learn the intricacies of the program and expand their post processing knowledge with the end goal of creating images anyone would be proud to share with friends and family.

If you are interested in further exploring Luminar Neo and its features, please use my link here.

Textures add painterly effects to ethereal images

Ansel Adams once said you don’t “take a photograph, you make a photograph.”

Back then, Adams used the traditional darkroom to create magnificent Black and White images of the natural world, often times spending days in the darkroom “making” these images.

Today, the traditional darkroom has been replaced with the digital darkroom, turning the concept of “making” images rather than just “taking” them accessible to every photographer who chooses to explore their creativity and take their photography to new heights.

In this post, I am going to explore how, combining the inherent creativity built into every Lensbaby lens with the creative tools available in Luminar Neo, can change how you approach garden and flower photography as well as portraiture and landscapes.

• Go to the bottom of this post for the latest HOLIDAY offering from Luminar Neo

In case readers are unaware of the magical qualities of Luminar Neo post processing software and Lensbaby’s creative line of photographic lenses, let’s take a moment to familiarize ourselves with these creative photography tools.

Luminar Neo is a photo editing software package that combines ease of use with the power of Ai to assist photographers, who may have been hesitant to dive into more complex photo editing software in the past, to embrace the ease and convenience of a more simplified, yet powerful, editing program.

Lensbaby is a lens manufacturer that embraces and encourages photographers to push creativity by offering lenses with unique characteristics that create elegant, soft-focus effects, beautiful colour blending and soft ethereal results that enhance almost any image, especially in the garden, with flowers and portraits.

In the final days leading up to Christmas, Luminar Neo is offering a special “creative” Advent Calendar package just in time for photographers to give themselves a special gift for the season.

The lowest price is available now, but once the doors officially open, the cost will range from $119 to $159 depending on if you are a new or existing user.

The Advent Calendar includes 12 unique surprises, each hidden behind a daily window. Photographers can discover a new gift every day, such as:

🔸 Luminar license

🔸 Marketplace items (Skies, bundles and more)

🔸 X-membership subscription

🔸 Educational courses

There are different surprises depending on the Luminar Neo package you choose or currently own.

Check out the information at the end of this post for details on the special creative and educational packages.

Adding textures to existing images is rather simple with Luminar Neo’s intuitive photo editing program. It’s as simple as dropping a textured image on top of your main image and then choosing from a host of blend modes from a drop-down menu. Once the texture is applies and the blend mode chosen, it is up to the photographer to decide if they want to go farther using masks or a host of other editing modules within Luminar Neo.

One of my new favourite modules is Luminar Neo’s incredible “Light Depth” module that is capable of transforming flat, boring images into beautifully lit, three-dimensional images. Check out my earlier post here, for more on using the Light Depth module in Luminar Neo.

If you are interested in exploring Lensbaby lenses further, you can check prices here (Amazon.com) or here (KEH used camera exchange.) If you are interested in exploring Lensbaby lenses further, check out the offering of books available through Alibris used books here.

My earlier posts on Luminar Neo

Adding textures, manipulating lighting, or even repairing old family photos are just a few of the incredible bonus features offered by Luminar Neo’s comprehensive editing software. For more of my posts on the benefits of exploring Luminar Neo, I encourage you to check out the following posts.

• Exploring Luminar Neo mobile for your phone: click here.

• Exploring Luminar’s incredible photo restoration module: Click here.

• Can Luminar Neo act as your only photo editing program. Click here

Of course, garden flowers are not the only subject for Lensbaby lenses and Luminar Neo textured effects. Below is an image taken recently of our new flat Coated retreiver, Colby. This image was taken with the Lensbaby Velvet 56. The Velvet series of lenses are capable of truly beautiful results with an ethereal glow that is magnified depending on the f-stop used (from quite sharp at f5.6 through f16 and getting softer from F5.6 through to F2.

Two B&W textures were added to the original image to maintain the overall B&W, painterly effect.

The image below and the above images represent just a few of the creative approaches available to photographers using special effect lenses and/or filters, and combining them with the creative effects available through Luminar Neo. Please explore the links provided for my earlier posts on Luminar Neo and be sure to click below to check out all of the special deals on creative assets, tools and educational resource materials Luminar Neo is adding for their “creative advent calendar.”

