Aravind's PhotoBlog

Giraffe Dance

2013-05-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

Giraffe Dance - 1Ds3, 70-200 IS II @ 200mm, f/5.6, 1/200s, ISO 100

Two Giraffe spotted on the way from the Ngorongoro Crater to Kusini Camp in the Serengeti. When these Giraffe were spotted, we stopped for a look and that moment the one on the right scooted over to the other one. This mid jump capture kind of looks like they are dancing.

King Penguin Colony at Right Whale Bay

2013-05-21T21:22:00.003-07:00

King Penguin Colony - 5D3, 24-70 II @ 35mm, f/8, 1/320s, ISO 100, 12 panels.

Continuing the theme of high resolution panoramics from South Georgia, here's one of a King Penguin colony at Right Whale Bay. Click through to zoom in and pan around on this 83mp panorama; all those tufts of brown fur up the hills are the juveniles.

Nordenskjöld Glacier

2013-05-19T10:12:00.002-07:00

Nordenskjöld Glacier - 5D3, 400 f/2.8 IS II, f/5.6, 1/1250s, ISO 100. 27 panels.

This 27 panel, 309 megapixel Nordenskjöld Glacier nearly killed my computer in processing it, and I had to give up my usual non-destructive workflow of Smart Objects. I resized to 100 megapixels before uploading it to Google+, so if you click through you can zoom and pan on the 100mp version.

The gigantic glacier flows into the head of the Cumberland East Bay on the northern side of South Georgia. This was from the third full day in South Georgia and after some Zodiac cruises in Ocean Harbour, we made our way around to this side cruising across the bay, eventually ending up at Grytviken. The day started off with some sun but it became overcast quickly with occasional rain.

Wikipedia has a neat overlay of on Google Maps of the area with interesting information on the various bays and points of historic interest, definitely worth checking out.

Elm & Sunstar

2013-05-13T08:44:00.002-07:00

Elm & Sunstar - 5D2, Zeiss 50 MP, f/22, 1/4s, ISO 100

I captured the frame for this image almost exactly 2 years ago on a spring weekend trip to Yosemite. Spring time starts to get popular at Yosemite with the general public and I know many photographers who head there trying to make images with flowering plants. On this particular visit, I was too early for the flowering dogwoods and with a crystal clear sky, there was no pretty sunrise and no dramatic fog.

I got out there pretty early in the morning and being a weekend and that time of year, two separate workshops joined me. I was set up in an area to photograph a reflection of halfdome in a pool of water and if there had been a spectacular sunrise, it would have been a spectacular image. The workshop organizers had a similar idea so we shared the spot for a while. I like to photograph in a social way, interacting with other photographers, but with nearly 20 people crowded around this small pool of water, I decided to do my own thing after it was clear the sunrise was going to be a bust.

I was drawn to this iconic Yosemite Elm and liked the way Halfdome was behind it, I made some verticals with just these two elements for a bit. I really wanted a third element and thats when I realized that the sun would soon peek over the mountains in the back. I figured I had several minutes to compose and came up with what you see here, having 3 dominant elements, the sun-star, Halfdome and the Elm. Stopping down to f/22 is essential to get a good sun-star and I wanted to make sure I got it at exactly the right moment when the sun first peeked over the mountain, otherwise it would be too bright and things would be too washed out. I still used a neutral graduated density filter to bring the bright sky under control (may have even stacked a couple).

Curiously, I was the only person capturing this scene even though there were two workshops in the area. After about 15 minutes when it was clear the sun was out in full force, I started packing up to leave. Its then that a couple of photographers were hurrying from their parked cars to my area starting make similar images.

Rockhoppers

2013-05-10T08:54:00.003-07:00

Rockhoppers - 5D3, 17 TS-E, f/14, 1/200s, ISO 200

These are Rockhopper Penguins in their small colony on New Island in the Falklands. I almost didn't make this image, as I spent most the landing with the Black-browed Albatross on their nest. During my time with the Albatross, I did a lot of experimentation with going extremely wide and pulling in the environment (my favorite kind of wildlife image), so when I was finished there and walking back, I wanted to do something similar with the Rockhopper Penguins. The trick is of course to make your image without getting too close to the subject and making yourself as unnoticeable as possible so that they don't get disturbed. I knew that I wanted my 17mm lens, so left everything else in my bag behind and got on my belly with just the camera and lens. Over the course of about 15 minutes, I very slowly shimmied on my belly to get the right angle and perspective. I was fortunate as there was a big bush to hide my presence to my right that did a good job of hiding me. I could have gotten even closer (this is a fairly heavy crop), but I didn't want to risk disturbing the penguins so stopped here and extending my arms close to the ground and with Live View made this image.

