Posts Tagged Canon PowerShot S230
March 8, 2011 – San Juan Mountains
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Flowers, Mountains, Picture of the Day on March 8, 2011
San Juan Mountains, Colorado
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=184
Hey again everybody, happy Monday Tuesday! Today’s picture is ridiculously old. It was taken with a 3.2 megapixel point and shoot, if that gives you any idea. I took it while I was on a road trip through southwestern Colorado, hanging out in the San Juans. That’s one of those places that I definitely need to spend more time getting to know. It’s *gorgeous* down there. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s gorgeous in a lot of places in Colorado, but especially down there. Unfortunately I only had a couple days, most of which I spent exploring little 4×4 roads in my decidedly non-rugged Subaru Legacy. I went a few places I probably shouldn’t have (and even got stuck once or twice), but it was awesome. (I had the awd, but I did NOT have the ground clearance, unfortunately. My newer Subaru, an Outback, does. Maybe I need to head back down there…) Anyway, this was from there. I don’t remember exactly where, sorry. Someplace with a few flowers and some big peaks nearby. Totally helpful, right?
On a completely unrelated note, I apologize if you previously had a login account on the blog, and now you don’t. Don’t get me wrong, there was never anything you could actually DO with an account, but the ability to make one was there. I figured there was no harm in leaving that enabled, and a few of you actually used it. But, I was getting a spate of spammy user accounts signing up (about 150 in the past couple days), so I ended up disabling accounts, and deleting all of them that had already been created. So if that bit you, uhh, sorry. Fortunately, you still have unfettered access to all of the uninspired content I have tossed up here in the past and will continue to toss up here in the future. Yay!
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/250s, ISO unknown.
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September 22, 2010 – Blackcomb Mountain
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Mountains, Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on September 22, 2010
Blackcomb Mountain
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=162
So since it’s about to be fall (later tonight), I suppose I should start thinking about posting some fall color shots to get everyone in the mood. Perhaps I’ll start hitting that up later this week. In the meantime, you get winter. This is (yet another) shot from Whistler-Blackcomb Ski Resort. As with the last picture I posted from the area, this is from the 7th Heaven area on Blackcomb. (Although, that one was just taken a couple weeks ago while *hiking*, not skiing. And, I’ll be posting several more shots from that hike in the next couple weeks.) It’s totally true that the area around Whistler (including Squamish) have been represented more than their fair share of times in this blog. But, quite frankly, it’s because the area is probably the prettiest area that I go to with any frequency.
When I took this picture, back in 2003, I had some weird practices for taking pictures. First, this picture was also taken in that period between when I used my 35mm SLR and when I got my first digital SLR, so I used a pocket point and shoot digital exclusively. (I used the word “also” because I posted another picture a week or two ago from the same general time period, if you were wondering.) I suppose that’s not “weird” per se, but roll with me here. Next, associated with Moore’s Law, flash memory is a heckuva lot cheaper now than it was even a few years ago. Or, to say it in a way that’s more applicable to the discussion, flash memory was a whole lot more expensive per-byte than it is today. So, back when I shot this picture, I was using a 128 mb memory card in my camera, that cost more than the 8 gb card I currently use in my SLR. That’s pretty ridiculous. It also meant that I found myself needing to download the images off my camera pretty frequently. And, related to that, it meant that I spent a fair bit of effort strategizing about what image size to take my pictures at.
Wait, what? Yeah, whereas these days I just leave the camera set at the largest size and highest quality, back in the day I’d take the vast majority of my pictures at a very small size (640×480 for my first camera, incrementally larger with the next couple), and then if there was a picture that I thought I may want to blow up or something some day, I’d bump it to Large. (Most of my pictures were just of my buddies and stuff, so the large size wasn’t needed. But if I was, for example, taking a picture of a mountain, I’d bump it up.)
So, why does this all relate to this picture? Well, because, I umm, took this picture at 640 x 480. Meaning, you’re looking at the full-size image. Meaning, if you loved this picture and wanted it printed out nice and big and hung on your wall, you’d be out of luck. It’s unfortunate too, because I like this picture. When I took it, I didn’t realize it was set on small until after I took it. So I then moved it to large and “took the picture again”. It was bright sunshine out though, so I couldn’t really see the details to see if I had actually gotten the same shot again or not, I could just basically see that the sky looked basically the same. Of course I realized later that the full-size version was crap, and only the little tiny one (this one) was any good. So, whoops, live and learn. That actually burned me a couple times before memory cards actually got cheap enough to just leave it set on Large all the time.
So, there you go. Not only was today’s picture taken with a point and shoot, it was taken with a point and shoot set to the smallest picture size that the camera could do.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and Shoot). 1/1500s, f/9.0.
