Posts Tagged Tokina 11-16
November 3, 2010 – Stars over Moses Coulee
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State on November 3, 2010
Stars over Moses Coulee
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2125
Hey folks! You may remember a couple months ago (almost to the day), I mentioned that I went over to “Eastern” Washington (I used quotes because, geographically, “central” would have been more accurate, but the term basically means east of the Cascade crest) for a day and a night. I went on for a little while about how pretty it actually was over there, and I posted a shot that was, and essentially still is, the only one I’ve actually snagged out of that set and processed and tossed online. That occurred me to me recently, and I realized that I should really take the time to go through those some more, and start tossing them into the mix.
Yeah, well, that still hasn’t really happened. BUT, I did spend a few minutes last night looking through them. Not ALL of them, but at least the ones that look like this one. One of the nice things about camping, in the desert specifically, is that you get to see a lot of stars. I happened to wake up in the middle of the night anyway, so I decided to fart around outside for awhile. It was really gorgeous out there, you could see the milky way and everything, and there were a couple spots in the sky where you could see a little bit of city glow. In this particular picture, the glow is coming from Wenatchee, although in the other direction you could see (much more dimly) something else, Ellensburg maybe? Don’t know.
So, I took some star pics. I got some shots of the milky way and all that. And shots like this. Turns out I’m not actually sure my camera allows me to set exposure times longer than 30 seconds. Or at least, I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I think there’s a mode where you can hold it open as long as you want, but I think that requires holding down the shutter button, which would have shaken the camera. I have a remote control, but that’s just for starting the exposure, but then it uses the settings you’ve got set. I’m sure they make little cable things that you can hold down a button on without shaking the camera, but I don’t have one. So, I was restricted to whatever I could get to turn out by opening up the aperture all the way, cranking the ISO up (I had it set at 800), and exposing for 30 seconds. And this is what you get.
As I was looking through these shots, I realized that my sensor has a few hot pixels on it. These turned up as little dots that were pure red or pure blue. I cheated a bit and used Picasa’s Retouch feature to erase them where I could, but sometimes I wasn’t sure if I was actually removing hot pixels or stars, so I probably missed a couple and took out a couple that weren’t actually what I thought they were. But whatever, not important. I haven’t yet done enough analysis to figure out if it was *actual* hot pixels (as in, pixels that always say they were 100% exposed), or if it was just random sensor noise due to the dark conditions and super long shutter speeds. (ie, I haven’t checked if the same pixels came out hot in every frame, and I haven’t checked if I get any spots if I do a long exposure in complete darkness. Honestly, I’m not sure I will either, I don’t think I care enough.)
Anyway, here you go, here’s what it looked like from where I was camping. Now you know just what it was like. It’s almost like you were sitting right there next to me in the tent. Wow, this just got a little bit awkward, didn’t it?
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 30 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 800. Focal length: 11mm.
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October 12, 2010 – Colchuck Lake
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Fall Color, Mountains, Washington State on October 12, 2010
Dragontail and Colchuck Peaks above Colchuck Lake
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1922
Over the past few weeks I seem to be posting a lot of recent pictures, more so than normal. That’s probably because, at least in my mind, this time of year is primetime for me. I absolutely love the fall, I think in general things are more beautiful now than at any other time. The colors change, the temperature’s perfect, the snow has finally melted enough so you can get to the high country, the bugs are gone, and even the humidity drops so you don’t get as much haze. It’s fantastic! One of these years I’m totally going to leave my schedule open so I can take a few days off at a moment’s notice and head up to the hills whenever the weather’s going to be nice. Not this year, unfortunately. But maybe next year.
I’ve already posted two pictures recently from the hike up to this point, so now you get to look at the reward that you get at the end of the trail: Colchuck Lake. The two peaks you see at the end of the lake, in no particular order, are Colchuck Peak and Dragontail Peak. I’m not sure what the name of the one that’s lit up there on the left is. That’s the Colchuck Glacier (the primary water source for this lake I think) between the two peaks there in the distance. It’s tough to see it through the reflection, but this lake (like many lakes in the high country) is very green and milky, due to silty deposits from glacial meltwater.
