Archive for September, 2009
September 30, 2009 – Wisconsin Dells
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day on September 30, 2009
Wisconsin Dells
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=206
So I guess I should start of by saying this: I don’t usually do the black and white thing. Some people are good at it, I don’t consider myself one of those people. My heart’s not in it. Sure, I get the fact that it can be more dramatic, and it makes you focus much more on the composition and the detail, instead of relying on the colors to make the shot. But whenever I think about trying it, I feel like the result is cheesy, over the top, and it’s overly obvious that I just took a color shot and turned it to B&W in Picasa because I wanted to make it AWESOME.
And besides, let’s be brutally honest here, black and white ain’t what it used to be. It wasn’t too long ago that if you wanted to shoot b&w, you had to commit. You’d load your b&w film in the camera, and that’s what you got. There was none of this just snapping the shot and then playing around with it later to decide if you wanted color or not. The folks who spend hours in the darkroom, those are the “real” black and white folks. I’m just a pretender.
That’s what goes through my head, anyway, when I think about clicking the Black and White button. Which is why I usually don’t. But in this case… sure, why not?
This was taken near the Wisconsin Dells, in, duh, Wisconsin. I’m still not exactly sure why or how I ended up there. I’ve got a lot of family (mom’s side) in Chicago, and one extended weekend when my immediate family met there (my parents live in Colorado, my brother in Tucson, and I’m of course in Seattle), we decided to spend a couple extra days together, hanging out in… Wisconsin. I think it was my mom’s idea, and it actually turned out to be a great one, it was a ton of fun. My first impression was that it was just a midwestern DisneyLand. There’s this big lake, and hundreds of these cheeseball resort places, waterparks, go-kart tracks, museums, and mini-golf courses. This was the first place where I was ever introduced to the concept of an indoor waterpark, although I still have yet to be inside one. It wasn’t until the second day that I realized there was actually something to see there – the Dells themselves, which are these cool rock canyon things around the lake. They’re actually really beautiful, I was really surprised. I actually want to go back there now that my camera equipment has matured. To Wisconsin. I want to go back to Wisconsin. Bet you never thought you’d hear me say that, right? Going back and re-reading that sentence, it still doesn’t look right. But it’s actually the truth.
Now that we’ve taken care of all that business, I’d like to remind everyone that calendars are still available. In fact, a couple of you requested them, but never gave me an address to send one to. If you want one, shoot me an email, dave (at) davefry.net, or leave a comment, or send me a Facebook message, whatever. 15 bucks-ish, plus whatever shipping costs. I’m selling them for exactly what they cost me, if you were wondering. Let me know!
Map: http://bit.ly/BN0Xu (I don’t remember where the pic was taken, so I just put the pin right in town.)
Notes: CAnon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/60s, f/2.8
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September 29, 2009 – Snoqualmie Pass
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on September 29, 2009
Snoqualmie Pass - View from Summit Central
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1116
Today’s picture is in honor of “first snowfall”. Here in Washington State we’re supposed to get ours in the next day or two (up in the mountains, not 4,000 feet further down here in the city), Colorado got theirs last week, and I heard via my buddy Mike that Killington out in Vermont should be getting a taste too. It’ll be awhile yet before it starts looking anything like this, but the season is on its way!
This is a view from Summit Central, which is one of the four ski areas up at the summit of Snoqualmie Pass. (The others of course being Summit East, Summit West, and Alpental.) This was on a weekday morning after getting I think around 9 or 10 inches the night before. This is, in my mind, one of the best perks of having a season pass to Snoqualmie – getting to run up and get in a few turns before heading in to work. A lot of other folks have the same idea usually, but they all head to Alpental (Which, admittedly, is a much more interesting hill), meaning the wait over there (especially on chair 2) can be just as long as on the weekends. Summit Central, though, is a ghost town, even on primo days. You won’t see more than 1 or 2 other people before 10 am, so you’ve got the whole place to yourself. I may be totally giving away my secret here, but don’t worry, nobody actually reads this stuff. And besides, anybody who DOES read this stuff probably either doesn’t ski, doesn’t ski out here, or doesn’t do Summit Central. So I think I’ll be okay.
