To Take a Photo: A Frog's Photoshoot

Today I'm going to do something a bit different from my usual posts. My friend and fellow lab-mate Cassie Thompson is working on a research project involving Wood Frogs and American Toads. This project involved raising hundreds of tadpoles of both the Wood Frog and American Toad. Those tadpoles recently metamorphosed into tiny adults. Cassie wanted some photos of these tiny adults, so she asked me if I was interested in having a little photo shoot with them. I was thrilled to do so, and I went about capturing some high-quality photos that she could use in presentations and outreach. A few of my other friends were interested in how the final product came to be, so I decided to create this blog post to outline my post-processing workflow. This post will follow a single photo from its capture, through its editing, and to its finalized version.

Let's start with the final product. This is a recently-metamorphosed Wood Frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) sitting on a penny. When taking this photo, I knew I wanted a completely clean, white background, and I knew I wanted something in the photo for size reference.

To achieve that look, I created this super simple setup. I used a white piece of computer paper for the backdrop, and I propped this paper up so it would curl upward. For my camera setup, I used a Nikon D5100 DSLR, an 85mm Nikon macro lens, and a Nikon SB-700 external flash. I then mounted my camera and flash on a tripod to allow for easier control. I shoot all of my photos in manual mode, meaning I select what settings the camera will use to expose a photo. I also shoot all of my photos in the RAW format, which I will talk about later. For this photo, I set my aperture to f/20, my shutter speed to 1/200th of a second, my ISO to 125, and my external flash to 1/8th power. In addition, I had Cassie hold up a small reflector on the right side of the backdrop. This reflector allowed some of the flash's light to be reflected back toward the frog from the side, ensuring that the frog's stomach was not underexposed. Finally, and most importantly, I placed the frog on the penny and shot the photo.

This was the RAW photo straight out of the camera. At this point in time, no post-processing had been done. As you can see, the overall temperature is rather cool (meaning there is a blue tint), and the subject is rather small and dull. This is to be expected. As I mentioned earlier, I shoot using the RAW format. Generally speaking, RAW photos tend to be dull and flat.

So why shoot in RAW? The benefit of shooting RAW lies in the flexibility of this file type. The RAW format records a lot of detailed color data, which is what you want. The downside is that the straight-RAW photo is almost always dull and flat; the data is there, but it is "compressed." This means that a RAW photo must be edited to bring out the colors and details that are already present in the file's coding, but just subdued.

We now have the RAW photo, so next we have to begin editing it. For this part, I use Adobe Lightroom. First I remove the chromatic aberration in the photo. Then I crop the photo to get rid of any excess space. Finally, I begin to do whole-photo edits to the exposure. For this part, I first changed the temperature of the photo by making it warmer, as it was initially too cool (i.e. too "blue"). Then I decreased the highlights, brought the shadows up a bit, and then increased the saturation and vibrancy a tad. For my final edit at this stage, I increased the whites a great deal. By increasing the whites, the white paper backdrop began to lose detail. I didn't want the viewer to look at the background and be able to tell it is a piece of paper. I want the focus to be on the frog and the penny, not the background.

Next began the spot editing portion. When shooting amphibians with a flash, their moist skin tends to result in blown out areas. In an attempt to remedy this, I used Lightroom's brush feature to go in and highlight the overexposed or blown out areas of the face, which you can see in the photo above. I then decreased the highlights, shadows, and overall exposure of this highlighted area to recover some of the details that would otherwise be lost.

After this was done, I began using another post-processing program called the Google Nik Collection. Nik is a powerful program that used to cost nearly $200, but Google recently bought it and made it free to use! If you are interested in downloading it, check out this link: Nik Collection. I use it as a plugin for Lightroom. The first Nik plugin I use in my workflow is called Dfine. Dfine is a very useful plugin which "intelligently" smooths out unwanted grain and noise in the photo by automatically analyzing and spot-editing the noise. It's a super useful plugin.

Next I use another Nik plugin called Viveza. This program allows you to do more whole-and-spot editing. Like I said before, I wanted to lose all detail in the background and have it only exist as a white color. To work toward this goal, I added nearly 20 "control points" to the background using Viveza. Viveza has this awesome setting where you can view where your control points are exactly altering the photo. If you look at the photo above, you can see that some areas are super dark, while other areas are super white. Portions that a control point will greatly influence and alter will show up white, while portions that a given control point won't alter will be black. As you can see, the background is white, while the frog is black. That's exactly what I wanted for now. I then turn this informational view off and decrease the "Structure" setting in Viveza. The Structure setting can either bring out or strip away fine details in a photo. By decreasing the structure in the background, I'm washing away any remaining detail of the paper I used.

