Posts Tagged Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
October 25, 2010 – Above Baker Lake
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State on October 25, 2010
Above Baker Lake
Monday, October 25, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1937
So, did you guys get out like I told you to? Where are the pics? Come on, share! I got out for a quick walk around the neighborhood, and took a couple pictures of leaves and stuff, but I don’t think I got anything worth posting here, so don’t get your hopes up. It’s getting really pretty here in the lowlands now though, so that’s cool. (I haven’t been up there to verify it, but I think the color in the high country is pretty much done for the year. In fact, the mountains are getting pounded with snow right now – they’re expecting a full two feet!!)
Today’s picture was taken on one of those days when I forgot to bring my big camera with me, but fortunately I still had my pocket point and shoot. Despite the small size and tiny lens, you can still get decent pictures with those things in a pinch. I’m actually a bit sad to admit that I’ve gotten out of the habit of carrying my point and shoot with me everywhere. I always have my cell phone though, and while it’s true that the camera in that thing is better than any cell phone camera I’ve had before it, it’s still not capable of getting any pictures I’d really call decent. (I mean, pictures of my buddies, sure, but beyond that…)
This was taken at the far end of Baker Lake, which sits on the western slope of the Cascades, north of Highway 20 (the highway that goes through North Cascades National Park) and Highway 542 (the road to Mt. Baker). I got distracted, and forgot what else I was going to say. Since it’s already late, I’m going to go ahead and hit submit now.
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/200s, f/2.8, ISO 80.
Subscribe to the Picture of the Day via: Popularity: 7%
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%
June 24, 2010 – Snoqualmie Pass
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on June 24, 2010
View from Summit Central, Summit at Snoqualmie Ski Resort
Thursday, June 24, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=884
Apparently this week’s pattern is to post pictures from cameras of lower and lower quality each day. Monday, it was a photo from my most modern SLR body and the “new hotness” lens. Yesterday, it was my old SLR and my crappy lens. Today, it’s from a no-longer-current pocket point and shoot. Tomorrow? It’ll be a pencil sketch on notebook paper.
This was taken from near the bottom of the Summit Central ski area, which is one of four that make up the Summit At Snoqualmie. Summit Central was known as Ski Acres only a couple years before I moved out here, but that’s not relevant.
In other news, I suppose this is a fine opportunity to once again give a tepid encouragement for all of you to vote for me in the Blogger’s Choice Awards. For those of you who aren’t familiar with those awards, it’s a website where you can nominate yourself, and then tell all of your readers to go vote for you. Thus, it’s totally just a dirty trick to get folks like me to do their marketing for them. You have to register an account (with a valid email) to vote, so it seems pretty skeezeball. However, I *can* say that, since I gave them my email a year or so ago, they’ve never send me any kind of spam or anything. That’s not to say they won’t ever, but it’s definitely not QUITE as skeezeball as I expected it to be. The award itself is meaningless, but what ISN’T meaningless is the traffic they send to my page, simply by me being in the running. So, if you feel like helping a guy out, go ahead and vote for me. Here’s how:
1) Go to bloggerschoiceawards.com. I’m not going to link to it, because I don’t want to give them my linkjuice. But type that into your browser’s address bar, and create an account.
2) Go to the Best Photography Blog category. (Also, Best Travel Blog, Best Hobby Blog, and Best Blog About Stuff. I know, I know, shut up.)
3) Vote for me. At the time I’m writing this, I’m in second place.
Woo, thanks!
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/250s, f/14.0, ISO 80.
Popularity: 12%
April 26, 2010 – Craters of the Moon
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day on April 26, 2010
Craters of the Moon National Monument
Monday, April 26, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1485
HEY! Guess what!!!! Oh, you already knew this was the 200th post? Oh. Well. Umm. This is awkward.
I made it to 200!! I never thought I’d make it past 50, much less up to 200. Also, I thought at this point I’d be totally scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for pictures each day. But, in a rare moment of something other than modesty, I’m going to point out that I’m NOT. I’ve got A WHOLE LOT of mediocre pictures left to post! Don’t be surprised when I’m celebrating my 300th post, is all I’m sayin’. I’ve been doing this for almost a whole year now (sshhhh, don’t tell anyone, but the one year anniversary of my first post is coming up real quick here too.) Feel free to congratulate me if you feel it’s necessary. I mean, it totally is… The ball’s in your court, that’s all I’m sayin’. That, and that you shouldn’t be surprised when I’m celebrating my 300th post. That is all I am saying. That, and all this other stuff that I’m saying.
