More range

This is a picture I took a while back at The Getty. I went back and reprocessed it to get more dynamic range. I like this much better than the original.

Up close

Crossed

Locked up

Glass houses

It's amazing what you'll find in the ceiling of a public restroom.

Pruning

Taken on Veteran's Day in the Rose Garden of the Reagan Library. "Um, yeah, we're gonna need to do some replanting."

Charred

Moonrise over Yosemite Valley

My last night in Yosemite I decided to head down to Tunnel View to shoot a time lapse of the stars and also some long exposure star trail images. As seems to happen with a lot of my photography, I stumbled upon something awesome. In setting up for the time lapse, I placed myself perfectly to capture the moon rising over the valley. The moon was about three days past full, but it was still plenty bright. Standing in that majestic place with the stars above and the moon revealing the beauty below, I was in awe. It was so quiet, and yet these massive cosmic forces were at work, spinning and orbiting through space. Words can't really describe, so I'll let you see a little bit of the grandeur that I saw. This 20 second video is comprised of 400 or so images covering just over 2 hours. Enjoy.



A little info for you techies out there. I used OnOne Software's DSLR Remote iPhone app to drive the time lapse. I connected the camera to my laptop that was running the DSLR Remote Server. I then logged on with my iPhone through an Ad Hoc network on my laptop. A bit cumbersome in the field, but a heckuva lot cheaper than buying an separate intervelometer for $150! And once it was set up, it was rock solid. I set it to take an image every 20 seconds and it went until the laptop ran out. I combined the images in Quicktime Pro at 24 framers per second. A tip if you're going to shoot a time lapse: don't shoot at the highest resolution. Shooting at a lower resolution makes the files much more manageable and you can get more on a memory card. And realistically you're not going to make a video at higher than HD resolution (1920 x 1080). I had my camera set to a medium jpeg and it made my processing later much easier, and the quality was still very good. The final movie at full resolution is like butta. Mmmm, butta.

Zoom fall

I got inspired one evening while shooting in Yosemite (not hard to believe) and decided to try a technique that I haven't used in a while. If you have a DSLR with a zoom lens attached, you've got everything you need to try this. The idea behind it is to zoom the lens either in or out while you're taking the picture. You need a somewhat longish shutter speed to notice the effect, so late evening is a great time to give this a shot. All the images below were created with this technique and no additional blurring or zooming tomfoolery after the fact. Yes, tomfoolery.

You can do this hand held or with a tripod. Having the camera on a tripod makes repeating things much easier and you might find it easier to hone in on a certain look. I shot all of these hand held, partly because I didn't have my tripod with me (um, yeah) and also because I enjoy the freedom of just moving and shooting. But mostly the former. Ok, so you got your DSLR with zoom lens, you've got your camera set up to give you a proper exposure with a longish shutter speed, and maybe you've even got something cool to shoot. Zooming in and zooming out while you take the picture give different looks so you should try both. One may be more appealing to you and/or work better with whatever your subject is. Start by zooming your lens all the way in (or out) and focus. Keep your finger half pressed on the shutter button so your focus will remain the same as you start to zoom. After you start to zoom, go ahead and take the picture and keep zooming until the exposure's over. That's it!

Now there's all kinds of variations on this technique. You can not zoom all the way, not start zooming right away, play with your focus point, change you shutter speed, etc. It's a great way to experiment, and you might just come up with something you like!

El Capitan HDR

This is a 3 exposure HDR of El Capitan with the Merced River in the foreground.

Full moon by

Here's the first video from my Yosemite trip. These were individual frames taken with my DSLR then joined together later to play as a video. This covers about 2 hours and includes a little over 400 frames. I had so much fun experimenting and shooting these kinds of video/sequences. Enjoy!

Sunset at 6000'

Man, what a week! My first visit to Yosemite in the Fall, and I gotta say, it was pretty fantastic. The weather was perfect, a lot fewer people, and the colors...oh the colors. The main water falls were even flowing a bit thanks to some recent snowfall in the upper elevations. Being there for a week really allowed us time to take it easy and not rush from scenic vista to scenic vista. My wife and kids were very patient in indulging my many stops to take "just a couple more pictures". All in all, just a wonderfully relaxing and rejuvenating time.

Picture wise, I've got lots in store. Actually, it's not just still pictures, but moving ones as well! I'm working on a few videos that I hope to have up this week. To start thing off, though, here are a couple of pictures of a sublimely spectacular sunset. How's that for alliteration!

Getting away

I'm packin' up the whole family today and heading up to one of my favorite places on earth; Yosemite. We've postponed this trip 3 or 4 times this year, but now we're doing it. I've never been this late in the year, so I'm super excited to see what Fall in Yosemite looks like. I won't be posting anymore this week, but rest assured that I will be taking enough pictures to feed the blog for months to come! I'll leave you with an image from Yosemite that I took several years ago. Have a great week.

Oh, I probably will be on Twitter from time to time, so if you want to keep up while I'm gone just head over to twitter.com/fxmixer.