Showing posts with label 10-22mm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 10-22mm. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Day trip with Rylan and the fam
We decided to be adventurous and take baby Ry to Bainbridge Island so C's mom and sister could enjoy the ferry ride. It was a gorgeous day and everything was beautiful. He slept most of the time.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Photography while driving at night
I've been thinking about doing this for years.
These shots are from my drive from Everett to Issaquah at 4am last Thursday. At first I had the tripod in the backseat so I could get the dashboard lights in the frame. I pulled over at the first exit to check the lcd and decided to move it to the front seat to get the lights to fill more of the frame.
It's hard to set up a tripod in the backseat. The front two legs were half extended to the floor and the third leg was horizontal and short to hit the back of the seat. Next time I'll use a small tripod.
In the front seat it was similar but the legs didn't have room to spread out very wide so it would lean and fall over when I took corners too fast.
Before I left the parking lot I determined what exposure I wanted with some test shots. When it was in the back seat I couldn't see the lcd and wasn't tempted to think about it. I just hit the button on the cable release whenever I saw something interesting. When I moved it to the front I checked the exposure a lot at first and changed the settings (yes, while driving, no, it wasn't very smart). It's good to know the equipment well enough to do that without really looking.
I did plenty of cropping, instead of zooming. And changed the colors by changing the white balance.
Tips on shooting from the car at night:
Use a short tripod.
Clean the windows, and fix the cracks.
Cover the dashboard in black to avoid reflections in the windshield or shoot out a side window.
Overhead signs are the best.
Tunnels are great.
Have someone else drive while you shoot.
Use small apertures and wide angles.
See the rest of the photos HERE
These shots are from my drive from Everett to Issaquah at 4am last Thursday. At first I had the tripod in the backseat so I could get the dashboard lights in the frame. I pulled over at the first exit to check the lcd and decided to move it to the front seat to get the lights to fill more of the frame.
It's hard to set up a tripod in the backseat. The front two legs were half extended to the floor and the third leg was horizontal and short to hit the back of the seat. Next time I'll use a small tripod.
In the front seat it was similar but the legs didn't have room to spread out very wide so it would lean and fall over when I took corners too fast.
Before I left the parking lot I determined what exposure I wanted with some test shots. When it was in the back seat I couldn't see the lcd and wasn't tempted to think about it. I just hit the button on the cable release whenever I saw something interesting. When I moved it to the front I checked the exposure a lot at first and changed the settings (yes, while driving, no, it wasn't very smart). It's good to know the equipment well enough to do that without really looking.
I did plenty of cropping, instead of zooming. And changed the colors by changing the white balance.
Tips on shooting from the car at night:
Use a short tripod.
Clean the windows, and fix the cracks.
Cover the dashboard in black to avoid reflections in the windshield or shoot out a side window.
Overhead signs are the best.
Tunnels are great.
Have someone else drive while you shoot.
Use small apertures and wide angles.
See the rest of the photos HERE
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Winter in Issaquah- 2008
I spent a couple hours walking around at night (between midnight and 5am) in the rare Issaquah snow trying to stay awake. More comments under each photo...
I got 'lucky' and had a car trip the lights during a 10 sec exposure, but not show up in the photo.
The neighbors appear to have moved away and left a light on. 
Someone trying to get out of the parking lot.
My version of a self-portrait.
A treacherous looking path.
The view down Dogwood St. from Newport Way.
I swear I've lived here for years and never seen that sign.
Someone put a collar on that streelight to keep it from shining in their windows. I thought it made a nice spot light on the street for another self-portrait. And then I thought it looked better in mostly red.
In the middle of the night an 8 sec exposure shows quite a bit. But white stuff on the ground and in the sky helps too.
Lights on the roof melting snow.
This tree is huge. I have no idea how they got all those lights up there. I was tempted to sit on the bench for this photo.
Metal sculpture horse across from the theater. 
The old train station under an almost dramatic sky. 
Sidewalk lights at the hatchery are interesting. 
A 15 second exposure just before dawn at the fish hatchery.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Backpacking Noble Knob and Lost Lake
I think Lost Lake was meant to stay lost. (It will always be lost among all the other thousands of lakes by the same name) Maybe it's not so bad from an easier direction? We stayed there after a rough 8 mile hike that took us past Noble Knob with a detour to George Lake when we ran out of water. The trail goes up and down along a ridge and the lakes are all at the bottom of the valleys. So we had a lot of elevation gain along the way.