Then I do the exact opposite with the frog. I want the fine details of the frog to show up crisp and clean. To do this, I add several control points to the frog, using the helpful informational display to ensure that I'm only going to affect the frog and not the background. After making sure the frog is covered adequately, I switch off this informational display and increase the structure of the frog.

I save the photo file from Viveza and then open it back up in Lightroom. By this stage, I'm almost done with post-processing and all that remains are any trouble areas that I missed up to this point. I noticed that my flash reflected oddly in the bottom half of the frog's eye, giving it a gray wash in the bottom half that stood out in an unattractive manner. I used Lightroom's brush feature to try and tackle this problem. I applied a total of 3 separate brush areas to the eye, each with a different set of edits. My goal was to get rid of the gray wash that covered the bottom half of the eye.

Before (left) and after (right).

By using a combination of darkening the shadows, increasing the clarity, decreasing the highlights, and decreasing the brightness of the problem area, I was able to get rid of the gray wash that was a byproduct of my flash. Now the eye looked normal!

And finally, after about 20 minutes of editing, the final product was nearing completion. The only remaining steps were to export the file to a JPEG format, apply some slight sharpening to the entire photo, and add a watermark. And with that, the photo is done.

Taking a photo is only half the battle in photography. Post-processing is an integral step in creating a finalized product that the photographer is happy about. The world of post-processing is complicated, however, with an array of programs available and nearly unlimited stylistic choices and tools to utilize. Hopefully this post gave you a window into my personal workflow. Although the details vary from photo to photo, and case to case, the overall process I explained in this post is how most of my photos are generally post-processed.

Some Magnificent Moths

Moths: the drab and boring cousins of butterflies? I think not! In fact, thousands and thousands of people around the world are beginning to fall in love with moths. Mothing—a new hobby in the same vein as birding and herping—is breaking into the mainstream. Well, mainstream as nature-centered hobbies go at least. Mothing is essentially the appreciation and seeking of moth diversity, especially with the use of "light traps." Why do people find moths interesting? Although I can't speak for everyone, I'm interested by the sheer diversity of species, colors, and patterns of moths. Just to give some perspective, there are about 130-140 species of butterflies in Ohio, with about 725 species of butterflies that are in the US and Canada. Now what about moths? Ohio alone has over 1,000 species of moths. If you combine all the species of moths in the US and Canada, that number jumps to over 10,000! This diversity is incredible!

I love moth faces.

Two weeks ago I was down in Shawnee State Forest for the Ohio Ornithological Society's Warblers and Wildflowers Weekend, where I was assisting as a guide. On Friday and Saturday night of the event, when darkness fell, fellow guide Jeremy Dominguez set up his custom-built moth light trap. Although moths can be easily enough encountered, light traps are an incredibly effective way to draw in scores of moths. Jeremy uses a strong mercury vapor light (the most effective at drawing in moths) to attract any nearby moths. He strings up a white sheet next to the light to allow the moths a place to rest, which also gives the moth-ers a place to easily view the moths. The moths in this post are a few of the more eye-catching species that came to this trap.

I'll start with the Azalea Sphinx (Darapsa choerilus). The sphinx moths are all attention-grabbers due to either their size, colors, or both. The Azalea Sphinx is a medium-sized sphinx moth—which is on the larger size compared to most moths—with a rich chestnut color and pinkish hues. Many times the common name of a moth will reflect its preferred host plant (which is the type of plant the caterpillar will feed on), and the Azalea Moth is a great example. The caterpillars of this species will feed on various azalea species (genus Rhododendron), but will also feed on Black Gum and various Viburnum species.

This inch-long black and white beauty is the Hebrew (Polygrammate hebraeicum). The name stems from the black markings on its wings, which resemble the characters of the Hebrew Alphabet. The host plant of the Hebrew is the Black Gum, a species of tree. When it comes to host plant specificity, moths can be broken into 2 general groups. There are moths who have two or more host plant species, and then there are moths who only utilize a single specific plant species as their host plant. With the Hebrew falling into the latter group, this moth can only be found wherever there are populations of Black Gum.

Next up is the Oak Beauty (Phaeoura quernaria). Due to the sheer diversity of moths in Ohio, identification can be difficult. Unique looking moths, like the previous two, can be relatively easy to identify. When you come across a more "stereotypical" moth, with a camouflaged appearance, identification becomes more difficult. You begin relying on the shapes of lines on the wing, presence or absence of any dots or otherwise characteristic features, colors, wing shape, etc. And then you get moths like the Oak Beauty, which are "variable." With variable moths, the exact colors, lines, patterning, etc. can vary from individual to individual, making identification even harder. The Oak Beauty can be ID'ed by its overall charcoal color and the presence of 2 wavy black lines across the wings with a varying amount of white associated with these black lines.

