Posts Tagged Quantaray 70-300
July 22, 2011 – Monte Cristo Peaks
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on July 22, 2011
Monte Cristo Peaks, seen from Spada Lake
Friday, July 22, 2011
Just a quick post today to round out your Friday (or start off your Monday, if that’s when you’re seeing it.) This view was from the shore of Spada Lake, which is just a bit north of Highway 2 in the Startup/Gold Bar area. I wasn’t sure which peaks those were at the time, but I have since looked at a map. I’m fairly sure they are big peaks right next to the former-town of Monte Cristo (yes, the one along the Mountain Loop.) That is to say, Foggy Peak, Monte Cristo Peak, Kyes Peak, and Columbia Peak. I was kind of surprised to see that on the map, as I guess I just hadn’t really thought that closely about where exactly I was at the time. So, there you go. Have a great weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Unknown lens (but probably the Quantaray 70-300.) 1/1000s, f/11.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 70mm.
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March 21, 2011 – Olympic National Park
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on March 21, 2011
Olympic National Park
Monday, March 21, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=554
Not too long ago, I realized that I hadn’t yet posted this picture to the blog. That was simultaneously surprising and exciting, because I love this picture, so I was saving it for a good day. But right as I was about to post it, I realized that the reason I hadn’t posted it yet was because I DID already post the horizontal version of the same view. It was awhile ago, and ordinarily nobody would have ever known the difference. Except that, somewhat recently, I added a “similar posts” widget to the bottom of the page, and it’s almost guaranteed that that post (as well as another one that I took at the same time) will appear. Oh well, it’s still cool, it’s just less unique now. But, I figured I’d go ahead and still post it, because hey, why not?
This month is going to officially go down as the month with the smallest number of posts since I started the blog, which is sad. How can I say that with such confidence, even though there’s still more than a week left in the month? Well, see, it just so happens that I’m going on vacation early tomorrow morning, and where I’m going I certainly won’t be thinking about any of you. But before you get all excited thinking this might be the perfect time to stop by and help yourself to some of my more valuable possessions, keep in mind that the parents will be in town, and I warned them about you. Sorry, perhaps next time?
So, enjoy this picture, because it’s the last you’ll be hearing from me for a little while!
Oh, forgot to mention, this is a view of Mt. Constance (and some other assorted peaks) in Olympic National Park. I wasn’t actually inside the park when I took the picture though, I was in the Buckhorn Wilderness, which is north of the park.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/320s, f/8.0, ISO 300. Focal length: 70mm.
Popularity: 20%
February 23, 2011 – Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day, Washington State on February 23, 2011
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1467
Hey everybody! It’s been awhile since I’ve put anything up here (I’ve been busy!), so here’s a quick shot of some flowers to tide you over.
These are from the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival near Mt. Vernon, in Washington State. It’ll be coming up in here in a month or two, so, umm, dot dot dot.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/400s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 27%
February 2, 2011 – Mt. St. Helens
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on February 2, 2011
Mt. St. Helens
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=489
Today’s shot is a view of Mt. St. Helens, in southwestern Washington state. Specifically, this is the lava cone that’s rebuilding itself inside the big crater. To refresh everyone’s memory, Mt. St. Helens blew itself up quite spectacularly back in 1980, obliterating a large amount of the surrounding forest along with it. The 31 years since have provided a fascinating study into how the landscape is recovering. Including, as I mentioned, the lava cone rebuilding itself inside the crater. This isn’t actually THAT recent of a picture though, it was taken the last time I was down there, which was in the summer of 2007 I think. Presumably it doesn’t look drastically different now, almost 4 years later, but I really can’t say for sure either way.
This was taken using a cheap 70-300mm telephoto lens, way at the 300mm end of the spectrum. We were hiking around from the Johnston Ridge observatory, which is across a big valley from the peak itself. Yes, it took some post-processing to remove haze, since this was taken right during the middle of the day, and the subject was very very far away. And that totally rhymes, just sayin.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/500s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 32%
December 27, 2010 – Whitefish Mountain Resort
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on December 27, 2010
Whitefish Mountain Resort
Monday, December 27, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1277
I know, I know, I’ve been really light with the posts lately. But, it’s okay (really!) because I told you I would be. I’m setting expectations appropriately. So, in the interests of continuing to do so, I’m telling you now that this is almost certainly the only post you’ll see this week too, and then I may go back to a more normal schedule in January. Deal?
Today’s picture is another one of those that I seem to have a much higher opinion of than everyone else does. I love the textures in it, and the contrasting shades. But you think it’s boring. That’s okay though, we can still be friends. This one came from Whitefish Mountain Resort in Montana. I’m… running out of things to say about it.