This picture was taken in Craters of the Moon National Monument, which is in southern Idaho. It’s called that I think because of the expansive lava fields that you can’t see any of in this picture. Something relating to that, anyway. I was driving through shortly before sunset, so I didn’t get much time to explore. But, it was pretty, so it’s on my list of places to go back to when I’ve got more time. This picture is interesting for another reason too. As I was driving through, I obviously stopped several times to take what pictures I could in the failing light. But I also snapped a fair number of pictures with the point and shoot while I was driving past. A “hey, that looks pretty, I should grab a picture so I remember what it looked like” kind of thing. Most of them are good for just that – reminding me what places looked like. But they’re driving pictures. They’re blurry, they’re tilted, they often miss the thing I was trying to take a picture of. But, occasionally (very rarely, but not never) there’s actually something cool in some of them. This is one of those times. Originally I had passed over all of these pics as generally worthless. But way after the fact, I decided on a whim to look a little closer, and lo and behold, I found something worth keeping. Awesome.
Okay, that’s it for today. Don’t forget to become a fan of or “Like” (whatever they’re calling it these days) my Facebook page if you haven’t already. Big numbers there make me feel awesome, and feeling awesome makes me feel good. Hope you all stick around for the next 200!
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/160s, f/2.8, ISO 80.
Popularity: 7%
February 22, 2010 – Black Tusk from Whistler Mountain
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Mountains, Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on February 22, 2010
Black Tusk from Whistler Mountain
Monday, February 22, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=869
Wow, Monday again. Not totally unexpected, but still. I decided that this week, I’m going to post only pictures from around Vancouver and Whistler in honor of the Olympics. This probably would have been more appropriate to do LAST week, but you know how it goes – with the time-delay broadcasting and everything, it took this long for the idea to reach the west coast.
Today, you’re looking at the million dollar view from the top of Whistler Mountain: the view out toward Black Tusk. (Yeah, that little cliff-thing poking up there on the left.) Given the predominant weather patterns we get here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s never a sure thing that you’ll be able to see it, but when you can it’s pretty cool. You can basically see it from anywhere along the top ridge (basically anywhere between the top of the Symphony Express and the Peak Chair), and I think this particular view was most of the way from the Peak Chair to the Saddle. (Blah blah blah, yeah, I realize you probably haven’t been there and thus these names are all meaningless. I’m totally just showing off how well I know the mountain at this point. Because I am awesome, obviously.)
Honestly, I’m fairly surprised that they placed the ski courses where they did. They put them all way down at the bottom of Whistler Mountain. But if you’ve been to Whistler more than once or twice, you know that the lower mountain sucks way more often than it’s good. I mean, you’re dealing with more than 5,000 feet of vertical here. The top of the mountain is nearly always fantastic, and the bottom of the mountain is nearly always crappy. So… why put the courses down where it’s crappy? Not only that, imagine how much more awesome the views would be as the cameras followed the racers down the hill if they had this kind of background instead of just grubby trees everywhere? I mean, sure, the visibility tends to be better down low (because when the fog rolls in, the upper mountain is worthless), but still. Hmm. Whatever, I’m sure they have their reasons. Grumble grumble grumble.
See you all tomorrow, right?
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/400s, f/11.0.
Popularity: 16%
February 8, 2010 – Snoqualmie Pass
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on February 8, 2010
Snoqualmie Pass
Monday, February 8, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1120
Hey everyone, welcome back from your crazy weekend! Today’s post is my humble appeal to the powers that be that, for god’s sake, it’s winter, can we please act like it?? To say that it’s been a crappy season is… well, okay, it’s not an understatement. It’s probably not even an overstatement. It’s certainly a little bit misleading. But it still feels true.