Serengeti Star Trails

2013-05-09T08:58:00.001-07:00

Serengeti Star Trails - 5D2, 24 f/1.4L, f/2.8, 17m 21s, ISO 200.

I didn't take a tripod with me when I went to Tanzania in 2011 since there is little opportunity for tripod based photography. I did however pack a little gorilla pod just in case and one night while staying at the Belila Lodge (which is a spectacularly luxurious lodge in the Serengeti) it came in handy. I wrapped the legs around the rail of my balcony and captured this 17 minute exposure. It was late and we had game drives scheduled for the morning so I didn't try more or longer exposures. Unfortunately, there's nothing uniquely African in this image so for all you know these star trails could have been captured anywhere (though the astute astronomers might be able to make out some signature southern hemisphere celestial objects).

A Little Bit of Color

2013-05-08T07:14:00.001-07:00

Spring on the Coast - S2, 120mm, f/22, 1/3s, ISO 160

The last few posts have been black & whites so I figured its time for a little bit of color. Driving around the bay area, I've noticed the cacti flowering all over the place and so dug up this image I made last year at Garrapata Beach. With scenes like this I find its a challenge to find a composition that works. You walk up to a bunch of flowering cacti and you have to figure out a way frame things so that its not busy. I'm not sure I was entirely successful here, could probably stand to lose a couple more flowers, however I liked the way the image was anchored on the bottom right so it works for me.

Wildebeest and Flamingos

2013-05-07T08:40:00.001-07:00

Wildebeest and Flamingos - 1D4, 500 f/4 + 1.4x TC, f/7.1, 1/600s, ISO 400

I was inspired to work on this image after seeing +Andy Biggs's latest post featuring Water Buffalos and Flamingos. I captured the frame for this in the Ngorongoro crater at around mid morning, about 10:30. There is a lake in the distance where the flamingos hang out and since this is a national park, vehicles aren't allowed off-road, so you make do with where you are. I used a 1.4x teleconverter on the 500 and with all the atmospheric haze the pixels are pretty much mush so it sad unprocessed, unloved for the last two years. Then, in a moment of inspiration this morning, I worked on a black & white version of this and with a combination of Silver Efex and Color Efex managed to get something acceptable.

I found the Ngorongoro crater both a frustration and delight to shoot. It was a delight because the crater walls can make for very interesting backgrounds, giving images a more unique look than an image of animals on an open plain. I found it frustrating because the park rules require you to only enter after sunrise and leave well before sunset. This means you spend the day mostly photographing in challenging light. One of the things I'm really looking forward to in Botswana is being able to get out during good light and being able to go off-road and get close to the wildlife. You can do this if you stay at the private reserves.

Lemonade

2013-05-06T07:38:00.001-07:00

Alpa STC, IQ 180, 32 HR, ~f/11, ~7s, ISO 100

I call this lemonade because its an image where I'm just trying to make the best of a bad situation. I captured the photograph for this image on a big sur trip a few weeks ago. It was an evening shoot and the location was McWay Falls. The skies were a little too clear and there wasn't a lot of color and so for most of the evening I just relaxed chatting with folks and hadn't even bothered to pull out the camera. Then just as the last light of the day was fading, I felt bad for not having made a single frame, and so decided to capture just one frame. I set up my camera and having watched the scene for so long, knew exactly what composition I wanted. I also knew that I wanted a panoramic and though the right answer would have been to go with a longer lens and stitch, I was worried that the stitch would look weird with all the moving water so I decided to stick with the trusty 32mm lens and crop in post. With all those lovely pixels of the IQ 180, one can afford to crop a little in post.

So where did I goof up? First, my back was set to ISO 100 and not ISO 35. If you try doing longer exposures (like multiple seconds) with the IQ 180 at ISO 100, it starts degrading image quality. Its not huge, but its noticeable. This goof was purely inattention on my part, I had set the back to ISO 100 for some other faster shutter speed work I was doing earlier in the day and simply forgot to check to put it back to 35.