Sadly, I only had time for a dayhike, and I had stayed up until 2 am the night before picking just the right trail. But, I feel like I picked a winner, although it would have been great had I been able to stay overnight and see what this place looked like just before sunset and just after sunrise. Oh well, next year, right? I timed it intentionally so that I’d get to this spot with just about an hour and a half of daylight left, because that’s when the light starts getting good. So that at least worked out for me, although it made the hike back to the car a bit dicey. Also, I only had about 10 or 20 minutes to hang out at the lake proper before I had to head out, which meant I couldn’t explore much. I basically got to see the view from the end of the lake, then I had to turn tail and run. But man, it was worth it.
Okay, that’s it for today!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/40s, f/11.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 17%
October 11, 2010 – Sourdough Ridge Trail
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on October 11, 2010
Sourdough Ridge Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park
Monday, October 11, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2079
Hey folks! I’ve got a number of items for discussion today, relating to today’s photo. How exciting! Normally I just have to sit there and try to manufacture something to talk about. But not today! I have actual content for you! Woooo!
So, first of all, what are we looking at? This was taken in Mt. Rainier National Park, and yes, that’s Mt. Rainier (the 14,410 foot tall volcano) peeking out from above that ridgeline in the upper left. This was taken on the day that I hiked the Borroughs Mountain trail, although at this point I believe I was still on the Sourdough Ridge trail, which takes you up to the Burroughs trail proper. You can see the junction in this picture though (well, you can see where the junction is, but the junction itself isn’t significant enough to be recognizable), and you can see the Burroughs trail heading up and to the left, cut out of that hillside there. These trails start at Sunrise point, which is on the east side of the mountain. (Although it feels like the north side, since drive up and around the north side of the mountain to get there, on Highway 410, which is also the road that takes you to Crystal Mountain Ski Resort.) The other, more popular spot that takes you fairly high up on the mountain (6000 feet or so I think) is called Paradise, and it’s on the south side.
So, on to the things that I actually had to talk about. Let’s go ahead and get started on those, in no particular order.
A couple times recently, when talking about my strategies for choosing fall color hikes, I mentioned in passing a hike I went on last year, where I screwed up and aimed too high. I ended up in a spot that had no more color left, and in fact was covered in a light dusting of snow. This was that hike. It was still a great day and I’m still glad I went, but the original goal, finding fall color, was not fulfilled. (Well, I guess you could say that “white” is a color that is sometimes encountered in fall. Or, you could even claim that since white is ALL colors, that all of the fall colors I was looking for were included. But that would be lame and pedantic, and I would cut our conversation short at that point.) A week or two earlier, there may have been some nice bushes and low ground color that was turning color, but clearly it’s done for the year at the time this shot was taken.
Next up, I’m going to point out how painfully obvious it was that this picture was taken with a super wide-angle lens. It’s no secret that wide-angle lenses cause some pretty severe distortion as you move away from the center, particularly in the corners. Depending on how you frame the picture, that often isn’t really an issue. But if you put something that normally has a really recognizable shape in the corner, like, oh I don’t know, a face, or a really famous mountain peak, then it becomes a little bit more obvious. So, yeah, that’s still obviously Mt. Rainier. But, umm, it kind of looks a little bit funny. Hahaha, look at that funny looking mountain.
