Category Archives: Image of the week

Image of the week #11

March 18, 2012 by admin | 2 Comments

The summer Milky Way over the Sierra Nevada from the Alabama Hills, this image was taken last August but I finally got around to processing it. This is a single image taken with a Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens at f2.8 and ISO 3200 with a Canon 5Dm2. The moon had just risen up behind me and that is what illuminated the foreground and the mountain range, this 30 second exposure makes it look like daylight, almost. The Alabama Hills is a nice place to visit and is a familiar backdrop for a lot of Hollywood movies. This is located just outside Lone Pine, CA and in the mountain range to the right of the center of the image is Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the Continental United States. The image turned out a lot better than I thought it would so I am pretty happy with it. Hope you enjoy it also.

 

 

Image of the week #10

March 11, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

Well it is hard to believe that 10 weeks have already gone by since the start of the year, time flies so to speak. This week’s image is of a stack of railroad wheels that are now scrap that were sent back for repair/service. This open air yard had hundreds of these wheel sets, most with recent dates on them. On the premises are some large buildings where they seem to work 7 days a week on these wheels. It is impressive to see how massive they are and I know I could not get one to budge, so literally there are tons of them at this location. I have no other information on what they do or how they repair them, but the wheels themselves make for interesting subjects. These are located in Mojave, Ca. This was taken with a Canon 5DmII and a Zeiss 35mm f2 lens, and processed in photomatix, lightroom and then turned to black and white using Silver Efex Pro 2. I think the border really adds to the feel of this image, and the late day light made for some long soft shadows. It is hard to get an idea of size but I am sure most of you have seen railroad cars so that might help give some scale.  Hope you enjoy it.

Railroad wheel sets

Image of the week #9

March 5, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

This week’s image is of almond blossoms. This is the time of year for the trees get pollinated and they flower before getting leaves. The owners had lots of bee hives everywhere, the bees buzzing around constantly. They rely on the bees and so so they rent hives to pollinate the crop. Taken handheld with a Zeiss 35mm f2 at f11. Location was near the town of Arvin, CA.

 

Image of the week #8

February 27, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

Orchids! This was taken at the Los Angeles Arboretum, and is a stack of 12 images to get the all of the orchids into focus at one time. So 12 different images were taken and stacked together only using the pieces that were in focus. This is one solution to increase the DOF of an image. Taken with a 180mm macro lens at f11. Stacked with Zerene stacker software.

 

Image of the week #7

February 19, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

This weeks image of the week is a learning exercise. Last weekend I took two courses on using speedlight flash on and off camera, this image is practicing what I learned. Most of what I learned from David Honl is applied in this image. The flowers are from my garden and my wife had picked them and had them setup for me when I got home on Valentine’s Day. We had made a decision about not buying flowers for “occasions” such as this, but this was a nice surprise. This image uses 4 flashes all set on manual and all using different power settings. The first flash was overhead and had a grid to focus the light into a small spotlight, there was also a slight warming filter on this flash. Then there are two flashes, one on each side with green filters to had some fill and interesting color, as the top lighting was creating harsh shadows. The background by the way in not “wrinkled” it is merely “textured”, or at least that is what I am stating! Then to add some fill on the front I used another flash with a snooted grid and a green filter to fill the front slightly. It was intended to be a little on the darker side. Overall I am happy with it and it was as I envisioned the project to look like, so I would say that the exercise was a success. It is not a piece of wall art, but I had fun experimenting and it helped cement the concepts that I had learned in the class.

Image of the week #6

February 13, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

Here is an image that is a little outside the norm for me, taken at a class on using flash. The class was specifically how to use speedlights to light a subject, it was actually two different classes, one on Saturday which covered using mostly ettl and on camera flash. Then Sunday was more about using the flash in manual mode and with light modifiers. Both classes also dealt with removing the flash off camera and using it more creatively. This image of Brittany was taken against a wall in shadow from the sun, so it was very even and dull lighting. A single flash with a warming gel was used with a small softbox. It really did give some nice light on the subject reminding me of sunset colors at the the beach. I thought it worked really well and the model was really great to shoot. She had some great poses and was very patient. This shot is almost straight out of the camera, very little editing was done and no cropping. Taken with a Canon 5Dm2 and a 580exII with a Honl 8 inch portable softbox and a CTO gel, 24-105mm lens at 82mm. I was quite happy with both classes and it was through the Julia Dean Photo Workshops, got a lot out of the classes, especially on the Sunday. Julia Dean taught the class on Saturday, Crash Flash I. David Honl taught the Sunday class, Crash Flash II.

 

Image of the week #5

February 6, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

Here is a shot from inside the San Gabriel Mission, this is a small alcove off of the main church interior. The green color comes from the sun shining through green tinted windows up on on the walls of the main chapel. Why green I do not know but it made the whole inside of the church cast in a green light. The San Gabriel Mission was the 4th mission in California to be built, although it was not known as California then. It was founded on 8 September 1771, it is filled with all kinds of interesting historical pieces. The photo was taken handheld with a Canon 1Dm4, Samyang 14mm f2.8 at f.28 and ISO 3200.

Image of the week #4

January 29, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

Here is this week’s image, a sunset shot, looking at Catalina Island with the sun setting behind it. I rushed home because the sunset was so colorful, this was near the end, did not have time to setup a tripod so I rested the camera on the railing and turned on the IS to help stabilize the shot. This is a 1 second exposure at f4.0 taken with a 24-105mm lens at 73mm on a Canon 5dMII. All I did was adjust the contrast I did not add any saturation or change the color this is how it came out of the camera with just a little contrast adjustment. Amazing colors,  I really need to make sure I carry my camera around with me, but at least I did not miss all of it, it was nice to watch the colors while driving too and just enjoy it visually. Thanks for looking.

 

 

Image of the week #3

January 22, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

This week I had a harder time getting some shots, really did not shoot a lot, got caught up in the day to day of life. This shot was an experiment, (aren’t they all! ). Taken hand held inside a dimly lit church, All Saints Episcopal, in Pasadena.  Shot with a Samyang 14mm f2.8 using a Canon 1DM4, ISO 3200, f2.8 and a 3 shot bracket at +/- 2 stops. Starting exposure was around 1/60. This is also a vertically stacked panorama, some call a vertorama, as it shows all the way back behind me as well. So the top part of the image is actually above and behind me, I was bent over backwards while shooting this sequence. Field of view is around 75 x 176 degrees. The panorama is made from 4 frames, each 3 exposures, Ptgui did a great job of stitching although there are still some stitching errors. I am pretty pleased with it, especially getting the panorama to stitch without using a tripod or pano head.

 

Image of the week #2

January 15, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

Well another week has gone by, so here are this weeks images. Yes there are multiple images this week, as I could not make up my mind on a single image. They are similar subject matter, both are taken with flash at 1/60 @f22 with a 100mm macros lens. These colorful creatures are residents in my friend, Greg’s tank. The first is a skunk clown in a purple tipped anemone. The second is a porcelain crab resting in his host, generally they like anemones and this no exception, it is a fluorescent green carpet anemone. Both of these are taken through a plexiglass tank, no need to get wet!