Posts Tagged Tamron 28-75
April 7, 2011 – Autumn Leaves
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day on April 7, 2011
Autumn Leaves
Thursday, April 7, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2089
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/13.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 28mm.
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September 23, 2010 – Merritt Lake Trail
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on September 23, 2010
Merritt Lake Trail
Thursday, September 23, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1147
So, as promised, here’s a shot of some fall color, to officially welcome autumn! Well, it wasn’t really promised per se, it was more sort of vaguely hinted at. But that’s as good as a promise in my book! (Probably explains why I’m habitually disappointed by everyone around me.)
This picture of course comes from my favorite fall-color hike: the Merritt Lake Trail, which is along Highway 2 a little ways east of Stevens Pass. If there are any east-coasters reading this that find themselves stranded here in the Pacific Northwest and missing the colors found in the sea of deciduous trees out there, they should totally check this trail out. At least the first couple miles of it anyway. Most of the forest out here is of course coniferous, which means you don’t get any fall color. But you can find pockets that are spectacular. Specifically, there’s a lot of color in the lowlands, there tends to be a lot of oaks and such along rivers in the mountains, and here and there you’ll find random pockets of color like along this trail. Also, the little bushes and such at higher elevations tend to have some nice color displays, but you have to work a little bit more to get to those.
As far as when to go, that depends on your target. The high country is probably showing some really nice color *right now*, and potentially for the next couple weeks. The mid-country (like this trail) shows some really nice color in early/mid October usually (this picture was taken on October 11 last year, although the year before it wasn’t quite this far along that early), and the lowlands tend to peak around the end of October, maybe into the beginning of November. It’s of course tough to know how things are looking up there until you’re actually out there, so it can be a real bummer if you guess wrong, and aim too high or low. (Yeah, been there, believe me – last year in fact, I thought it was still high-country time, so I did a hike up at Mt. Rainier, but instead of seeing any fall color I ended up just hiking around in 3-6 inches of snow the whole day. Still awesome in its own way, but not quite what I had in mind.) I’m actually super curious to see what’s going on this year. Since the weather’s been so atypical all summer long, I have no clue when all the different colors will come out. They’re predicting about a day and a half of decent weather this weekend though, so I’m hopefully going to find out. My absolute fear is that this nice weather will land too soon, and nothing will be changing yet. We’ll see.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/5.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 37mm.
Popularity: 14%
June 30, 2010 – Autumn on the Merritt Lake Trail
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on June 30, 2010
Autumn on the Merritt Lake Trail
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1151
It’s the end of June, folks. That means fall is right around the corner. I’m saying that with a particularly cynical attitude, given that here in Seattle we’re still waiting for our summer weather to start. A common joke around here is that summer in Seattle starts on July 5th. And this year it’s holding particularly true. We’ve still only had I believe one day that hit 75 degrees in Seattle this year. One. Effing. Day. As I write this it’s hovering “comfortably” in the low 60s. But, sometime in the mid-morning on July 5, our summertime high pressure is supposed to finally arrive in earnest, and next week is supposed to be gorgeous. But until the 5th, we’ll be struggling to hit 65 degrees. Sigh.
Right, anyway. Here’s another picture taken in the fall along the Merritt Lake Trail. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you might start to wonder if the Merritt Lake Trail is the ONLY trail I’ve ever hiked in the fall. But the reality is, if you just consider the last couple years, you’d be exactly right. (Amazing what having a kid will do to your best laid plans…) But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a FANTASTIC trail in the fall. Lots of crazy bold colors that don’t seem like they should naturally occur in nature, especially not in that quantity. (Maybe not QUITE as unnatural-looking at the explosion of fluffy pink cherry blossoms in the springtime, but bringing those up is playing dirty.)
Anyway, enjoy the rest of your June. If you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest with me, you’re probably outside having fun instead of hunkering down inside with a jacket on reading stupid blogs on the internet.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm
Popularity: 13%
February 26, 2010 – Cheakamus Lake
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Mountains, Picture of the Day on February 26, 2010
Cheakamus Lake
Friday, February 26, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1099
So I mentioned yesterday how I already had today’s picture picked out. That was true, but this isn’t it. I realize earlier that, while I absolutely LOVE that picture, the version I had online was a little bit over-sharpened. (This one is too, but it’s not quite as drastic.) So I need to revisit it, and maybe I’ll use that one in a week or two. Instead, you get this one, which was actually taken on the same day as that other one. Blah blah blah, I realize that it’s really all the same to you guys, as long as I post a picture at all. But this way I’m keeping it straight in my own head.
