Archive for 'Nature'
Rood Bridge Park
September 12th, 2008. Published under Landscapes, Nature, People. No Comments.
Started off an early Saturday morning with a drive in the vette, in search of a new playground. Not so coincidentally, we chose the one on the other side of some curvey country roads :) Just south of River Road in Hillsboro, OR, is Rood Bridge Park. There are currently MANY improvements being made, with small streams flowing around, a frog pond, a nice play structure, nature trails, etc.
Cooke Park
August 20th, 2008. Published under Landscapes, Nature. No Comments.
Snapped a few shots of the Tualatin River while visiting Cooke Park in Tigard. Lots of smoke from a BBQ, and some drab lighting. HDR to the rescue!!
4th of July
July 7th, 2008. Published under Landscapes, Nature, Night. 1 Comment.
It feels like I’m finally starting to get back into the picture-taking groove again. I had a few great photo op’s during this weekend’s 4th of July celebration, out visiting Cam and Dave in St. Helen’s, OR. The view from the hill at their house turned out to be spectacular! At 20-30 miles from downtown Portland, I figured we’d be too far away to see much of the fireworks action around the city, but it turns out the distance allowed us to see over 100 shows! I REALLY need to start bringing a tripod to these gigs! Check out the ridge in this photo, where you can see all the tiny explosions in the distance (click for larger):
A nearby field and cloudy sunset made for some great HDR opportunities:
Pitch black in between bursts, the picnic area become brightly lit for the brief moment of the mortar rounds exploding:
And a few obligatory 4th of July sparkler shots:
Nature’s Door
February 8th, 2008. Published under Landscapes, Nature, Night. No Comments.
Had an incredible family vacation this week to Whistler, B.C. for some snowboarding and relaxation. The camera(s) got a good workout, and I’m just now finding some time to go back and see what I got. I found some good shots from both the Canon 40D around the house / lodge, and also from the Canon SD870 from up on the mountain. Here are a few HDRs to kick off the set:
This first one was a little tricky given the fact I forgot my tripod. I had a small “camping” clamp on version, which I had to prop up on an electrical transformer box (which was surrounded by deep snow). After climbing on and pointing the camera in the approximate direction, I got this:
Sweet, sweet bokeh
September 19th, 2007. Published under Nature. 1 Comment.
I was actually somewhat surprised when looking at the EXIF data for this image. It was taken with a Canon 40D, 70-200 f/2.8 with 1.4x @ 238mm and F/9.
Mooch. Now Featured in HDR.
September 12th, 2007. Published under Nature. No Comments.
Everything else I’ve been doing lately is in HDR. Why not the cat.
Huge Slug
September 4th, 2007. Published under Nature. No Comments.
While out playing the new Canon 40D, I almost stepped right on this beast. Good thing I missed, as this 6″ slug would have made one heck of a mess on my shoe.
Newest Subject
August 29th, 2007. Published under Nature. No Comments.
My newest subject makes his modeling debut. Mooch (named by our 3-year-old) was a skinny little cat who we started to feed. Now he’s fat, and he’s ours :) Or maybe, now we’re his.
He’ll let me take 1 or 2 shots and then get scared by the camera, but I’m sure things will change 
HDR Test
July 19th, 2007. Published under Landscapes, Nature. No Comments.
I’ve been messing around with creating HDR (high dynamic range) photos for quite some time. In the past, I did this with the “increase dynamic range” setting for Fred Miranda’s Velia Vision Plugin for Photoshop (not really HDR, I know). In the past few months, I’ve realized that there are MUCH better ways to accomplish this, which include shooting multiple exposures of the same scene, and then combining them into a single shot.
Here are some of my first “successful” attempts at getting the correct exposures. These were created by exposure bracketing on the Canon Digital Rebel XTi, and then combining / toning the exposures with Photomatix. My main goal here was to work on the correct exposure bracketing settings, as well as the correct toning in Photomatix. There are some big flaws with the image alignment of the three exposures (these were all shot hand-held - tripod highly recommended). The result is some funny looking halos around the clouds (and other stuff), but I was too lazy to go back in to Photoshop and fix all the issues.
Maybe I’ll find a really good “subject” for my shoot, and I’ll go through a full Photoshop treatment.
Canoe House on the Charles River
May 21st, 2007. Published under Nature. 1 Comment.
While attending a boot camp / crash course during a LONG week in Needham, MA (just outside of Boston), I noticed this little boat house right behind my hotel. I was able to sneak away for 15 minutes (literally), and snap this shot. I must have looked like an idiot running down the road in slacks and dress shoes, but oh well - it was worth it :).
Purple Flowers
March 28th, 2007. Published under Nature. No Comments.
The trusty EF50mm F/1.8 comes through again!
Multnomah Falls, again
March 28th, 2007. Published under Landscapes, Nature. No Comments.
It seems like every so often a drive down the Columbia River Gorge sounds like a sure bet for good photos (and a nice hike!). No matter the weather, there are always beautiful scenes to shoot.
I have enough “classic” shots of the main falls, so here are some “off trail” shots that turned out great!
And what would Multnomah falls be without a ginormous hotdog?
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