Archive for August, 2010
August 30, 2010 – Mayflower Gulch
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Mountains, Picture of the Day on August 30, 2010
Mayflower Gulch
Monday, August 30, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1047
Hello, dear readers! It’s Monday again! Woooooo!!!!! What, not feeling the enthusiasm?? Yeah, me neither. Sigh. I went out of town this last weekend though, that was cool. Headed up to Whistler, and did a little bit of hiking. That’s not where this picture is from though. More on that in a bit.
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this already or not, but I have a new (ish) rule of thumb: I refuse to look at my pictures on the big screen until at least a couple days have passed since I took them. Sounds like a weird self-imposed rule, right? Well, see, there’s a reason I had to do it. I’m always excited at the pictures I’m taking. For whatever reason, they always seem to look FANTASTIC on the little screen on my camera. So I take a few, and I get stoked that I got THE SHOT, and that forever after I’ll be finally satisfied that I captured the perfect image, and that I’ll get home and be able to retire the camera forever. But… it never quite works out that way. Ignoring for a minute the fact that taking pictures is just like a drug (you can never get enough! Even when you get the shot you dreamed of, it never satisfies you – you immediately start dreaming about your next hit.), for whatever reason when you look at them on the big screen, they’re never quite as sharp as you thought, or the color’s not quite right, or there’s a blemish that you didn’t see before, or you just missed the most interesting part of the mountain, whatever. And that just crushes my soul. It sucks the excitement for the pictures right out of me. I mean, these issues are usually very minor, and usually aren’t even noticeable at web-size. But, instead of going to bed riding the glow of “I got some AWESOME shots today!” I end up going to bed really sad, and then I don’t want to look at them again for weeks. On the other hand, if I just enjoy the euphoric high for the rest of the day or whatever, and wait until it fades away naturally, then I can approach the photographic results with a more level head. I’ve told myself I’ve had this rule for awhile, but I’ve only really gotten serious about enforcing it lately, the last few weeks or so. And it’s been working out GREAT! So, long story short, I’m not going to be looking at my pictures from this weekend for at least another day or two.
So, in the meantime, you get a picture from Colorado, from last summer. This was taken with my wide angle lens (Tokina 11-16) in a spot called Mayflower Gulch. It’s a really short trail (a mile-ish?), because I only had a tiny bit of time that day. The trailhead is a little ways south of Copper Mountain along highway 91 (which I believe has the nickname “Top of the Rockies Highway”). I think the trail keeps on going (or there’s probably several trail choices once you get to the gulch) but I didn’t have time for any of that. I was able to get to a nice setting, and that had to be good enough for me. My buddy Trevor (who lives up in Summit County) took me out there, after I asked for a short trail that would let me get some nice pics. This choice worked out perfectly!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 12mm.
Subscribe to the Picture of the Day via: Popularity: 24%
August 26, 2010 – Bee or Wasp? No! A fly!
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Animals, Macro, Picture of the Day on August 26, 2010
Fly, Genus Spilomyia
Thursday, August 26, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1652
Anybody know if this is a bee or wasp? I think the answer would lie in what the stinger looked like, or if there even was one. Unfortunately, you can’t see it. Sigh.
UPDATE: A reader named Joan Knapp (see her blog here) pointed out that this is actually a fly, “Genus Spilomyia”. So there you go!
What do you mean that flower looks familiar? Umm, right. This may or may not have been taken at about the same time as yesterday’s picture. Actually, all three pictures I’ve posted this week came from last weekend. I think that’s actually the first time I’ve ever done that. Normally I try to spread things out so as to not saturate the blog with one subject. Plus, then I can post two pictures that are really similar but yet a little bit different months apart, and nobody says anything. Oh, wait, nobody says anything anyway. Right.
Notice how the eyeball patterns are different? Weird. Have I mentioned lately that you guys should all sign up for Flattr?
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens, cheap macro ring flash. 1/160s, f/18.0, ISO 100.
