Category Archives: nature

Image of the week #20

May 21, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

This weeks images are of the partial annular solar eclipse. Taken with a Canon 1Dm4 and 100-400mm lens at 400mm and a 1.4x extender.  These shots will be part of a timelapse movie of the sequence. Also included is shot of the camera setup that was used to take the solar images. This setup will track the motion of the earth so that the sun always stayed in the frame as it was going down towards the horizon. The marks on the surface of the sun are sun spots. From the location, east of Temecula, the sun went down below the horizon as it was coming out of being eclipsed, the last shot is more red because the sun was right on the horizon and I should have increased the exposure and you can also see some of the brush on the horizon as the sun was setting. The eclipse occurred on May 20, 2012.

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Image of the week #18

May 6, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

Long exposure photography can yield some interesting images even during the day, this image used a Lee Big Stopper, 10 stop ND filter in front of the Fuji 18mm lens at f16 and ISO 200 with the wonderful Fuji X-Pro 1 camera. This yielded a 15 second exposure of the incoming surf at Treasure Island in Laguna Beach, CA. There are some nice tidepools but you have to watch the incoming waves as the tide comes in, they can catch you by surprise. I did not get wet on this trip, but there were a few people there that did not watch the wave patterns! Several large waves arrived during this exposure and that leads to the misty water look during this exposure and overcast skies made for a nice even light. Hope you enjoy it.

 

Image of the week #17

April 30, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

Spring is a fun time of year, here in L.A. it can mean anything from hot spells, to rain, to grey overcast skies, and this year it was a little strange. First we got hardly any rain during our normal rainy season and had heat instead, the lack of rain and heat really messed up the normal wildflower prospects. So you have to wonder to other places to find some flowers. This weeks image is from the Huntington Library gardens. They have a very nice cactus section and a lot of them were in the processing of blooming.  This weeks image was also taken with my new camera, the Fuji X-Pro 1. I really like this new camera, a very nice and compact, well at least more compact than the dslr I normally use. Great optics, great image quality and all packaged in an interesting retro kind of case. A nostalgic trip back to rangefinder type cameras, although not a rangefinder per se, the handling is very similar. Great camera. Since Adobe has not released the raw file processing ability I have been using the in camera jpgs and it is capable of generating great images. This weeks image was taken with the Fuji 35mm f1.4 lens and using the Velvia film simulation mode. I bracketed the exposure and blending the files using exposure fusion. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Image of the week #16

April 23, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

I was watching this sunset and really liked the clouds and the layers so I grabbed the Fuji X-Pro1 and fired off a few shots. Originally I was hoping that the setting sun would illuminate the clouds and light up the sky, but it turned out it was a more subtle sunset. Even though my original thought was to get something more dramatic I am quite pleased with this sunset as the storm clouds were beginning to break up and the storm was clearing. Taken in Laguna Beach, CA. Lens was an 18mm. Enjoy.

 

Image of the week #15

April 16, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

Spring is here, flowers are out and the weather is definitely getting warmer, and warmer. Since we seem to go into extremes, cold then hot, it can make it rough on finding spring flowers. So when the wildflowers are not producing, the gardens get worked. This is from Descanso Gardens, they always have a nice display of tulips.  The was taken in a patch that was partially shaded and what I did was accentuate the shadows and the highlighted areas.  The translucent appearance of the tulips when backlit caught my eye. Taken with a Canon 5DmarkII and 70-200mm f4 at f4 and 163mm. Enjoy.

 

Image of the week #14

April 9, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

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.

 

 

Image of the week #12

March 26, 2012 by admin | Comments Off

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.

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 #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.