This one was, as most of my ski pictures are, taken with a little point and shoot, with a dirty lens at that. I had to do a bit of cleanup with Picasa (mostly adjusting the contrast to clear out some of the fogginess from the sludge and pocket lint on my lens), so the result is a somewhat low quality image. It looks great at this size, but wow, look at it full-size, and the grit comes out. Eesh. It would actually be somewhat interesting to post the original here, so you can see what even just a little bit of touching up can do. Maybe I’ll do that. I of course don’t have the original handy right now, but perhaps I’ll add it later tonight. (I’ll only add it to the original post, at http://picture-of-the-day.com/?p=504 , not to the Facebook post, so if you’re interested, come by later and check it out.)
Sleep well everyone, and have powdery dreams!
Map: http://bit.ly/12rbkM
UPDATE: Here’s the original image. This one’s actually not as dramatically changed as I thought, definitely not as much as a couple of the others from the same day.
Original image - no post-processing
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/800s, f/11.0, ISO 200
Popularity: 5%
September 28, 2009 – Rose
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on September 28, 2009
Rose
Monday, September 28, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1103
I mentioned that I had a whole bunch of these, right? Yeah, I wasn’t kidding, really.
Actually, to be perfectly straight with you, I didn’t have this one until this weekend, it was not a part of the previous pile. I just added to it a bit. In the interim, I actually made a couple more changes to my equipment. I went ahead and made a decision on my overall lens strategy. You of course all remember that for the past couple of years, I’ve been exclusively using a Tamron 28-300 (actually, two Tamron 28-300′s, one without image stabilization, then later, one with – Amazon links here: http://bit.ly/vuRVr , http://bit.ly/vShrg ), but earlier this year I decided that using a super-zoom meant I was making some sacrifices in image quality. That sent me on a quest to figure out what lenses I really wanted to use moving forward.
First, I filled out the wide-angle part of the range. I rented a Canon 10-22 (Amazon: http://bit.ly/1GhCtc ) just to make sure I wanted one, then I picked up a Tokina 11-16 based on the recommendations of the guys at the camera shop. (Amazon: http://bit.ly/166NGM ). But that still left me with the meat of the problem: what to do about the mid range, where, let’s be honest, most of us take most of our pictures. My lens budget was already running a bit thin (okay, it was way past thin), so I figured this one would be a challenge. But it turns out Tamron makes a couple great lenses to fill that need, a 17-50, and a 28-75 (Amazon: http://bit.ly/z7D8t ) that I ended up going with. So far I’m really happy with it, and it’s actually more versatile that I was expecting. (I was expecting that I would constantly find myself wanting to swap out to my old 70-300 mm telephoto that I’ve sadly had to start carrying to fill out the range, but I’ve found that the 75mm end gets me just far enough in that I don’t really feel the need for more except in rare circumstances.)
Today’s picture was actually taken with that lens, paired with an Opteka macro kit, which is the same thing as the Hoya macro kit that I’ve been talking about for awhile now, except a different size, to fit the new lens. Good stuff all around.
By the way, I keep posting those Amazon links because if you actually use them and then buy something (I don’t think it even has to be the thing you clicked through to), I get 4%, which as I mentioned awhile back, is only 96% away from being totally sweet. So far none of you have bought anything, but I’m still holding out hope. 
That’s it! Enjoy the crazy fall weather that seems to be rolling in everywhere!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens w/ Opteka Macro Kit. 1/500s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 75mm.
Popularity: 5%
September 25, 2009 – Olympic National Park
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on September 25, 2009
Olympic National Park
Friday, September 25, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=559
Today’s picture is another one that I took on a particular backpacking trip in August of 2007. I’ve posted at least a couple other pictures from that trip already, and you may or may not be able to figure out which ones those are. Actually, it’s not very hard, but I doubt you care that much.
When I took this picture, I was standing in the Buckhorn Wilderness on the Olympic Peninsula (in Washington State). But, everything (well, most of it anyway) you can SEE in the picture is inside Olympic National Park. Mt. Constance is in there, as is Warrior Peak. And some other stuff. I go back and forth about whether I like this picture a whole bunch, or think it’s somewhere between boring (there’s not much going on in it) or simply bad (the bottom is under-exposed and the rest is just… empty sky.) Today, I’m on the “I like it a whole bunch” side of things. Sometimes, I just like it simple. Maybe next Friday I’ll go even further and just post a picture that’s the same uniform color of blue or something. That would be awesome.
