Ludwigshöhle
Cool little cave. If I were some cave-dude back in the day, this wouldn’t have been too bad of a place for a pad.
A bit tricky photo wise. 3 shots total: 1st for outside cave and silhouettes, next two for exposures inside cave. A bit of layer masking in Photoshop and here you go. Hardest part was from the people who kept standing in the background, wondering what I was doing or if there was something really cool they must be missing; as that could be the only reason there’s some guy in a cave with a really big camera on a tripod…
Allgäu in Winter
Made a short little road trip down to the Allgäu region over the weekend, or in other words, to the mountains. The trip was also to test out ‘the van,’ which we are going to take on a 3 week trip to Scotland next month. Weather was hit and miss, but managed a few photos between the snow and rain…
Zugspitze
Time lapse of clouds over Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain.
This is my first attempt to embed video, so if you have any problems seeing it, please comment!
Friday = Sun
View out the window as of about five minutes ago:
Start of the day:
Up To The Hills…
By last Monday the news was basically forecasting the end of the world in California from the “massive” storm headed our way. All reports were warning of 8-10″ of rain in the lowlands and 6-10 feet of snow in the mountains. When my buddy Tim said he and a friend were making a trip to Mammoth, I couldn’t help but ask to come along. If there was too much snow and we couldn’t make it I could at least take some pics, and if we got there it would hopefully be some awesome conditions.
Friday night we drove up to Bishop, arriving by midnight after hours of heavy rain and high winds, making the journey a bit longer than usual. By 5:30am we were on the road north to Mammoth. When the lifts opened at 8:30 we were near the front of the small line and cutting fresh lines through powder a few minutes later. Running through the trees, I had an encounter with one which did some damage to my leg and took me out of action in the early afternoon, unsure of what I could do on Sunday. Sat night we drove through blizzard conditions which required a police escort up the 395 to June Lake. Waking up on Sunday morning and looking out the window of our cabin, I saw beautiful blue skies and snow covered peaks in every direction. When we arrived at June mountain for a day on the slopes, I had to suck up the pain in my leg, and get out there, it was just too good! So we spent all Sunday running black and double black diamonds in awesome conditions, and there was hardly even anyone out on the slopes and never a line for the lifts! I think it will be hard to ever beat a day like Sunday. I took a few pics, but preferred to spend my time enjoying the conditions.
Saturday night at June Lake
Sunday Morning at June Lake
Pano from the top of the first lift at June mountain; June lake in foreground, Mono lake in background (click to see larger)
Tim on some steep slopes
Seth cutting through some fresh stuff
Too much fun!
Winter and Summer
Stamsund
Firth of Lorn
From the southern end of Kerrera. Islands of Insh, Garvellachs, Seil and Scarba. Oct 2006
Loch Tay Monster?
I was doing some editing and saw this weird looking thing. object enlarged to 300%. Nothing appears in the photo I took 25 seconds before. Perhaps Nessie has a cousin?
My theory on the Loch Ness Monster: Loch Ness is perhaps the ugliest loch in Scotland; you aren’t missing anything if you don’t see it. So in order to get tourists to visit the area, they created the story of Nessie and now the loch is a cash cow for the whole region.
Simple Panoramics with Tilt/Shift lens.
Simple Tilt/Shift panoramic technique.
I like using a Tilt/Shift lens for my panos because the post processing is super simple and I don’t have to carry a separate rotating tripod head specifically for panos. Though I do have to carry a specific lens, my Nikon 85mm F2.8 Tilt/Shift is also a macro lens, so I can sort of kill two birds with one stone. If all is done correctly, I can put an image together in around 1 min or less. When moving elements enter the scene, such as water, that is where the fun starts; I’ll post on this in the future.
Requirements:
- Tilt/Shift lens
- Tripod
- Cable release (not necessary, but helpful)
- Photoshop
In the field:
Be sure the camera is in manual exposure mode. The camera can be used in either portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) orientation, depending on subject and what you want to do. If shooting horizontal panos in landscape orientation, only 3 shots are necessary, left, center, and right. When shooting vertical panos in landscape orientation, I will usually take 4 shots, as the overlap is a bit thin with only 3, so 4 will give you a bit more to work with if there is any complex blending required (this depends on subject, and in general 3 shots are adequate). You can also experiment with utilizing focal plane shift in combination with panos for some cool and creative results.
(more after the jump)
Seasons On Lofoten Winter eBook
Seasons On Lofoten Summer eBook
