Category Archives: nature

Image of the week #7

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 #4

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 #2

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!

 

Image of the week #1

This year I have decided that I need to get out and shoot more. So I decided to do a photo of the week. My goal is to post a decent picture every week that I am able. So here is my first weeks picture. This is a Cooper’s Hawk and was taken from my back yard, near my bird feeder. They prey on small birds, he was perched in an elm tree about 20 feet or so from my bird feeder. Taken with a 500mm f4 lens handheld on a Canon 1D IV.  This was taken from the back deck so there was not a lot of room to find a good shot but I managed to find without any trees or limbs in the way. He is resting on one foot and the other is being held up. The bird is looking towards the feeder. My feeder is generally very active, I have large flocks of house finches, goldfinches, and nutmeg mannikins that come by on a regular basis. During the winter I will also get lot of white crowned sparrows pecking around the feeder and I do get a California towhee on a regular basis. So plenty to interest the hawk.

 

Star Trails

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.

 

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