Space Coast – Page 4 – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Sunrise Texture Series 3

Gathering Light

March 2, 2020February 18, 2020 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

You will notice the sky changing, compared to the first set published here , Almost 6 minutes have passed, 4 minutes from the last image from Sunrise Texture Series 2. From behind the horizon, the first rays of sunlight catch the sky undersides. Unseen. the sun disk broaches the horizon.

Working fast, I used the dial to change from aperture-priority to shutter-priority with settings saved from the last use. In this way the duration is only twelve seconds between shots. The sun disk is near to/passed the horizon hidden behind those distant clouds.

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Exposure: 1/400 sec at f / 5.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 250

Breaking of a small wave.

Exposure: 1/15 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 250

A slide show of these images. Suggestion, for this series in a larger format, open a separate browser tab for each post. At series end you will then have eight (including the very first post a few weeks ago) landscapes to compare.

Want to see more? Visit this series on Getty IStock.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Sunrise Texture Series 2

Time measured by the waves

March 1, 2020February 14, 2020 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Twelve minutes, fifty four seconds separate the first and list images of this series of 16 images, starting with the first set published here fourteen days ago.

Almost a minute, fifty two seconds, separates the images of this post, enough time for a wave to sweep over a boss of sand, forming a mirror, and to start a return flow to the sea.

Happy turning of February to March.

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Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125

A sand boss held water briefly each cycle to form a mirror.

A slide show of these images.

Want to see more? Visit this series on Getty IStock.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Sunrise Texture Series 1

A constant is change.

February 29, 2020February 18, 2020 MichaelStephenWills1 Comment

Heraclitus, sometime between his beginning and end, 535 – 475 B.C., wrote “No man steps into the same river twice.” The flow of these images is more changeable, ebbing and flowing with each wave.

My habit is to time early morning walks by sunrise, stepping onto the beach well before dawn to enjoy the encounter. First days of January 2020 were notably clear and warm. Then over several days the wind rose, on the 9th were these clouds,

High tide passed a few minutes before, for whatever reason there were hollows filled with the stronger waves, the water pooling to flow back as is seen here. The pattern of sand hollows across the beach was lost across the hours and tides, not to return during our time at the beach.

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A sand boss held water briefly each cycle to form a mirror.

A sand boss held water briefly each cycle to form a mirror. In the small ripples in the return stream rising against the waves of the return flow can be seen the strong, steady southeast wind of that day.

Exposure: 1/10 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125

A slide show of these images. Use is to compare the effect of longer vs shorter exposure time and f-stop.

Want to see more? Visit this series on Getty IStock.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Sunrise Series to come

….anatomy of coming light.

February 16, 2020February 10, 2020 MichaelStephenWills16 Comments

Sunrise for Florida, January, is roughly a quarter past 7 am. Most mornings this year I was on the beach for a morning, pre-dawn, walk camera in hand. This day, the 9th, the clouds were promising, no to heavy on the horizon and scattered, cumulus clouds otherwise. For the promise I brought the full frame Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon lens 24 mm f/1.4L II USM fitted with a graduated .6 ND filter sitting on top of a Manfrotto BeFree Carbon fiber tripod.

A graduated neutral density filter has a portion shaded with gray to produce a “2 stop” difference in exposure between the darkest shade and clear glass with, between, a gradual feathered reduction in shade. In this way, the dark foreground and bright sky are balanced.

A carbon fiber tripod folds into a compact shape. At about 2.5 pounds it fits into a suitcase with the least weight possible for a reasonably stable platform. Using it, I am able to take a sequence of frames of the identical scene, changing camera settings as I go along.

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Exposure: 1/6 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125

Sunlight, low in the western sky, was perfect for mirror-like reflections in the retreating surf.

In a few weeks, after the “Slievenaglogh View” series now underway, I will present a week of these images moving from pre-dawn to sunrise.

A slide show of these images. Use is to compare the effect of longer vs shorter exposure time and f-stop.

Drying Butterfly…..

….on a Sonic Drive-In Order Station.

February 9, 2020February 4, 2020 MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

On Tuesday, December 17, 2019 a caterpillar dropped from vegetation to crawl across the parking lot of Sonic Drive-In, 2140 N Courtenay Pkwy, Merritt Island, FL 32953, crawl up an order station, affix its tail to the kelly green semi-gloss enamel, to form a chrysalis.

The afternoon of New Years Eve, 14 days later, we spied the Retro theme of this fast food business, finding it appealing, stopped for a hi-fat lunch of hamburgers, onion rings (“highly recommended, very delicious”) and (ha, ha) diet sodas, choosing this same order station where the emerged Brush-foot butterfly, of the family Nymphalidae, clung, drying in anticipation of flight.

Captured here with the Apple IPhone 8. I cannot identify the exact butterfly species this is. Source: wikipedia article on Nymphalidae.