Luminar Neo’s holiday calendar of gifts explained

From December 13th to 24th, open a new surprise every day and discover creative tools, content, and inspiration worth more than $1000.

The calendar can also be gifted to friends, family, or photography enthusiasts, making it a thoughtful and creative holiday present.

 Calendar Timeline:

• December 10: Presale begins with lower prices

• December 13–24: Daily windows open (one per day)

• December 16–25: Calendar available at full price

Restoring, colourizing vintage photos

Not long ago, fixing old family photographs involved bringing them to professional photo retouchers and paying a week’s salary to have a handful of them restored.

Those days are gone thanks to a new, incredibly impressive new feature in this fall’s Luminar Neo release.

With a single click of your mouse, you can transform a faded, scratched, blemished old black and white photograph into a perfect reproduction of the original Black and White version.

And that is just the beginning.

The simplicity of the “restore” module is almost too good to believe.

Restore module is the essence of simplicity

In fact, there are just three buttons to choose from to transform your vintage images: “Full” which repairs scratches, blemishes and colourizes the image to modern standards; “Colour” which simply colourizes the image without removing scratches and blemishes for a more authentic Lomography look; and “Scratches” which leaves the image either in its original BW or colour state and simply removes any scratches or blemishes on the photograph.

It’s so simple and effective that it is difficult for me to go into much more detail than – choose what you want to do and press the appropriate button.

If you are interested in trying Luminar Neo, please consider using my affiliate link HERE to purchase the program. By doing so, I receive a small payout that does not affect your purchase price.

Obviously, you will have to have a way to get the old images into Luminar Neo. I choose to use a flatbed scanner, but you could easily take digital pictures with your phone or, even better, a digital camera with the ability to take close-up images.

Once the images are on your computer or phone, import them into Luminar Neo, drop them into the restoration box, choose the appropriate button – either Full, Colour or Scratches – and Luminar Neo will drop the finished photo into a separate folder named restoration.

It’s as simple as that. The following are just a few examples’s of what the “restoration” Ai module can do in just a minute or two.

For more before-and-after images, check out my new “Spaces” gallery from Luminar Neo here.

The following is a good example of what the Luminar Neo “Restoration” module can do for heavily compromised images by not only restoring them by removing scratches and even missing parts of the image, to colourizing them to create authentic-looking images.

The following shows the original scan, a repaired scan and the final colourized version.

If you are interested in trying Luminar Neo, please consider using my affiliate link HERE to purchase the program. By doing so, I receive a small payout that does not affect your purchase price.

If you are a new user to Luminar Neo, use this link.

If you are a current user of the program, use this link

Prices below: Black Friday is Coming:

Dates: October 24 - December 1
Discounts: Up to -75% on the Luminar Neo Ecosystem - the best prices of the year!

Prices for new uses:

Luminar Neo Desktop Perpetual: $99

Luminar Neo Cross-device Perpetual (Desktop + Mobile): $139

Luminar Neo Max Perpetual (Desktop + Mobile + Spaces): $159

Transform your fall images with newest tool

If photography is all about light, Luminar Neo may have just rewrote the future of post processing.

I can’t think of a single feature, besides Ai erase and replacement, that has excited me quite as much as Luminar’s new Light Depth module.

This module can take a good image to greatness in seconds and create a completely controllable, three-dimensional-lighting effect that is unmatched by any other post processing program I have experienced.

And, if used carefully, it can be beautifully subtle, or, not so subtle at all but always believable.

It’s just one of the new features unleashed in Luminar Neo’s fall package that includes a host of outstanding additions from improved mobile/desktop compatibility, to a highly useful photo restoration module that also has the potential of changing the way photo restoration is done both for amateur and professional photographers. And all of this added to an already impressive package of features for a very low price. For pricing details, go to the end of this post.

For more of my images showing Luminar Neo’s new Light Depth module as well as their free galleries for members, click here.

If these three additions were not enough to convince anyone sitting on the fence about diving into this Ukraine-based post-processing photography package, this extremely innovative company is adding personal galleries to their repertoire of features to allow Luminar Neo users to share their best work with family, friends, clients and other Luminar Neo users.

I’ll be making separate posts on these features in the future.

If you are interested in trying Luminar Neo, please consider using my affiliate link HERE to purchase the program. By doing so, I receive a small payout that does not affect your purchase price.