Second, I had my tripod set up on a wooden bridge and with moving walking over it and a 7 second exposure, you inevitably get blur which is exactly what I got when I zoomed in to 100% and closely examined the pixels. Normally I would time my exposures to avoid people walking and do multiple exposures as insurance. In this case, I wanted to stick to 1 so I had to live with this one.

In the end, this gave me a somewhat mushy file to work with. After cropped to my panoramic aspect ratio and then resizing to get back to an image with actual detail at the pixel level, I was left with a 10mp image. If I hadn't goofed on the ISO and the shake, I would have had a super crisp 40mp panorama. Oh well, at least I got a neat monochrome with Silver Efex Pro.

Dreaming of Africa

2013-05-01T22:21:00.001-07:00

Zebras Grazing on the Ngorongoro Crater Floor - 5D2, 24 f/1.4 II, f/10, 1/200s, ISO 100

It was over two years ago that I went on safari in Tanzania and when things start to get a little crazy at work I dream of being back out there spending the days without a care in the world, just wildlife and lots of photography. I'll be heading to Botswana this fall with +Andy Biggs and only bad thing is that its nearly 7 months away.

Crazy Costume

2013-04-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

5D3, 24-70 II @ 24mm, f/4, 1/320s, ISO 200, 600ex-rt fired.

This was definitely one of the most impressive male costumes I saw when I was in Venice earlier this year. The day that all the "masks" go to the island of Burano is definitely one of the best times. There are so many creative possibilities with the incredibly colored walls of the place.

Alien Orchid

2013-04-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

Alien Orchid - Alpa STC, IQ 180, 90 HR, f/11, 1/500s, ISO 35, T5D-Rx2

This is the same Phalaenopsis Orchid I posted early last month, except this time its the entire plant. This specimen is a little unusual in that both sets of flowers come from the same plant. What has happened is that a flower stem has grown and flowered from another stem. Its a pretty cool looking plant even if it does flop over from the weight.

A lot of work went into this image. The lighting set up was pretty simple just two strobes flaking the flower. I captured a focus stack of 8 images so that I could get everything I wanted in focus. A quick edit in Capture One Pro and then its off to Helicon Focus for the stacking, which did a perfect job. Finally, layers of tonal adjustments in Photoshop as well a bunch of cloning to get rid of the chopstick and hair clips I was using to hold the orchid up. I normally wouldn't include the flower pot, but in this case left it in there as it indicates that the two flower stems come from the same plant.

Davenport Beach Sunset

2013-04-19T20:13:00.000-07:00

Davenport Beach Sunset - Alpa STC, IQ 180, 32 HR, ~f/16, 1s, ISO 35

As I was capturing this image last Friday, I had a suspicion that it was going to end up black and white. At the time I made this, there wasn't a lot of dramatic color in the sky from the sunset but I loved the way the light reflected from the rocks in the foreground. One thing I don't like are the cliffs visible on the right hand side, but I wasn't in a position to reorient and still have the sun where I wanted it. This was my first time photographing at Davenport Beach, I'd been there in the past but didn't manage to stick around until sunset. Since it is reasonably close to home (about 45 minutes away), its a place I'll have to revisit, especially after a storm.

More M240 Thoughts and Images

2013-04-14T21:03:00.001-07:00

M240, 21 SEM, ~f/8, 1/125s, ISO 200

Its been almost two weeks since I received the new Leica M and this weekend was the first chance I've had to use the camera for some real photography (at least on subjects other than my kids :)). I used the M at two places on the California Coast, the Carmel Mission and Point Lobos. I took only the 21mm f/3.4 Super Elmar and the 75mm f/2 Summicron ASPH.

These were all hand held, all processed in Lightroom and most are landscape type subjects. Noise reduction and sharpening set to default. Many have some tonal work done to them but for all images you can click through to a G+ Album that will allow you to zoom to 100% and download the originals.

One of the first things I wanted to do was to get an idea of how much I could push shadows for difficult lighting situations like this one. Below is the frame as captured (but very slightly cropped).

M240, 21 SEM, ~f/11, 1/15s, ISO 200

And now some heavy shadow pushing to try and balance out the hall with the outside. The shadows were pushed to +100 and blacks to +20. Highlights were also recovered with a -45. Visually, it is the most I would push an image like this one.

