Posts Tagged Tokina 11-16
July 8, 2011 – Larches at Heather Pass
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on July 8, 2011
Larches at Heather Pass
Friday, July 8, 2011
Well, three posts in one week. Not my worst ever performance, so I’ll take it. This is a view from just below Heather Pass in North Cascades National Park. And, those are larches. I’ve talked about them a bunch of times, but for review: they are pine trees that change color in the fall. They are awesome. I have run out of interesting things to say.
I’m not going to post anything Monday, I’m warning you ahead of time, so plan accordingly.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/400s, f/5.6, ISO 400. Focal length: 11mm.
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July 5, 2011 – Columbia River Valley
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State on July 5, 2011
Columbia River Basin
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2340
Hello, welcome back! (That was directed at me more than anyone else.) Those of you in the US probably already know why I didn’t post anything yesterday. (It was a holiday – Independence day!) Those of you *outside* the US probably also had a strong suspicion that you knew why I didn’t post anything yesterday (because I am lazy), but you were wrong! Actually, no, you were right, but that was only the secondary reason.
Regardless, I didn’t post anything. But today I did. It’s not a new picture or anything (yeah, I don’t take those anymore), it’s from last summer. Well, last spring. Whatever. Last year. This was taken on the east side of the mountains here in Washington state. For those of you unfamiliar with the topology of Washington state, it’s … kind of weird. The western part of the state (where I live, in Seattle), is extremely lush and green. We get rain *all* *the* *time*. Seattle has the reputation that it does for a reason. But, nearby to our east are the Cascade mountains. The effect of the mountains on the weather is kind of like squeezing a sponge. Basically, if you drive just a couple hours east of Seattle, over the mountains, you get to a desert. Yeah, it’s weird. But it’s the way it is.
So, that’s where this was taken. Before the Columbia River forms the border between Washington and Oregon, it heads basically straight south for awhile through the heart of Washington State. And Highway 97 runs along it for awhile. And that’s where I took this picture. So this is not the “Columbia River Gorge” that you hear a lot about, which is also pretty. But it *is* a gorge-like area formed by the Columbia River. So, there you go.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/160s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 26%
June 23, 2011 – Stars over Grand Coulee
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State on June 23, 2011
Stars over Grand Coulee
Thursday, June 23, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2541
Well, how’s that for irony? I finally got around to uploading those pics I was talking about, and then I never got around to posting one. Whoops. Oh well, here you go, one day later than intended. And, as you can clearly tell, this is not a photo of the northern lights.
That’s because I didn’t see any northern lights.
Also, this is facing south-ish.
I was out looking for the northern lights, but I don’t think they were quite visible at my latitude. The forecast said they should be, but I was pretty close to the forecasted limit, so I don’t blame them too much. I know what you’re thinking though – why would I expect to see the northern lights from inside a big canyon? Yeah, yeah, I know.
The problem was, first I needed to find clear skies. And that turned out to be a lot more difficult than it should have been. The clearing that was forecasted (by a different set of forecast people) didn’t work out either, so I had to head about 3-4 hours east of Seattle before I could even see stars. I was at that point heading northeast from I-90, through Grand Coulee. That’s where I was when I took this. No northern lights, but a nice view of the sky. So I stopped to take a few pics.
Depending on how bright you have your monitor set, you can pretty clearly see the milky way here, and I believe some “city” lights (from the “city” of Soap Lake) down there at the bottom. This was a 45 second exposure, which I discovered was about as long as I long as I could go before the natural movement of the stars started showing up in undesirable ways. (Right, right, it’s not the stars that are moving, rather it’s the Earth that’s spinning. Shut up. The stars were moving relative to my point of view.) That was surprising to me. I mean, of course I know that you get a lot of movement in long exposures, but I figured I’d have to go an order of magnitude longer (like, say, 10 minutes or more) in order to actually see movement in the resulting image. But no, anything over a minute showed just enough blur to be annoying. I mean, sure, you can make cool pictures that have big long star trails. But in order for those to not suck, you have to have them be long enough to not just be mistaken for camera shake or for your focus being off. Plus, the effect was exacerbated since I was looking south. (Since the further away you get from the north star, the more movement you get.)
