Thanks IL and DM, I also enjoy it, though I prefer NW Montana.
Alan, Zion is the best! Jackson is a bit crowded for such a small place, so I generally avoid it. I have rented the cabin with 1 other person; I don’t think there’s a limit. As far as I know, it’s USFS maintained.
Sarkus
1962
So I took my new camera (Nikon L820) up to North Cascades NP, which Alan posted some photos from earlier. At this point the camera is pretty much on auto mode. Here is my Diablo Lake photo:
The camera does have adjustable ISO, but as noted I have it on automatic right now. The downside is that is loses things as it adjusts based on what the camera thinks is important in the shot. You see that here, where I tried to create a shot up a river to Mount Baker in the distance. Here the mountain is visible because I zoomed on it but the river bed almost disappears:
While here the focus was on the riverbed and the mountain disappears in the distance:
So neither shot captured what my eyes saw.
This is kinda how automatic modes usually work to some extent; they try to preserve much of the subject matter as possible by adjusting to its light level, which can mean that brightly lit objects will be overexposed (like the sky). If you had tried to meter off of the sky first to force it to not overexpose, it’ll underexpose a lot of everything else and sometimes you won’t get the results you really want.
I run into this quite a bit; sometimes I’ll shoot auto first, than switch to manual and go off of its settings till I get something I like. Usually if there are tricky exposure issues, I’ll try to underexpose and then re-adjust the RAWs to compensate. This is also another reason why photographers like to use graduated or neutral density filters, where you can filter out excessive light in the upper quadrants of your image and therefore can meter properly.
That being said I figure the second image could probably be “rescued” fully if you were to mess around with it a bit. Nothing really wrong with the first one accept for the sky, which is usually sacrificed. Yeah, it’s extremely hard to get a picture to see exactly what you see, especially when you’re doing landscapes.
How’d you like North Cascades and Diablo?
— Alan
Sarkus
1964
It’s pretty spectacular but I didn’t go that far into it. I was trying to do too much in one day - North Cascades, Mt. Baker, and perhaps even Deception Pass. So North Cascades was just me going up the highway as far as the lake beyond Diablo and coming back down so I could spend more time around Mt. Baker to the northwest. But that didn’t pan out too well as my trip on the east side of the mountain didn’t result in very many opportunities to see it and then I went up the west side and only got a few decent shots as the light faded.
Apparently the best way to see Mt. Baker is to go north of it and then in from the northeast to a 5000 foot ridge. But that is pretty much an all-day trip from where I’m at. And I’m interested in trying to see if I can get some good photos of Glacier Peak at some point as well, which is a lot harder mountain to get close to than any of the other volcanic mountains of western Washington. I may have to go east of the mountains to get those photos.
I’d be very interested in seeing those. I’m a volcano junkie, but I live in southern California and don’t get many opportunities to explore the Cascades. While I’ve read about Glacier Peak and seen a few pics, the total number is way less than that of any other major peak in the area.
Some pics from Zion. Well this one in particular is in Springdale:
Weeping Rock:
Taken from the Hidden Valley trail, essentially overlooking the Weeping Rock parking lot. That was a massive uphill (2000+ feet), and after that, you had to resort to steep steps, bolted chains and just off-trail scrambling. And then I found out the off-trail end of the canyon was closed due to habitat restoration.
The epic thunderstorm was bearing down on me. This was the last photo I got of the Court of the Patriachs, then I scrambled down the hill and waited for the next bus. Was somewhat fortuitous, as basically the storm caused rock and landslides all over the park’s main road, closing off the park behind me for two hours (and I was on my way out basically).
Was very lucky to make this stop and encounter a bunch of bighorn sheep (two were fighting over a female along the sides of this rock face for a few minutes and one looked like took a nasty tumble but was ok).
— Alan
Sarkus
1967
The problem is that Glacier Peak is deep into the mountains and not tall enough to really stand out. Its basically the same height as Mt Baker, but Baker sits to the west of the main range. Rainier and Adams are both considerably taller. So they are all easier to see. And in many cases easier to get close to - Baker, Rainier, and St Helens have roads right up to them. Adams is tougher, but is very visible from St Helens routes because of how close it is. There are no major roads into the Glacier Peak wilderness.