To me, this is pretty clean and more importantly the newly lifted shadows actually contain information. Click through and zoom to 100% on the very darkest regions and there is a hint of structure in the noise. I don't find it objectionable given the circumstances, but others might. I also shot this image at 1/15s and though it isn't critically sharp, for 1/15s, its better than what I would achieve with a DSLR hand held.

M240, 75 ASPH, ~f/8, 1/180s, ISO 200

I purchased the Olympus electronic viewfinder which I'm told is identical to the Leica one save for branding and really wanted to get a feel for shooting with this camera with both the optical finder and the electronic one. Generally I find that I prefer to focus with the rangefinder mechanism in the optical view finder; I can focus faster and more accurately. However I vastly prefer to compose with the electronic view finder. This combination of using both view finders is what I did for this image. Without the EVF, getting precise framing hand held would have required several tries.

M240, 75 ASPH, f/2, 1/1500s, ISO 200

I simply love the color I get out of this camera. I believe its more accurate with the reds and greens and it feels like the color filter array has better separation than the M9. To make this image, I needed to set the camera's exposure compensation from 0 (where it was) to about -1 (needed so that the red channel doesn't blow out). This was an exercise in frustration, as pushing that teeny little button in its awkward place on the front of the camera and then turning the back dial is a challenge. This in my opinion is major regression #1 for the M240 compared to its predecessor. If Leica releases a firmware update with an option to disable this requirement, I think this problem will disappear.

M240, 21 SEM, ~f/11, 1/60s, ISO 200

This is more a property of the lens, but it maintains excellent contrast and detail in shadows even against bright backgrounds. By this point, I was starting to really like the overall image quality of Leica's latest sensor.

M240, 21 SEM, ~f/11, 1/90s, ISO 200

I shoved my camera though a small hole near the top of a gate to photograph this garden. Since my eye couldn't reach the optical finder, I used the EVF for both focus and framing on this one. Having peaking is very valuable and configuring the camera to auto zoom when changing focus is also helpful in getting precise focus.

M240, 75 ASPH, f/2, 1/350s, ISO 200

Did I mention I like the way this sensor draws colors yet? :) The M9 had a unique way of rendering certain colors and its something I had gotten used to. At first I wasn't sure I liked what the new M was going as it felt like

M240, 75 ASPH, ~f/2.8, 1/1500s, ISO 200

The auto white balance algorithm also seems to be much improved. The camera almost always seems to get it at least close.

M240, 21 SEM, ~f/8, 1/90s, ISO 200

The files are quite detailed, but I don't think there's much (maybe even any) more information there than an M9 file. That said, its also been my observation that the new M is slightly less prone to aliasing effects (which shouldn't be a surprise with its higher sampling rate).

M240, 21 SEM, ~f/8, 1/180s, ISO 200

However, color aliasing artifacts can still be seen in some circumstances. Click through and zoom to 100% on the above image and on the plaques, you should notice some color aliasing. I made no attempt to remove it in Lightroom for this image, though I did give it a try. Lightroom completely removes the color aliasing, albeit at the expense of a little bit of saturation in the affected areas.

M240, 75 ASPH, ~f/5.6, 1.350s, ISO 200

I'm starting to like the way the sensor render shadows tones.

M240, 75 ASPH, ~f/2, 1/500s, ISO 200

The usefulness of the electronic viewfinder for framing with lenses wider than 28mm is clearly useful, however I find it equally useful for framing with longer lenses too. I tried to make this image with the 75 a couple times but it was never quite right. One shot with the EVF and I got it framed exactly the way I wanted it.

M240, 21 SEM, f/5.6, 1/25s, ISO 2500

This is my one high ISO image from the weekend, breakfast at From Scratch restaurant in Carmel. Two things make me very happy, first is that the file is very clean for ISO 2500. Second is the white balance, this is AWB from the camera, I didn't adjust and its pretty spot on IMO (yes Ed's face was that red :)).

However, one thing completely infuriates me, and its the way in which Leica has now broken my low light workflow. Let me explain in detail. There are three variables to controlling light, aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The M user interface is brilliant, rather than having explicit modes, two of these variables can be set to "auto", which instructs the camera to use its meter to set the variable. Since meters aren't 100% reliable you then use exposure compensation to bias the meter reading. Since aperture is set on a ring on the lens, the two variables for which this applies to is shutter speed and ISO. Set shutter speed to A and ISO to auto and the camera picks both (subject to some other conditions you can specify). This is the way the M9 worked and so far the new M works this way as well.

