Archive for March, 2010
March 24, 2010 – Hiking on Whistler Mountain
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Mountains, Picture of the Day on March 24, 2010
Half Note Trail, Whistler Mountain
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1101
Here it is, folks. The last image you’ll be seeing from me for a couple weeks. I know, I know, you thought this day would never come. For awhile, it sure seemed like it wouldn’t. But, time kept rolling on, as time does, and now it’s time for me to get the heck outta town. I would promise that I’d miss you all, but I probably won’t. I’ll be too distracted by fun stuff.
This picture was taken along the Half Note trail on Whistler Mountain. I’ve posted some other pics (well, at least one) from this same trail before. Whistler is a great place to go in the summer as well as the winter, because they have those magical lifts that take you way up into the high country, without you having to do any of the work. Ah, it’s a beautiful thing. That’s why I love Europe, because those kind of things are all OVER the place. Here in the northwest, they’re few and far between, and the mountains are steep, and the roads all follow the rivers way down in the valley, so if you want to get up to the pretty stuff, you have to work your ass off. Unless you ride up the gondola (and the Peak Chair) to the top of Whistler. Then it’s almost free! (Well, not monetarily, but whatever.)
This picture was taken with my super wide angle lens (Tokina 11-16), which I only acquired at the end of last summer. (Thus, it hasn’t been used too much.) It should get plenty of use this summer. Although, it might not, because I *also* got my hands on the Tamron 17-50, which is itself much more wide-angle than any lens I was using before (previously 28 was as wide as I could get). The difference between 17 and 11-16 is a lot less than the difference between 28 and 11-16, so I may find myself able to get most of the wide-angle shots I want with the other one, we’ll see. Or, more likely, *I* will see, and you will just continue to see random pretty pictures. That works too.
Have a great couple of weeks!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/11.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 11mm.
Subscribe to the Picture of the Day via: Popularity: 23%
March 23, 2010 – Kubota Japanese Garden
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on March 23, 2010
Kubota Japanese Garden, Seattle, Washington
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1207
Uh oh, only one more post until the two week drought! How are we all going to make it through?? Well, dumb question, I know exactly how I’ll make it through. With lots of cocktails. On the beach. Oh, it’ll be rough, for sure. It’s you all that I’m worried about. How will you survive without your daily dose of wit and pixels? You probably won’t, I’ll probably just no longer have an audience when I get home. Sigh.
Today’s picture takes us back to the Kubota Garden on the south side of Seattle. It’s one of two (that I know about) Japanese gardens in town, the other being in the arboretum just south of the university. They’re both really nice, but the Kubota Garden is bigger and has more little nooks. (Although it’s worth noting that they have about the same number of crannies.) This picture was at the very limit of what the equipment I had could handle. In fact, the image quality isn’t *quite* what I’d be happy with, although it’s what I got, so I guess I’ll just have to be happy with it. It was really dark in there, which meant using a long shutter speed and a wide-open aperture. So my depth of field wasn’t what I would have wanted, and the shutter speed I was using (1/40th of a second!) allowed for a little bit of both camera shake and motion blur. Either one of those can trash an otherwise nice picture, but I think this one made it through just barely. I suppose I could have jacked up the ISO to compensate, but this was with my older camera (the Rebel XT) which didn’t handle high-ISOs very well, nowhere near as well as the T1i anyway.
Tomorrow I’ll be posting a picture that I’ve threatened to post a few times, starting back in Canada week. I’m finally going to do it tomorrow, and then you’ll have to look at it for 2 weeks. That’s okay though, it’s a nice one. See you then!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300 mm VC lens. 1/40s, f/3.5, ISO 400. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 26%
March 22, 2010 – Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day, Washington State on March 22, 2010
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Monday, March 22, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=901
So it’s full-on spring now in most places, which is always bittersweet for me. Spring is pretty and all that, but it means the end of winter. And, more importantly, the end of ski season. This season in particular is a bit rough on me, because I’m missing a good chunk of the end of the season being out of town. (I missed all this last weekend, and I’m about to leave for two weeks! Aaahhh!) That being said though, spring means flowers, and flowers are things that you can take pictures of.