But anyway, here’s today’s picture. That’s all. Move along.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 45s, f/3.2, ISO 800. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 25%
June 16, 2011 – Diablo Lake
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on June 16, 2011
Diablo Lake, North Cascades National Park
Thursday, June 16, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2111
This is Diablo Lake (I’ve also heard it called Emerald Lake) in North Cascades National Park. It’s not a natural lake strictly speaking, as it is the size it is because it’s dammed (which you can just barely see on the far right edge of the frame), to generate power for the city of Seattle. Whether or not it was a (much smaller/shallower) lake before it was dammed is not something I know. Actually, it’s dammed on both ends, as the next lake up the chain, Ross Lake, which is a long, narrow lake that extends just over the Canadian border, is also created via dam, and spills into Diablo.
And yes, it really is that color. The water is primarily glacial meltwater, and as such it’s filled with all sorts of silt and mineralage, which is what makes it look all milky like that. We get a fair bit of that here in the PNW (like the White River which comes out of Mt. Rainier National Park – it’s only a little tiny river, but the water looks like diluted milk, kinda weird.)
So, have a great rest of the day and all that.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/8.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 34%
May 16, 2011 – Blackcomb Lake
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Picture of the Day on May 16, 2011
Blackcomb Lake
Monday, May 16, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1708
I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Mine was nice, although I again failed to get out to take any pictures. Other than my trip to Hawaii earlier this year, I really haven’t taken much of anything in quite awhile. I’m just sitting here going through the archives, but those will run out eventually. After that? Who knows!
Anyway, this is Blackcomb Lake. It’s located on Blackcomb Mountain. (Shocker!) The weather was crappy, which was a common theme in the Pacific Northwest last summer. This summer is off to just as great of a start. (We’ve only had TWO DAYS THIS YEAR over 62 degrees! That’s 16.67 degrees for you celcius types.) I think I’m in a grumpy mood. Oh well, it happens.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/11.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 16mm.
Popularity: 14%
May 4, 2011 – Oahu’s North Shore
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Tropical/Beaches on May 4, 2011
North Shore, Oahu
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2472
Another one from Hawaii today, again from the North Shore of Oahu. I’m not sure what the name of this beach is (or if it even has a name), but it was along the road a little ways northeast of Sunset Beach. I stopped there to snap a couple pictures when I was on the way to pick up some breakfast. The clouds were rolling through all morning, so this particular shot doesn’t have quite the sunlight I was hoping for (and I had already spent more time than I had intended to here – so I didn’t want to wait another 5-10 minutes for the current cloud to pass me by). Also, it was a bit too early in the morning for the sun to be in quite the right spot.
Wait, back up a second, I should explain myself there. Most of the time, see, you get the best light for pictures either in the early morning or late afternoon. (Heard the phrase “golden hour”?) That’s because around noon and in the early afternoon, the sun just washes everything out, and you get flat colors and uninteresting shadows. Plus you can get a lot of haze and such which further drown out all the color. But, in my experience, that rule doesn’t apply when you’re taking pictures of tropical beaches. In fact, the opposite is often true. See, one of the things that’s so awesome about these places is the beautiful sand and the turquoise water. And, the best way (that I’ve found) to get that turquoise to really glow in your pictures is to have the sun shining right down on it, so that the light bounces off the sandy bottom and diffuses throughout. That, plus a polarizer filter, is how you get this kind of glow. So, the glow was kind of starting to come out here, but it was a bit too early yet for it to really shine (and, as I mentioned, the cloud that was halfway blocking the sun also didn’t help.)
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/8.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 16mm.