This is the view over Cheakamus Lake from the backside of Whistler Mountain. You can’t ski to where I was standing when I took it (well, you CAN, but it’s out of bounds, so it would require hiking all the way back up to where you started), but you can hike there. This was along the High Note trail on Whistler mountain. (Which makes a big loop, although you can shorten the loop to something easy to do in 2-3 hours by taking the Half Note trail which branched off about a quarter mile from where this was taken.) This spot is a little ways below the top of the Symphony Express, if that helps you place it at all. Obviously, it’s a pretty nice view from up there.
This trip took place very soon after I picked up my awesome super-wide-angle lens this summer, the Tokina 11-16. Since I wasn’t very happy with my other lens at the time (the super-zoom Tokina 28-300), I ended up putting the wide angle on the camera for the entire hike. Which was kind of an interesting experience. The pictures you can get with a super wide angle are way different from any other kind of lens, so it really makes you think differently about framing your shots. But it was definitely fun. Although now that I’ve gone to the Tokina 17-50 as my workhorse lens, I haven’t found myself reaching for the wide angle as often. (When your workhorse lens starts at 28, that leaves a LOT of ground on the wide-angle side. At 17? Not so much.) But that’s okay, it’s still there if I need it.
Hahahahaha, I just took a look at the EXIF data on the image, and it turns out that everything I wrote in the last paragraph is basically totally wrong. Whoops. Turns out this was NOT taken with the Tokina, in fact it was taken with my Tamron 28-75, which means I had ALREADY swapped out my 28-300. (And then I eventually traded the 28-75 for the 17-50, which is basically the exact same lens except that it’s more wide-angle). And, that’s the lens I used for this picture, which means that what I said about not changing my lens at all during the hike was also a complete lie. Ha!
This brings to a close Whistler/Vancouver week on the Picture of the Day, thanks for reading! Come back next week for the rest of the world.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75 mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/10.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 16%
February 24, 2010 – Changing Leaves
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Fall Color, Macro, Picture of the Day on February 24, 2010
Changing leaves
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1088
Rather than suffocate all of you with a neverending set of mountain vistas from the twin peaks of Whistler and Blackcomb, I figured I should mix in some other stuff too. Like this one. This could have been taken anywhere, really. But it wasn’t, it was taken a little ways up the Singing Pass trail, which starts up the hill from right near the Whistler gondola. I really really wish I had gotten the bottom of the leaf in focus too, but I didn’t. It’s a textbook example of one of the really annoying things that can happen with digital. The shot looked great on the camera’s little screen, so I moved on, confident that I got the image I wanted. It wasn’t until much later (when I got home) that I realized my mistake. I was working with a pretty small depth of field as you can see, so what I *should* have done was gotten more square on that leaf in front, such that the whole surface would have been within range. Instead, I came in from a little bit above, so the bottom was just out of reach. (That, and the leaf was a bit curled in on itself.) Careless, careless, careless. Sigh.
Still a beautiful couple of leaves though, so it’s not a complete waste of time. Check back tomorrow, that’s going to be the day that I’m going to get the picture of Shannon Creek out of the way. (You didn’t think I’d go a whole week of PICTURES OF CANADA without tossing one of those in there, did you??)
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75 mm lens. 1/125s, f/3.5, ISO 400. Focal length: 59mm.
Popularity: 20%
January 25, 2010 – Grass
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Picture of the Day on January 25, 2010
Grass
Monday, January 25, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1091
Another weekend, come and gone. Would have been nice if I had gotten out of bed to enjoy it. Oh well, too late for that now. Today’s picture takes us back to this fall, when I was up in Whistler for the weekend. The weather wasn’t what I’d call ideal, but of course complaining about it doesn’t help anyone. It still turned into a great weekend, because how could any weekend away from home not be great? This picture was a bit funny, because I just happened to turn around when I was walking the other way, and I thought it looked kind of cool. I didn’t actually think it would turn out though, or even if it did I figured it’d just be a throwaway. Heck, even on the camera screen I was kind of meh about it. But I liked it on the big screen. I mean, it’s not like my favorite picture ever or anything, but it’s good enough to look at. I think the contrast in the sky saves it.
That’s all the time I have for today, I’ll try to make tomorrow’s post more substantive, it’s been a while since I’ve really written anything meaty.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm lens. 1/400s, f/16.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 40mm.
Popularity: 9%
January 4, 2010 – Autumn Hiking
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on January 4, 2010
Autumn on the Merritt Lake Trail
Monday, January 4, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1149
Okay, finally, we’re done with all of those holidays and all that. Back to the grind, etc. Not only is this your first post of the YEAR, it’s also the first post of the WEEK! Man oh man, the excitement is palpable. Palpapalable. Plapable. Palatable. The excitement is reasonably agreeable.