Today’s picture comes from the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, which takes place every spring (usually throughout April) in the Skagit Valley, which is about an hour north of Seattle (around Mt. Vernon). I think this one was from a couple years ago, since I was unable to make it last year for one reason or another. I’m really hoping to make it again this year, but we’ll see how the schedule works out. If you have a chance, you should definitely check it out. It can be intimidating just because of the sheer number of people that head up there (parking and driving around can be a real pain) but it’s a great chance to try out some crazy picture ideas, to play around a bit.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/400s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 27%
March 17, 2010 – Snow Ghosts
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on March 17, 2010
Snow Ghosts, Whitefish Mountain Resort
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1373
Hello everyone, welcome to my Friday! That’s right, after today I’m gone, which makes this the last post you’ll be seeing this week. Wooooo! I imagine that’s quite a bit more exciting for me than it is for you. But that won’t stop me from celebrating.
These are snow ghosts. Well, okay, they’re trees. But that’s what they call them when they develop that nice thick crust of snow and ice. You see it a lot in Idaho and Montana and inland BC (and probably Alberta, but I haven’t been there to verify that). These actually look more tree-like than a “true” snow ghost, but it at least gives you the idea. (When I was at Big White Ski Resort a number of years ago, a lot of them were so encased in snow and ice that they were just weirdly shaped white lumpy things, kind of like that one in the front row here.) These in particular lived at Whitefish Mountain Resort (formerly Big Mountain) in Whitefish, Montana. Whitefish happens to be one of my three all-time favorite ski mountains (along with Mt. Bachelor in Oregon and Schweitzer in Idaho), so if you’re looking for a place to go this weekend, you should consider it. Personally, I’ll be in Chicago, and I’ve heard rumors that the skiing sucks there. Dang.
Be good this weekend everyone, don’t forget to pay the bills and feed the children. See you on Monday!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/14.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 17mm.
Popularity: 18%
March 16, 2010 – Stehekin Valley
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on March 16, 2010
Stehekin Valley, North Cascades National Park
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1077
This is pretty similar to another picture I posted awhile back, but trust me, it’s not quite the same picture. It’s taken with different exposure settings, and it’s framed a little differently. This is how I roll. I can usually do a pretty good job of tossing out all the really crappy shots, but when it gets down to a few shots that are all technically decent enough, I have a really hard time picking the one that’s my favorite and sticking with it. It always comes down to liking one part of the first picture that’s not in the second, and one part of the second one that’s not in the first. And then it becomes like trying to pick which of your children is your favorite (and which one should be tossed out). Not an easy call. So I generally avoid the decision by just tossing them all online and moving on with my life. That’s what happened here.
This is the Stehekin Valley in North Cascades National Park. This was several miles past Cascade Pass on the (duh) Cascade Pass trail. We hiked in over the pass, then stayed for the night at a campground that was … well, just about where I was standing when I took this. This was the view at sunrise the next morning. If you go down that valley far enough, you’ll eventually reach Stehekin, which is a really small settlement at the far end of Lake Chelan. (Which is a super long (like 60 miles!) and narrow lake that cuts from the eastern slope of the Cascades into the heart of the range.) It’s only accessible by boat (or hiking), and I have never been there. It would have been a few more days walking from here to get there, and sadly my understanding is that the most interesting part of the hike was already behind me. We were just out for a quick out and back though, so this is as close to Stehekin as we got. Cascade Pass is a great hike though, even for just a day hike, up to the pass and back. Getting to the trailhead takes forever though, so leave early. (Or leave the night before and do some car camping.) Good times, good times.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-300 mm lens. 1/500s, f/7.1, ISO 400. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 12%
March 15, 2010 – Shannon Creek
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Picture of the Day on March 15, 2010
Shannon Creek
Monday, March 15, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1246
So I made it up to Vancouver over the weekend, and I checked out some Paralympic sledge hockey. Amazing stuff. I posted a quick video here (Make sure you watch it in 720p):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEDMx0U7s5s
That clip contains the game tying goal, so make sure you make it to the end. We ended up seeing Italy vs Norway. Italy took a 1-0 lead in the first period, but then in the third period Norway tied it up, and then scored the game winner with only 1 minute left in the game. Exciting stuff, for sure. I was surprised at how physical the game was, they slammed into each other just as much as in normal hockey. Very intense.