That’s enough specifically about this image. For now, anyway. This paragraph is going to be spent talking about my opinions on something slightly more general. That being: where to hike around Mt. Rainier. It’s been becoming more and more apparently to me over the last year or two that the primary direction of the views along a particular trail can really make a difference in the resulting quality of your images. And, unfortunately, none of the trail guidebooks I’ve seen really call this out at all, which then leaves it up to me to try to determine as best I can. You probably all realize that the angle and the quality of the light makes a huge difference in a picture. In general (any rule in photography always needs that disclaimer, “in general”), when you’re looking at something that’s in the same general direction as the sun, you’ll get ugly backlight. When hiking in the summer, that means you won’t get any blue sky, and you’ll probably see a lot of haze between you and the subject. It’s true that those exact factors can be used to great affect, but they can make things like mountains look.. not as nice as you’d like. Conversely, if the sun is behind you, it can look better, or there are a lot of angles in between that are better still. So, why am I talking about this? Well, pretty much anywhere you go other than between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the sun will have a predominant angle. In the northern hemisphere, while it’s true that “the sun rises in the east and sets in the west”, it spends basically the entire day in the southern sky. Meaning, if you’re going to be looking at things south of you all day, you’re going to be backlit all day. If you’re looking at stuff to the north, it’ll be pretty much directly illuminated all day. If you’re looking at stuff to the east, it’ll look real nice in the afternoon. And stuff to the west will look nice in the morning. Unfortunately, unless you’re staying in the area, it can be tough to get to Sunrise early in the morning. Meaning, every time I go there, I’m hiking in the afternoon. Since Rainier is west of the trails, you get a bunch of backlight and haze. Boooo. So, if you’re planning a hike around Mt. Rainier, and you know you’ll be up there primarily in the early afternoon, might I suggest heading to Paradise instead of Sunrise?
Now here’s where I’m really going to change gears and throw you off. But I’m still going to be talking about the angle of the sun, so it’ll totally seem like I planned it out. So, any skier or snowboarder who takes the sport seriously knows that north-facing slopes are generally preferable. The reason why goes back to what I was talking about in the last paragraph: in the northern hemisphere, the eastern and western slopes get full-on sun for about half the day each, and southern facing slopes get it basically all day long. But the northern facing slopes are nice and sheltered all day. Thus, the snow stays nice and fresh. And this picture illustrates that nicely. Granted, this was snow from just one early-season storm, but since I was facing basically due west when I took this shot, you can see that all of the north-facing slopes are covered in snow, while all of the south-facing slopes have melted clean. Neat, right? Yup, neat.
That’s it! Or, maybe that’s not it, but that’s all of it that I remembered by the time I sat down to write it!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/400s, f/10.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 13%
September 10, 2010 – Moses Coulee
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Picture of the Day, Washington State on September 10, 2010
Moses Coulee
Friday, September 10, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1819
Hey everyone! Earlier this week, I mentioned that, due to forecasted crappy weather in the Cascades, I ended up heading across the mountains, out to the desert for a night. I still haven’t had a chance to look through all the pics I got, but there are definitely some decent ones. You may also remember me mentioning that I was surprised to see that there’s some really pretty stuff out there. Now you can start to get an idea what I was talking about. It was really nice!
This is taken near the top of Moses Coulee, which is a little ways east of Wenatchee. This spot is actually just up the canyon from the (little) town of Palisades. Driving up the canyon is definitely worth the time – there are these huge basalt walls the whole way up, and most of the canyon is irrigated, so the floor is carpeted with vibrant green crops. It’s a really pretty juxtaposition, it’s truly gorgeous in the late afternoon when the sun is nice and golden. (Or, early in the morning, as I also found out.) As you get nearer to the top of the canyon, the farm (and ranch) lands end, the road turns to dirt, and you get back to natural vegetation. The whole area was deserted when we were there, despite the fact that it was Labor Day Weekend, so we had our choice of hundreds of nice spots to lay down our camp. (We tossed around the idea of backpacking in somewhere, but it was getting late, we didn’t do our research beforehand, and a lot of the land was actually privately owned, so we figured it wasn’t worth the effort.) We very nearly chose a spot right smack in the middle of that big valley floor that you’re looking at, but instead we ended up a little further down the canyon, that still had sunlight until an hour or two after this picture was taken (and also had the benefit of a nice early sunrise).