For those of you who like to keep track of this kind of stuff, this is another picture that I took with my point-and-shoot. When you’re taking pictures near twilight like this one, point and shoots (well, any camera, really) will usually try to make all of the “stuff” (the non-sky, basically) exposed properly, which means a couple things: one, since it’s usually pretty dark by then, you’ll need a really long/slow shutter speed, meaning your image will probably be blurry, and two, the sky will probably be overexposed, since it’s so much brighter than everything else. To get around that, a nice trick is to just point the camera at the sky, hold the shutter button halfway to lock in the exposure and focus, then frame your picture and push the shutter button the rest of the way. Up to a point, underexposing things can really bring out the colors. To put it another way, exposing things “properly” or overexposing them is the best way to wash out all the color. Which sucks. Don’t do that. (Fact: I set the exposure compensation to -1/3 stop on every camera I’ve ever owned. Just by default.)
Have a great weekend if I don’t see you. (And let’s be honest, for most of you, seeing me would actually be kind of creepy.)
Notes: Fujifilm FinePix F30 (Point and shoot). 1/450s, f/4.5, ISO 100.
Popularity: 12%
September 24, 2009 – Daisies
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on September 24, 2009
Daisies
Thursday, September 24, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1052
And here we are again. Another day, another picture. I think these are daisies. But, to be fair, I think just about any flower I see these days is a daisy. There’s a lot of different daisies, so I figure if I guess “daisy”, I’ve got at least a 50-50 shot of getting it right, right?
This is another shot that I took in the Woodland Park Rose Garden. In fact, you’ve seen these exact flowers before – remember that shot with the bee? I mean, it’s probably not the EXACT flowers, but it’s at least part of the same bush. But, to be fair, they’re really photogenic.
What makes them photogenic? Funny you should ask that. So, everyone knows that flowers are pretty. That’s sort of the point of flowers. But not all flowers make for great pictures. Flowers that are really really red tend to turn out pretty badly for me. The deep red just overloads the sensor, so you get this jumbled mess than can be painful to look at. Actually, if you’re taking a picture that contains almost entirely one super-bold color, any color, your camera may have trouble with it. Red seems to be the worst for me, although deep blues and purples can be really tough too. (And the dark green trees we have so many of out here in the PNW make forest-y pictures pretty tough sometimes.)
So, I’ve found that the best flowers for pictures are the ones with the most contrast. Multi-colored petals (like these!) are awesome. It keeps the picture interesting, gives your eye something to chew on, it breaks up the uniform field of one color. Also, if the middle part stands out from the rest (don’t you love my grasp of flower vocabulary?), that’s even better. That’s another reason I love these in particular – they’re perfect!
There’s other reasons that certain flowers can be tough though. For instance, flowers that have a lot of depth are hard. Because then you have to choose which part of the flower you want in focus. Things like rhododendrons or [ fill in another flower with long spindly things in the middle ] are really bad for that. if you’re using a setup with a really small depth of field (well hello, reverse-mount lens attachment), this is especially a problem. Of course, you could also look at it as an opportunity to get really artsy, if you’re the optimistic type.
One last thing – with flower pictures, keep your background in mind. It’s easy to turn an otherwise fantastic shot into something that’s just ordinary by including something ugly, like a sidewalk or a building, in the fuzzy part of the frame. Keeping dark green plant-stuff or super-blurry other flowers can make something nice for your foreground to pop out of. It’s all about the contrast.
Before I go, one quick note: I’ve sold out of my original test-run of 3 calendars, so let me know SOON if you want one, I’m going to put in another order. They’re on sale right now at the website where I printed them (I used Shutterfly), so they’re about 14 dollars plus however much it costs to send to you (I’m not making any profit on these), but at some point they’ll go back to regular price, which is $20. I’ll order a few extras, but not many, it’d be easier if you just told me you want one now. Email me at: dave (at) davefry.net .
That’s it, now you can go back to whatever you were doing before.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/250s, f/18.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 218mm.
Popularity: 4%
September 23, 2009 – Shi Shi Beach Trail
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State on September 23, 2009
Shi Shi Beach Trail, Olympic National Park
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=994
Hey everyone. I’ve got to keep this short today. This is a view along the Shi Shi Beach trail (pronounced “Shy-Shy”) in Olympic National Park. Well, actually, only the very last bit of the trail, when you actually get to the beach, is inside the National Park boundary, the rest is on the Makah Reservation.