Popularity: 23%
August 25, 2010 – Orange Daisies
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on August 25, 2010
Orange Daisies
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1649
Well, okay, whatever, maybe they’re not daisies. Seriously though, what are they?? I don’t know, and none of you ever feel like telling me. So, eff it, they’re daisies.
I like a lot of the elements of this picture. But I’m only posting it today so I can talk about what I *don’t* like about it. Because not only do I feel that it didn’t live up to its potential, I don’t even think it’s a particularly good picture. Why? Well, it’s too dark, and there’s not enough contrast.
For whatever reason, things that are really strongly red or orange really play tricks with the camera sensor. The redness maxes out way too early, leaving the rest of the image a bit dark. I tried to brighten this one up, but when I was able to get it to the point where I was happy with the overall illumination, the deep red and orange petals were way beyond blown out. So, the only way to be able to maintain ANY of that red vs. orange details (which is the most interesting part of those flowers, if you ask me), was to keep it kind of dark like this. And I guess if you’re not looking at it in the context of any other pictures, it’s not too bad. But I’m not super happy with it.
Then, there’s the contrast. I was trying to go for the effect of having those two flowers in front really pop out, but I also wanted to create the idea of them being in the middle of a huge flower bed full of them. Unfortunately, in this result, it’s hard to catch the difference. There’s just not enough of a difference between the in-focus ones and the out-of-focus ones for your eye to grab on to. A lot of times, you can use focus vs. bokeh to provide that contrast that I was going for, but with the strong reds and the lack of a sharp edge on the far petals, in this case they just blend together. Another option would have been to put a little bit of green just above that close flower, I should have gone with that. It’s of course easy to say that now, I just wish I had thought of it then.
Oh well, maybe next time, huh?
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i. Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens. 1/320s, f/9.0, ISO 400.
Popularity: 17%
August 23, 2010 – Manning Provincial Park
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Mountains, Picture of the Day on August 23, 2010
Manning Provincial Park
Monday, August 23, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1657
My original plan for this weekend was to FINALLY get out backpacking, since I haven’t yet been able to make it work this summer. But, once again, the weather intervened. Not that it was supposed to be particularly BAD up in the mountains, just that it wasn’t going to be good enough to make it work out. All of the forecasts I checked made it sound like it would be pretty nice Saturday, but then on Sunday it would just be cloudy and a bit chilly, with perhaps some rain mixed in. The chilly part didn’t bother me, but there’s a very particular kind of overcast that we get out here in the PNW that makes landscape type pictures pretty bland. Featureless grey, with nice flat light. So, since we had a bunch of stuff to take care of around the house this weekend, we decided, again, to bag it. Sigh.
Fortunately, that still left open the possibility of doing other stuff. So, as a result, we were able to check another item off my list: we drove up into Canada and checked out Manning Provincial Park. Manning Park is just across the border from North Cascades National Park, similar to how Waterton Park is Canada’s answer to Glacier National Park in Montana. There’s a highway that traverses the park east-to-west, which is about 3 and a half hours from Seattle. There’s a couple viewpoints where you can see some nice big craggy peaks to the south, almost all of which are actually across the border in the USA. (Although since vehicular access is basically nonexistent in NCNP, you can see American peaks from Manning Park that you would never see in the states without hiking for several days.)
So, here’s a Manning Park view. This was looking southwest-ish, so I believe those peaks you’re looking at are around the north end of Ross Lake, which is a narrow north-south lake (it’s a dammed river) that stretches all the way from Highway 20 (the road through North Cascades National Park) up to just past the Canadian border (about 23 miles to the north). There’s a small ski area in the park, which is now on my list of places to check out. So, while I checked one item off the list, it simply got replaced. Oh well, that’s how these things go.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 55-250mm IS lens. 1/640s, f/10.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 208mm.
Popularity: 14%
August 20, 2010 – Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day, Washington State on August 20, 2010
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Friday, August 20, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1466
Oh man, I was so excited this week to pick out a mediocre image for mediocre image Thursday. But I missed it! I totally missed my chance! Dang! I mean, that’s not to say that Thursdays are any different from any other day of the week. But, it’s always nice to get a chance to explicitly call out mediocrity when you see it. You know, get rid of all the pretense and such. It’s liberating!