When you're dealing with such a diverse group of animals, you're going to run into a variety of body forms. A group of moths with a rather unique body form are the leaf blotch miner moths (what a name!). These micro-moths often prop themselves up using their forelegs, such as the individual pictured above. This specific species is the Maple Caloptilia (Caloptilia bimaculatella), which can be identified by the presence of two creamy-white triangles on either side of its wings..

Another group of moths with a unique body form are the plume moths. A moth can instantly be identified as a type of plume moth (family Pterophoridae) by its T-shaped body. At rest, a plume moth will roll up its modified wings, giving it this T-shape appearance. Plume moths are very difficult to identify down to species, with most cases requiring careful dissection. Suffice to say, I have no idea what species that the pictured plume moth is!

A group of moths I am always delighted to see are the emeralds. The emeralds are all mostly pale green moths with lines of various other colors. This individual is a White-Fringed Emerald (Nemoria mimosaria). The emeralds belong to the incredibly diverse and speciose family of moths called the geometers (Geometridae). You might better know the geometers as the inch-worms. In fact, this is why the family is named Geometridae. Geometridae is based off of the Latin word "geometra," which translates to "Earth measurer." As the caterpillars of the Geometridae moths inch-along, they could be said to be "measuring" the Earth.

My favorite moth of all time is this magnificent beauty, the Rosy Maple Moth (Dryocampa rubicunda). Moths don't get much better than this, in my opinion. Luckily, the Rosy Maple Moth is pretty common in Ohio. The Rosy Maple belongs to the Saturniidae family of moths, also known as the giant silkworm and royal moths. This family holds most of the large, stunning moths people are familiar with, such as the Luna Moth, Cecropia Moth, and Imperial Moth. But not all the Saturniids are large; the Rosy Maple Moth is only about two inches long and an inch wide—small by Saturniid standards. Like other Saturniid moths, the adult Rosy Maple Moth has no mouthparts. It does all of its feeding during its caterpillar phase. The sole purpose of an adult upon emergence from the pupal stage is to find a mate, reproduce, and then wait for death.

I'll end this post with the star of the weekend—well, at least when it comes to moths. As you might recognize, this is a Luna Moth (Actias luna). The Luna Moth, a large moth in the Saturniidae family, is always one of the highlights of any mothing event when they make an appearance. This individual flew in just before the sheet was closed down for the night. If you want to learn more about the Luna Moth, click on this link for a post that's all about Lunas!

Are you interested in moths? Do you live in the northeastern portion of the United States? If so, I highly recommend getting the Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America! This is a must have field guide for anyone trying to identify moths in Ohio and the surrounding states. Thanks for reading!

The Virginia Rail

It's spring migration right now in the bird world. Many species across many different groups of birds are moving from their southern overwintering grounds to their northern breeding grounds. One such species is the Virginia Rail.

A few days ago I found myself in my hometown of Circleville, in Pickaway County, Ohio. I decided to head to the Mary Virginia Crites Hannan Park, a local city-owned park. This park has a small marsh with some open water, and last year I had found Soras in the marsh (which you can read about at this link!). This marsh had only recently been built when the city purchased the land a few years ago, and I was curious if Soras were utilizing this marsh every year, or if last year had just been a random occurrence. As I walked up to the wood deck which overlooks the marsh, I took out my phone and played the call of a Sora to see if one would call back from the reeds. Instead of a Sora calling back, a curious Virginia Rail ran straight out of the reeds. I will admit, I was not expecting that to happen!

The Virginia Rail is secretive species of rail, a group of marsh-loving birds who are known for being shy and hard to see. The Virginia Rail is a wide-ranging species, which can essentially be found across the lower 48 states in appropriate habitat at some point during the year. Generally speaking, they overwinter along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts of the US, and breed throughout the west and the northern portion of the eastern US.

Can you spot the rail?

The Virginia Rail is a wetland-dependent species. They mostly inhabit freshwater marshes, but occasionally can be found in saltwater or brackish marshes, mostly during the winter months. They require emergent vegetation for shelter. The browns, tans, and grays of the Virginia Rail's plumage allow it to essentially disappear among the grasses, sedges, and cattails that grow in the shallow areas of marshes. When rails feel threatened, they will often simply freeze among the cover they are currently hiding in. When a rail freezes in a stand of dense reeds or grasses, it can be nearly impossible to see the rail unless you already had eyes on it.

