Tag Archives: CA

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.

Eastern Sierra fall colors

October 15, 2011 by admin | 6 Comments

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.

Sunset Panos

October 1, 2011 by admin | 2 Comments

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.

Crescent Bay Park

September 25, 2011 by admin | Comments Off

A few shots from Crescent Bay Park in Laguna Beach, it was a heavily overcast/foggy day. A bit of drizzle. All shot with a Zeiss 21mm f2.8, the first two single images were taken using a Lee Filter big stopper. I need to experiment more with this filter. The panorama was taken without filters, and is 5 shots in portrait orientation.

Star Trails

September 6, 2011 by admin | Comments Off

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.

Huntington Library and gardens

July 24, 2011 by admin | Comments Off

I used to go fairly often to the Huntington Library, located in San Marino California, just below Pasadena. However lately I have only been able to go every so often, and in fact I had not been there for about a year or more, until now. I had a chance to go with my friend Greg, who got us in early in the morning, before the general public. Being able to get in early is really nice, first the earlier the better for me, and with the summer “June Gloom” going on made for some nice diffuse overcast light, which is great for flowers. The gardens always have a lot of flowers and they are very well maintained, so a target rich environment! I was hoping that the ponds would have some nice lotus blooming. I really miss the large lotus blooms at Echo Park lake, it really is too bad that people saw fit to steal the roots and not let others enjoy them, and I know they also had a disease issue, but it really was a combination of the two factors. The bloom there was really spectacular and now there is nothing, I sure hope that it can be restored at some point. Anyways back to the Huntington, there was some pink lotus flowers at the lower pond and some yellow lotus at the Chinese Garden, so that was really great. Also I can’t miss a chance to visit the large cactus garden there, always a treat to get some abstracts of the different cacti. So here are some shot from around the Huntington Library gardens. Hope you enjoy them.