Today, we’re back to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. I think this one is from this year, but I can never keep that straight. I, uhh… don’t really have a whole lot else to say today. Since it’s already late. See you all on Monday!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/640s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length: 271mm.
Popularity: 20%
August 18, 2010 – Crystal Mountain
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on August 18, 2010
Crystal Mountain
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=859
Wow, what happened to Tuesday?? That was weird. Oh well, it’s Wednesday now, and here’s Tuesday’s post. This was taken at some random spot on the mountain at Crystal Mountain Ski Resort, here in Washington state. Good times.
I realized a couple weekends ago when I was in Lake Tahoe talking to my cousin that, while I do talk about the general idea behind aperture and shutter speed and ISO and all that other crap here and there, I don’t really have one nice, easy-to-find spot with all of that written down. I wanted to direct her to that page, but it doesn’t exist yet. Also, I couldn’t just direct her to the blog itself and tell her to read a few entries either. Whenever I’m writing up a post, I feel like I’ve already covered that ground, several times, so I don’t feel like going over it again and again and again. But, it’s been quite awhile now, and I don’t even remember where all that stuff is. So, I decided I should go ahead and make up a new sticky page, that’ll be right up above in those tabs that you only see if you’re looking at the actual website and not reading this entry in a feed reader. Oh, no, it’s not there yet. But the intention to put it there is totally there. And that’s half the battle.
And I’m not even going to mention Flattr today. So there.
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/640s, f/8.0, ISO 80.
Popularity: 17%
August 16, 2010 – Spider Eating a Bee
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Animals, Macro, Picture of the Day on August 16, 2010
Spider eating a bee
Monday, August 16, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1639
I know, I know. A lot of you really hate this kind of thing. But, this drama was happening just outside my house last night, so I figured I’d share. This guy had built a web that went clear across the little alcove over my front door, which got me right in the face when I walked outside. I suppose after he had nabbed this guy, he got a little bit cocky.
Before last night, it had been awhile since I had brought out my macro ring flash. I don’t really have a good excuse for that though. I really need to get back on it. I suppose one reason I don’t use it that much is that we just don’t have many bugs out here in Seattle. And, the bugs we do have are just the ordinary kind – flies, bees, and spiders. I’ve seen some ridiculously awesome bug pictures out there, of wild and exotic things, and we just don’t really have that stuff around. But, that’s no excuse, I know. I promise, I’ll try and get out at least a couple more times before the end of the summer.
In the meantime… Have I mentioned Flattr.com yet? (Yes. Yes I have.) You all need to check it out. I’m serious. After playing with it over the weekend, I’ve decided that the biggest issue right now is that they need to get more Flattr buttons out there. Meaning, they need more publishers to sign up to give people stuff to appreciate. So, if you’re reading this, and you have a website or a blog or even just a Flickr feed, you should totally sign up. Then, let me know (either by commenting below or sending me an email: dave (at) davefry (dot) net), and I’ll happily click away on whatever Flattr buttons I see. I’m not even going to tell you that you need to Flattr me back, that’s how magnanimous I am. Do it! Seriously! Now!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 90mm macro lens. 1/160s, f/22.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 90mm.
Popularity: 19%
August 13, 2010 – Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Picture of the Day on August 13, 2010
Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe
Friday, August 13, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1635
Hello everyone! As (sort-of) promised, here’s a shot that I took over the weekend while I was visiting Lake Tahoe. You’re looking out over Emerald Bay, and that’s Fannette Island there in the water (which, according to the tour guide on a boat tour I was on, is the only island in all of Lake Tahoe). As you may be able to tell, this was taken with my wide-angle lens (Tokina 11-16), so it’s nice (for me) to see that I’m still using it. Why do I say that? Well, before last summer, I was using lenses that were 28mm at the wide-end (first a 28-300, later a 28-75), so I decided to buy the wide-angle because I was missing out on a lot of stuff. But later in the year, I swapped out the 28-75 for a 17-50. Before the switch, I had to reach for the Tokina for anything even sort of wide, so it got a fair amount of use. 17mm is pretty wide though, so I wasn’t sure how often I’d actually want to go wider (and I wondered if I would have even decided to buy the wide-angle in the first place had I gone with the 17-50 earlier), but I proved to myself this weekend that, yes, there are absolutely still times when it’s handy to have. Woo!