Popularity: 17%
April 26, 2011 – Yosemite Valley
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day on April 26, 2011
Yosemite Valley
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2170
Wait, it’s Tuesday already? What happened to Monday? Dang. I was kind of planning to post another Hawaii picture today, but when I started digging around looking for one (shouldn’t be THAT hard, I haven’t even gone through half of them yet, so the number I have available to choose from online is pretty small) I stumbled across this one from Yosemite. So I figured I’d save Hawaii for another day, and here we are.
I took this one with my wide-angle lens (Tokina 11-16), and it’s true that super wide-angle lenses cause some crazy distortion around the edges. But yes, that tree really was growing at like a 45 degree angle. I thought I had done a fairly good job at keeping everything as level as it can be, but now that I’m looking at those trees in the distance on the right, I’m thinking that side might be riding a tiny bit too high. Hmm. Oh well.
This was taken the first weekend in November last year. I was down in San Francisco for work, so I took a weekend to drive out to Yosemite. That was actually my first time out there, but it was really pretty at that time of year. The weather was of course pretty iffy (we only had a few hours of good weather, right after we got there (that’s when I took this and most of the other pictures that I got while there.) The full day we had planned for Sunday got rained out in a pretty dramatic way. Oh well, that kind of thing happens, especially in the shoulder seasons. Next time, next time.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/7.1, ISO 400. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 20%
April 1, 2011 – Makapu’u Beach, O’ahu
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Picture of the Day, Tropical/Beaches on April 1, 2011
Makapu'u Beach, Hawaii
Friday, April 1, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2423
Hey look, I’m back! And this is where I went! That’s right, I was in Hawaii, and it was awesome. Specifically, I was on the island of O’ahu for a week. I spent a few nights in Waikiki, then a few nights on the north shore. This picture though is from neither of those. You’re looking at Makapu’u Beach and the Kalanianaole Highway, at the southeastern tip of the island. Most of the beaches around there are just absurdly beautiful, which in some ways I found pretty surprising after spending the first couple days in Honolulu. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Honolulu’s not bad, it’s a fine place to spend some beach time, but it doesn’t have this gorgeous white sand and turquoise water that a lot of other spots on the island do. (Not to mention the cliffs and mountains and all that.) Great stuff.
So anyway, I’m back now, and it’s April, a brand new month. So hopefully I’ll start posting again with at least some sort of regularity. Time will tell if that actually happens though.
In other news, if you were hoping to get your hands on a print or two, this is your chance! I’ll sell you a print of any picture you see on the blog, and 100% of the proceeds will go to a good cause: to help offset the medical expenses incurred by the sister of a friend of mine who was recently diagnosed with stage IV stomach cancer. I haven’t thought too much about what price to charge, but let’s say somewhere around $20 for a 12 x 18 inch print, or $35 for 20 x 30 inches. (That’s approximately 30 x 46 cm, and 51 x 76 cm, for you metric types.) I’ll even ship it for free! (Well, I’ll ship to the US for free. If you’re international, I’ll have to check what it’ll cost me before I commit to that. 
) If you’re interested, leave a comment here or shoot me an email! ( dave (at) davefry.net ) (Alternatively, I could send your proceeds to the Red Cross for Earthquake relief – your choice.)
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/320s, f/7.1, ISO 200. Focal length: 11mm.
UPDATE: In response to the first comment below, here is the original, unedited image straight off the camera (well, shrunk down to web-size, but you know what I mean):
As you can see, I did some tweaking to the brightness/contrast, and I added a bit of sharpening too. I used the editing functionality from Picasa to make those changes (which is what I use for 99% of my photo editing – the other 1% is when I use Picnik to straighten something, because Picasa’s straighten feature results in a lower-quality image.) If you wanted to know more specifics about what I did (or how), please ask!
