Hollyhock's underneath the SB-700 Speed Light

Right after the tiger lilies were blooming, the hollyhocks started to bloom as well so I traveled over with my camera gear and captured their unique color and petals as well. I decided to get real close to these flowers so I used larger extension tubes on my camera and lense set up.

The D90 was fitted with the extension tube followed by the 20-120f4 lense with VR off and Live View to manual focus on the middle of the hollyhock. I shot the below images in either manual or aperture priority mode with an f11 to f22 setting. ISO setting was 200-400 and exposure compensation was -2 to -4. The Speed Light was on remote and I moved it around the flower along with changing the flash power from 1/64 to 1/128.

On the computer with ViewNX, I changed the white balance to direct sunlight and the picture control to Nature-Landscape. The exposure compensation and highlight/shadow protection sliders were adjusted if needed on the RAW files.  I created one HDR image of the holly hawks by merging different exposed images into one with EasyHDR software.

Once again in PSE 11, I used the clone brush to get rid of unwanted objects/imperfections on the flower pedals. To selectively sharpen the images, I used just the sharpening tool on this set of images to just sharpen the middle part of the flower.

My favorite photograph from this batch is the HDR processed image that I created that really brightened and saturated the colors of the hollyhock and helped make the water droplets stand out as well.

 

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Tiger Lilies underneath the SB-700

The bright colored lilies started to bloom this summer and on a calm night, I was out with my camera, its accessories and a spray bottle to capture neat designs of these beautiful flowers.

To capture close up’s of flowers, I used the following equipment: tripod, extension tubes and speedlight. I put the extension tubes on the 20-120ft lense and turned off the VR and manual focused because I was using the D90 on the tripod. I also used Live View to zoom in to get better focus. The SB-700 was used to place light on the subject at different angles by hand holding it. To create the water droplets, I used a spray bottle that I had filled with water.

The camera was put into manual mode with a shutter speed of 1/200 and an aperture of f11 with an ISO of 500. The exposure compensation was the setting I adjusted often and it ranged from 0 to -5. I wanted to create a dark background to make the lily stand out and using the speed light with these settings, allowed me to do that. The RAW files from the camera were imported into ViewNX.

Once in ViewNX, I adjusted the white balance to either flash or left it has standard. The picture control was changed to Nature-Landscape and I also adjusted highlight/shadow protection sliders. To fine tune the exposure, I tweaked the exposure compensation as well.

PS Elements 11 was used to clone out unwanted imperfections on the flower petals that show up in close up photography. To create different backgrounds, I used texture files that I have downloaded in the past. I used texture’s that had nice bokeh and adjusted the blend mode on the texture layer to get a look that I liked. I then used the brush tool on the layer to paint over areas that I didn’t want the texture showing through. I used the sharpening tool to adjust sharpness on certain parts of the flower and then used the high pass sharpen filter as well as my last step of post processing.

My favorite image of the tiger lilies is where I took a dark texture with nice bokeh that also has a darker border and put it behind the lily that had water drop lets placed on it. The angle of the speed light on the lily really makes this image stand out.

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Summertime Farm Scenes

With the crazy spring weather and late planting season, the corn plants are shorter than usual and the soybeans just got planted. I took advantage of the conditions by taking out the D90 and getting some images of corn fields overlooking the FC Coop. I also experimented taking images of a pile of soybean sacks that I started on fire as the last field was being planted.

I fitted the D90 with the 20-120f4 lense along with using the SB-700 Speed Light. The Speed Light allowed me to get proper exposures for the foreground but yet get the background dark enough to showcase the cloud formations. As always, I was shooting in RAW and had the ISO between 400-500. I choice an aperture of f10 and adjusted the exposure compensation to -2 to -4 depending on the scene. The SB-700 was set to manual and remote.

The RAW files were transferred into ViewNX were I adjusted the exposure, white balance, picture control, and highlight/shadow parameters if needed. For the corn field images, I had a white balance of shade and for the fire images, I choice direct sunlight. Nature-Landscape was my desired picture control.

A few of the images I processed using HDR software, so I used ViewNX to change the exposure’s on those to be able to have multiple exposed images. EasyHDR was used to blend 3 to 5 images into one image.

Tiff files were imported into PS Elements 11 to do the final adjustments. I cloned out unwanted objects on the corn plants and sharpened to taste. I also created layer masks and used the gradient tool to merge a few different exposed images into one. Over the last few months of editing, I have grown to like the slow transition of merging different images that gradient maps allow me to do.

My favorite image from this group would be the close up of the corn plant with the beautiful colored cloud formations in the background. This was processed as an HDR and it really made the clouds pop in color.

