This weeks is a view of the Japanese Garden at Descanso Gardens in La Canada on a nice sunny spring afternoon. Taken with a Canon 5DmarkII and a Tokina 16-28mm lens at f11. Beautiful garden but very difficult to capture, lots of different light zones. Hope you enjoy it.
This week’s image was one I took back in May of 2011, but I have since learned some new skills in editing and I think it has made some improvements to the image. This was taken near Page, Arizona, some nice sandstone sculpted by wind and rain, taken with a Canon 5Dm2 and a Zeiss 21mm lens. I really like the 3d effect, this was just an awesome day to be out doing some photography. Enjoy.
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.
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.
Early Saturday morning, December 10, 2011 there was a full lunar eclipse. Here on the west coast we only got to see a portion of the lunar eclipse, it started just before 5AM and the moon was going to set at 6:30AM, but we lost sight of it before then due to a layer of clouds low on the horizon. This was tricky to photograph, as the exposures kept changing due to the moon going into the Earth’s shadow, so it got dimmer and dimmer, complicating matters was the sun was also rising, so the background got brighter and brighter. This first shot is a composite of 23 shots with a 50mm lens. Exposures ranged from 1/200 to 2 seconds at f5.6 at 100ISO. It was also a challenge to composite as the images ranged from a black sky to a much brighter blue sky as the sun got higher. (Click on the images to see larger versions.)
This next shot is a composite of 3 shots taken with a 500mm lens, this shows the shadow moving across the face of the moon. The orange color is when the shadow is covering the moon, almost completely here, since the moon was full it was also very bright, so you need to choose what to expose for, the shadows or the brightly lit areas. The problem with bracketing and making a composite exposure is that there is huge dynamic range, so you would need a lot of exposures. Also the moon is moving constantly so you will get some shifting in the frame, but that can be dealt with, however the real problem is the length of exposure to show the details in the dim areas is so long that the moon is blurred unless you track the movement of the moon.
These were shot from Laguna Beach, it was an interesting experience and I would probably shoot things a little different next time, but overall I did ok. I would shoot at a higher ISO for the composite sequence and check exposures more often to equalize the relative exposure of the moon. I would also use a slighter longer focal length. For the longer focal length shots, a higher ISO would give me a faster shutter speed and less chance for showing movement blurs and I would also make sure the image stabilization was off for this type of photography. Thanks for looking, feel free to comment.
Well you have seen some of my images, here are some of Barbara’s images. Barbara is a not only my wife, friend and travel companion. She also has a very good eye for photography. It really is nice that she also shares an interest in photography, it sure makes the “photography trips” a lot more enjoyable. So I really am a lucky person! She enjoys using her Canon G-10 point and shoot and as you can see she does quite well with it. Please feel free to comment, or “like” the post. Enjoy.
At the beginning of November, my wife Barbara and I made a short trip up to Yosemite. We were lucky enough to stay at a friend’s cabin in Wawona, so we made it a long weekend. The cabin was fabulous, very comfortable, beautiful surroundings and best of all we were inside the park! We had a great time, definitely need to spend longer next time, but we still managed to do a lot. We went there hoping to see some fall colors, and we were successful. A storm was moving through and I was hoping for some dramatic clouds to enhance the scenery, and we certainly got that as well. We were also lucky enough to get a nice dusting of snow, a wonderful time to do photography! So we had it all, great scenery, dramatic skies, snow and fall colors all rolled into one area. Here is a 4 panel panorama from the Tunnel View location overlooking the Yosemite Valley, you can see the dusting of snow and the clearing storm clouds, a great opportunity. This is a 4 panel panorama, taken with a Canon 5D MarkII and Zeiss 35mm f2 in the portrait orientation. Each panel consists of three images with different exposures blended together to capture the full dynamic range of the scene.
Here are some other views from different locations through Yosemite. I took a reduced set of equipment with me, instead of my usual collection of lenses and gear. I brought my Canon 5D MarkII and a Zeiss 35mm f2, Zeiss 21mm f2.8, Canon 70-200 f4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, and a Samyang 14mm f2.8. The most used lens was the Zeiss 35mm, followed by the 21mm, and then the 70-200, I really did not use anything else. I hope you enjoy the images and please feel free to comment or “like” the post. Thanks for looking.
Here are some shots of fall color from the Eastern Sierra. There had been a snow storm two days before I got up there, arrived on Oct. 7,2011. The snow had not yet melted and I was hoping that the snow and wind had not removed all the leaves, as can happen during a storm. I was fortunate, the leaves were in tact. In fact they were still mostly green on a lot of the aspens, which would seem to indicate the fall colors are happening a bit later than normal for the area. They were not at peak, the lower elevations were still green while some of the higher elevations were just starting with a few areas already well on their way. To find the more colorful areas meant I had to a be a little more selective but anytime out doing photography is a good time! So I had a real good time. I visited the Bishop area, around South Lake and Lake Sabrina. I did go on the road to North Lake, but found a lot of people, and snow and ice; with the warmth from the sun it was turning to mud. It also appeared that a lot of the tress around North Lake had already lost their leaves or did so during the storm. So after I got to the top I turned around and went back down. I also visited sites further north, Rock Creek, McGee Creek, and Lundy Canyon. In Lundy Canyon there was still a lot of green trees and the area around the beaver ponds was still mostly green. There was some steam rising from Lundy Lake, that was a nice treat. I think the Rock Creek area seemed to have the best color. I also took a drive up Tioga Pass and that had quite a bit of snow. It had been closed on the day I arrived but they opened it on Saturday morning. Ellery Lake had some nice reflections that vanished as soon as the breeze kicked up.
One of the things I did different on this trip was to not bring a lot of equipment. I know sometimes I get too caught up playing with the gear, and usually a lot of equipment never gets used. So my tactic was to just bring a minimal amount of gear. Only brought one body, the Canon 5D Mark II, some extra batteries and the usual things like a release, tripod, filters, etc. Lenses were limited to a Canon 70-200mm f4L, 50mm f1.4, a Zeiss 35mm f2, and a Zeiss 21mm f2.8. The most used lenses were the Canon 70-200 and the Zeiss 35mm. The nice thing about the Zeiss is it makes me slow down and plan the shot a little more carefully, with manual focus it is a more conscious effort to get the shot the way I envisioned.
Overall I am quite happy with the results and hope you enjoy them as well.
There was some nice clouds on Friday, some remnants of a tropical storm, so I setup on the roof and shot a few panos of the setting sun. These are 5 sets of image in portrait orientation with 3 exposures per frame to capture all the details and the available light. Processed in PTGUI and Photoshop. Shot in Laguna Beach and within about 5 minutes of each other. Shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and a Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens. Click on the thumbnails to see larger versions.
An image of star trails taken in the Alabama Hills in the Eastern Sierra. The curved star trails are the edges closer to the two poles, and in the center the trails are more or less straight the closer to the ecliptic plane. This is a stack of 99 exposures of 30 seconds each using a 14mm f2.8 at f2.8. Towards the end of the run the moon was coming up and that is what illuminated the mountain range. The tall peak just to the left of center is Lone Pine Peak, and off to the right slightly of center is Mt. Whitney. Mt Whitney is actually a taller peak but it is further back in distance relative to where I took the images. The lights down at the bottom just right of center is the Mt. Whitney Portal area, Mt. Whitney is just above those lights.