Hiking in the fall is great. Views that are normally composed of a bunch of indistinguishable ordinary green suddenly become a lot more interesting. I’m a big fan of color in my pictures as you’ve probably noticed, so I’m like a kid in a candy store that time of year. There was a several minute gap between writing each sentence in this paragraph, that’s why they don’t really fit together.
In other news, I really do apologize for the infrequency of posts over the past couple weeks. I used the holidays as an excuse, but that’s really all it was, an excuse. The real reason is actually pretty silly, and a little bit embarrassing. There was this website, see, that gives away these cheeseball blog awards. No, not the bloggers choice awards, this is a completely different sleazeball awards website. But it’s a similar idea, you nominate yourself and tell everyone to register and vote for you, thus making all of your friends give away their contact info to a shady organization for no benefit to themselves. It’s really a pretty smart way to get other people to recruit traffic for you. But back to the point, I nominated myself and was waiting to see if I was chosen as a finalist. I figured I wouldn’t be, but just in case I was I didn’t want to have a bunch of crappy pictures posted that would scare any traffic that headed my way because of it. But at the same time I didn’t want to “waste” a bunch of top quality pics in quick succession either. I gotta spread those out, ya know? And use filler pictures like this one to push back that inevitable sad day when I run out of postable pictures. Well, in the end they just cancelled this year’s awards for whatever reason. So now I can resume your daily drip of mostly mundane but occasionally fantastic photos. Welcome back!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75 mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/2.8, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 8%
December 23, 2009 – Rose
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on December 23, 2009
Rose
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1106
Yeah, I know, I know, I promised either a baby ostrich or a barbed wire fence today. Or at least something keeping with the theme of using only crappy and/or weird pictures this week while “nobody was around to read the blog”. Well, I couldn’t do it today. Because, you see, this is the last post until sometime next week. Which means, all of the random folks that land on this page between now and then will see *today’s* post as their first and most likely *only* impression of me. So I had to make it a good one, right? Don’t worry, you’ll get to see at least one of the mediocre pictures that you want next week.
Today’s shot is another one taken with a macro kit, basically a set of magnifying glass type things that you screw onto the front of your lens. But this was a somewhat different set up than you’ve seen before, because this was taken with a lens that I bought at the end of the summer, a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, and because it takes a different size of filter than the lens I formerly used with my macro kit, a brand new macro kit. But it’s the same idea.
The macro kits do work as advertised, allowing you to focus more closely and get further in than you would be able to otherwise. But they can also add sort of a hazy, dreamy feel to the pictures (particularly at the far end of your zoom), which may or may not help the picture. This picture is a perfect example. It looks like it’s been extensively photoshopped, but in reality I only did minimal post-processing on it. If I had the original handy, I’d post it here as well so you could see. Perhaps I’ll do that later. Definitely a great toy to play around with, and it can definitely get you some really interesting images that you wouldn’t get otherwise. But it’s also definitely not something you want to keep on your lens all the time.
Okay, that’s it for this week. Have a great holiday if you’re in to that sort of thing!
Popularity: 15%
November 4, 2009 – Fallen leaves
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on November 4, 2009
Fallen leaves, Woodland Park, Seattle Washington
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1160
It’s a gorgeous fall day here in Seattle today, so I decided to stick with the theme. This was taken on the same little outing as yesterday’s picture. I popped Wes in the baby backpack, and took him for a little walk around the park. He fell asleep about 10 feet from the front door, but at least I had a good time.
This time of year, the trees tend to get all of the love. Everybody looks around and says “wow, those trees are awesome!”. But it seems to me that all of the leaves that already fell are at least half of the experience. The yellow and orange light that filters down through the canopy are nice, but the orange/brown ground cover completes the experience. For me anyway. Does this paragraph seem forced at all? Because it totally is. I didn’t want to call it done after just that first half-baked set of comments, so I sat here staring at my keyboard for about 5 minutes trying to think of something else to write.
Now you know.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75 mm lens. 1/250s, f/5.6, ISO 200. Focal length: 44mm.
Popularity: 9%
November 3, 2009 – Woodland Park
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on November 3, 2009
Woodland Park in Autumn
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1156
I love the fall, I really do. I also really like living across the street from Woodland Park. It’s a nice place to head out for a little walk if you’ve got that “I just gotta get outside” thing going on. And when you get these nice, sunny days in the fall, the yellow light filtering down through the leaves is just… sublime.
A lot of the trees here around Seattle have already finished for the season, but we’ve still got a lot of the season left (And there are still a bunch of trees that are still green!) That’s one nice thing about Seattle: we have a nice long fall. Which does help compensate for the short summers and the fact that it gets dark at 4:30 pm in the winter.