In other news… There’s this new website that you all need to check out: Flattr.com. It’s a great way to show some love to websites that you like. Basically, you pay a couple bucks each month, and you click a button on sites you like. At the end of the month, all the sites that you “Flattr-ed” split up your couple bucks. I LOVE this idea, since to me it’s absolutely worth a few bucks each month to help out the folks that make the content I like, who may otherwise be too small to make any money from advertising or anything. A couple of bucks a month is such a small amount that I definitely won’t miss it, but yet that’s way more than these guys would otherwise be able to get from having me visit their site, even if they were big enough to attract the attention of the ad buyers.
So, check it out!! Obviously, I would LOVE if you signed up and Flattr’ed my site (And if you’ve got a site, let me know, I’d love to Flattr you as well to share the love), but even if you don’t want to do that, you should at least acknowledge that it’s an awesome idea, right? 
The Flattr button is at the bottom of all my posts, although I’m not sure if it comes through the RSS feed, so if that’s how you read the blog, you may have to click through to get to it.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens w/ Hoya Circular Polarizer. 1/200s, f/9.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 12mm.
Popularity: 22%
August 11, 2010 – Shannon Creek
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Picture of the Day on August 11, 2010
Shannon Creek
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1274
Hello everyone, and welcome back! (Well, the second part only applies to me.) I just got back into town after spending the weekend on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, for a family reunion. And, I haven’t had a chance to even download the pics off the camera yet, much less post one here. I believe I got at least a couple that are picture-of-the-day-worthy, so hopefully you’ll be able to see those at some point in the near future.
In the meantime, here’s Shannon Creek. I’ve posted a lot of pictures of Shannon Creek, many of which came from the same day that this one did. But it’s been awhile, so I figure it’s fair game. As a quick refresher, Shannon Creek is in British Columbia, just outside of Squamish, which is the town halfway between Vancouver and Whistler. It sits at the bottom of Shannon Falls, and it’s a great little stop along the drive to get out and stretch your legs.
That’s all, go back to whatever you were doing.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/40s, f/11.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 92mm
Popularity: 11%
August 5, 2010 – Star of Persia
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on August 5, 2010
Star of Persia
Thursday, August 5, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1587
I realize that a lot of you reading this blog don’t get quite as jazzed up about pictures of flowers as I do, but the reality of the situation is that I have a whole crap-ton of them. Because, quite frankly, it’s a lot easier to go across the street to the rose garden or to take a walk around the neighborhood than it is to go on some crazy hike. I try to space them out at least a little bit so I don’t scare you all away, but if I keep burning through the non-flower shots, I’ll eventually be left with nothing but a huge pile of crazy flowers and bugs to inundate you with. But, it’s been more than a week since I tossed one out there, so it’s well overdue.
Based on the results of my normal flower-identification routine (which is to say, spending 5 minutes looking for flowers on Google), I’m fairly sure these flowers are called “stars of Persia”, so that’s what I went with. (Are there any Persians out there? Do these look like your stars??) These were, not surprisingly, in the rose garden. Taking pictures of flowers like these is somewhat counter intuitive to me. Normally, overcast Seattle days tend to make for uninteresting pictures (clouds aren’t bad in and of themselves, but around here we get these completely featureless grey skies that can make just about any picture into a real snoozer.) So generally I look for sunny days (or, even better, “mostly sunny” days with nice fluffy clouds), and stay inside when it’s featureless-ly overcast. But, I’ve found that I like my flower pictures better (in general) on overcast days. It feels like it allows the true colors of the flower to take center stage, and it means there aren’t any harsh shadows to worry about (since the light kind of comes from everywhere). You of course have less total light to work with, so you have to jack up the ISO and open up the aperture, but other than that you can get some nice results. At least that’s how I’m feeling today, anyway. Basically, I’m just trying to say that just because the weather’s not what you were hoping for, you should still get out there and take some pics. I always have to remind myself of that, because I’m HORRIBLE about getting lazy and blaming it on the weather. Somebody should totally send me a link to this post so I can read that.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Kiron 105mm f/2.8 macro lens. 1/160s, aperture unknown, ISO 200. Focal length: 105mm (duh!).