We drove to the Corral Pass campsite on Friday afternoon and car camped for the night. In the morning we drove a few yards to the trail head parking lot and took off with our packs. The views of Mt. Rainier were great along the trail. Panoramic views from the Knob are fabulous (Beljica was better though). We saw three lakes from up there. The closest one had people all over and in it. We decided we didn't want to go there for the night. The next closest lake looked more brown than blue but we didn't see any people on it so we aimed for that one. Between the directions we had and the trail signs, or lack thereof, we ended up on the wrong trail which took us where we didn't want to go. Halfway there we could tell we were headed to the overcrowded lake but we couldn't stop because we were out of water. After discussing our options, we dropped the packs halfway to George Lake so we couldn't change our minds and stay there because we were too tired to keep going. We only took our water bottles, platypus and the filter. There were more people at the lake than we saw from the knob so we pumped water, drank it, pumped some more and left.
By then I was cranky and not looking forward to the 3 miles back up to the ridge and down the other side to the lake we hoped would have fewer people. Along the way C was nice enough to completely distract me from my complaining by asking questions about camera gear. She's so smart.
We found a nice large campsite at the north end of Lost Lake, dropped the packs and went swimming! It had been in the 80's or 90's all day so it really didn't matter how cold the water was. We've never gone swimming in an alpine lake before. But this one wasn't fed by glaciers (this time of year anyway) so it was reasonable.
While setting up the kitchen at our campsite that evening a fearless chipmunk appeared and was very interested in our chocolate. I thought it'd make some interesting photos so I put the whole bar on the ground and backed up to shoot him trying to open the wrapper. It was pretty dark by then so only a few worked.
It was still so hot when we went to bed that we had to pull the rain fly off the tent.
We got up and out really early because we were afraid of hiking up to the ridge in 80 degree heat. It was cloudy enough that we weren't too hot, but I was still sweating fat. And I managed to pull a back muscle lifting C's pack that morning.
The wild blueberries along the trail were delicious. And a cloudy Rainier is pretty photogenic.
It was a tough, but really good trip.
CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE NOBLE KNOB PHOTOS
We drove to the Corral Pass campsite on Friday afternoon and car camped for the night. In the morning we drove a few yards to the trail head parking lot and took off with our packs. The views of Mt. Rainier were great along the trail. Panoramic views from the Knob are fabulous (Beljica was better though). We saw three lakes from up there. The closest one had people all over and in it. We decided we didn't want to go there for the night. The next closest lake looked more brown than blue but we didn't see any people on it so we aimed for that one. Between the directions we had and the trail signs, or lack thereof, we ended up on the wrong trail which took us where we didn't want to go. Halfway there we could tell we were headed to the overcrowded lake but we couldn't stop because we were out of water. After discussing our options, we dropped the packs halfway to George Lake so we couldn't change our minds and stay there because we were too tired to keep going. We only took our water bottles, platypus and the filter. There were more people at the lake than we saw from the knob so we pumped water, drank it, pumped some more and left.
By then I was cranky and not looking forward to the 3 miles back up to the ridge and down the other side to the lake we hoped would have fewer people. Along the way C was nice enough to completely distract me from my complaining by asking questions about camera gear. She's so smart.
We found a nice large campsite at the north end of Lost Lake, dropped the packs and went swimming! It had been in the 80's or 90's all day so it really didn't matter how cold the water was. We've never gone swimming in an alpine lake before. But this one wasn't fed by glaciers (this time of year anyway) so it was reasonable.
While setting up the kitchen at our campsite that evening a fearless chipmunk appeared and was very interested in our chocolate. I thought it'd make some interesting photos so I put the whole bar on the ground and backed up to shoot him trying to open the wrapper. It was pretty dark by then so only a few worked.
It was still so hot when we went to bed that we had to pull the rain fly off the tent.
We got up and out really early because we were afraid of hiking up to the ridge in 80 degree heat. It was cloudy enough that we weren't too hot, but I was still sweating fat. And I managed to pull a back muscle lifting C's pack that morning.
The wild blueberries along the trail were delicious. And a cloudy Rainier is pretty photogenic.
It was a tough, but really good trip.
CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE NOBLE KNOB PHOTOS
Monday, March 17, 2008
Aerial Photography
I had the fabulous opportunity to ride in the back of a Citabria for a half hour one afternoon. We circled Seattle and I even pretended to fly a bit. Unfortunately I was busy doing that during the most impressive rainbow fest I've ever seen. But I did get a few interesting photos.
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