Popularity: 24%
March 15, 2011 – Sunset from Chuckanut Drive
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State on March 15, 2011
Sunset from Chuckanut Drive
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1663
So, it turns out that Washington has a bunch of water in it. I often kind of overlook that fact, since I’m kind of a mountain guy. I didn’t grow up around the water, and I really don’t have much of an idea what to do with it. But if you’re in to that sort of thing, there’s a lot of options around here. There’s big lakes, tons of rivers, and a huge amount of salt water. I mean, shoot, the entire western edge of the state is made up of fairly nice beaches (although not the kind where you’d want to actually play around in the water – that sh**’s cold!), and we’ve got the whole Puget Sound (and the Hood Canal) on top of that. I heard awhile ago that Seattle has more boats per capita than just about anywhere else. I don’t know if that’s true or not (meaning I’m too lazy to check Wikipedia at the moment), but it’s still impressive.
Today’s picture was taken from a nice little scenic drive that goes from near Mt. Vernon on the southern end up to Bellingham in the north, called Chuckanut Drive. It’s a windy little two-lane highway that hugs the (Puget Sound) coast. If you like those watery views, you’d love this road. Especially around sunset. It’s very Pacific-Northwest-y.
Also, this is the 350th post on this blog. For whatever that’s good for.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/8.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 20%
February 4, 2011 – Loveland Pass
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Colorado, Fall Color, Mountains, Picture of the Day on February 4, 2011
Loveland Pass, Colorado
Friday, February 4, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2237
Hello everyone, and welcome to Friday! It took awhile to get here, but hey, we’re here now, right? Today’s picture has kinda-sorta been posted before. Maybe you remember, maybe you don’t, but I posted a black and white version of this exact image just a couple months ago. At the time, I was saying how I normally don’t play around with things like black and white, because it’s kind of cheesy, and I’m not very good at it. (At knowing when is an appropriate time, when it’s just plain cheese, etc.) But I went ahead and did it on that (this) image because I thought it was a good illustration of the trick of using red-filtered black and white to make the scene slightly more dramatic, by emphasizing the clouds a bit more, stuff like that. (And I mentioned again how that was one of the tricks that Ansel Adams liked to use…)
Also, I talked a bit about how, even though I thought that it made a somewhat interesting black and white image, that the REAL colors in the REAL image were actually pretty striking. So I threatened to post the original image “soon”. Well, two months later may or may not qualify as “soon” in your book, but here it is. Obviously, it was autumn at the time (well, it was at the beginning of September, but that’s right at the height of fall in the high country in Colorado), so all of the grasses and such were this nice amber color, which contrasted nicely against the blue sky.
This was taken a little ways above Loveland Pass. Loveland Pass is in Summit County, Colorado. It used to be the primary way through these parts (good ole’ Highway 6), but then they built the Eisenhower tunnel along I-70 which was a much easier way to go. These ridgelines and stuff aren’t quite up to 14,000 feet, I think most of them are between 12k and 13k. Pretty high still. High enough, really. I had parked right at the pass, and started hiking up. I only had a couple hours to kill, so I couldn’t make it too far, but I did manage to make it up to the ridgeline. (You can see the trail up ahead as it snakes its way up there.) A really nice place to hike, I wish I had more time to explore.
Okay, see you next week!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/500s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 12mm.
Popularity: 44%
December 7, 2010 – Loveland Pass
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Mountains, Picture of the Day on December 7, 2010
Loveland Pass, Summit County, Colorado
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2236
I busted out one of Ansel Adams’s dirty little tricks today: red-filtered black and white. Except that, you know, he sort of had to plan it out ahead of time before he took the shot. I just had to get a little funky and decide to use Picasa’s filtered black and white tool, and choose a nice deep red. Have I mentioned that I feel super cheeseball when I make black and white images? It just.. seems like cheating.