Moses Coulee is part of the larger land area called the “Channeled Scablands”, which take up a significant portion of central Washington state. If you aren’t already familiar with the area, I strongly urge you to do some reading about it (just type “channeled scablands” into your favorite search engine to get started), it’s really fascinating. Basically, the whole landscape was torn completely to shreds during the last ice age. There was a huge lake in western Montana (Glacial Lake Missoula) that would repeatedly form due to ice blocking off the drainage. Eventually (every 50 years or so) the water would overwhelm the plug, and kajillions of gallons of water would come rushing over all of the Idaho panhandle and Washington state. The flow was absolutely ridiculous, the entire area would get covered in a couple hundred feet of water in the matter of a couple days or something like that (I’m completely making up all these details, but they’re available all over the place). During these flood periods, the spot now known as “Dry Falls” became the largest known waterfall to ever flow on the planet – 3 and a half miles long, falling 400 feet. Apparently the river was about 300 feet deep, travelling around 65 miles per hour when it hit the falls. According to Wikipedia, the flow of water over the falls was equal to **10 TIMES** the TOTAL flow of all modern-day rivers COMBINED. That’s pretty ridiculous. And, this is the result. Cool stuff!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/4.5, ISO 200. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 15%
August 30, 2010 – Mayflower Gulch
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Mountains, Picture of the Day on August 30, 2010
Mayflower Gulch
Monday, August 30, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1047
Hello, dear readers! It’s Monday again! Woooooo!!!!! What, not feeling the enthusiasm?? Yeah, me neither. Sigh. I went out of town this last weekend though, that was cool. Headed up to Whistler, and did a little bit of hiking. That’s not where this picture is from though. More on that in a bit.
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this already or not, but I have a new (ish) rule of thumb: I refuse to look at my pictures on the big screen until at least a couple days have passed since I took them. Sounds like a weird self-imposed rule, right? Well, see, there’s a reason I had to do it. I’m always excited at the pictures I’m taking. For whatever reason, they always seem to look FANTASTIC on the little screen on my camera. So I take a few, and I get stoked that I got THE SHOT, and that forever after I’ll be finally satisfied that I captured the perfect image, and that I’ll get home and be able to retire the camera forever. But… it never quite works out that way. Ignoring for a minute the fact that taking pictures is just like a drug (you can never get enough! Even when you get the shot you dreamed of, it never satisfies you – you immediately start dreaming about your next hit.), for whatever reason when you look at them on the big screen, they’re never quite as sharp as you thought, or the color’s not quite right, or there’s a blemish that you didn’t see before, or you just missed the most interesting part of the mountain, whatever. And that just crushes my soul. It sucks the excitement for the pictures right out of me. I mean, these issues are usually very minor, and usually aren’t even noticeable at web-size. But, instead of going to bed riding the glow of “I got some AWESOME shots today!” I end up going to bed really sad, and then I don’t want to look at them again for weeks. On the other hand, if I just enjoy the euphoric high for the rest of the day or whatever, and wait until it fades away naturally, then I can approach the photographic results with a more level head. I’ve told myself I’ve had this rule for awhile, but I’ve only really gotten serious about enforcing it lately, the last few weeks or so. And it’s been working out GREAT! So, long story short, I’m not going to be looking at my pictures from this weekend for at least another day or two.
So, in the meantime, you get a picture from Colorado, from last summer. This was taken with my wide angle lens (Tokina 11-16) in a spot called Mayflower Gulch. It’s a really short trail (a mile-ish?), because I only had a tiny bit of time that day. The trailhead is a little ways south of Copper Mountain along highway 91 (which I believe has the nickname “Top of the Rockies Highway”). I think the trail keeps on going (or there’s probably several trail choices once you get to the gulch) but I didn’t have time for any of that. I was able to get to a nice setting, and that had to be good enough for me. My buddy Trevor (who lives up in Summit County) took me out there, after I asked for a short trail that would let me get some nice pics. This choice worked out perfectly!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 12mm.