Luminar Neo Light Depth module: Painting with light

But back to the reason for this post: The incredible “Light Depth” module.

I am not going to try to explain how this thing works, but suffice it to say that it’s an example of how ai can transform your images in subtle, yet incredibly useful ways. The module does not add anything to your image, it simply helps the photographer to manipulate the lighting in the scene.

How it all works in real life

In short, the module allows you to control the light “near” the front of the image, and the light toward the back of the image. Sliders give the photographer control of the amount of light, the warmth of the light and the softness all the while providing a map of the scene to help the user control the light in quite fine detail.

The module’s secret sauce can transform your images from flat, evenly lit scenes into more three-dimensional images with much more depth.

Below are a few before-and-after images I took just recently of fall colours in the woodland around our home showing the results. I try to keep most of the edits subtle, but you can choose the amount and quality of light you feel is needed to create the images you are trying to achieve.

Luminar Neo’s new tool will help transform your fall images

Fall is a spectacular time to get out and capture the rich colours all around us. However, no matter how good the colour is, lighting plays an important role in the success of your images. Getting out at different times of the day including early morning and late afternoon improves our chances of capturing great light, but there are no guarantees.

Luminar Neo’s new Light Depth module helps photographers improve their chances of creating images with interesting light by giving them control of the light in post processing. The results can be subtle, yet very effective.

If you are interested in more of my posts on using Luminar Neo, check out the following links:

• Luminar Neo in the woodland.

• Luminar Neo: The only post processing program you need

• Luminar Neo: A little old-school film photography

If you want to see more of my fall images using Luminar Neo’s Light Depth module, be sure to check out my new Fall 2025 Gallery brought to you by Luminar Neo as part of their fall rollout of features. Check it out here.

If you are considering adding Luminar Neo to your existing photo processing packages such as Lightroom and Photoshop, it should be noted that the programs work seamlessly together. You can even open Luminar Neo from within Lightroom.

If you are wondering about the cost of this exceptional photo editing program, let me share some information and a couple of images that might help convince you to make the jump.

If you are interested in trying Luminar Neo, please consider using my affiliate link HERE to purchase the program. By doing so, I receive a small payout that does not affect your purchase price.

If you are a new user to Luminar Neo, use this link.

If you are a current user of the program, use this link

Prices below: Black Friday is Coming:

Dates: October 24 - December 1
Discounts: Up to -75% on the Luminar Neo Ecosystem - the best prices of the year!

Prices for new uses:

Luminar Neo Desktop Perpetual: $99

Luminar Neo Cross-device Perpetual (Desktop + Mobile): $139

Luminar Neo Max Perpetual (Desktop + Mobile + Spaces): $159

Prices for existing users of Luminar Neo:

Ecosystem Pass: $69

Upgrade Pass: $49 

Prices for legacy users of previous Luminar versions:

Luminar Neo Cross-device Perpetual (Desktop + Mobile): $89

Luminar Neo Max Perpetual (Desktop + Mobile + Spaces): $109

Convenience, quality wrapped in a tiny package makes Pentax Q series the perfect travel cameras

Okay, before you start laughing, let me explain.

Yeah, the miniature 20-plus-year-old, Q7 mirrorless camera with its tiny 12.3 megabyte 1.17-inch backlit CMOS sensor would not be many photographers first choice to document a once-in-a-lifetime family Rhine river cruise vacation.

In fact, I’d bet I’m probably standing pretty much alone here, with maybe the exception of all but the most die-hard Pentax Q users.

And that’s fine with me.

The purpose of the vacation was not to capture incredible images, rather it was to spend time with my wife and adult daughter. In other words, I felt the experience was going to be more important than the images I was going to make on the vacation. Afterall, time limitations and tourists getting in the way makes serious photography difficult on these types of vacations, to say the least.

Complete system fit nicely in a coat pocket

I figured the Pentax Q system was, at least, better than relying on my phone for capturing memorable moments, and, being able to fit the miniature camera and all three lenses into a coat pocket would allow me to grab the odd shot without having to lug around a full system of cameras and lenses. I’ve made that mistake too many times in the past and was determined not to make it on this vacation.

So, after much thought prior to the trip, I convinced myself that, because of the limiting factors of time and an abundance of tourists, at best I was going to get a couple of nice snapshots.