I hope you all have been able to get out and enjoy the season. If not, do it while there’s still time! Forget work, this is more important! Do it NOW! Okay, see you tomorrow.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75 mm f/2.8 lens. 1/160s, f/6.3, ISO 400. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 7%
October 26, 2009 – View from Burroughs Mountain
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on October 26, 2009
View from Burroughs Mountain, Mt. Rainier National Park
Monday, October 26, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1137
Today’s picture was taken on the way up Burroughs Mountain, in Mt. Rainier National Park. The trail leaves from Sunrise, which is on the eastern side of the park. This was just a few weeks ago – I had hoped to find a hike with some good fall color, but as you can tell, I aimed a bit too high. There was plenty of color a couple thousand feet down (I was about about 7 or 8 thousand feet), but up here it was all well past the peak and covered in a dusting of snow. Oh well, it was still really pretty.
There are of course two ways (well, two EASY ways anyway) to get into the high country in the park – Sunrise and Paradise. Sunrise being, as I mentioned, on the east side of the park (near Crystal Mountain), and Paradise on the south. For whatever reason, I’ve spent much more time at Sunrise than at Paradise. They’re both fantastic, but it’s worth mentioning that if what you’re after is awesome views of Rainier itself, and you’re hiking in the afternoon, you may want to head to Paradise. The sun of course sets in the west, so in the afternoon Rainier is backlit, so it’s much harder to see all the detail of the glaciers and such. But that’s not the point here.
That last sentence sort of implies that there *is* a point here. I’m pretty sure that’s not true. But if there was one, it wouldn’t be that.
Map: http://bit.ly/3HWFBu
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75 mm lens. Â 1/500s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Â Focal length: 62mm.
Popularity: 8%
October 22, 2009 – A Bit of Color
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Fall Color, Macro, Picture of the Day on October 22, 2009
A bit of color
Thursday, October 22, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1090
Hey everyone! It’s still fall out there, so here’s a bit more color for ya. Taking pictures of good fall color is harder than it should be, or at least it seems that way to me. It’s so beautiful to just look at, so my gut instinct is that it should just naturally make for an effortless great picture. But it never quite seems to work out that way.
You of course need to decide what kind of role the leaves are going to play in the picture. Are they going to be the subject? Or are they going to just help set the scene? Are you going to try to emphasize the leaves themselves? Or focus more on the tree (or bush.. or whatever) as a whole? The amount of detail in a tree that’s changing for the season is both a blessing and a curse. There’s a lot of interesting stuff to look at, but it’s way too easy for that to end up just adding too much chaos and complexity to the picture. That just ends up leaving my eye confused. It’s a fine line between having that much detail enhance a picture, and having it just give the person looking a headache.
This picture is obviously going the “color as subject” route. I keep walking around and seeing individual leaves that are just astoundingly beautiful, with sometimes 3 or 4 distinct colors. There’s got to be SOME way of turning that into a great picture, but it never quite turns out the way I want it to. It’s hard to have it tell a story, instead of just saying “oh, yeah, there was this leaf there.” I guess what I’m trying to get at is, it’s hard to present it all such that the viewer’s eye is definitively drawn to a distinct subject, instead of just perceiving the photo as a jumble of lines and colors that aren’t really coherent. I’ve seen some really fantastic examples, and every time I do, it just seems like it should be so easy. When I wrote that last sentence, I was visualizing this picture that my friend Nina took, it’s got this brilliant red leaf all alone on a bunch of gravel. So simple, yet so maddeningly hard to capture. I’ll try to track down a link to it, you really should see it.
Not really applicable to this picture in particular, but I also have trouble when I try to capture a really pretty tree when I see one. When I do see one, it instantly just puts me in that fall state of mind, which I love. So I try to capture that in pictures, I want a picture that recreates that mood. But I almost always just end up with either a shot that contains a pretty tree along with a bunch of boring ordinary stuff like power lines and/or buildings, or I get a shot looking up at a tree, which when I look at it, makes me say “yup, looking up at a tree”, but it doesn’t put me in the mood like I’m looking for.
Man, I’m afraid to go back and read all that crap I just wrote. I honestly don’t even know if I used complete sentences or not. I’m running on 2 hours of sleep here, and I was interrupted twice. Meh, maybe it makes sense, maybe not. The sheer number of words I used sure looks impressive, so I’m sticking with what I got. See you all tomorrow!
Details: Canon EOS Rebel T1i. Tamron 28-75 mm lens. 1/200s, f3.5, ISO 100. Focal length: 68 mm.
Popularity: 7%