17. March 2010 by Friedhelm.

Thank you Robert Worrell for emailing me this image. It shows how I photograph wildflowers. I cut out the bottom and the back of this small light tent. It serves three purposes:

First: It creates a soft, diffused light which lets me photograph even in bright sunlight

Second: It helps in windy situations to keep the flower stable

Third: I can photograph the flower in the native environment and the cut out back preserves the natural background

I also like to mention that I use a small travel tripod as much as possible and the lowest possible ISO to avoid camera noise as much as possible. My favorite lens is a Canon f.4.0 70-200L lens which is extremely sharp and most of all not so heavy (every ounce counts when you are hiking in the back country). I use it in combination with a Kenko extension tube. I disable automatic focus and use the screen on the back of my Canon camera to pre-focus manually.

Happy photographing!

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13. March 2010 by David.

The snow we get in the Valley this time of year is a little different from the stuff up in the mountains. First its not as cold and secondly it doesn’t come from clouds.

When the bees and almond trees are done with the blossoms the valley floor becomes a carpet of white and pink petals.

F5.4, 1/500sec, 90mm at ISO 200

Keep Clicking 

Dave

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21. January 2010 by Friedhelm.

I wish my computer desk would be here. what a place to work!

I was photographing so I did not pay too much attention to our docents; however I caught the sentence that the people on the lighthouse had to be self-sustaining. Besides having animals on the rock, they also had a carpenter and blacksmith station since the gusty winds did all kinds of damage to the property.

Also, this is a classic example of the difference how our eyes see and how the camera sensor picks up the light. In order to come closer to how we see the image I had to use one over exposed, one underexposed and one normal exposed image and combine them into the final image. The experts call that HDR (high dynamic range) imaging. Here are the three images that I combined into the above final version. You can do this manually with combining several layers in an advanced photo editor or you can purchase a special HDR editing program.

Underexposed (the beach is visible)

Overexposed (the beach is not visible)

normal exposed (a little bit of everything)

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16. January 2010 by David.

Several months ago our photo club had a monthly theme of candles. My idea was to photograph candle smoke. Most candles don’t give off much smoke!

After recently seeing a u-tube video by Gavin Hoey I decided to give it another try. The key, use incense, and some lighting techniques. Nothing too difficult.  This isn’t a composite, I just dug a hole in the candle and put the incense inside.

Manual mode, handheld, 1/200sec, f11, ISO 200 with single strobe.

Keep clicking

Dave

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24. November 2009 by admin.

Yosemite Falls is full of water during late Spring. In late Summer it is sometimes totally dry. We were very happy that there was water coming down the mountain even it was a relatively small amount. I decided to use three shots of the fall to combine them in a triptych. A triptych image was used during medieval times in churches in Europe. I thought it would create a nice impression of the fall by combining different views of the fall.

Enjoy!

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20. November 2009 by David.

Isn’t it great how nature provided us with wonderful contrasts. This was taken along a fence, the darker leaves were growing against the fence while the lighter leaves had grown both through the fence and the darker bush. These were the only lighter colored leaves on this side of the fence maybe the fact that they were facing south had something to do with it. Don’t we all love the sun!

F4.5, 1/15sec, 50mm ISO 200. And yup I used that wonderful tool called a tripod.

Keep Clicking

Dave

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10. November 2009 by Friedhelm.

This is a pretty typical scene in the foothills for the month of October. You see lonely oak trees, rocks, dried-up grass and blue skies. In order to show the contrast between the blue skies and the red-brown tones in the grass and rocks I used a graduated neutral density filter. Such a filter is a great help “to get the image right” in the camera and it saves a lot of time editing later. Camera setting: f18, 1/8sec., ISO 100.

Enjoy!

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6. November 2009 by David.

Here is one of the many beautiful sunset images that Friedhelm and I were privileged  to witness on our way home from our backroad trip to Raymond a couple of weeks ago. Don’t know about Friedhelm but this sunset was unexpected. Enjoy!

Keep Clicking

Dave

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5. November 2009 by Friedhelm.

I wanted to create an image where the stem is in focus and the leave is somewhat out of focus but clearly identifiable.  I know my large format camera connected to my DSLR would be the right tool for the job. I was able to focus precisely on the stem and then I took a series of shots with changing f stops. At the end this shot (f8, 1/8sec., ISO 100) was my favorite.

In order to give the subject a more dramatic look I color selected the background, feathered the edge and inverted my selection.

Enjoy!

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1. October 2009 by Friedhelm.

I love photographing subjects with movement in them. It creates a certain dynamic that creates interest. In an image any kind of movement means that part of the picture is blurry and therefor it is extremely important that there are other parts of the compositions that are crystal clear.

Enjoy!

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