Now your camera is in the following setting. Aperture set on ring, shutter speed set to A (auto) and ISO set to Auto. You now change shutter speed from A to one you specify yourself. What should happen? One variable, the ISO is still on Auto so the camera should set it using the meter, just like it did when shutter speed was on Auto right? Yes on the M9, a big NO on the M240. It just picks ISO 200. This is wrong, its broken, its a bug, and it needs to fixed by Leica in a firmware update ASAP.

Why does this bother me so? Because I always leave ISO on auto for hand held photography. It has no creative use to me. In bright light, I set the shutter speed to A and let the camera pick some suitable shutter speed, though it will always pick one that is at least faster than 1/focal length of lens. When the light gets low, sometimes I feel like I get away with a shutter speed faster than 1/focal length of lens. Or sometimes I feel like I need something faster (because of a moving subject). So I quickly just take the camera off A for shutter speed and pick something myself, trusting that the camera will still respect ISO set to Auto and pick a suitable ISO. The M9 did, it was brilliant. The M240 does not and its now a pain in the ass.

M240, 75 ASPH, f/5.6, 1/500s, ISO 200

Just as the sun was about to peek out from behind the hill, it was casting volumetric shadows with birds flying through them. I focused quickly, knew that I would have to increase exposure, fiddled with that stupid button on the front to let me change EC and then finally made the shot. It took me about 4 times longer to chance EC than it did to focus. Ridiculous.

M240, 21 SEM, ~f/11, 1/45s, ISO 200

I walked around Point Lobos in full blast sunlight making images to see how the M could handle these challenging lighting situations. In most cases I tried to save the highlights with the intention of lifting the shadows in Lightroom later. In all, pretty pleased with the results, detailed files with good shadow tones.

M240, 21 SEM, ~f/8, 1/250s, ISO 200

Here is one last image with mixed harsh lighting. This is direct sunlight and shade, I captured this image to preserve highlights and then did just slight lifting of shadows in post.

Overall, the M240 is in most ways a good step forward for the M digital rangefinder. If it weren't for the two major regressions I mentioned, I'd say the new M is absolutely better than the M9. If (hopefully when) Leica fixes these issues in a firmware update, things should be great. There is however room for improvement. An electronic first curtain shutter (a fully electronic shutter would be even better) really is needed in a future update.

There are several people who have reviewed the M240. Tim Ashley's review is a fairly detailed one and probably one of the more balanced reviews out there. There is also the newly posted pseudo-review by Mark Dubovoy. Mark hits the ergonomic nits on the mark and though I think the image quality is great, I'm not as enthusiastic as Mark.

Dream of Callas

2013-04-13T15:54:00.002-07:00

Dream of Callas - Alpa STC, IQ 180, 32 HR, ~f/8, 1/30s, ISO 100

I am out here in the Big Sur area with +Edward Mendes and his Big Sur in spring photography workshop. This morning's sunrise shoot was at one of my favorite spots in the area, Garrapata Beach and in particular the Calla Lily gully. I have usually tried to photograph this area pointing in the other direction, towards the ocean but decided to try pointing at the rising sun. The focus was set pretty close so even though the lens is stopped down to f/8 the background is very blurry. I had originally intended to crop the top off but when I saw this image, I ended up liking the blown out sun in the top and feel that in conjunction with the out of focus background gives the image a dream like quality.

Davenport Beach Streaks

2013-04-12T23:14:00.004-07:00

Davenport Beach Streaks - Alpa STC, IQ 180, 32 HR, ~f/25, 6s, ISO 35

I went out to Davenport Beach this evening to shoot with +Barry Blanchard, +Joel Grimes, +Brian Matiash, and +Laurie Rubin and it was a blast. Barry braved his quadcopter against the heavy wind, and it was impressive how it was still able to fly. In the last minute we got treated to some sunset colors which was a nice surprise. I made this image early in the evening just as the warm light was bathing the cliffs to the far left. Its still a little unnerving using the technical camera around all this electronics destroying salt water but you do what you have to, to get the image.