See, it’s an El Nino year. Which can mean very little for us up here in the Pacific Northwest. But it can also be really really frustrating. It can mean, like it has this year, that most of the weather systems miss us by just a little tiny bit, and what systems we do get rolling through are too warm to be of any use except dropping a couple inches of rain/snow mix that help keep the existing snowpack from disappearing any faster than they otherwise would. There’s been a couple nice big dumps, but they’ve been followed a couple days later by rain usually, which kind of defeats the point. Although the big saving grace is that we got absolutely hammered in the early part of November, so we haven’t really had many issues with coverage. It’s just a crappy surface, is all. Ah well, we’ve had a string of great seasons, so tossing a mediocre one in here and there is something we’ll just have to accept.
This is, of course, Snoqualmie Pass. Specifically, this is the view from somewhere over near the Silver Fir chair at Summit Central (formerly known as Ski Acres.) Most of us Seattle-based skiers are guilty of poo-pooing on the Snoqualmie ski areas besides Alpental, myself definitely included. But it’s not really THAT bad. I mean, sure, they’re tiny. And they’re low. And they have a maddening flat part at the bottom that you have to deal with both on the way down and the way back up, but if the conditions are right, it can be decent. And, the views can be a lot better than a lot of people give them credit for. On a midweek powder day, you’ll have Central all to yourself while all of the other hooky-players hit up Alpental and stand around in the 45-minute line for Chair 2. Ah, crap, I just gave away my secret. That’s okay, none of you will believe me anyway.
Speaking of midweek powder days… Nature? You there? A little help here? Please??
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/250s, f/11.0, ISO 80.
Popularity: 8%
December 1, 2009 – Silver King at Crystal Mountain Ski Resort
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on December 1, 2009
Silver King, Crystal Mountain Ski Resort
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=881
You’re looking at Silver King, which is located in the south backcountry of Crystal Mountain Ski Resort in Washington state. I took this from the Forest Queen lift, although I didn’t really want to admit that. Before I go any further, I’ve got to say it: it bugs the heck out of me that the very tops of those trees are cut off. It really really really annoys me. Sigh.
This turned out to be one of those rarest of days in Washington: a blue-sky powder day. (Shut up, Utah. We know.) Powder? Oh, we’ve got plenty of that. The storms never really end. But that’s the problem. It’s always snowing, so the sun never comes out. Oh well, that’s the cross we bear. I suppose I’ll find some way to deal with it.
I have run out of things to say today. Before I wrote this sentence, I was staring at the screen for a full 3 minutes trying to think of something, but I kept just thinking about what I wanted to eat for lunch today. Maybe it’s lunch time.
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/320s, f/9.0, ISO 80.
Popularity: 35%
November 5, 2009 – Stevens Pass
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day on November 5, 2009
Stevens Pass
Thursday, November 5, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=879
So it’s always interesting to see the correlation between how much traffic I get clicking through to see the actual picture of the day, and how good I think the picture is. There are of course times when I think an image is amazing and everyone else doesn’t, or vice versa, but most of the time, I know which ones are decent, and I know which ones are more than decent.
Now there’s another wrinkle on top of that too. Normally, the general quality of an image is the same in full-size form or in thumbnail form. Meaning, if you see a thumbnail of a really cool picture, it usually looks really cool. However, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, a picture just doesn’t do it for ya when it’s as small as a thumbnail, even if it’s a decent enough picture.
Why am I bringing this up? Because there are two methods that people subscribe to the picture-of-the-day: by reading the RSS feed on the blog itself (which displays the pictures full-size), and by subscribing via Facebook (which displays a little tiny thumbnail.) (There’s also folks that just directly navigate to picture-of-the-day.com, but let’s ignore them for now.)
So, normally, the goodness of a picture can be measured by how many people actually click through to view it on the site. Good pictures mean lots of people click through. And usually, either a lot of people click through via both channels, or few people click through via both channels. Yesterday though was a bit weird. I had a bunch of folks click through via the RSS (full-size) feed, but not via the Facebook feed. So I guess that means it’s a pretty cool picture, but it just doesn’t look like it when it’s small? Odd.
In fact, two days ago, I had 11 people click through from Facebook. Yesterday? I had 3. And two of those came before I even posted the picture. Meaning, I had one. One person. Was that you? Thanks for clicking!
Anyway, just thought that was odd.. Have a great day!
Oh, by the way, this is from Stevens Pass in Washington State.
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD 850 IS (Point and Shoot). 1/160s, f/11.0, ISO 80.
Popularity: 3%
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%