tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74243375868067176032024-03-12T21:43:00.152-07:00Discovering PhotographyChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-41808708873267751392011-06-13T22:28:00.001-07:002011-06-13T22:28:10.394-07:00Waterfall Along Seven Falls Trail<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5829652005/" title="Waterfall Along Seven Falls Trail"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3604/5829652005_24604be4ac.jpg" alt="Waterfall Along Seven Falls Trail by Chris McCormick" /></a><br/><span style="margin: 0;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5829652005/">Waterfall Along Seven Falls Trail</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/">Chris McCormick</a> on Flickr.</span></div><p><i>Via Flickr:</i><br />This past weekend I got to steal away for a hike with my friend Steve. We decided to tackle the "Three Pools Beyond Seven Falls" <a href="http://www.santabarbarahikes.com/hikes/frontcountry/3pools.shtml" rel="nofollow">trail</a> in the mountains just behind Santa Barbara. The trail is steep and exciting, and follows a creek that was surprisingly full for this time of year. <br /><br />The trail was pretty overgrown, though, and gingerly picking our way through all of the poison oak bogged us down a lot. We ultimately ran out of time before we could reach the pools, but the falls and small pools we saw on the way were well worth it. Next time, we decided, we're wearing jeans and bringing a machete :).<br /><br />This waterfall was a highlight--it's right at a point on the trail where the only way onward is to scale a 15' boulder to the left of this scene. Definitely got my heart racing :).</p>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-86806473352615486442011-06-13T22:27:00.001-07:002011-06-13T22:27:42.259-07:00Dragon's Teeth<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5790870831/" title="Dragon's Teeth"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5029/5790870831_5e26335cd1.jpg" alt="Dragon's Teeth by Chris McCormick" /></a><br/><span style="margin: 0;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5790870831/">Dragon's Teeth</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/">Chris McCormick</a> on Flickr.</span></div><p><i>Via Flickr:</i><br />We had a lot of fun exploring the northern coast of West Maui. There are many spots along that part of the coast where you can find some amazing lava rock formations jutting out into the ocean, and walk down to get a front row seat to the ocean's fury (more of that to come :) ). <br /><br />The unique formation on this particular point is known as "Dragon's Teeth". <br /><br />I thought the HDR treatment here did a nice a job of accentuating all of the wild jagged edges, which is really what makes this spot so unique. The HDR process ruined the sky, so I replaced it with the original, and also blended back in some of the original ocean to soften the affect there.<br /><br />I used the HDR tool in a trial of CS5 (instead of Photomatix), and I have to say, I really liked it. I may have to make the upgrade from CS4... :)</p>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-5167039456475427962011-05-25T21:28:00.001-07:002011-05-25T21:28:47.318-07:00Maui Tide Pool<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5760659840/" title="Maui Tide Pool"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5302/5760659840_fa0cefb151.jpg" alt="Maui Tide Pool by Chris McCormick" /></a><br/><span style="margin: 0;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5760659840/">Maui Tide Pool</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/">Chris McCormick</a> on Flickr.</span></div><p><i>Via Flickr:</i><br />This was part of some tide pools out in front of <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/gazebo-restaurant-lahaina" rel="nofollow">The Gazebo</a>, a popular breakfast spot out in West Maui. <br /><br />There wasn't a whole lot of life in the pools, but I liked the crescent shape of these urchin, and they were in some nice soft light in the shade of a boulder. I didn't realize at the time how much color was hiding under the water! <br /><br />There was glare on the water that made everything look kind of muddy (check out the unedited <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/chrisjmccormick/UneditedOriginals#5610867463425479106" rel="nofollow">original</a>). This would have been a perfect use of a polarizing filter to cut the reflected sunlight (I even own one!), but I either didn't bring it or didn't think to put it on :(. I managed to workaround the glare in processing by pushing the exposure and pulling up the blacks to add more contrast back in.</p>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-33321806202905227972011-05-18T20:46:00.001-07:002011-05-18T20:46:26.929-07:00Maui Sea Turtle<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5735279833/" title="Maui Sea Turtle"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2265/5735279833_919de4ba0e.jpg" alt="Maui Sea Turtle by Chris McCormick" /></a><br/><span style="margin: 0;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5735279833/">Maui Sea Turtle</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/">Chris McCormick</a> on Flickr.</span></div><p><i>Via Flickr:</i><br />For our vacation to Maui (without the kids!), we decided to pick up an underwater point-and-shoot to play with. We settled on the Canon PowerShot D10. I'm so glad we got it!<br /><br />It was tough to use at first... You have to look past any water drops or fog in your mask at a small LCD screen, and it can be really tough to make out what the camera is actually pointed at. And, to make an interesting composition, I think a lot of the time you want to get down close to the ground and shoot up at the fish, so that you have the blue ocean as your background and not the sea-bottom. So you have to hold your breath, swim down (fighting the salt water and your bouyant gear to stay down), try to hold the camera steady, and make out the composition on the screen. Yeah, it's as hard as it sounds. <br /><br />I feel like I've started to get the hang of it, though (for one, I've found it's easier in deeper water), and I think this shot proves it's worth the effort :).