Ample Bay View

2013-04-09T22:30:00.003-07:00

Ample Bay View - 5D3, 70-200 IS II @ 80mm, f/8, 1/250s, ISO 100

I remember the morning I made this image well, it was probably one of my favorite landings in South Georgia, Ample Bay at Salisbury Plain. The zodiacs landed on the beach a little bit to the right of the right most part you can see. We had to hike up the hill from where I made this image navigating to avoid fur seals and molting King Penguins. It was overcast when we landed but about an hour after making this image, we had white out conditions for brief moments as both fresh snow came down and the wind picked up. The conditions cleared up quickly as well with wonderful photographic light all over the place. Memories of landings like this one are what are making me want to return one day.

Rising Clouds under El Capitan

2013-04-07T15:12:00.003-07:00

Rising Clouds under El Capitan - Alpa STC, IQ180, 32 HR, ~f/11, 1/30s, ISO 35

A few days ago I posted an image I made at Tunnel View on a Sunday morning. About 30 minutes after making that image, I drove down to the meadows under El Capitan to capture a different perspective of the same scene. I love working with El Capitan from this location. If you go farther back, the trees become a much smaller part of the frame aren't as interesting. Its almost impossible to get much closer because then you are too close to El Capitan. This is a ideal spot to use lenses (or cameras) with perspective correction like TS-E/PC-E lenses or rise & fall with a technical camera. Even with the relatively wide angle of view of the 32mm HR lens and nearly 10mm of shift, I still had to tilt the camera up to get enough sky and all of El Capitan. I then corrected more of the perspective distortion using the excellent tools in Capture One Pro for this final version.

I knew when I exposed the frame that I wanted 4 main layers in my final image and knew that I would need to convert to black & white to get those layers. I wanted to crush the shadows in the trees to form the base, bring out the rising clouds for the second layer, accentuate peak of El Capitan for the third layer and finally bring out the drama in the high clouds for the last layer. Working in Silver Efex Pro and with localized brightness, structure and contrast were the key in bringing it all together.

What do you do with a MFDSLR?

2013-04-07T14:58:00.001-07:00

What do you do with an 80 megapixel medium format digital SLR? Take a picture of your 4 year old in the back yard of course :)

More seriously, I've been loving using my technical camera with the Phase One IQ180 back for my landscape work that I wanted to be able to re-use the back (the expensive part) with a camera with at least rudimentary auto focus and SLR framing (the relatively inexpensive part) for things like wildlife photography. Seeing an opportunity to pick up a clean used Phase One 645DF+ for a reasonable price, I jumped on it a couple of weeks ago. This was my test image.

And that is a crop to view actual pixels pretty much straight out of Capture One Pro. The auto focus on the 645DF+ certainly leaves much to be desired but when it hits, the results are gorgeous.

M240 vs. M9 Wide Angle Flat Field

2013-04-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've curious about the new Leica M is whether there is an improvement in corner vignetting and smearing with wide angle lenses. I haven't had a chance to check corner resolution (though Roger Cicala's test over at Lens Rentals is good data point) but I did quickly check flat field using the Voigtlander 12mm lens, one which was known for a lot of vignetting on the M9.

Here are the the two flat field images, shot at f/11 with a diffuser against a bright sky, the M9 first and then the M240.

M9 flat field image

M240 flat field image

Just from casual inspection, the M240 would appear to have less vignetting. I did my best to set the white points to be the same for these images but still the actual color cast should be taken with a grain of salt.

The average amount of light loss on all four corners with the M9 is about 1.54 stops. The average amount of light loss for the M240 is about 1.44 stops. Thats just sampling the most extreme pixels and shows a slight improvement.

If we take the center line and plot the light loss we get:

Again, the difference isn't huge but its pretty clear that the M240 is better not only at the very edges but starts to have its slight advantage at about quarter frame from the center. If you do flat field correction in either Lightroom or Capture One the improved noise floor on the M240 should give it a further advantage, in all making it a better tool for wide angle rangefinder photography.

Post Storm Clouds over Yosemite Valley

2013-04-04T06:47:00.002-07:00

Post Storm Clouds over Yosemite Valley - Alpa STC, IQ180, 32 HR, ~f/14, ISO 35.

Tunnel View is one of those iconic places where with the right weather conditions you can make wild images. I went up to tunnel view on Sunday morning after the rains let up and the valley had all kinds of low clouds moving all over the place.