I realize that I’m spending all this time talking about that video rather than about the picture I posted. Whatever. It’s just a picture of Shannon Creek, we’ve all seen this stuff before. So, back to the Paralympic hockey thing. When I was up at the regular Olympic hockey game several weeks earlier, I sat right behind several professional photographers who were shooting for newspapers and magazines. Most of them had this one particular Canon lens, a 70-200. (Although two of them had the Image Stabilized version.) So I decided to stop by Glazer’s on Saturday morning and rent it for myself. And HOLY CRAP it’s a nice lens. Crystal clear, razor sharp, focuses like a dream. LOVED it. Also, I remembered that my camera (The Rebel T1i) takes HD video, so I figured this would be a good time to see how it did. I was really happy with the results. That’s using the default resolution settings for the video, it actually has one higher setting too (which presumably is 1080p? I’m not sure, I don’t know the official pixel counts for 1080 vs 720. All I know is I uploaded that one video to YouTube and it now has the option to view in 720p.) So, if you had any question about the T1i’s video capability, there you go. That’s raw, right off the camera. That should also answer any questions about my videography abilities. They suck, clearly. But that’s not what we’re here for. 
Yup, Shannon Creek. Move along now.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300 mm VC lens. 1/40s, f/9.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 10%
March 12, 2010 – USA vs Switzerland
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Picture of the Day on March 12, 2010
USA vs Switzerland, Vancouver 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1365
Ahhhh Friday. The day that might as well be called Saturday based on how much I usually accomplish. (What?? For all you know Saturday could be the most productive day of my week.) This is actually not the picture I was going to post today. In fact, I had a completely different picture picked out, and I had even started writing up the post (I snagged the first sentence and kept it for the current instantiation of today’s entry), but then I decided I was going to mention what I’m doing this weekend, I realized that it would be much more appropriate to go this route instead.
So.. what am I doing this weekend? Glad you asked. I’m going up to Vancouver! Not for the Olympics, no, those have already ended. For the Paralympics! We’re going up to watch some paralympic sled hockey! I watched a YouTube video of the sport (because I had no idea how it would work) and it.. is.. AWESOME. Now that the world’s eye has moved on to other things, hotels in Vancouver are totally reasonable, so it’s now time to go get some Olympic goodness without all the Olympic headaches. My wife didn’t get a chance to make it up there during the regular Olympics, but I did, and that’s where today’s picture comes from. I had some friends who stayed up in Vancouver in an RV park for several days, and they managed to score some SECOND ROW seats to the USA vs Switzerland hockey game. So me and another buddy skipped out on work and headed up for the day. I previously posted several of the pictures to Facebook, but I haven’t had a chance to “property” process and post them, so I had to scramble a bit to get the raw image for today. In fact, I had to actually grab the image straight from my Facebook album. Unfortunately, it’s a well-known fact that Facebook resizes and re-compresses the images that you upload (to save space), so the quality of the image you see can be significantly less than the quality of the image you uploaded. But whatever, it’ll have to do for today. (And perhaps by the time you’re reading this I’ve had a chance to upload a better version to replace it.)