Popularity: 17%
August 13, 2010 – Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Picture of the Day on August 13, 2010
Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe
Friday, August 13, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1635
Hello everyone! As (sort-of) promised, here’s a shot that I took over the weekend while I was visiting Lake Tahoe. You’re looking out over Emerald Bay, and that’s Fannette Island there in the water (which, according to the tour guide on a boat tour I was on, is the only island in all of Lake Tahoe). As you may be able to tell, this was taken with my wide-angle lens (Tokina 11-16), so it’s nice (for me) to see that I’m still using it. Why do I say that? Well, before last summer, I was using lenses that were 28mm at the wide-end (first a 28-300, later a 28-75), so I decided to buy the wide-angle because I was missing out on a lot of stuff. But later in the year, I swapped out the 28-75 for a 17-50. Before the switch, I had to reach for the Tokina for anything even sort of wide, so it got a fair amount of use. 17mm is pretty wide though, so I wasn’t sure how often I’d actually want to go wider (and I wondered if I would have even decided to buy the wide-angle in the first place had I gone with the 17-50 earlier), but I proved to myself this weekend that, yes, there are absolutely still times when it’s handy to have. Woo!
In other news… There’s this new website that you all need to check out: Flattr.com. It’s a great way to show some love to websites that you like. Basically, you pay a couple bucks each month, and you click a button on sites you like. At the end of the month, all the sites that you “Flattr-ed” split up your couple bucks. I LOVE this idea, since to me it’s absolutely worth a few bucks each month to help out the folks that make the content I like, who may otherwise be too small to make any money from advertising or anything. A couple of bucks a month is such a small amount that I definitely won’t miss it, but yet that’s way more than these guys would otherwise be able to get from having me visit their site, even if they were big enough to attract the attention of the ad buyers.
So, check it out!! Obviously, I would LOVE if you signed up and Flattr’ed my site (And if you’ve got a site, let me know, I’d love to Flattr you as well to share the love), but even if you don’t want to do that, you should at least acknowledge that it’s an awesome idea, right? 
The Flattr button is at the bottom of all my posts, although I’m not sure if it comes through the RSS feed, so if that’s how you read the blog, you may have to click through to get to it.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens w/ Hoya Circular Polarizer. 1/200s, f/9.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 12mm.
Popularity: 17%
March 24, 2010 – Hiking on Whistler Mountain
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Mountains, Picture of the Day on March 24, 2010
Half Note Trail, Whistler Mountain
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1101
Here it is, folks. The last image you’ll be seeing from me for a couple weeks. I know, I know, you thought this day would never come. For awhile, it sure seemed like it wouldn’t. But, time kept rolling on, as time does, and now it’s time for me to get the heck outta town. I would promise that I’d miss you all, but I probably won’t. I’ll be too distracted by fun stuff.
This picture was taken along the Half Note trail on Whistler Mountain. I’ve posted some other pics (well, at least one) from this same trail before. Whistler is a great place to go in the summer as well as the winter, because they have those magical lifts that take you way up into the high country, without you having to do any of the work. Ah, it’s a beautiful thing. That’s why I love Europe, because those kind of things are all OVER the place. Here in the northwest, they’re few and far between, and the mountains are steep, and the roads all follow the rivers way down in the valley, so if you want to get up to the pretty stuff, you have to work your ass off. Unless you ride up the gondola (and the Peak Chair) to the top of Whistler. Then it’s almost free! (Well, not monetarily, but whatever.)
This picture was taken with my super wide angle lens (Tokina 11-16), which I only acquired at the end of last summer. (Thus, it hasn’t been used too much.) It should get plenty of use this summer. Although, it might not, because I *also* got my hands on the Tamron 17-50, which is itself much more wide-angle than any lens I was using before (previously 28 was as wide as I could get). The difference between 17 and 11-16 is a lot less than the difference between 28 and 11-16, so I may find myself able to get most of the wide-angle shots I want with the other one, we’ll see. Or, more likely, *I* will see, and you will just continue to see random pretty pictures. That works too.