Popularity: 14%
September 14, 2010 – Alpenglow and the Moon
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Mountains, Picture of the Day on September 14, 2010
Alpenglow and the Moon, near Lake City, Colorado
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=177
Today’s picture is a fairly old one, taken in that odd time between when I used a 35mm SLR and when I got my first digital SLR. When I got my first digital pocket-sized point-and-shoot, I started off by bringing both that and my 35mm with me when I’d go hiking or whatever. The idea being, I’d use the little guy for most of my pics, like taking pictures of my buddies or whatever, but if there was a shot that I would theoretically consider blowing up someday, I’d bust out the SLR. But obviously I quickly came to the conclusion that one of the two was dramatically easier to use, and actually took some decent pictures to boot. So I found myself reaching for the 35mm less and less often.
There were actually two last straws, that both hit at right about the same time. First, I had gone on a hike near Mt. St. Helens, and on that hike I had taken 3 or 4 rolls of pictures with the SLR. It was one of those days where the conditions were absolutely perfect. It was sunny, not too hazy, and there were these little fluffy white clouds that made the skies really interesting (and I had a polarizing filter to really bring them out). I was stoked to get the pictures back, because I knew they’d be amazing. Except.. they weren’t. They all just plain sucked. Four rolls of shots, and not a single gosh dang one was worth anything. It crushed me. And no, this wasn’t the only time this had ever happened to me. But it WAS the *last* time this ever happened to me. And, as if that weren’t enough, about this same time I decided to blow up a picture of Mt. Shuksan and Picture Lake. You know, that one view. I had two versions of nearly the same picture, one taken with my 35mm, and the other taken with my *2 megapixel* pocket point-and-shoot (the one I just linked to is neither of them, but it was pretty similar to both). I blew them both up to 12×18, and as it turns out, the point-and-shoot version was actually better. Even at only 2 megapixels, it looked fantastic at 12×18. Even with a crappy little plastic lens, it looked fantastic at 12×18.
After those two events, I started leaving the 35mm at home, and I never looked back. It was several years until I finally got up the courage to make the leap into an actual digital SLR, and this particular trip to Colorado landed right inside that window. So all I had with me for the whole trip was a little pocket point-and-shoot. I had upgraded to a 3.2 megapixel version by then, but still. Nowadays, I of course wonder about all the awesome shots I missed out on not having the equipment, knowledge or skills that I do now, but that’s never a worthwhile thing to worry about. I’ll just have to go back, right?
This particular picture was taken in the San Juan mountains, in the southwest corner of Colorado. There’s a little dirt mountain road that heads into the mountains from Lake City. Eventually it goes over some pass (Cinnamon Pass maybe? Not sure), but I was just driving a passenger sedan (a Subaru Legacy, AWD, but a sedan nonetheless), and the road got pretty gnarly, so I turned around before I got stuck. I did spend a night up there though, and this was snapped right before the sun went down. Ahhhh, alpenglow, my favorite.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/500s.
Popularity: 17%
July 27, 2010 – Saint Mary Lake
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day on July 27, 2010
Saint Mary Lake, Glacier National Park
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=176
Wow, new posts on Monday AND Tuesday?? Wow, you guys must have done something right, for sure. Today’s picture is fairly old, from back in 2003. At that time I was only recently sworn off of my 35mm SLR, and I was rocking my second little pocket-sized point and shoot from Canon. (Film purists would argue with my logic, but I truly felt that I was getting better results (and much more convenient results) from my digicam than I was with my full-size 35mm beast.) I spent a fair bit of time laid off from work, so I had the opportunity to go on a few nice, long roadtrips that summer. I ended up in Montana a couple times, including the time when I got this shot in Glacier National Park.
You’re looking at Saint Mary Lake, which is on the east side of the park, right along the main road. (The “main road” being Going-To-The-Sun road.) I had driven through west-to-east, but unfortunately I was on my way somewhere (Colorado), so I didn’t have any time to hang around or hike or anything. (In fact, I originally wasn’t planning on swinging by Glacier at all – it was a split second decision when I saw a sign for it along I-90, which resulted in a 2 or 3 day detour. That’s the joy of not really having a tight schedule though, you can afford to just toss in a few days here or there of “other stuff”. I hate only having a couple weeks of vacation a year.)
As I hinted earlier, this was taken with a little pocket point and shoot. A 3.2 megapixel in fact. I’ve said it many times before, but it definitely bears repeating: just because you don’t have a big fancy camera, you can still get some nice shots. It’s definitely true that there are things you can do with a fancy camera that you can’t with a point and shoot, but there’s no reason you need to let that hold you back.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and Shoot). 1/800s.