The cautious Virginia Rail looks to the sky to scan for any potential aerial predators.

There are 5 species of rail that can be found in Ohio (I'm excluding the Common and Purple Gallinules and the American Coot from this number; although these 3 species are in the rail family Rallidae, they aren't what most birders think of when they think of rails). Of those 5 species, the Sora is the most common and the Yellow Rail is the rarest. The Virginia Rail is the second most common species of rail in Ohio, and one of the 3 species which regularly breed in the state (the other 2 are the Sora and King Rail). How widespread and abundant are Virginia Rails in Ohio? No one really knows. Rails are super secretive, and this makes estimating populations difficult. The vast majority of them probably go unnoticed. If you check the reports of Virginia Rails on eBird, you will notice that the vast majority of reports are centered around urban areas. Does this mean that rails love urban areas? No; urban areas simply have a higher concentration of birders. More birders in an area means more eyes to find secretive species like Virginia Rails.

The Virginia Rail is an omnivore, but they focus mostly on arthropods. Like other water-tied birds with long beaks, the Virginia Rail will probe into the mud in an attempt to find various arthropods. They also feed on arthropods that are either on the surface of the water or the ground, such as spiders and beetles. The individual pictured above was actually foraging farther from the water than I thought it would. When I took this picture, the rail was foraging about 10 feet from the water's edge. There were at least 2 Virginia Rails present in this marsh, along with at least 2 Soras, and they seemed to have established trails for them to move between foraging areas. They would feed in an area of dense grasses before darting quickly along an obvious narrow trail devoid of plants to another dense foraging area.

As I mentioned in my Sora post last year, I absolutely love rails. For one, they're adorable. But I'm also drawn to the fact they are secretive and difficult to find and see. As a birder, it's always rewarding to find a rail species of any kind in a marsh, and even more rewarding to actually lay eyes on one. I'm really hoping that the two Virginia Rails in this Pickaway County marsh decide to breed here, but they might also simply be migrating through to a more northerly location. The creation of this marsh (and the surrounding prairie they planted) by the city of Circleville has turned out to be a wonderful action. This marsh and the open water in the center has proven to be a migration stopover for many species, including Virginia Rails, Soras, Pied-Billed Grebes, Horned Grebes, Blue-Winged Teals, and many other species. The surrounding planted prairie has attracted species such as the Savannah Sparrow and the declining Henslow's Sparrow. This prairie and marsh only make up half of the Mary Virginia Crites Hannan Park, however. The other half is a well-established wet forest. This forest attracts many migrating songbirds and is a great place to bird in the spring and fall.

Do you love rails too? If so, I highly recommend following Dr. Auriel Fournier on Twitter (@RallidaeRule). She is an ornithologist conducting research on rails. If you aren't interested in rails yet, you will be once you follow her!

Thanks for reading!

Graduation!

Rehabilitated Osprey on Poplar Island, Maryland.

Every so often, especially when there's a big change in my life, I like to give a brief update. This is such a time. 

On Thursday, April 27, I graduated from Ohio University with a bachelor of science degree in wildlife and conservation biology. These past four years at Ohio University were filled with absolutely amazing experiences. Thanks to my education, I have traveled more than I have ever traveled before, and to places I had never imagined I would.

Sonoran Desert Toad, Sabino Canyon, Arizona

One of the best perks of majoring in wildlife and conservation biology was—by far—getting to see and interact with an incredible variety of animals. I have been lucky enough to see many more species than I dreamed to.

Olivia Brooks (L), Alayna Tokash (C), and me (R) looking for Great Horned Owls in a snow squall. We were successful!

I also met many amazing people while at OU and beyond, and they have all helped me grow as a budding biologist, naturalist, and person.

Photo courtesy of Chase Rokitt (Wikimedia Commons Contributor).

What's next? I will be working at Wayne National Forest for 12 weeks, starting on Monday. I will be surveying wildlife along a proposed mountain bike trail as part of the required environmental impact assessment. After that job ends in August, who knows! I am hoping to find an environmental education job somewhere, so if anyone knows of a place looking to hire a naturalist, I'll be available!

As always, I'll continue to post on this blog. I've been a little quiet recently, as the past semester has been incredibly hectic and time consuming. Hopefully with college done for now, I will have more free time to take photos and write blog posts!

And finally, thanks to all the readers of this blog. Your continued support pushes me to learn more and find cooler things to write about.