It’s probably fairly obvious, but this was taken immediately after the US scored their first goal in their eventual 3-1 victory. The Swiss team were of course huge underdogs in the game, but they played with heart. They never really threatened to win, but they certainly didn’t just roll over and give up. So it was a great game, and it was great to see everyone play with national pride. It was a great experience, I’m glad I went.
(For those curious, here’s the picture I was originally going to use: http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1207 .. I still reserve the right to use it in its own post sometime soon, so only click that link if you don’t mind spoilers.)
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/500s, f/5.0, ISO 1600. Focal length: 227mm.
Popularity: 10%
March 11, 2010 – Spring Blooms
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day on March 11, 2010
Spring blooms
Thursday, March 11, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=276
Today’s picture is an old one that I dug out from the archives. It’s getting to be that time of year now, so I figured I’d should start tossing some of these into the mix. (I saw my first rhododendrons the other day. Whaaaat?! Where’d my ski season go?!) I’m not sure what those green ones are in front, but the red ones in back are rhodies. I love rhododendrons, mostly because I actually know what they are, and I can look (and sound!) smart by pointing at them and saying to whoever is nearby “Hey, aren’t those rhododendrons nice??”
Seattle’s an interesting place in the spring. On the one hand, it’s absolutely gorgeous, because there are rhododendron bushes EVERYWHERE, so all along the streets there are these wild splashes of color. And they come in all sorts of shades too, red, yellow, white, blue, purple, anything you want. Pretty nice. But on the other hand, the weather sucks. Winter’s fine, because even though it’s cloudy and raining all the time, you can at least know that it’s snowing in the mountains, so the skiing will be good. But in the spring, the clouds just linger, and linger, and linger. Long past the closing dates of all the ski hills. Long past when you start hearing on the news how nice and warm it is in the rest of the country. Typically it’s not until the beginning of July that we finally kick the cloudy-with-temps-in-the-low-60′s weather. So it’s a bittersweet time. It’s really the only season that I haven’t grown to love in Seattle. Summer? Outstanding. 75 and sunny every day. Winter? Fantastic skiing. Fall? Have you SEEN the fall color shots I’ve posted?? Spring? Hmm. Pass.
Anyway, I wish I got more of the green flowers in focus. Oh well.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S500 (Point and shoot). 1/200s, f/4.0.
Popularity: 7%
March 10, 2010 – Shi Shi Beach
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Picture of the Day, Tropical/Beaches, Washington State on March 10, 2010
Shi Shi Beach, Olympic National Park
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1004
It’s been quite awhile since I put up a shot from Shi Shi Beach, so we’re all about due, right? Yeah, I think so. So here we go. Shi Shi Beach, Olympic National Park. You’ve all heard the story before. If not, go searching through the archives, there’s about a hundred pictures from here that I’ve posted already, and they’re all just incredibly awesome.
You may have noticed over there on the right that I added a “most popular posts” widget. It’s not based totally on post views, it uses other metrics too, like number of comments and incoming links and stuff. You can change all the values for how strongly it weights each thing, and I think I need to tweak it some. But, definitely check it out, and then go through and click on your favorite posts a bunch of times so they end up at the top of the list. Remember, hold down shift and hit refresh. Woooo!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-300 mm lens. 1/125s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 46mm.
Popularity: 31%
March 9, 2010 – Mt. Shuksan
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on March 9, 2010
Mt. Shuksan
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=631
I don’t like this picture. I mean, I *really* don’t like this picture. The foreground is all muddled up with a shapeless mess of green stuff, and not only does it not nicely frame the mountain in the background, it actually partially blocks it. I really really don’t like this picture. But for some unknown reason, it seems that everyone else does. At the time I’m writing this, it’s got 53 votes, with an astronomical average of 8.96!! What?!? I mean, I can understand the odd high vote here and there, but normally by the time a mediocre picture gets 53 votes, sanity has prevailed and the average rating has fallen to a more reasonable level. But not with this one.