Boy, was I wrong and more than a bit surprised..

But more on that later. Let’s continue this talk about the interesting camera decision.

For more on the Pentax Q system, check out my other posts below:

• The Pentax Q system: tiny and very cool.

• The rare but excellent 08 wide angle.

Sigma DP2, Fujifilm X10, Olympus and Lumix micro 4/3 cameras all stayed home

My camera choice certainly wasn’t because the Q10 and accompanying lenses were the best I had available to me. I’ve got Olympus and Lumix M4/3 systems, A Pentax APS K5 system, the venerable Fujifilm X10, the Lumix LX7, even a Sigma DP2 as well as a host of other cameras to choose from. (I know I have a problem.)

But when it came down to it, I chose the Q7 along with the 50mm (01) equivalent, 28-80mm (02)kit zoom and the weird little fisheye lens. I meant to take the 80-200mm equivalent (06) to give me some pull-in power, but in my haste to pack everything, I grabbed a second 28-80mm kit lens instead.

I should say that I also packed a Fujifilm EXF660ER travel camera with a 16mp CMOS sensor and 24-360mm zoom lens, which I had purchased a few weeks earlier from a thrift store for $12 Canadian. Its 360mm reach easily took the place of the 80-200mm 06 lens for capturing distant scenes. However, the Fujifilm was used only sparingly and often when the Q10 battery died while out on the town.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

But, rather than explain my decision and trying to justify it to an audience that can’t imagine bring the tiny Pentax instead of a larger format system, let me show you why.

I think these images speak for themselves.

From past experience, I knew the Pentax Q system was capable of capturing exceptional images. Despite the tiny sensor, the camera boasts the ability to shoot both high-quality JPEGs as well as RAW (DNG) files, has very capable image stabilization built into the camera and no anti-aliasing filter to soften the image. I believe the lack of anti-aliasing filter is often overlooked by many, but accounts for the very sharp images achievable straight out of camera.

The results point to a surprisingly capable camera system more than up to the task of capturing extremely sharp images with the array of dedicated lenses. This is not even taking into consideration the huge number of third-party lenses that can easily be added to the system from the diminutive 110 lenses (see story here) to a host of manual lenses via a simple adapter. (seee story here)

Before the trip, I added a step-up ring which, in turn, allowed me to use a polarizing filter to deepen the blues in sunny skies and remove unwanted reflections from water, windows and other reflective surfaces.

After going through almost 2,000 images, I think I can safely say that I was not disappointed. In fact, once again, this little camera system managed to impress me even more than I expected.

I was careful to photograph everything in both Jpeg and RAW formats and, although the JPEGs were more than useable, I chose, in most instances, to work with the RAW images in Lightroom to pull out fine detail and a wider exposure range. The RAW DNG files proved to be incredibly easy to manipulate and arrive at the results I was wanting to achieve.

To my surprise the kit zoom (02) that gives a zoom ratio of approximately (28-80 range) with the Q10, was used for maybe 80-90 per cent of the images. Most of the images included the polarizing filter, if nothing else to cut glare.

Eight dedicated lenses to choose from

For a little background, Pentax introduced a total of 8 miniaturized lenses beginning with the excellent 01 standard Prime with a focal length of 8.5 mm (47mm equivalent for the Q, Q10, and 39mm for the Q7, Q-S1 with the larger sensors.) More lenses followed: 02 standard zoom (27-80 range equivalency, 23-69mm), 03 Fisheye (17.5mm, 16.5mm), 04 Toy wide angle lens ( 35mm, 33mm), 05 Toy lens (100mm, 94mm), 06 Telephoto zoom (83-249mm, 69-207mm), 07 Shield mount lens (63mm, 53mm) and finally the 08 Wide Zoom (21-32mm, 17.5-27mm). For more complete story on the hard-to-find O8 wide angle lens click here.

One of the weaknesses of the Q system is their tiny batteries which do not hold the best charges. I carried two batteries most days, but was able to get through the majority of days with a single battery by conserving the power by turning off the camera immediately after using it and keeping chimping (checking the images on the back LCD screen) to a minimum.

Ideal system for capturing street scenes

As a former journalist, capturing interesting street scenes was a prime focus whenever I was wandering the small towns and cities where the river cruise ship stopped. Nothing screams professional more than a large 35mm camera and an array of lenses cascading out of the camera bag. That’s not the image I wanted to convey while wandering the back streets trying to capture street scenes.