Let’s see.. other stuff.. I guess I’ve got two things today, neither of which is any more exciting than anything we’ve covered thus far. FIRST! The annual Blogger’s Choice Awards popularity contest has rolled over, so I need votes. Go to http://bloggerschoiceawards, and vote for Picture of the Day in the Best Photography Blog category. I get a fair amount of traffic every day from them, so you’re definitely doing me a favor by voting me up (although not quite the favor you’d think – I don’t actually care if I win, I just want to be in the top three in the running so that I get clicks..) So, please take a moment to vote.
Now, in other news: I’m thinking about trying to sell some junk. I’m considering ordering some custom nightlights, among other worthless trinkets. (To be sold on Etsy, or maybe I’ll even go to some local shops and see if I can win them over.) Would any of you be interested in buying stuff like that? Is this just a terrible idea? If you let me know what you think (even if you say it’s an awful idea), then I’ll give you one for free or something if I do end up getting some made up. In the extraordinarily unlikely event that a whole bunch of you take me up on that, I may have to step back from the whole “free” thing and instead go for “really cheap”, but the spirit is still there. If the response to this offer is anything like that of when I sold calendars next year, well… then I’ll just be stuck with a box full of worthless night lights. But either way, let me know.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/800s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 70mm.
Popularity: 14%
November 9, 2010 – Family Skiing at Whitefish Mountain Resort
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on November 9, 2010
Family Skiing at Whitefish Mountain Resort
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1386
So, after kind of hinting at it yesterday, I really had intended to post a picture from Yosemite today. And, failing that, I was going to put a shot from my East Coast trip and say something about how I had suggested yesterday that it had been awhile since I was there and I’ve still only posted the one. But, I also failed at that, which means I’m totally at a loss as to what to toss up here today.
So, here’s a random picture of some people. No, I don’t know these people. I honestly have no clue who they are, but gosh, they’re sure having a good time, and I like that. I was playing around at Whitefish Mountain Resort (formerly Big Mountain) in Whitefish, Montana, trying to get pictures of people on the chairlift with cool stuff behind them. I was trying out this vantage point, but obviously the “stuff behind” part is pretty lacking. Ideally, you could get the valley view behind them, or even better, the peaks in Glacier National Park. But, I was never able to find a vantage point for the latter, and the lighting never really worked out for the former. But, I thought this was a nice little moment, and I can’t wait till my own kid is old enough that I can experience a moment just like it with him.
Back to the East Coast thing for a moment. So, I was (obviously) really excited to go out there, in the fall no less. But, between mixed weather and not really getting to spend enough time actually walking around in the trees (where I would expect to find the nice settings I was looking for), I was a bit disappointed in the pics I got. I was hoping that I was just being ridiculous, that there would actually be some really nice ones, and I was setting them aside for awhile hoping that I could revisit them with a clear head and realize that they were actually pretty cool afterall. So, I spent a bit of time last night looking through some of them, and at least in the subset I flipped through, there wasn’t much. I mean, there were a couple that were *almost* really cool, but they each had a bit of fuzz on them that kept them from being the shot I wanted. I mean, it totally makes sense – you’ve got to be really lucky to go someplace for only a day and a half and happen to get the perfect conditions for the perfect shot (locals always have the advantage, because they have the flexibility to go when it’ll be great, and often they also have the knowledge to know when that will be), but I was still hoping. Next time, I guess, next time. In the meantime, here’s Montana!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/500s, f/5.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 218mm.
Popularity: 14%
October 26, 2010 – Flowers
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day on October 26, 2010
Flowers
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=367
Turns out, it’s been awhile since I posted a flower picture. A travesty, right?? I mean, I guess I posted that one of the ant crawling around on the buds about a week ago, but other than that I’ve only posted one this whole month! So, here’s one that I took really soon after getting my first digital SLR awhile back. I (obviously) don’t know what kind of flowers these are, and this time I’m not even going to take the usual step of calling them daisies. They are totally NOT daisies. They might even be some kind of weed, I’m not sure. Although, that brings up another point: that I don’t even really know what the real definition of a weed is. I mean, if it’s got pretty flowers, why is it a problem? (Like, I’m starting to realize that poppies might be weeds, but poppies are really pretty! And orange. They are pretty and orange. That’s not typical weed behavior in my opinion.)
Regardless, this is a picture. A picture of some flowers. Some flowers that might be weeds. Want to know some other trivia about this picture? I took this picture before my wedding. As in, I was sitting around my house, just sort of farting around. I guess I didn’t have much else going on that day. So I went outside and took some pictures of flowers. And then I put my clothes on, and headed over to my wedding. True story.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. Other details unknown.