Have a great couple of weeks!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/11.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 17%
February 3, 2010 – Lake Dillon
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Picture of the Day on February 3, 2010
Lake Dillon
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1128
So I wrote this joke to start off today’s post with. I got halfway through typing it, but it was sooo bad that I just couldn’t do it. I had to clear it out and start from scratch. I’m actually embarrassed that I was almost willing to put it out there. Wow.
This is Lake Dillon. It’s in Summit County, Colorado. It’s a man-made reservoir dealie, that sits between Silverthorne and Frisco and Breckenridge and Keystone. (The latter two being ski resorts.) If you follow the valley off the top left of the frame, you’ll be heading toward Breck. Meh, I’m running out of things to say today. There it is, enjoy!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm lens. 1/250s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 11mm.
Popularity: 10%
December 16, 2009 – Mayflower Gulch
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Mountains, Picture of the Day on December 16, 2009
Mayflower Gulch, Summit County, Colorado
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1061
Well, it’s Wednesday. Awesome, right? Yeah, exactly. Today’s picture is from Mayflower Gulch, which is a little ways up a little trail/4×4 road just off Highway something-or-other in Summit County, Colorado, the one that goes from Copper Mountain to Leadville. It’s a really nice alpine basin, with the standard set (for Colorado, anyway) of broken down, abandoned houses from long-gone miners. I suppose there are a couple trails that leave from right around here and explore more remote places too. But I didn’t have time for that when I was there.
The weather was kind of a mixed bag when I was there. No rain (not yet anyway), but clouds that were constantly moving through. That meant that most of the time I had in the actual basin was spent under cloud cover. That actually affects your pictures quite a bit, because it makes a surprisingly large difference in your exposure whether your foreground is in the sunlight or in the shade. Generally, I prefer sunshine as you can imagine (although if you can get one of either your foreground or your background in the sun and the other in the shade, it can provide some really nice contrast), and I would have preferred that for the day I was here, but alas, you take what you can get. As a result, I had to expose the shot more than I would have liked, which resulted in losing almost all of the color out of the sky. (A polarizing filter would have helped, but I don’t yet have one that fits my wide-angle lens, which is what I was using here.) I really like that little spash of sunshine on the peak there in the distance, without it I think it would have just kind of been washed into the background, leaving a much less interesting shot. This way, it’s kind of peeking out, saying “HEY! I’m here too, damnit.” Wait, your pictures don’t talk to you? Oh.. Weird.
Anyway, in an unusual moment of foresight, I’ve come to realize that tomorrow I’ll be posting a picture of a flower and a bug, and Friday is going to be a really nice shot of Mt. Baker. So be sure to stick around for that before you abandon the picture of the day for ever and ever. Until then…
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm lens. 1/250s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 16mm.
Popularity: 12%
November 13, 2009 – Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Picture of the Day on November 13, 2009
Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak
Friday, November 13, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1081
Welcome back, I’ve missed you all! Well, most of you. Today’s picture is from Colorado Springs. The foreground is the Garden of the Gods (specifically, Kissing Camels), and in the back you’re looking at Pikes Peak. I’d love to be able to tell you how hard I had to work to get this picture, that I had to hike miles and miles into the wilderness, blah blah blah. But no, I was driving by, saw that it looked really nice, so I stopped in the parking lot of the Garden of the Gods visitor’s center. Oh well, they can’t all be exotic, right?