Nothing could be more inconspicuous than the miniaturized Pentax Q system. Even with the 80-200mm f2.8 mounted on the camera, no one is going to mistake you for anything more than an annoying tourist, if they even notice you are photographing them at all. The whole package is so small that, if you are shooting from the hip, I can guarantee no-one will take notice.

These are just a few “street scene” images taken during our two weeks in Europe. I hope to write a separate post on capturing more authentic images on vacation rather than just your family members posing in front of typical tourist destinations, which will include capturing street scenes.

Third-party grip takes street photography to a new level

Let’s start by saying I love the minimalism of the Sigma DP1 and DP2. Their simplicity, along with their incredible foveon sensors give them special status among the many high-end point-and-shoot cameras in my arsenal.

My Sigma DP2’s brick-like look and feel is perfect when I’m using it out of a camera bag or from a tripod capturing landscapes in the woodland. However, when it comes to street photography, I like a good grip to give me the assurance I’m not going to accidentally drop one of my favourite cameras.

That’s when Shutterspeedblog’s creative expertise comes into play with its outstanding grips for the Sigma cameras as well as a host of other high-end cameras from Leica, Canon and Lumix just to name a few.

There is something comforting about walking around town with the Sigma DP2 hanging off your fingertips ready to capture anything that catches your fancy. Of course, I use a simple wrist strap for a little added insurance, but the camera sits nicely in my hand with just the grip. The built-in thumb rest is added security and helps me to hold the non-ibis camera still during longer exposures.

The meticulously 3D printed grip also allows access to the battery (and we all know how important that is for the battery-eating Sigmas) and SD card, to make the entire experience seamless.

Want to remove the grip? Unscrew it from the tripod mount. Want to still use the camera on a tripod? No problem, there is a separate, yet very sturdy tripod mount built into the grip.

There is no doubt that the very reasonably priced grip significantly improves the handling of the camera. Depending on the size of your hands, some of the buttons on the back of the camera might be a little more difficult to reach, but that is a miniscule price to pay for the convenience the grip provides.

I decided to give it a good workout during a walk with our new dog down the Main Street of our small town. Walking a dog and carrying a camera loosely in your hand is not always recommended, but the new grip on the Sigma made it not only possible, but immensely enjoyable. All I had to do is raise the camera and shoot away like a real veteran street-shooter.

I can only imagine how much easier it will be to use the grip on the cameras for someone who regularly shoots from the hip, whether they are using the camera in manual focus mode or autofocus.

The following are just a few more images from my morning walk with our Flat-coated retriever, Colby and the Sigma DP2 and grip from Shutterspeedblog’s eBay store.

Beginner photographers and Lomography aficionados will love this little gem

This post is a combination of a review of the Minolta 125 film camera as well as a focus on post-processing using Lightroom and Luminar Neo. I hope the post illustrates the importance of post processing your images, whether they are from a digital camera or a film camera. Learning this skill does not have to be difficult. Luminar Neo developers have gone to great lengths to simplify the process so that excellent results are more easily achievable. Please take a moment to check out my other posts on Luminar Neo listed at the end of this post.

If you’re looking for a 35mm film camera that just works with little to no fuss, this little compact Minolta might fit the bill.

Forget about setting it on manual, adjusting apertures or shutter speeds, this is a genuine point-and-shoot camera from the year 2000.

It has a lovely high-quality look to it with a champagne and silver exterior combination that might make you think it’s a very high quality all-metal Contax or Rollei. Pick it up, however, and you’ll know it’s not in that league. It does appear to have an all-aluminum front and bottom plate, but high-quality plastic abounds in the back and in other parts on the camera.

Mind you, the Minolta Riva Zoom 125 is a fine example of an autofocus, DX-coded, film point-and-shoot camera that can deliver very pleasing results without a lot of thought on your part. It will read film from ISO 25 (think Kodachrome) to 3200 but the recommended film is ISO400. In my tests, I shot ISO 200 for a finer grain, and used a tripod to reduce the chances of motion blur.

How it performs

Would it be the only camera I would take on an important shoot? Absolutely not. But, for a very lightweight, simple camera that can fit in a pocket, it’s certainly one that most film shooters would be happy to carry around as a back-up, or one to take with them to grab shots at a party or fun family event.

