looking for more of my photos?

... head over to my photo gallery.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Snow Day...

Back on the Dec. 23rd I took a drive on a beautiful day during a break in a cold storm... Shot quite a series that day, here's some samples...

All shot with the K20D and either the Pentax DA* 16-50mm or the Tamron 70-200/2.8, RAW, and processed to various extents in Lightroom.
















This link
should show all my uploads from that day...

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Yosemite Sunset from Glacier Point

Two days ago I wanted to shoot the largest full moon of the year rising over the Yosemite high country. The weather looked iffy but I had nothing better to do, so I headed up to Glacier Point high on the west rim of Yosemite valley and set up next to several like minded shooters... The moon never showed but some nice light from sunset peeked through before we were forced to leave by a ranger as they were closing the road for the season and had to be sure none of us were locked in (the ranger was a really nice guy - gave us about 30 extra minutes while we all waited, hoping the moon would peek through the clouds)...

All shot with the K20D, RAW, with the Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 and processed to various extents in Lightroom.








Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Focusing speed comparison Pentax K200D vs. K20D

I just got a new Pentax K20D, and it's a sweet upgrade to my K200D. One of the things I noticed right away is that it seemed to focus more quickly than my K200D. In order to quantify the difference I decided to take a page from the DPR technique for showing how quickly cameras fire in continuous shooting mode so I recorded the focusing sound and compared the waveforms visually to see how long focusing took.

This was a fairly quick and dirty test but I tried to keep it as accurate as I could given my limited attention span ;-) The setup. Using the Tamron 70-200/2.8 lens, I manually brought the lens out of focus to the close focus stop. Using my macbook I recorded the sound of the camera focusing on a subject about 12 or 13 feet away (unscientific). I first tested my K200D which shows full bars on the battery indicator (edit: NiMH rechargables), and which I think I remember changing recently (unscientific). I then tested the K20D which was showing 1/2 bar on the battery indicator, it was noticable faster than the K200D, but I had recently read a post on DPR stating that you'll get faster focus with a fresh battery, so I wanted to test that as well, so I swapped a charged batt. into the K20D and recorded that also.

Of note: Both cameras seemed to click when starting their focusing cycle, and I've determined through very quick and unscientific testing just now that if this lens is near it's focus stop, the camera starts it's focusing cycle by moving the focus to the stop before turning it the other way to achieve focus. I would theorize that this behavior is to rule out the focus point being in the small amount of travel between the current focus position and the stop. In each case, since the lens was basically at the stop already, I've started the time at the "click" of the lens hitting the stop, and stoped the time when there was no more discernible motor whine.

The findings...
  • K200D - 1.15 seconds
  • K20D with half power showing on the battery gauge - 1.00 seconds
  • K20D with a fresh battery - 0.84 seconds
So, the K20 is faster than the K200 and battery charge really does matter. If you're looking at these times and thinking, "The K20D takes one whole second to focus out to 12 feet? That's slow..." keep in mind that the Tamron lens used is a "macro" (not in the true sense of 1:1 or 1:2, but it does focus to 3 feet), and has a lot of travel to get through before it gets out to 12 feet. I have other lenses which focus faster, so you can't compare these times to other systems, only to other systems using the same lens (and shooting from my couch into my kitchen really).

Here's a screenshot of the sound "histograms"...

click to enlarge


I wouldn't be the least surprised if people more technical than myself find errors in my reasoning and my methods, so if you are one of those people, be sure to leave a comment to correct me!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

More from Yosemite...

Had a fun day in Yosemite with the family yesterday... The colors are great this time of year. Here's a couple shots from El Cap. Meadow.

click the photo for a bigger version...

Yosemite Hydrologic Feature says, "No on 8"...

The Bridal Veil is rainbow, it must be supporting gay marriage...

Bridal Veil Falls (in Yosemite) yesterday... I've never before seen an entire waterfall become a rainbow. Too Cool!

Shot from "the overlook" with the bigma, RAW, curves/levels adjusted in lightroom, no saturation added...

click the shot to open a larger version...

exif


exif



exif

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

fisheye portland

I got to spend a short time wandering Portland the other day before heading home, but got a few interesting shots... The fisheye lens is always good for that...


fisheye courtyard - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

fisheye courtyard - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography


statue of lincoln - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

The Old Church, Portland Or. - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

The Old Church, Portland Or. - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography





Sunday, October 05, 2008

Fall in the Cascade Range...

I've been working all over central and northern Oregon lately and driving all around the Cascades. I've been seeing a myriad opportunities for photography, but lacked the time to go a-wandering in the woods. One spot in particular along Hwy 26 looked almost like it was on fire with the turning leaves in the undergrowth... Yesterday, I had a chance to stop and test the weather sealing on my camera...

fire on the mountain - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

wall to wall bokeh - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

deciduous vs. conifer - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

lens through bokeh I - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

lens through bokeh II - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

Sunday, September 07, 2008

sunflowers in fisheye

being more a photographer (not to mention my real job) than a botanist, I've tentatively identified these as sunflowers ('cause they look like sunflowers to me). If you can confirm or deny this, gimme a shout.


sunflower fisheye - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography sunflower fisheye - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

an enormous bonzai tree...


ancient oak - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography ancient oak - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography


A few more are here.

big birds in the foothills

got some cool bird pics today...


Turkey Vulture in Flight - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography Turkey Vulture in Flight - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography Red Shouldered Hawk in Flight - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography Red Shouldered Hawk in Flight - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography Red Shouldered Hawk in Flight - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography Red Shouldered Hawk in Flight - wildlandphotos fine art nature photography

Sunday, August 10, 2008

wildlandphotos.com

Yes, I've once more upgraded and changed my photo gallery site. This blogspot address will continue to be what it has been lately, with quick photo posts now and then, and some info on equipment etc. The fstop.110mb.com site will continue to exist for now, but it's also depricated, as I finally went about getting a domain name all my own... wildlandphotos.com. For a few days it was pointed at my 110mb account, but I was struggling to put together a sales system which was still gonna be kludgy junk, and I said, "there's got to be a better way"...

Enter smugmug... They are a photo hosting site which offers quality print ordering built into their gallery pages... sweet, and I can point my domain at it and customize to my hearts content.

Over the next weeks and months you'll see some changes to the look and organization of my galleries on the wildlandphotos.com site, but it'll be my site for the forseeable future. BTW, if you have any feedback re. the new site, you're welcome to send it to me at josh (@) wildlandphotos.com. I'd love to hear you criticism of the new site.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Cracked...

Stopped by a dry lakebed a few days ago and snapped these...


click the thumbnail below to see a larger version...


Monday, July 28, 2008

Lightning Show!

We had some nice lightning cells roaming around southern NV yesterday. I went out shooting last night and got these... For some reason, my camera set the color temperature differently for the shots below than the one above. The purples below are typical of other lightning shots I've gotten before, but I like the bluish cast of the above shot as well, so I haven't "corrected" any of 'em.

click the thumbnails below to see larger shots...