M240 is here

2013-04-02T22:38:00.001-07:00

Building 41 - M240, 35, f/1.4, 1/12s, ISO 800

The Leica M type 240 is a camera I've been looking forward to shooting with for a long time. On paper, it addressed two of the biggest issues I had with the Leica M9, high ISO performance and Live View (for critical framing and focus for tripod based work). There are a ton of other places on the internet where you can geek out over what the M240 brings so I won't rehash it. I've only had a chance to take a handful of images and so far my thoughts are:

Love the new shutter, its noticeably quieter and lag seems to be lower. It was the first thing I noticed
Hate the new way to change exposure compensation
High ISO performance is good, though I do see some structured vertical and horizontal noise at ISO 6400, but LR seems to clean it up reasonably well
Dynamic range is a huge improvement
Live view based focussing for non-landscape work will suck, will be sticking to the rangefinder except for tripod based work
The corners on many lenses seem to perform better (don't know if its better profiles or something else)
The little nub for the thumb grip is no replacement for a "thumbs up" but I'm not sure I want to give up my flash shoe and option to attach an EVF for a thumbs up yet

Merced River and El Capitan

2013-03-31T22:48:00.000-07:00

Merced River and El Capitan - Alpa STC, IQ180, 32 HR, ~f/16, 4s, ISO 35

I needed to get away this weekend, so we packed up the kids and went off to Yosemite yesterday morning. To many it may seem to daft to drive 3-1/2 hours each way to only spend one night at Yosemite but its all the time I had, I love to drive and getting out there and doing something different was important. I checked the latest weather reports and to my dismay it was calling for rain Saturday afternoon, evening and Sunday. When we got out there Saturday afternoon, it was beautiful, though it soon started to rain sporadically in different places in the valley. I managed to do a little bit of shooting in two of my favorite spots, valley view (this image) and tunnel view. The conditions for a beautiful sunset in tunnel view were there, but alas there weren't enough clouds in the right places.

I awoke early this morning to heavy rain and figured the morning was a loss. However, the rains cleared up by about 8 AM and we had the nicest weather I've experience in Yosemite valley. There was plenty of opportunity for photography with clouds/mist rising everywhere and with the sun being filtered though lights layers of cloud. It was also just beautiful weather to walk around and take it all in, which made the whole trip worthwhile.

On the Way

2013-03-27T20:45:00.001-07:00

On the Way - 5D3, 70-200 IS II @ 120mm, f/7.1, 1/125s, ISO 250.

A pair of loafing penguins makes their way to a small group of molters off in the distance. I made this image on the first full day of landings, in the morning at Right Whale Bay. There was still some decent snow and I was on the first zodiac to land and so set off immediately for groups of molting penguins in the distance to photograph them against the snow covered mountains. You have to be careful with molting penguins, since they can't enter the water, they are very skittish. They are usually low on energy (not having eaten in a while, because of that whole can't enter the water until the new coat comes in) and causing them to expend even more energy running away from you could kill them. We all kept a good distance away and opted to make more landscape style images.

Spring Flowers

2013-03-24T10:02:00.002-07:00

Spring Flowers - Leica S2, 120 APO Macro Summarit, f/16, 1/12s, ISO 160.

I drove down to the coast late yesterday afternoon in the hopes that the Calla Lilies at Garrapata State Beach would be open and fresh and we would be treated to a pretty sunset. There is a particular image I've wanted to make for the last few years and every year I go back hoping for the right conditions. As you can probably guess, since I'm not posting an image with Callas, I wasn't successful this year either, which is fine as its the journey to that image that I find enjoyable.

What's more disturbing is the wild flower situation along the coast, which is nearly non-existent. The Callas were drying out with very few fresh specimens. This problem was compounded by the fact that there was a family of jack-asses that went around picking the Callas. I wandered around the area looking for photographic opportunities but found none. The image above, I made last year on April 7, a full two weeks later than now the area was popping flowers. This year, I saw nothing even close to this. The exact place I made this image was dry and dead looking, I guess the dry winter/spring we've had has taken its toll.

Feeling a bit defeated, I drove to another favorite spot at Soberanes Point and encountered a similar situation with the vegetation. In the end, I drove back home not having made a single image or even pulling the camera out of the bag.