For students of Lomography, this little Minolta will allow you to focus on getting the images rather than the technical aspects of photography.

A highly competent flash (with red-eye reduction and a fill-flash feature), and superior lens doesn’t hurt either.

What sets the Minolta apart from many point-and-shoot cameras is that sweet Minolta lens that starts at a convenient wide angle range of 37.5mm and stretches to 125mm.

Not particularly fast at f4.5 -f10.3, but the built-in flash comes in handy to stop motion and a tripod with the electronic self timer can be used if you are working a landscape. For those who care, the lens is a 6 elements/ 6 group construction with a close-focusing capability of about 2 feet.

Minolta added an ingenious electronic zoom lever that is actually set up to give the user access to the most poplular focal lengths – five to be exact. At the widest end you are at the 37mm focal length – consider it a sweet little 35mm. One click and you are in the 50mm focal length. Hit it again and you’re at the perfect portrait setting 85-100. One more click and the lens zooms to its max at about 125 – close enough to the popular 135mm focal length.

Buy these lenses separately, and you’ll be paying 10 times the cost you could probably pick up one of these on the used market these days.

An orange flashing LED on the viewfinder provides several warnings from; flash will fire, flash charging, and camera-shake warning, depending on the blinking speed. Above the orange light is a green light that tells the shooter the subject is in focus, subject is too close or the contrast is too low for accurate focusing.

The flash can be set to auto flash, auto flash with red eye reduction, fill-flash, flash cancel, and night portrait (with red-eye reduction.)

For my woodland garden, landscape and flower test shots, I set the camera on automatic, turned off the flash and popped the camera on a tripod. To ensure the sharpest images possible, I also used the built-in self timer with ASA 200 Kodak film.

For close-focus subjects, lines engraved in the viewfinder corrects parallax issues and helps the user get the image they were hoping to capture. That’s a nice touch for flower photographers looking to capture subjects without a lot of complex macro gear.

It takes a relatively inexpensive single CR123A lithium battery that can handle about 12 rolls of 24 exposure rolls with flash for 50 per cent of the exposures.

Four small buttons on the top control the on/off, flash, timer and date functions. (some cameras including the one I used do not have the date button.)

An LED screen on the top plate provides the needed information including battery life and film counter as well as the camera’s other settings – flash, timer etc.

Important notes: Minolta made it difficult to accidentally open the camera back before the film is rewound. That’s a good thing. The back locks until the film is rewound into the spool. It can be over ridden if you want to change film mid-roll, for example. The other point that needs to be discussed is how to load film. It’s a little tricky at first if you are used to loading 35mm film into a typical SLR. With the Minolta, users just have to place the front of the film onto the spool and let the camera take in the film. Hard to explain, but once you get the hang of it, it works beautifully.

So how about the results?

More results of the Minolta 125 can be viewed on the Lomography site here.

The cons

This is probably not the camera for an advanced amateur and certainly not for a professional looking for complete control of the settings.

I am thinking the camera is perfect for the upstart Lomography student looking to have some fun with print film at a reasonable cost. Or a photographer looking for a second camera to use as a simple point-and-shoot.

Unlike so many of today’s digital point-and-shoots, this has a decent viewfinder –maybe a little small – but entirely usable.

It’s a fun camera to grab quick shots. For a street photographer, it gives you quick power up and good autofocus with a nice range of focal lengths that are more than capable of getting the job done.

Its compact form is never going to suggest that you are shooting professionally, but its reach at 125mm will give you lots of opportunity to keep a comfortable working distance.

It’s the camera to pop in your pocket for a fun night out or a party where getting results is more important than capturing fine photographic images. The strength and simplicity of the flash makes it ideal to capture party portraits. The night mode makes getting night portraits with city lights in the background a simple process.

That’s not to say the camera is not capable of great results.

If you are more serious, put the camera on a tripod and use the electronic self timer to capture impressive results with Minolta’s high-quality lens.

Look for a good used camera and put it to use. For the price you’ll likely pay, there is no need to worry about it either being damaged or stolen.

In its day, it was considered a sweet little point and shoot. Certainly not the most inexpensive camera in the year 2000. It sold at many of the large New York camera retailers for more than $200. The advertisement shows the B&H price of the Riva 150 at $224.00.