 

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Chasing a White Cyclone - Spring Snows 2013

Spring snow goose hunting is without a doubt the hardest and most challenging aspect of being a waterfowler for numerous reasons. Up and down weather, muddy fields, hundreds if not thousands of decoys to put out, dealing with electronics and most of all, the birds themselves. Easily the smartest goose we chase because of their age, how they work the decoys and the size of the flocks.  It’s not uncommon to have a few thousand snow geese above you spinning in a tornado trying to figure out if those birds on the ground are live or fake ones. But if you are lucky enough to get inside that vortex and have them come in, it’s a sight and sound that is a experience that is hard to describe.

The spring 2013 snow goose season had me very excited after purchasing new gear throughout the season in terms of decoys along with building new equipment to fool the smart geese. From a young age, I learned from my grandpa that you receive a greater satisfaction of accomplishment when you build something and it works how you hoped it would. Once again, that proved to be true with some fun and exciting shoots over the equipment I built during the winter months. My crew put the miles in this spring taking two trips down to southwest Iowa along with hunting our main area and had success in both places. Winter storms rolled through key staging areas, which created another major challenge, we dealt with and played the cards that we were given us. In the end, it was another memorable season and I’m already looking forward to next year.

Throughout the season, I had the D90 with me in the layout blind and captured the landscape of the hunt. I used the 18-105mm and 24-120mm lense and also used the 12-24mm when I had the camera on a tripod behind my blind. I had the camera in aperture priority mode along with RAW format and with the changing lighting conditions, adjusted the ISO from 200-800. On sunrise/sunset images, I made adjustments to the exposure compensation as well.

To process the RAW files, I used either ViewNX or Adobe CameraRaw by adjusting the sliders in both programs. Key adjustments included changing the white balance to direct sunlight or shade, exposure compensation, picture control to nature landscape or monosnowgoose and highlight/shadow changes. For certain images I might choice one program over the other to get the most out of the scene I’m trying to capture. Once done in the raw conversion programs, I outputted the files into TIFF’s and worked on them using Elements.

Inside PSE 11, minor adjustments were made because I was pretty happy with the look of them after doing the major adjustments to the RAW files. The cloning and crop tools helped to clean up the images a bit and the gradient tool mixed with a clipping mask was used as well. To create some WWII b/w images, I used the VirtualPhotographer Plug-in along with the clipping mask layers and the brush tool.

With all the birds to the north, it is time to clean and put away the gear until next spring and start planning for the new season. It will be here before we know it. In the mean time, it’s time to farm and play golf. I’ll be capturing photographs along the way.

 

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Aluminized Metal Prints - Spring Time Special

With spring just around the corner, now is the time to add a beautiful image to your home or office and Michael Kleinwolterink’s Photography has you covered with aluminized metal prints. Now until the Masters Golf tournament, I’m going to offer 20% OFF on my current stock of metal prints or 10% OFF on orders that are placed for metal prints.

What’s so special about these metal prints? Well my images are infused right into a sheet of aluminum for a look that provides rich iridescent sheen, bright vivid colors and depth that regular paper prints can’t match. The metal prints are waterproof, weather proof and scratch resistant plus they can be cleaned with glass cleaner. It’s simply a great photograph product!

The aluminized prints come either ready to be placed on a desk or shelve or hung on the wall.

Sizes Available & Standard Price (before sale):

8” x 10”               $50.00

8” x 12”               $60.00

11” x 14”             $85.00
16” x 20”             $165.00
12” x 36”             $200.00
20” x 30”             $275.00

Additional sizes available too but the above is what’s in my current stock.

A quick rundown of metal prints currently available are golf course, farming, hunting, winter, fireworks and Iowa football scenes. Below is a image of what’s in my current stock:

 

 

Email me at mklein@lakepanorama.org for more information or to place an order. Hope to hear from you in the coming weeks on aluminized metal prints.

Published in Mid-American Waterfowler Magazine

Over the years, I've been lucky to be published in different magazines and I have added another one to the list. Mid-American Waterfowler magazine has published two images of mine in their article about snow goose hunting in the January/February issue.

The front photograph was taken last year duirng set up of decoy spread while it was still dark. Resting my camera on the front of the Ranger and with the Ranger lights shining up the spread, I turned on the vortex units and my buddies continued to get the spread ready. I used a slow shutter spread to blur their movement along with the vortex movement.

The second photography published was from a few years ago on the best snow goose hunt I've ever been on. For 45 minutes, the snow's got off the roost and flew over the top of our spread, banked and came in feet down with out hesitation. It was a remarkable experience and I snapped the image published on the last flock that came in.

Click Waterfowler Mag to view the magazine and article featuring photographs from me.