It’s pretty. But it’s a pain in the ass to get to. But still, go there. It’s worth it. That’s all.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 10-22 mm lens. 1/125s, f/4.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 10mm.
Popularity: 8%
September 22, 2009 – Grand Canal, Venice
Posted by Dave in Europe, Picture of the Day on September 22, 2009
Grand Canal, Venice
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=849
Hello everyone, welcome back. It’s getting harder and harder to come up with little quips to put at the beginning of my Picture of the Day entries. I’ll probably just start recycling them. People like my wife who remember every story I’ve ever even thought about telling will probably notice, except that people like my wife don’t actually read this crap anyway, they just look at the pictures. So everybody wins!
This is the Grand Canal in Venice. I’ll be honest, it’s not really one of my favorite pictures. But, it’s apparently one of the most viewed images on http://davefry.net/rate . I’ve started putting in little links that say “Read more about this picture” on the pictures that I’ve posted on Picture of the Day, so this is really just a lame attempt at getting some of those folks to head over this way. Don’t you all just feel used?
This picture is good for something though. It’s great for illustrating one of my huge pet peeves, that I’ve already mentioned at least a couple times in the past. When you have things like buildings in your picture (or trees, but buildings are worse), it’s painfully obvious (to my eye, anyway) when it’s not perfectly straight. And, I’m notorious for being a bit lazy and taking pictures that are cockeyed by a couple degrees. So taking pictures of things like buildings (or views where you can see the horizon) is a very frustrating activity for me. On top of that, most lenses introduce a little bit of barrel distortion, meaning they bend things around a little bit, especially near the edges. (Try getting a picture to look level when stuff in the middle is straight up and down, but stuff on the left side is leaning to the right, and stuff on the right side is leaning to the left. Arrrghhh!!) Then, just to put the icing on the cake, in some cases the buildings themselves aren’t even consistently straight! (And, depending on your perspective, having the lines be perfectly vertical or horizontal isn’t always “right”). I swear that was the case here, but that could just be me making excuses.
Regardless, these pictures of Venice drove me bonkers. Taking a picture straight is of course the most preferable option, but even when using software to straighten it out later (which sucks because it degrades the image – although I’m not going to go into why here) is really frustrating. Take a look at this image. The stuff near the middle looks pretty true. But that building on the far right is most definitely leaning toward the edge of the frame. And, as expected, the stuff on the far left is also off-kilter, although this time leaning toward the left. That’s actually kind of weird, it’s the opposite from what I’d usually expect (barrel distortion usually bends things as if it’s trying to turn them into a giant donut), but it’s still annoying. Sigh.
Whatever, enjoy your picture, and hopefully I can convince a few of those folks looking at the picture on davefry.net to check out this entry. Have a great rest of your day.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300 mm lens. 1/250s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 26%
September 21, 2009 – Poppy
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on September 21, 2009
Poppy
Monday, September 21, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1038
Welcome to next week everyone. I hope your weekend was incredible, amazing, awesome. Great, great, great.
This is the inside of a poppy. I like poppies, because they are very orange, and they are very easy to find. At least for me. Because my neighbor has a whole bunch of them. I really should post more pictures of them, because if I don’t, I’ll run out of all of my other pictures and be left with about 20 of these that I’ll have to post one after another. And that would be… only a little bit different from now, where all I post are pictures of the Maroon Bells and Mt. Shuksan.
This one is another example of using that 13 dollar reverse mount attachment on my 18-55 mm kit lens (Amazon link: http://bit.ly/11k3LD ). But this time it was used for good, not for evil.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, reverse-mounted 18-55 mm kit lens. 1/200s, ISO 100.
Popularity: 4%
September 18, 2009 – Wenatchee National Forest
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on September 18, 2009
Wenatchee National Forest
Friday, September 18, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=692
Hey everyone. I like this picture. That probably goes without saying, since, you know, I posted it here and everything. But no, really, I like this picture. I like the colors. I’m a sucker for colors. That’s all.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, 18-55 mm kit lens. 1/200s, f/5.6, ISO 400. Focal length: 24mm.
