Month: June 2012

Still on the Olympic Peninsula, a couple of shots that felt like a B&W treatment was in order.  First some beach art I came across near the mouth of the Elwha, – with the big white mass of Mt. Baker in the background – followed by a wooden shed on a pier at Port Gamble.  Enjoy!  I was reading recently about the new Leica Black and White only camera – and I know you can still do a lot with real filters on the camera – but I think the ability to use the colour information in Lightroom and Photoshop to get pleasing black and white tones has a lot going for it too.  And of course I can’t afford one…

One of my favourite places has to be the Olympic Peninsula, Washington State – with very many great photo opportunities.  Here are a couple from a visit earlier this year – sunset at Ruby Beach and sunrise at Crescent Lake.

I keep wanting to straighten the horizon on this one – but just an optical illusion with the rest of the picture it is actually perfectly horizontal!

The mist either makes or breaks a sunrise shot – covered up the best of the mountains but does give a wonderful atmosphere.  Must get a neutral density filter to give a few more options for long exposure rather than just stopping down.

Now I’ll just wait for the cease and desist letter from the IOC…

Today’s picture is from a lunchtime walk – just to get some food – when I come across a bird I’d not seen before.  This enforces my view that the best camera is the one you have with you – so pulled out my Windows Phone 7 (Samsung Focus) and snapped a picture.  The quality isn’t too bad – but can’t wait for Nokia’s PureView technology with Zeiss lenses to get into their Lumia Windows Phone series.  And for the record, this is a Green Heron.

This one I took a while back, nearly six years ago, with my first Digital Camera (which was already a few years old by then) a Canon PowerShot G2.  Great camera – I could even be tempted back to the series with the new G1 X, but it isn’t as small as some of the other new contenders in the advanced compact ranges, like the Olympus XZ-1 which looks a very nice camera.  Anyway, on to the photo – one of those pictures you hope to get but can’t really plan for – two hummingbirds in one frame keeping still for just long enough to capture them.  I’ve tried many more times around the pond since then – with much newer and more capable (but probably no more expensive) cameras – and still failed to come up with one better than this.  Hate the background being too busy – but it is what it is…

Had a great weekend away in the Olympic Peninsula – some wonderful locations and this was one of my favourite shots from the second day.  A serene waterfall, and not far from the road – near the junction of 101 and 113, at Sappho.  I wanted to get a somewhat milky look to the water, but still capture some movement.  I haven’t invested in a neutral density filter to help with these kind of shots so had to just stop down and see if I could get the right exposure.  4 seconds was just about right for the look I wanted – and my trusty old tripod came in very handy!

Even the rainy days give good photo opportunities.  One oft quoted photo statement is that best light for photography is before 10am and after 4pm, and while I wouldn’t disagree – it does somewhat make for a strange lunch time – so the grey days can give a break from the overhead direct light conditions of the midday sun – and this oil on the road shot was one such find one rainy day lunchtime.  I boosted the colours a little in Lightroom.  If it was on my driveway I don’t think I’d have seen the beauty – but the office car park – not my problem (unless it was coming from my car!).

One of the other challenges I set myself for Lunch With a Lens, was to go out with a zoom and take the same subject at each end of the zoom range – so taking a long shot – then zooming with my feet to get close enough to the subject that it appeared the same size, but with a totally different perspective.  This was one of the pairs of shots – the 135mm first – then the 18mm view of the same tree.

The long shot gives a totally different look to the leaves – against a trees, rather than the wide angle view where the sky forms the background.  My one mistake with this challenge was taking a picture of a log washed into the lake – then finding that to get the same perspective I’d have been up to my knees…  The camera and lens is weather proof –my shoes not so much.