Today, you can probably pick one up for easily less than $100.

That’s a steal for a good working copy.

Post processing with Lightroom and Luminar Neo

Today’s print film offers the photographer plenty of exposure latitude. The above images were shot with Kodak 200 film and scanned on an Epson 500 flatbed scanner.

The initial edit from a high resolution TIFF scan to a jpeg was done in Lightroom. (I have included some of these digital images above.)

Then, I brought the jpeg images into Luminar Neo and went to work on transforming the images into the more creative visions I imagined when I was taking the photographs.

Luminar Neo’s modules allow for a more creative approach to editing your work, if that is the direction you want to take your images. That’s not to say that other post processing programs (including Lightroom and Photoshop) are not capable of similar results, it’s just the these creative processes are built into Luminar Neo.

The ability to try the creative filters will inspire you to experiment more and come away with a more creative finished result.

Whether you like to add a creative touch to your images, or prefer to leave them as they are straight out of the camera, Luminar Neo offers the photographer the ability to make that choice.

Luminar Neo post processing software

If you want more information on how I use Luminar Neo to post process my photos, take a moment to check out my other posts listed below:

• The beauty of the woodland with Luminar Neo

• Can Luminar Neo stand on its own as a post processing package?

• A Walk in the Woods: A Photographic Approach


If you are interested in purchasing Luminar Neo, please consider using the code FernsFeathers at checkout to receive a 10 per cent discount. By using this code, I receive a small percentage of the proceeds which helps me to continue producing articles for readers.

Another tiny but tough-to-beat legendary Pentax lens

Pentax has made more than its share of legendary lenses, but nothing really comes close to the rare and relatively unknown (except to Q-series owners) 08 wide angle lens.

Why? Because it’s so small and sharp that it defies logic.

In December of 2013, Pentax released their final Q-series lens for their diminutive, mirrorless Q-series cameras. This 17-33mm equivalent lens (depending on the Q camera used) originally sold for almost $500 US and could pass for a 50mm, M-series lens, accept it’s probably smaller and lighter.

Today you would probably be hard pressed to find one much cheaper than the original price thanks, in part, to a combination of quality and rarity.

Of course the whole Q-series of cameras and lenses are ridiculously tiny. The 08 wide angle lens in the Pentax Q “high performance” lens series follows in those same footsteps, but it’s still mind boggling that a lens packing this kind of punch can be this small, have image quality that matches and surpasses some of the finest 35mm equivalent lenses, and boasts such a high-quality build standard.

Pity that so few photographers will ever get the opportunity to run it through its paces. Thankfully, I’m not one of them.

I was able to purchase the lens as part of an entire Q7 series that included the 01 (nifty 50mm), the 02 wide angle, the 06 (70-200 f2.8), the fisheye and the mount shield lens. Despite already owning most of the lenses, let’s just say the offer was too good to refuse.

This Pentax lens packs a punch

But we are here to focus on one lens only – the Pentax 08 wide angle lens.

First, it’s important to remind Q-series camera users that the various cameras in the lineup have different sized sensors that affect the focal length of the lenses. In the case of the 08 wide angle gem, the different sized sensors mean that the 08’s focal range is equivalent to approximately 21 to 33 mm in the full-frame (24 x 36 mm) format when used on an original Q or Q10 camera, and 17.5 to 27 mm when used on a Q7.

Add to the excellent build quality, wide focal length and miniature size, an image quality that again, defies most logic.

For more Pentax Q-series images with the 08 wide angle lens, be sure to check out my photo gallery here.

Sharp throughout; including the corners; excellent distortion control; built-in ND filter, and shutter which prevents rolling shutter and synchronizes with the built-in flash; a built-in autofocus motor that features a quick-shift which allows the photographer to manually fine tune focus without switching out of autofocus mode. There is also a plastic tulip-style lens hood available, (sold separately). The lens mount is made of metal and the front element accepts the traditional 49 mm lens filters.

What more could you ask for in an extreme wide angle lens.

Suffice it to say it’s incredibly wide for such a tiny camera sensor, and with that comes all the challenges the world of wide angle photography presents.

You might think that using an extreme wide angle lens is easy, but that would be a mistake. Even though I have owned the lens for close to a year, maximizing its unique characteristics comes with a whole set of challenges.