But, I thought this one was a good example to show the results of using a (simulated) color filter on a black and white shot. Or, at least, it would be, if I weren’t too lazy to also include the full-color version, or either an unfiltered black and white or a version filtered with a different color, for comparison. As it is, you just get this one today. Although I’ll be honest, I actually prefer the full-color version, since the colors are, quite frankly, really awesome. It’s actually fairly rude of me to be talking about that without actually showing it to you, but hey, that’s how it’s going to be. Maybe I’ll post it here later this week or next week though, since it really does look nice.
Anyway, a red filter on a black and white shot has a lot in common with a polarizer filter on a full-color shot. It really darkens the sky and pulls out the white fluffy clouds. It’s a decent way to get around that nasty, mid-day sunshine too. But, I dunno, I’m still not a black and white kind of guy.
What’s that? Where was this taken? Oh, right. This was taken near Loveland Pass, in Summit County, Colorado. Loveland Pass used to be the way through the mountains, until they built the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70. Wikipedia knows ALL about it, if you were curious. WikiLeaks knows less about it, but hey, you might as well check there too.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/500s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 12mm.
Popularity: 34%
November 19, 2010 – Yosemite Falls
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Waterfalls on November 19, 2010
Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park
Friday, November 19, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2179
Hello, hello. Looks like I managed to squeeze in one more post this week afterall. Congrats! This is Lower Yosemite Falls, in Yosemite National Park. I had mentioned in the last picture I posted from Yosemite that some bad weather rolled in while we were there, and this was the result. This was the day that we were going to spend driving across the park to the eastern entrance, and also do some hiking here and there. But, it was raining pretty steadily, and they ended up closing the road through the park anyway. So, blah. Gave us an excuse to take the rental car back to the airport early and avoid an extra-day charge. But, it at least made the waterfalls look nice.
Today’s picture is actually interesting for another reason though. Or I suppose I should say, “today’s picture is actually interesting though.” Why’s that, you ask? (Hahaha, who am I kidding, you asking that would imply that you’re reading this, but I know better.) Well, it’s because, a few days ago, I downloaded a trial copy of Adobe Lightroom, and I’m putting it through its paces. Normally, I do all of my image management and touching up using Picasa, the free tool from Google. It’s… not great. But it’s fast, and it gets the job done. It only has a few tools to choose from, but if you know how to use them, it’s actually surprisingly powerful. But, there are definitely limits to what it can do, and often it’s clear that I’m using it in ways that it wasn’t really intended, so it can feel like a giant hackjob at times. Thus, the Lightroom trial.
After a few days, I’ve got mixed feelings about it. On the surface, it seems extremely powerful and slick. But, after using it for a little while, I’ve realized that even with all of the crazy fancy tools, I haven’t really found myself able to do much that I couldn’t do before. I mean, sure, there are tools that Picasa flat-out doesn’t have, light noise-reduction. And the tools definitely allow finer-grained control of exposure and color. But it’s an incremental improvement at best, not a night-and-day difference like I would hope for (and expect, based on the price.) Also, it’s SO EFFING SLOW! It’s amazingly unresponsive. Using it feels like I’m riding a tricycle on the freeway. Granted, a large part of the problem is that I’m using fairly dated hardware. But, even on my crusty old desktop PC, Picasa runs like a champ. Performance and the responsiveness of the UI is one thing I may not be able to get over.
Oh, right, I think I forgot to mention this part: today’s picture is the first picture that I edited purely in Lightroom. Actually, not quite true. It’s the second. But it’s the first one I’m posting here.
I’m going to keep using Lightroom, as it’s entirely possible that I’m not giving it a fair shake, because the controls are clearly not what I’m used to. (I’ve been using Picasa for YEARS – literally! – so I’ve gotten embarrassingly proficient with it.) I mean, I’ve got 30 days of free trial, I may as well use them. But I’ve got a feeling I’m going to run back to Picasa with open arms and tears streaming down my cheeks at the end of this crazy experiment. We’ll see.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/4.5, ISO 400. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 24%