Osprey in trees before sunrise – Nikon D200, F5.6, 1/125, ISO 400, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural light
There were many mornings that I would arrive at Fort De Soto’s north beach before the sunrise. Quite often I would look for a place to sit and watch the world awaken before there was enough light for bird photography. Other times I would wander the beach waiting for the sun to peek over the eastern horizon.
On August 17, 2008 there was a full moon about to set in the west before the sunrise. To the east were thin clouds that were just beginning to get some early morning color. I heard an Osprey and looked to find it perched in the trees almost due east. The light was pretty low but I took a couple of photos of the bird at 6:59 am.
Full Moon August 17, 2008 – Nikon D200, f5.6, 1/250, ISO 400, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural light
At 7:09, almost exactly 10 minutes after taking the Osprey image I looked west to see the moon making its descent towards the horizon and took a few images of it. It was positively glowing in the sky with a few wispy clouds crossing over it.
I remembered that morning that my Nikon D200 has an “Image Overlay” function and having never tried it before I thought I would give it a shot. I had to read the manual (not something I do all the time) to figure out where in the menu that feature was located and then experimented with several frames. You can select two frames and then decide which level of transparency to use for each one. I don’t recall at this time what transparency levels I used to create the merged image below.
Summer Lunacy – Two images joined in camera using Nikon’s Image Overlay feature
I enjoyed the results of merging these two images together using Nikon’s Image Overlay feature. I sharpened just the dark areas of the tree and bird, then selected the moon and slightly sharpened it too. I look at this photo and remember that part of it was looking due east while the other part was looking west.
I don’t normally play with the Image Overlay feature but there are times that the results can be very appealing.
Yes, I was experimenting with a little bit of Summer Lunacy. This is a bit whimsical and it makes me smile.
Mia
PS: Images like this can be created in Photoshop by using the two frames as two separate layers and then using the blending feature you can reduce the transparency of either layer. Personally I like doing it in the camera, you never know what might happen and I like nice surprises.