Remember: if you’re trying to take pictures where you want your foreground to be super dark and you want to be able to see the color and detail in the sky, you need to underexpose it, sometimes severely. If I had just pointed the camera and let the light meter do the work, you’d be able to see the foreground, but the sky would be an uninteresting white blob. In general, the best way to ruin the color in a picture is to overexpose it. And, if you ask me, every camera I’ve ever owned likes to overexpose your shots by default. I mean, there are exceptions where, for a particular shot, it gets it right, but I’ve found that I’m much happier with the results if I leave my exposure compensation on -1/3rd stop all the time. Sometimes I bump it back even more. Having vivid colors is more important to me than having all of the detail be “properly” illuminated. Who decided what illumination is “proper” anyway? Not sure. But everyone seems to agree on it, except for me. Anyway, there’s a couple quick tricks that you can use to bump down the exposure if you find that a picture you want is coming out too bright. The first is of course to set your camera’s exposure compensation. Bump it down to -1 or more, see if that helps. Of course, that only works in manual mode. If you want to stick with automatic (or you have a camera that won’t let you set the exposure compensation), just point the camera at the sky, and push (and hold) the shutter in halfway. That should lock in the focus and exposure settings on the sky (which is typically much brighter than everything else – thus making the camera think it needs to allow less light in to the sensor). Then, frame your shot as you like. Voila – nice, rich colors. Probably worth mentioning: this isn’t that effective if your foreground isn’t far away, since when you lock in your settings against the sky, your camera will almost certainly be focusing on infinity. I could go into more detail about what I’m talking about here, but I’ve used up my quota for keystrokes today.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/320s, f/14.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 16mm.
Popularity: 13%
October 30, 2009 – Whistler Mountain
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Mountains, Picture of the Day on October 30, 2009
Half Note Trail - Whistler Mountain
Friday, October 30, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1142
What’s up Dan, Diane, Shannon, and my other Facebook reader?! (Richard.) Hello too to my nameless Picture-of-the-day.com readers! And to my Picture-of-the-day.com readers that have names but whose identities I don’t know. And, of course, hello to Will also. Today’s picture was taken near the summit of Whistler Mountain. Julie and I took took the gondola up there to go hiking around, since it’s an easy way to get up to the high country, without having to, you know, walk all the way. This particular little pocket (right along the Half Note trail) was a bit odd because it was all white granite everywhere, whereas most of the rock up there is much darker. Since none of us are geologists, that’s probably not interesting, but there’s still two interesting nuggets in there, so the quota is fulfilled. That’s how I work: I do just enough to get the job done, but I don’t have the drive to do any more.
I used my new new wide angle lens for this shot. I say “new new” because the first time I bought it, it had this weird distortion in the middle, so I had to exchange it for another one. I would normally use a polarizing filter for this kind of shot, so that the clouds would really stand out against the blue sky. But I don’t have one yet for that lens, so that will have to wait until next time I guess.
Summer (and fall) is a great time to visit Whistler. Whistler is hosting the Olympics. The Olympics are cool. I’d say more, but I’ve run out of sentences.
That’s all for today folks, have a great Halloween!
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Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16 mm lens. 1/400s, f/10.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 13 mm.
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October 7, 2009 – Loveland Pass
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Mountains, Picture of the Day on October 7, 2009
Hiking near Loveland Pass, Colorado
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1125
Today’s picture is based on another request from last week, this time for something from Colorado. That one’s more of an ongoing, standing request more than anything else, but whatever. This is the view along one of the trails that leaves from Loveland Pass, which is along Highway 6 in Summit County. (As in, this is just up the road from Arapahoe Basin and Keystone.)
One of the things I love the most about Colorado is how accessible the high country is. I mean, sure, there are plenty of spots that are super remote and you have to work pretty hard to get to, but the number of spots where you can get near or even above treeline without even leaving your car is phenomenal. (That’s not even mentioning the places you can get assuming you’re willing to hike for a few miles – incredible!) I’m so jealous about that, you don’t even know. Washington has some mind-blowing high country, but the mountains are so steep and rugged out here that it’s almost always a real pain in the butt to get there. (I’m talking 4- or 5-thousand foot ascents.) So, being able to get to a spot like this when you’ve only got a couple hours to hike on the way to the airport makes me smile.
Now, on to other business. I’m sorry to keep bringing this up, but… About those calendars. A couple of you asked for calendars via Facebook messages, but when I wrote back, I never heard anything from you! So if that sounds like you, please check your Facebook inbox, you’ve probably got a message from me waiting. Basically, I just need an address to mail them to. Shoot me an email – dave (at) davefry.net.
That’s it!
Map: http://bit.ly/PM3lb
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm lens. 1/250s, f/10.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 11mm.
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