Am I wrong here?? What do you people see in this picture that I’m missing? There’s got to be something, right? Anyone??
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, 18-55 mm kit lens. 1/200s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length: 22mm.
Popularity: 15%
March 8, 2010 – Sawtooth Valley
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day on March 8, 2010
Sawtooth Valley
Monday, March 8, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1363
Welcome back everyone! It’s Monday again, and Mondays are AWESOME! So is my false enthusiasm!! WOOOO!!!
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been trying to make my way through all of the pictures I took a couple summers ago (that’s 2008 for those of you who lose track, like me). It’s been a bit frustrating, because all of the pictures I took from that period were using the lens that I have since decided was pretty crappy. (I think I’ve covered this a couple times already.) A lot of the images are recoverable with post-processing, but they’re still just.. not as nice as I’d like. I did some cool stuff that summer, like taking a road trip out to Colorado to visit my wife’s family. (And, well.. okay, I visited my own family too while I was there..) So it’s extra frustrating to not be happy with the pictures I got from some really pretty areas that I’ll in all likelihood never see again. Sigh.
Today’s picture was from that trip. This was taken in the Sawtooth Valley somewhere in the middle of Idaho. It’s a little ways north of Sun Valley along highway 75, just outside of a town called Stanley. That area is AB-SOE-LOOT-LEE GOR-JUSS! I’m definitely going to make it a point to get back there someday. But man, it’s a pain in the butt to get out there. I headed east on I-90 to Missoula, then south through the Bitterroots. I got there late in the afternoon of the 2nd day, if that gives you any indication. To make matters worse (as if the crappy lens wasn’t bad enough), I got there at the worst possible time as far as the quality of the light goes. There were all of these super huge unbelievably jagged peaks jutting straight out of the valley (very reminiscent of the Tetons, actually), but they were backlit in the most horrible way. So I got pictures of those peaks that were good enough to remind myself what it looked like (and whet my appetite for going back), but not good enough for any other purpose. I got others that are passable, like this one, but this doesn’t capture the magic of the place, not even close. (This isn’t even one of the nice looking mountains, it’s looking the completely wrong direction.) Sadly, it wasn’t my destination, and I didn’t have time to linger. So I just had to add it to the list of places to make it back to before I die, and move on.
So, there it is. You’ll undoubtedly see more pictures from that summer floating through from time to time, but I probably won’t call them out, so you’ll only know them by the faint sense of oversharpening.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300 mm VC lens. 1/20s, f.22.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 42mm.
Popularity: 5%
March 5, 2010 – Fallen Leaf
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Macro, Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on March 5, 2010
Fallen leaf
Friday, March 5, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1296
And just like that, another week comes to a close. It’s funny, until my Olympic special last week, I hadn’t felt any particular urge to use any Vancouver/Whistler shots for awhile. But now that I promised not to use ANY Vancouver/Whistler shots this week, those are suddenly the only ones I can think of. Seriously, the first three pictures I wanted to use for today were all ineligible. Sigh.
Fortunately, I was able to find something to work with today. I stumbled on this leaf about a month ago. I was fairly surprised actually, for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s a really pretty leaf. It was an odd color, that kid of sandy brown, and it was kind of translucent. There were several of them lying around, and they all looked super fragile, like tissue paper, but they were surprisingly resilient. Next, it was.. umm.. February. Clearly the leaf had just recently fallen, it was quite fresh. It didn’t fall, get buried with snow, and then become exposed as the snow melted. (As you can tell, it was pretty warm – the snow was definitely more slushy than powdery – this was at a pretty low elevation on the eastern side of the Cascades, on a pretty warm sunny day, which was itself part of a fairly long streak of warm sunny days.) But, why would the leaf hold on all through the winter, just to ingloriously drop on a random sunny February day? Don’t know. But I’ll happily take a picture of it.
Have a great weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/5.6, ISO 200. Focal length: 50mm.
Popularity: 12%