Now, if I lived in an area of epic landscapes, maximizing extreme wide angle lenses would be a whole lot easier. Unfortunately, epic landscapes are hard to come by where I live. Successful extreme wide angle photography begs for simplicity and finding natural images that work with a wide-angle lens takes time and a whole lot of patience.

Nevertheless, in time, I’ve collected a decent selection of images exploring the potential of the lens. I’m sure the lens will be put to the test many more times in the near future and I will try to add them both to this post as well as my photo gallery of Pentax 08 images here.

What others are saying about the Pentax 08 wide angle lens

The following are just a few comments from Pentax Q-series owners who have made images with the 08 wide angle lens.

From the Pentax Forums discussion group:

“In 2019, I still do not know what beats the Q-system with this and the 06 tele-zoom. As for sharpness, this lens is as good as it gets on the sensors in the Q's. Bokeh is impossible: shoot in BC mode if you need that, but, really, just bokeh in post if you need that. This lens is crazy unique, which alone makes it crazy good.”

“After a few test shots, I believe that this is the perfect lens for the Q system. It's as sharp as the 01, yet incredibly small for an ultra wide. It's almost unbelievable how Pentax has made such a marvelous feat of a lens! Now, if only Ricoh did not scrimp on a hood. With a 06 on Q, and 08 on Q7, and 01 on standby, I'm all set.”

“I was a bit hesitating before purchasing this lens due to the steep pricing (nearly cost as much as I spent on 01+02+06 all together). However, once I received my copy and started shooting with it, all my concerns went away. What a lens! It is certainly compact, quite a bit smaller than 02 or 06 lens. The amazing thing is the IQ, corner sharpness smashed my DA* 16-50. In fact, it is one of the sharpest wide angle lens I have ever seen. Colour reproduction is great, which makes RAW file super easy to work with. To sum up, for any one who owns a Q system camera, this lens is a must_have!”

Add a waist level viewfinder to your Pentax Q

For most of the waterfall images shot with the Pentax Q and 08 lens, I used an ingenious accessory that allowed me to to get very low and better use foreground elements in the image.

The accessory brings back memories of my beloved Pentax LX with waist level viewfinder, except it can be used on any camera with a hot or cold shoe including the Pentax Q series of cameras. No information is transferred from the camera to the finder, so it is only for compositional purposes. I purchased it primarily for my coveted Sigma DP2 with its 42mm fixed focal length, but it allows me to get a good feeling for what’s in the frame of any camera, especially one that lacks a flip-up digital screen.

I purchased this waist level finder from Temu for less than $60 Cdn. That amounts to about $44 American. I also purchased some very nicely made camera straps at the same time.

Similar waist level finders are also available on Amazon.

For more on both the waist level finder and camera straps, click on the above links.

The well-built, waist level finder has markings for a 40mm lens but goes out to about 28mm. It’s a far cry from the 17mm available on the Q-series 08 lens, but it gave me a good idea of the image I would obtain when the camera was set so low that I could not use the back LCD screen with any success.

It is ideal for the 02 lens and the 01 lenses, but will get called on for a number of my digital point-and-shoot cameras when I need to get low or just want to have some fun with the waist-level finder.

Conclusion: It’s not always about size

Imagine heading out for a day of photography with a Pentax Q, the 08 wide angle, the 01 nifty fifty and the 06 telephoto slipped into your jacket pocket. Heck you might as well add the 02, a couple of toy lenses and the mount shield lens to round out your gear since everything fits nicely into two pockets or a small camera bag.

Just having a capable camera with you whenever you go out can do wonders for your photographic development. I love my cell phone, but give me a camera with a couple of sweet lenses any day over a phone. And that’s where the Pentax Q line of cameras and lenses really can’t be beat.

These things might be tiny but they aren’t toys. In fact, without the anti-aliasing screen that Pentax chose to eliminate on these cameras, you can shoot them in RAW DNG format with sweet Pentax lenses and get excellent results.

I’m hoping some of the images in this post and on my 08 photo gallery will inspire Q shooters and disbelievers to rethink what is possible with these exceptional mirrorless camera systems.

If you are interested in purchasing Luminar Neo, please consider using the code FernsFeathers at checkout to receive a 10 per cent discount. By using this code, I receive a small percentage of the proceeds which helps me to continue producing articles for readers.