Now For A Bit Of Colour

The general store Bodie.

Posted by John

A Tricky Lighting Situation

Another interior shot from Bodie.

It took me a load of attempts to get this one right. Trying to balance the exposure and the shadows of the interior but keeping the detail in the buildings across the street and without blowing out the sky. I settled on 1/30th second f11 (infinity) ISO 100 which was about 1/2 stop underexposed.

Texture

A fallen tree washed up on the beach of the Russian River estuary.

1/30th second, f/20 ISO200 - Lightroom Aged Photo filter.

Posted by John

Exposure Compensation with Filters

I found a really useful article in this months Outdoor Photographer regarding use of filters. With my newly aquired, Ansel inspired interest in film, I'm going to be using the Bronica over the coming weeks so I thought it might be useful.

The guide in Yosemite has convinced me of the creative benefits of using Manual mode on the camera, which I did throughout the holiday and thoroughly enjoyed thinking more about the shot, how DOF work and exposure compensation. I will only go back to AV and TV now if I'm really stumped...

It might be worth printing this off and sticking inside the filter wallet.

Filter Type Filter Factor Exposure Increase

Polariser 4x 2 stops
0.1 ND 1.3x 1/3 stop
0.3 ND 2x 1 stop
0.6 ND 4x 2 stops
0.9 ND 8x 3 stops
ND Graduates 1x None
Skylight 1x None
UV 1x None
Soft Focus 1x None
Close-up 1x None

If anyone fancies putting this into a nice HTML table then go ahead :)

Sunset @ Pier 39

My first post from the California shots. I took this at Peir 39 the night I arrived. No tripod, just balancing on a hand rail with a ND grad filter

Jelly Dancing

The coloured version of this came out really well with deep blue water and bright orange jellyfish but I think it has much more impact in Black & White. Tricky things to shoot in an aquarium, they're constantly on the move and the exhibit was pretty dark plus there were loads of reflections.

I switched to the 50mm 2.8 Macro and shot this at ISO1000 at f3.5. Conversion done using Lightroom B&W High Contrast with a couple of levels tweaks in the curves in Photoshop. Not the sharpest of image and a little noisy. But hey.

Posted by John

Rapids - Kings Canyon

A shot from the Kings river at Cedar Grove Kings Canyon. A place where my camera and I nearly got very wet. 1 second @ f22.

Posted by John

Yosemite Valley Trees

The light during the day in Yosemite was fairly harsh, and it was a bit on the warm side. We ducked for cover under the trees. This was a bit experimental, playing with the wide end of the 10-20mm Sigma. I'm really happy with how the light and colours worked on this and also how the lens distorted the trees rising from the bottom of the frame.

Bodie Part 2

Next shot from Bodie. This one was crying out for the split-tone treatment. I made this image up from 2 exposures, I metered of the sky, car and background and averaged the exposure for the car and background. Both images were then merged in Photoshop. I found this old car at 4:30 and we needed to be out of the park by 5pm. Sadly I only had a short time with it as there was plenty of potential for some detail shots.

Posted by John

Decay

We visited Bodie National Park. It's a bit of a photographers mecca in these parts. It's an old gold mining town in the Sierra Nevada near the Nevada State Line. It's been the subject of a number of books on photography. When in full swing, it had 10k inhabitants and boasted 700 Chinese restaurants. Today, it's in arrested decay and what's left is much smaller in scale.

Some buildings are in better condition than others. The last inhabitants departed in the late 30's. I spent 4 hours in Bodie as it was a fascinating place, not just from a photographic standpoint but even more interesting as a window on how people used to live. The shops still have dusty goods on display and the saloon has an unfinished game of pool.

Dungeness just doesn't seem as interesting anymore.


Posted by John

First of a few from California.

This shot was taken at Kings Canyon CA at the Kings Canyon National Park. Unlike Yosemite, this place had loads of water rushing through it. I took this on the 100-400 at 300mm at f32 at 1/6th second exposure at ISO 100. From my viewpoint I could see the whole falls as it cascaded into the dark green pool below. I had a load of waterfall pics already and wanted something different. I'd not have been able to get this shot had I not taken the 100-400 with me. I'd expected to see wildlife on this hike. So I suppose it shows, the long telephoto has it's uses in landscape photography. It allowed me to focus on the darker parts of the falls where the light was more interesting rather than the rest which were pretty much blasted with the midday sun.

Posted by John

Feisol CT-3441 mini review - My new three-legged friend has arrived..

..after a long wait to get it shipped from Taiwan and through customs.

I thought it would be good to put my thoughts up about this piece of kit as there are not a great deal of reviews available for products from this company, and especially this new model.

Initial thoughts
I bought this as a travel / everyday use tripod - I didn't want anything too bulky but sturdy enough to handle most of my kit (Canon 30D, various lenses, with the heaviest being the 100-400L). I have to say after opening the (small) case I was pleasantly surprised. This is a small tripod when folded - smaller than my old Manfrotto - but does not sacrifice height when setup.

The other striking aspect is the wieght - or lack of it. At around 1kg it's light, but still feels quite solid and is well constructed. With some larger lenses I'll need to hang some weight from the centre column hook but that's expected.

The legs extend using a twist mechanism which works well. Maybe not as speedy as some of the pullout models, or the snap locks, but a lot less dangerous to fingers!

I also have the CB-30 ballhead which seems ok. The quick release is not the quickest - a few turns required but it's still fine. My only minor gripe is that the lever for this almost touches the bottom of the camera. This head supports the 100-400 but I would like it to be a little wider. I've got a Manfrotto 486RC2 ballhead which also fits so may go with this when using larger lenses. The only issue with this will be not fitting the tripod back into it's carry bag - which btw is pretty nice - well padded with an outside pocket for the short centre column and leg spikes. It is a snug fit though, hence a bigger head will not fit. I don't see this as much of a problem - I'll probably put the head on and not use the case for the short trips anyway.

I'll put up some more info after I've taken it out a few times - it will be interesting to compare to Johns new Manfrotto.