Popularity: 10%
September 20, 2010 – Some Weird Plant
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on September 20, 2010
Some Weird Plant
Monday, September 20, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1059
Anyone have any idea what the heck this thing is? I found it earlier this summer in the Rose Garden. I’m going to call it a “flower”, but I don’t even know if that’s true. I like the texture though. That’s it for today, short post, eh?
UPDATE: Somebody identified the plant as an “Astilbe”. Now I (and you) know!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/100s, f/6.3, ISO 800. Focal length: 183mm.
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%
July 28, 2010 – Ixora Flowers
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on July 28, 2010
Ixora Flowers
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1480
So, I don’t actually really know that these are called Ixora flowers. I THINK they are, but I only feel that way because I did a bunch of googling to try to find an answer. I mean, sure, a google search for “ixora flowers” returns a bunch of results that look just like these. But the folks who posted all of those may have just made the same mistake that I did, and now we’re all in a giant echo chamber, assuming that if everyone else says that’s what they are, then that must be what they are. Of course, I didn’t just randomly guess “ixora”, and then hit up google to see if I was right. Ixora is kind of a strange word, honestly. I can’t remember how I stumbled on it, but it probably came up sometime when I was searching through a list of Jamaican flowers.
Oh, right, forgot to mention that little detail. This is another picture that came from Jamaica. These little guys were on the hotel grounds. Yeah, I totally worked hard to get the flowers that I did, I walked all the way down the sidewalk from my room. So, anyway, there they are.
At the time that I was in Jamaica, I didn’t yet have any of my totally crazy macro tools, so I ended up taking this with my Quantaray 70-300mm telephoto. It gets to 1:4 on its own. I guess I did have my reverse-mount adapter, but that would be way closer than I wanted to be. I also brought my “macro kit”, which is the set of little magnifying lenses that you screw on like a filter. I used that a few times on the trip too. But not for this one. I mean, seriously, why did you even bring them up??
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/500s, f/8.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 17%
July 8, 2010 – Aspen Leaves
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Picture of the Day on July 8, 2010
Aspen Leaves
Thursday, July 8, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=674
Another late/short post today. Sorry about that! These are aspen leaves in the fall, in Colorado.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/320s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 183mm.
Popularity: 14%
July 2, 2010 – Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day, Washington State on July 2, 2010
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Friday, July 2, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1470
Umm, is anybody actually there? I figure by waiting until late in the afternoon on the Friday before a holiday weekend, I’ve already lost my entire U.S. audience. Well, whatever, they don’t know what they’re missing. Me and the rest of you guys can do without them.
Here’s another picture from this year’s Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. I found myself playing around with the boundary between tulips of two different colors. Some shots came out pretty well, others, not so much. I found that, in general, I was happiest with those where the very last row of the tulips of the color in front were in focus. I definitely played around with other focus points, and some of them definitely worked out okay, but “in general” (with big air-quotes), this is what tended to work the best. (Other things I tried were: focusing somewhere near the middle of the color in the foreground, focusing at the extreme front, and focusing on the closer flowers in the color that was further away – similar to the idea of focusing on the back of the front color, but definitely different.)
For this picture in particular, I was using my really old Quantaray telephoto lens. To review, that’s the first lens I ever bought to go with a digital camera. It’s passable, but it’s definitely not the best lens I’ve ever seen. But this all comes back to the idea that it’s really hard to find a “really good” telephoto lens that isn’t tremendously huge and doesn’t weigh several pounds. Obviously, there are those huge Canon lenses, the white-ish ones, that are all metal, and are a foot and a half long and like 6 inches in diameter. Those things are fantastic. But a) they’re not anything that resembles cheap, and 2) they’re HUGE, so the idea of taking them hiking is laughable. And recently I saw a reasonably-sized Canon lens that got decent reviews, but it was I think close to 1000 dollars, which is well more than I want to pay for a lens in that range. So this one isn’t that great, but any of the reasonably-priced, reasonably-sized alternatives aren’t quite enough of an improvement to justify the price. With the caveat that, I actually DID replace it recently, with the Canon 55-250, which also got what I’d call “reasonably” (I’m loving that word today) good reviews, and was in the realm of decently affordable. After using it for awhile, it’s.. fine. It’s not blowing me away, but it’s got image stabilization which is nice, so I guess it’ll do for now.
In other news, some random, totally awesome guy with fantastic taste put little old me in the list of his 5 favorite blogs. Neat!
Have a great holiday everyone. Or, if you’re not American, have a great Friday and Saturday, and at least a passable Sunday!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/800s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 248mm.
Popularity: 14%