Popularity: 9%
June 9, 2010 – Grand Tetons
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day on June 9, 2010
Grand Tetons
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=213
Today’s picture is an ooooold one. From back in the 3.2 megapixel point and shoot days. Occasionally I like to toss these in there, and I always kick myself for not having the awesome equipment that I have now back then, and not being as good at taking pictures. Which is a totally reasonable thing to do. I mean, I was such an a-hole, wasting the opportunity to be in certain places and not coming prepared with fully developed skills. Man, I’d kick my former self’s ass if I had the chance.
You’re looking at the Grand Tetons, in northwestern Wyoming. I had a very small amount of time to spend in the park (one late afternoon, and one early morning), so I obviously didn’t get to see anywhere near all of the stuff I would have wanted to. This was taken near the town of Moose, along this little road that goes through the forest from Teton Village to Moose. I think. I’m not actually sure, the details are very fuzzy. As I mentioned, this was taken with a 3.2 megapixel p&s. And by p&s, I do not mean “piece of smooth-ass-camera-equipment”, I mean point and shoot. I always say it, and I’ll say it again – just having a pocket sized point and shoot is no excuse, you can still get some great pictures. Sure, having an SLR lets you do a lot of stuff you wouldn’t be able to otherwise, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck if you don’t have one. If you have an interest in bettering your photographic skills, you can absolutely work on honing your compositional instincts even with a crappy camera. Don’t let that hold you back.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/400s, f/9.0.
Popularity: 7%
May 4, 2010 – Cherry Blossoms
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day, Washington State on May 4, 2010
Cherry Blossoms
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=238
Oh man, almost ran out of time for a post today. I have an excuse though – I had to go see my eye doctor, which means my eyes are totally dilated. As a result, I can’t see a damn thing on my screen. I mean, I can see big stuff, but I can’t see text. Which means, I can’t really see what I’m typing. I think I’m doing pretty well with the whole typing thing because 1) I sort of do it for a living so I have a pretty good feeling when I screw up, and 2) I can see the little red squiggly lines, so I can say with authority that there are no misspelled words in this post, even though some of the words themselves might be wrong. Whatever.
Every spring, a bunch of trees around Seattle (well, around a lot of places) turn bright fluffy pink. That always weirds me out. I’ve heard the right term for the pinkness is “cherry blossoms”, so I’m going with that, even though I’m almost positive they aren’t cherry trees per se, so I’m not quite sure how the term cherry blossoms applies. Not important. What *is* important is that, to this day, I can’t figure out how to get the picture I want out of them. I just.. can’t do it. I tried for years and years, and I could never really do it. I’ve kind of given up trying the last couple years, but the dream is still alive. Some of them turn out okay, but I KNOW there’s a totally amazing picture to be had of them, and I also know that I haven’t gotten it yet. This particular one was taken way back in 2004, all I had at the time was a 3 megapixel pocket-sized point and shoot. (Well, I had my 35mm SLR too, but that was well past the time that I never used that thing anymore.) It’s been sitting around for quite awhile, but I just realized that back then, I didn’t take the time to touch up any of my pictures, so it was dark and uninteresting. So I went through the pics from that day in Picasa, and brightened up a bit, and.. they’re at least better than they were before. Good enough for posting late in the day on a Tuesday, for sure. Since the blossoms are done for 2010, this’ll have to do until at least next year.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/125s, f/2.8.
Popularity: 9%
December 2, 2009 – American Basin
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Flowers, Mountains, Picture of the Day on December 2, 2009
American Basin, southwestern Colorado
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=183
Hey again everyone. Today’s shot is from southwestern Colorado, the San Juan mountains specifically. This is a little spot called American Basin. It’s accessible via a rough and tumble 4×4 road, maybe 30 miles or so in. (Although that could be way off, this was taken 5 or 6 years ago, so the details are fuzzy.) The San Juans are awesome for a lot of reasons. Most notably is that, while most of the Rockies have been beaten down and smoothed out by the elements over the years, the San Juans are still all rocky and awesome. Also, they are probably the wildest mountains, meaning that whereas most of the rest of the Rockies are pretty accessible, there are still spots in the San Juans that are a real pain in the butt to get to. And, there are 4×4 roads EVERYWHERE, that go to REALLY pretty places. When I was there, I just had a regular Subaru sedan. It’s all wheel drive, and I got to a lot of places that, had I been rational, I wouldn’t have gone to. But really you need a true off-road rig to get to the places you really want to be. (In fact, a bunch of folks down there have jacked up Jeeps for rent for around 100 bucks a day – I want to go back and do that one of these days.)