</p>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-32641227614091016312011-03-08T08:00:00.000-08:002011-03-08T10:19:37.806-08:00Campus Point Moonlight<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5508722804/in/photostream/#/photos/chrismcc/5508722804/in/photostream/lightbox/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5139/5508722804_8b5beb02e3_z.jpg" /></a></center><br />This was from my first real outing with our new Canon 7D. It was glorious :).<br /><br />I took my test shots at ISO 3200 and f/2.8, then multiplied the shutter speed by 64 to shoot the final image at ISO 200 and f/5.6. The exposures were a little over six minutes.<br /><br />Luckily, I was with <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickstanbro/">Patrick</a>, and he spent that six minutes with me while I stressed over how close the waves were crashing to my tripod :). Check out his shot <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickstanbro/5490348513/">here</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-1666287404355899152011-01-27T23:00:00.000-08:002011-01-27T23:07:35.450-08:00Hendry's Sunrise<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5394537225/sizes/l/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/5394537225_02cab143c3_z.jpg" /></a></center><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">6 sec @ 17mm and f/22, ISO 100</span></span><br /></div><br />This was from a beautiful morning last October; I can't believe how long it's been since I took this!<br /><br />I'm sitting on a pile of unprocessed images right now--the problem is it takes me a good 2 hours to process and share a photo like this, and I prefer to do it all in one sitting. It's a little rare lately that I have that kind of time, plus the energy to be able to commit to seeing it through.<br /><br />On top of that, they all feel like "4 out of 5 stars", so I'm not dying to share them. It seems important, though, to finish what I started, and to get my work out there so I have something to show for it. And if nothing else, I want to be able to look back at what I've been shooting and watch my progress!<br /><br />I shot this image at f/22 to slow the exposure, even though I knew my sensor was pretty dirty. The resulting dust spots were a nightmare--I did a rough count of my spot removals in Lightroom... There were 60!<br /><br />Here's the original, unedited <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/chrisjmccormick/UneditedOriginals#slideshow/5567127559894990882" rel="nofollow">image</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-79045782367554554652011-01-18T23:00:00.000-08:002011-01-19T23:40:30.910-08:00Line<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TTZw2R424UI/AAAAAAAABZw/RThVJIdhobo/IMG_0096_prev.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 660px; height: 440px;" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TTZw2R424UI/AAAAAAAABZw/RThVJIdhobo/IMG_0096_prev.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The line formed by the foam on the leading edge of the tide</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></div>Before I go into explaining what I'm doing with a post filled with nothing but boring pictures of lines... a little background. A relative gave me a book for Christmas titled <span style="font-style: italic;">Talent Is Overrated</span>, by Geoff Colvin. It's been an exciting read--it argues that world-class performers, from Mozart to Tiger Woods, got that way not through an innate giftedness (it's tempting to attribute people's achievements to talent that we can never have), but through grueling practice and effective coaching. Colvin ascribes their greatness to a particular style of practicing that specifically targets your weaknesses (making the practice fundamentally draining and not fun), and that uses exercises that can be performed in high-volume. He presents a lot of compelling evidence from studies and from details of the lives of legendary athletes, musicians, chess players, and business people.<br /><br />One of the biggest hurdles for me has always been the fear that without some inborn artistic ability I would never become a decent photographer. My experience has gradually taught me otherwise, though, and the arguments in this book have completely blown that thinking out of the water for me.<br /><br />I'm excited, now, to apply these concepts to improving my photography. Over the years, I've gradually learned that becoming a great photographer is not so much about learning how to use all the features on a camera and all of the tools in Photoshop, but more about becoming an artist who can recognize the beauty in a scene and use those tools to bring it out.<br /><br />I'm not going to photography school, or even photography class (at least while there's two toddlers at home), but I do have some good books and friends to help guide me. I'm going to have to be mostly self-taught in my spare time, but I'm encouraged by Colvin's anecdote of Benjamin Franklin, who practiced to become an accomplished writer while working full time at a printing press and relying on the works of other greater writers as a guide.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TTZw0AlaNZI/AAAAAAAABZo/2d8RgbDepKk/IMG_0090_prev.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: 675px;" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TTZw0AlaNZI/AAAAAAAABZo/2d8RgbDepKk/IMG_0090_prev.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The edge of the cliffs against the sky is a common line in my photos.