Popularity: 3%
September 17, 2009 – Blackcomb
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Mountains, Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on September 17, 2009
View from Blackcomb Mountain
Thursday, September 17, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=877
It’s full-on ski-pass-buying season now, so to celebrate, here’s a nice, snowy picture to bring back happy memories from last winter. This picture was taken from near the top of the Glacier Express on Blackcomb Mountain. Since I’m not afraid of providing every last detail no matter how mundane or obvious, I’ll go ahead and point out that Blackcomb is half of Whistler-Blackcomb, which is in British Columbia, about a 4 or 5 hour drive from where I live in Seattle. I actually thought I had used this photo awhile ago, so I was really surprised when I just went back to check and didn’t see it.
I’m pretty excited for this upcoming winter/ski season, since I now have an official “skiing camera”. I upgraded my SLR this summer (from the Canon EOS Rebel XT – Amazon link: http://bit.ly/O1fAh – to the Canon EOS Rebel T1i – Amazon link: http://bit.ly/kKTkV ), so now I have my spare camera that I can toss in my backpack when I head to the hills. My ski buddies will of course hate me even more now, because now each time I stop I’ll have to take off the backpack, unzip it, etc, etc, etc. But I’m pretty excited. It still won’t solve the problem that I only ever go to about 3 or 4 different places between November and May, but at least those 3 or 4 places will be documented in excruciating detail now.
Map: http://bit.ly/rSpSR (This one’s weird – they took the satellite photo when it was snowy, but then turned it green so it looks like grass.
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD700 IS (Point and shoot). 1/400s, f/10.0.
Popularity: 6%
September 16, 2009 – The Matterhorn
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Europe, Mountains, Picture of the Day on September 16, 2009
The Matterhorn, Switzerland
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=839
For those keeping track, yes, this is the second photo I’ve posted of the Matterhorn. And yes, it was also taken from near one of the stops of the Gornergrat Bahn (the train that takes you from Zermatt way up into the ski resort), on the same day even. Although this one was taken from a couple stops further down, I believe Riffelberg was the name of the stop.
Not sure why any of you would care, but this is the picture that I use as the wallpaper on my phone. I figured that was as good as any other reason to pick a photo for the picture of the day. Now you know, right?
When I was in Colorado a couple weeks ago, my dad and I watched a show about the geology of the Alps. Among the many factoids absorbed during that time was a little nugget about the layers of rock that make up the mountain chain. I’m almost certainly not remembering this correctly, but I’m pretty sure the main three layers, from bottom to top, are: European rock, then rock from the bottom of the sea, then rock that was once part of North Africa. So, when you look at the peak of the Matterhorn, you can ignore any arguments about whether it’s Italian or Swiss, it’s actually Moroccan, Algerian, Libyan, and Egyptian. Now you know.
Map: http://bit.ly/2k4jGL
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300 mm lens. 1/200s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 39mm.
Popularity: 16%
September 15, 2009 – Spider
Posted by Dave in Animals, Macro, Picture of the Day on September 15, 2009
Spider
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1063
I’ll be the first to admit. Today’s picture is creeeeeepy. It’s bad enough when you see a spider at normal size. You start imagining what it would be like to have it crawling slowly up your arm and.. ugh, shivers. But now, you can add a little bit of detail to your vivid imaginings. Just imagine all of those little spindly things on its legs gently brushing against your skin. Those 15 or whatever little eyeballs checking you out. Yummy.
This little guy was backlit when I took the picture, that’s why he looks like he’s glowing. I was using the Hoya Macro Kit (Link to Amazon: http://bit.ly/2l96oL ), rather than the reverse mount lens, because that’s what I had on me at the time. It works great for most purposes, but if you’re using a big telephoto lens, as I was, and it’s at the zoomed-in side, and thus extended way out, you sort of get that weird glowy fogginess that you can kind of see. Not necessarily a bad thing, it is what it is. And, I suppose I should mention that I did cheat a tiny bit: when I took the picture, he was actually upside-down. So I rotated him right around, because I felt like I was allowed.
So, sorry in advance for any nightmares or additional reliance on other people to take care of spiders that you find in your living space. I’m sure you’ll get over it eventually.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-300 mm lens with Hoya macro kit. 1/200s, f/5.6, ISO 400. Focal length: 183mm.
Popularity: 7%