Popularity: 19%
August 4, 2010 – Mediocre Image Thursday – on Wednesday!
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Waterfalls on August 4, 2010
Niagara Falls
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=104
The images that I’m using for Mediocre Image Thursday are so mediocre that I can’t even manage to keep a schedule! Alternatively, you all behaved so well over the last 6 days that I decided to give you your mediocre image a whole day early! Wow!! Next week, I promise it’ll be on Thursday again, which really doesn’t matter.
This image goes waaaaaaaay back into the archives. This is a super old picture that I took with my old 35mm SLR and scanned in. Most of the 35mm shots I’ve used so far were at least near the end of my 35mm experience, but noooo, not this one. This one was from right in the heart of it.
You’re of course looking at Niagara Falls, which is somewhere up near Buffalo, NY. I thought this was taken on the Canadian side of the falls, but looking at the map I’m not sure if that’s possible. Although this was taken long enough ago that they may well have rearranged the border since then, how the heck would I know?? I’d like to head back up there some day, but I don’t have any plans to do so yet. Maybe it’ll never happen, we’ll see.
Notes: Pentax ME 35mm SLR, unknown 40-80mm lens. All other details unknown.
Popularity: 12%
August 3, 2010 – Mt. Evans Highway
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Mountains, Picture of the Day on August 3, 2010
View along the Mt. Evans Highway
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1619
So you’ve heard me say that I’m sitting on a multi-year backlog of old pictures, right? Yeah, still true. But today’s picture is a result of me actually making some progress on that over the weekend. That sentence sounds way more impressive than it actually is. When I hear somebody say “I made progress!” I generally think that means they made it through a couple months of backlog. But, no. I’m stuck on August 8, 2008. Before this weekend, I was about a third of the way through that day. Now I’m about two thirds of the way through that day. So, umm.. not really that exciting I guess.
This process is fairly painful for me though. Many, many times I’ve grumbled about how I spent a couple years using a crappy lens, and how I have since realized that, and done something to correct the situation. Unfortunately, that was right in the thick of the time spent with the crappy lens. So I visited all of these really cool places and did all of these really cool things, and so many of the pics cause me physical discomfort when I look at them. Ugh. Many of them (like this one) can at least be brought back into the realm of respectability with some post-processing, but if you looked at the full-size image you’d believe me if I told you that it’s hardly hang-on-the-wall worthy. But, I promised myself I’d make it through them all eventually, pulling out all the halfway-decent ones. So this won’t be the last time you see one of them.
I almost went ahead and finished off the post right there, but then I realized I haven’t actually touched on what the heck you’re looking at. This was taken along the Mt. Evans Highway, which is sort of near Idaho Springs, Colorado. (By “sort of near”, I mean that Idaho Springs is where you leave the highway (I-70) to head up into the mountains…) The Mt. Evans Highway is apparently the highest auto-road in either the world or North America, topping out at 14,400 feet or so. (Google tells me that’s about 4,400 meters.) It’s paved the whole way, and it goes right to the top of Mt. Evans. (And it’s worth noting that Mt. Evans is just a bit taller than Pikes Peak (at 14,100 feet), which isn’t too far away (a couple hours) and also has a road (although not paved) going up to the top. Anyway, to get this shot I had to walk a few hundred feet from the roadway, but this is essentially the same view you’d get from the car. It’s a really pretty drive, and you should do it. There, now I’ve talked about the picture, have a nice day.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/40s, f/22.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 30mm.
Popularity: 12%