Monthly Archives: April 2009

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Oaks, Hills, Clearing Morning Fog

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Oaks, Hills, Clearing Morning Fog

Oaks, Hills, Clearing Morning Fog. Calero Hills, California. April 18, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning fog clears over oak dotted green and golden Calero Hills, California.

On this mid-April spring morning I had perhaps a half hour of what is almost my favorite type of light – the kind that forms along the border between cloud and sun as morning fog begins to clear. I had started out this hike in gray fog, but as I reached the top of a small hill the fog began to burn off… and I photographed like crazy as different portions of my surroundings were revealed and illuminated. On a technical note, this is another of my atypical telephoto landscapes, shot with a 400mm lens.

One more note about fog. Not only is it interesting in its own right, but sometimes it lines up just right to obscure things that would make a photograph of the scene less effective while showing elements that work well. That was the case here. The very faint suggestion of more distant hills at the far right is all that we can see in the fog – but once it cleared there was instead a rather stark ridgeline that held a power pole or two!

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: oak, tree, grove, grass, meadow, hill, valley, green, gold, morning, spring, calero, county park, calero, santa clara, landscape, nature, scenic, shadow, light, sun, california, usa, field, stock

Commentary, Equipment, Technique

Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Two More Reasons to Love Live View

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Yesterday I was at Point Lobos shooting a variety of wildlife, nature, and landscape subject. As I worked I found myself using the live view feature of my Canon EOS 5D Mark II very frequently – partly for reasons I’ve written about before, but largely for two reasons that I’d like to briefly mention.

Much better depth of field preview – Everyone knows about the small depth of field preview button on the body near the lens. Since the lens is open to the widest aperture when you focus you cannot tell what your depth of field will be until you push this button to stop down to the aperture that you’ll use for your shot. There are two problems with this technique: you cannot judge sharpness critically enough across the frame in the viewfinder and the viewfinder becomes incredibly dim if you stop down to small apertures like f/16. Put those two problems together and the usefulness of the preview button is diminished. However, when you use live view the camera automatically adjusts when you press the preview button and the image is still plenty bright to see on the LCD. Even better, you can zoom in to 5x or 10x magnification to carefully check sharpness. All in all, this makes DOF preview a much more useful feature when live view is used.

You can compose a photograph when using neutral density filters to extend exposure – At one point this weekend I was using a 9-stop neutral density filter to make exposures of the surf with durations in the 10-20 second range. My usual practice is to compose the shot and, if necessary, manually focus without the filter attached. Once the shot is set up I attach the filter. Unfortunately, the filter renders the scene virtually invisible through the viewfinder. Recomposing or manually focusing requires removing the filter, making adjustments, and then reattaching the filter. I discovered yesterday that live view mode can display the image in the LCD even with my 9-stop ND filter in place, allowing me to make changes to the composition/framing or adjust focus without removing the filter

(Shortly after posting this I got a message from B&H photo saying that they again have the Canon EOS 5D Mark II back in stock, and unlike some other dealers they sell it with no markups at the list price of $2669.95.)

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Red-Winged Blackbird on Fence, Foggy Morning

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Red-Winged Blackbird on Fence, Foggy Morning

Red-Winged Blackbird on Fence, Foggy Morning. Calero Hills, California. April 18, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A female redwing blackbird stands atop a post of an old weathered fence among grasses.

I photographed this bird on an early mid-April morning just before fog began to clear. I frequently walk past this small pond – Castillero Pond – when I begin my hikes into the hills, oaks, and grassland of Calero Park. I’ve learned that it is often possible to find an egret here, so I usually approach the pond slowly and quietly so as not to scare the bird off if it happens to be there. On this morning it wasn’t, but I was pleased to see that the pond had filled after late-season rain, and I found that a flock of redwing blackbirds was flying around – it seems like must be mating and nesting season for them. So I left the long lens on the camera and remained quiet and was able to get fairly close to some of these small birds. While this shot doesn’t exactly fill the frame with the bird, I like the curving form of the fence as it blurs into the distance and the subdued colors in the background.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: red-wing, black, bird, blackbird, female, avian, perch, stand, beak, animal, wildlife, nature, grass, dormant, brown, weathered, worn, fence, post, rail, stand, atop, spider, web, plant, dry, lichen, old, morning, fog, mist, cloud, stock, nature

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Sunrise – Telescope Peak, Amargosa Range, Bank Ruins of Rhyolite

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Sunrise - Telescope Peak, Amargosa Range, Bank Ruins of Rhyolite

Sunrise – Telescope Peak, Amargosa Range, Bank Ruins of Rhyolite. Rhyolite, Nevada. April 1, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunrise on Telescope Peak and the Amargosa Range of Death Valley with the ruins of the Rhyollite Nevada bank building in the foreground.

This photograph attempts to pull together three iconic elements of the Rhyolite ghost town experience: the ruins of the old bank building, the view across the Amargosa Valley to the Amargosa Range (just inside Death Valley National Park), and the snow-capped summit of Death Valley’s Telescope Peak in the first light of dawn. This photograph was made just a moment before one that I earlier posted that showed the first direct light hitting the front of the bank, and in this one I was trying to nestle the distant mountains in the curve created by the top of the old wall of the weathered bank building.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: rhyollite, ghost, town, mining, abandoned, ruins, nevada, california, usa, death valley, national park, telescope, peak, amargosa, range, mountains, valley, desert, wall, brick, sage, sky, pink, firsts light, sunrise, dawn, stock, landscape, scenic, travel