Today’s picture is an example of using depth of field to focus the viewer’s eye on the true subject of the picture. On the surface, lacking depth of field seems like a bad thing. I mean, why wouldn’t you want *everything* in focus, right? But, in a lot of cases, like this one, the thing you really want to highlight would then just get lost in the details of everything else going on. So, in this picture, your eye still sees and takes in all of the mountainy stuff going on in the background (which sets the context), but our eyes are naturally repelled by the fuzziness, and are instead drawn to the area of sharpness in the corner. Another use of a shorter depth of field is as a method of adding contrast. If your foreground and your background are the same color and contain the same kind of pattern or similar detail, it can be hard for your eye to distinguish them. But if you change up a couple of the aspects (color, sharpness, pattern, brightness, etc), it can make them really stand out. Which then provides depth. Which is hot.
I’m afraid to go back and read all this stuff I just wrote. I wrote it in about 6 different sittings, with a couple bathroom breaks (yeah, a couple!) and various other distractions thrown in. It may not sound good. But that’s fine. I’ll have another shot tomorrow.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/400s, f/7.1, ISO unknown.
Popularity: 9%
November 6, 2009 – California coast
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Tropical/Beaches on November 6, 2009
California coast
Friday, November 6, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=194
Hey everyone, here’s a nice pic to carry you through the weekend. This is a pretty old one, I took it on a roadtrip up the California coast, when Julie and I were driving north from San Francisco back to Seattle. We didn’t have time to take the coast the whole way, but we made it as far as the Redwoods before heading back to I-5. A nice drive, worth the time for sure.
Before letting you get back to whatever you were doing before, I’d first like to give a little shout-out to Rhonda Moon. Because she linked to me, which is awesome! Hopefully the torrential flood of traffic I’m going to send her way <crickets chirping> will make it worth her while.
Have a good weekend!
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/1500s, f/8.0
Popularity: 8%
October 27, 2009 – Picture Lake
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day, Washington State on October 27, 2009
Picture Lake
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=201
Hey everyone. In the past I’ve posted a couple of pictures of the view of Mt. Shuksan with Picture Lake. This is also Picture Lake, but seen from the other side. In fact, if you know where to look, you can see where I took those pictures, on that opposite shore.
I just realized now as I’m writing this that this isn’t the picture I intended to post today. Meh, whatever.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and Shoot). 1/500s, f/2.8.
Popularity: 7%
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
Popularity: 4%
August 21, 2009 – Flowers
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day on August 21, 2009
Flowers
Friday, August 21, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=165
Just clearing one out of the backlog, saving up the good stuff for later.
Those are rhododendrons in back. No clue what the yellow ones are.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/400s, f/9.0.
Popularity: 4%
July 15, 2009 – Diablo Lake
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on July 15, 2009
Diablo Lake
Wednesday, July 15, 2009.
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=938
I was sitting on the couch last night wondering what the heck I would use for today’s picture, when I had a brilliant idea: let Julie pick it! So I did. Almost. She actually picked this one: http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=313 , another very similar picture of the same thing, but I actually liked this one better.. So, umm.. sorry honey.
You’re looking at Diablo Lake (sometimes known as Emerald Lake), which is really near, but not quite inside, North Cascades National Park. It’s actually a man-made lake, dammed by Seattle City Light, and it generates quite a bit of power for the city. This was taken from a big viewpoint along Highway 20, which is the road that takes you through the national park. (The road never actually enters the national park boundaries – the park is split in two pieces, one on the north side of the road and one on the south side.)
I stop here every time I drive through the park, and usually I take a picture from this exact spot. Depending on the time of day, it can be a completely different picture. (This was fairly early in the day – later on, you end up looking straight at the sun, which nicely silhouettes the big mountain and the big tree you’re looking at. Those two, together with that little tiny island to the left of the tree, make up the elements of the scene that I usually play with when I’m here.) The lake itself is actually really striking – it’s very very green, almost turquoise. You can’t tell in this picture though. Which actually makes it somewhat odd that I chose this one, because the green-ness of the lake is probably the most striking part of the view. It’s green because of all the glacial meltoff that drains in from the surrounding mountains, all the minerals and such, if you were wondering.
Here’s a couple interesting tidbits about this picture: Not only was it taken with a fairly old point and shoot digicam (a Canon S230 – 3.2 megapixels!), it was shot at a small image size (640 x 480!!). Back then, to save memory card space, I’d take most pictures at 640 x 480, except for the ones I thought I’d potentially be blowing up later – I’d take those at the largest size the camera would support. So I first took this picture, realized it was on small, then took a larger one. But, the larger one was framed somewhat differently (see it here: http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=222 ), and this morning I decided I liked this one better, so I went with it instead.
Map: http://bit.ly/4j05Z
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/125s, f/7.1.
Popularity: 6%