For example, I took this picture of Mt. Adams while visiting St. Helens last month:
From the same spot this is St. Helens:
And Mt. Hood in the distance, again from the same spot:
Glacier is a whole different thing. You can see it from Seattle and Everett on a clear day, but its 70 miles away and only a few thousand feet taller. Its so isolated (in a wilderness between two other wilderness areas) that even the govt doesn’t monitor it like they do the other volcanos, even though the risk is just as great.
This is the Kolob Canyons entrance to Zion. It’s amazingly beautiful yet no one goes there, and it’s right off of I-15.
Outside of Hurricane, Utah:
Kicked up sandstorm from outflow of a thunderstorm north of Las Vegas. The wind was massive… 40-50+ mph in this spot.
— Alan
I’m a sucker for this one. : )
These are all marvelous shots Alan. The first is other-worldly with the cloud blooming up on the left and the haze on the escarpment. The shot of Hurricane is also spectacular. Do you print any of these for your own use? A series of them would really look great in frames.
corsair
1971
Leftover shots from the L.A. Auto Show that have been sitting on my SD card for eight months unnoticed.
Just one of those Custom Cars
Nissan Deltawing
Porsche 904 - Thankfully not the Nick Fury - Agent of SHIELD piss yellow.
Bondmobile Aston Martin DB3 - with Twin Vickers machineguns
More Zion:
Outside of Hurricane, Utah:
Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park:
— Alan
Hal9000
1973
CPSD SP is a blast! I like it way better than the GC, which I find fairly boring.
Damn Alan. Your shots just keep getting better and better.
Thanks everyone for your comments!
Yeah I’ve been asked this before about doing prints. I’ve never actually tried transferring any of these to canvas and am not really sure where to start or who to go with. I’m hoping they’d transfer well, but honestly I have no idea. I guess I should look into it at some point. I always see these social coupon deals for places…
Some sensor issues with my D7000 is making me thinking upgrade again. Thinking probably a D7100 or… maybe a D600. I have a short window at the moment, as in 2 1/2 weeks I’ll be flying to Melbourne for a week and then back to Vietnam for another week, so I’d definitely want to have my rig set up and ready by the time I leave.
— Alan
Sarkus, you can get back a lot of detail with a little processing on shots like your mountains (below is a quick attempt off the 800x600 image above). If your camera has an automatic HDR mode you could also try that for such high dynamic range shots.
Yeah I keep forgetting about mentioning HDR–lighting issues like this is why HDR really exists, so you can combine multiple lighting conditions in one shot and bring out everything without (well, set properly) over- or under-exposing certain elements that you don’t want done. It doesn’t have to look crazy nuts like many HDR photos these days.
— Alan
While I’m a rank amateur compared to Alan, I figure I might as well link to two galleries I recently published. All but one picture were taken with a Sony NEX-7. I uploaded all pictures at full resolution to Google+ galleries, so you can use the zoom function to admire every single one of the 6000x4000 pixels. Click on each image for description, EXIF data & zoom. I also wrote a short blog post with more information on each gallery.
First a series of landscapes & buildings in Passau, mostly using the 50-210 lens. Google+ gallery, more information, low-resolution sample:
Then I shot a series of pictures with the 18-200 lens and a macro filter, the Marumi DHG Achromat +5. There’s also one pic without macro filter and one with a Canon prosumer, for comparison. Google+ gallery, more information, low-resolution sample:
Gendal
1979
My god Alan, the colors! I swear you are cheating. I don’t even know what that means. I think it’s jealousy.
I have been meaning to try printing some of my own pictures out on canvas at Costco, I always walk past their samples on the way out.
Hal9000
1980
From some recent death hiking.
I didn’t freeze to death.
If there isn’t a trail to it, it’s absent for a reason. This was the worst hike I’ve ever been on, period, especially for a day hike. Absolutely grueling, completely dangerous, and the golden trout were “filter feeding” so no dice.
I was trying to get a picture of the natural bridge. I kind of failed, but I think it’s nifty anyway.
A storm moves in.
A storm moves out with mammatus.
Having no trail to follow, I tried to follow the water as it crashed down through the mountains. Approximately 9000’ in elevation at this point, so not too strenuous.
Gros Ventre
Sunset.