<br /></span></span></div><br />For my first exercise, I'm exploring the concept of line. The exercise has evolved a bit as I've worked on it, but here it is in the form of an assignment:<br /><br />Take at least 20 pictures of line, with 10 in man-made environments, and 10 in nature.<br /><ul><li>The emphasis is on form over content--the images don't have to be interesting, just demonstrate a concept.</li><li>In the man-made environment, the images have to be unique in terms of what type of contrast (light and shadow, different textures, etc.) creates the line. This is because man-made lines are abundant.</li><li>In nature, I didn't apply this restriction--the images can be of any naturally occurring line. This is because I mostly shoot in nature and I simply want to learn to recognize all of the lines I encounter in the places I typically shoot.<br /></li></ul><br /><center><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TTZwrvHJ67I/AAAAAAAABZI/FI_K1J4DbfE/IMG_0072_prev.jpg" /></center><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The line formed by the border between two materials or textures</span></span><br /></div><br />The emphasis on form over content is helpful because it means I can shoot these images easily at any time, even on my lunch break when the light is harsh and terrible :).<br /><br />Also, I quickly realized that there are many different uses for lines--horizontals, verticals, diagonals, and curves all have different qualities. Some lines lead the eye along them, others serve as a frame or a lens to focus your attention.<br /><br />For this exercise, though, I focused on simply what defines a line. I want to be able to recognize all of the lines in a scene--both to recognize what lines are available to use in making my composition, and to recognize any lines that might be interfering with my shot. All too often I pull the images off the camera at home and spot distracting lines that I didn't see while I was shooting.<br /><br /><center><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TTZw1bI9uPI/AAAAAAAABZs/cLZ6Z3rNTq4/IMG_0091_prev.jpg" /></center><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">A series of objects can form a line, such as a row of rocks at the beach</span></span><br /></div><br />With all that out of the way, here is the full gallery of my <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/chrisjmccormick/Line?feat=directlink">results</a>!<br /><br />The images also seemed to become an exercise in minimalism (if I'm using that label correctly), because I always tried to isolate the line as much as possible from any surrounding distractions.<br /><br />Overall, I think the exercise was a success. I'm finding that when I look at a scene or an image now, I'm paying much closer attention to where there is contrast. Perhaps most significantly, I think practicing this as an exercise has also caused me to look more critically and deliberately at a scene--to be less distracted by the exciting natural beauty and to be more focused on what design elements are available in front of me.<br /><br /><center><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TTZwkulpoiI/AAAAAAAABYw/FX6vYI86bZI/IMG_0057_prev.jpg" /></center><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The line formed between light and shadow can be very strong</span></span><br /></div><br />Finally, it's been abundantly clear while doing this that "line" is far from everything, and there are many more forces at work in an image to learn about. I'm excited to move on to the next one!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-82709494797507139302011-01-01T23:00:00.000-08:002011-01-02T00:58:16.420-08:00Leadbetter At Night<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5315455746/sizes/l/in/photostream/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 426px;" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5285/5315455746_d9c567f011_z.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I love shooting seascapes, but it's tough right now to get out at sunset to capture those exciting colors. Luckily, shooting the beach at night seems to be just as satisfying, and a lot more manageable time-wise!<br /><br />You just need a relatively low tide to expose some good rocks, and a mostly full moon to provide light, both of which I had on this night in December.<br /><br />At f/5.6 and ISO 200, a 6 minute exposure seemed to be the sweet spot. I pride myself in my ability to enjoy solitude, but I have to admit the 6-minute exposures got to me. I used the count down timer on the iPhone to time it, so I'd get an alarm when six minutes was up, but I still found myself anxiously checking the timer every 30 seconds. Next time I'll have to bring a friend, or maybe a book and a reading light or something :).<br /><br />One lesson learned--with these long exposures, make sure there's plenty of room between you and the tide line. During this shot, I watched the tide slowly creep closer and closer to my tripod. There were two especially far-reaching waves that sent water up past one leg of the tripod. This caused the sand to settle and the leg to sink ever-so-slightly. The result is very noticeable in the stars and the oil rigs--you can even make out how it moved twice!<br /><br />The tide was coming in quickly and threatening to trap me at the end of this point, so I didn't get a chance to retake. I like the image enough that I decided to just leave it for now, though, and do better next time :).<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Editing Details</span></span><br /><br />For this photo, I wanted to take the opportunity to share in depth the steps I took to edit it. I think there's a lot of value in sharing this stuff in detail:<br /><ul><li>It helps me solidify my understanding of the techniques I used.</li><li>It gives me an opportunity to reflect on the approaches I took, and maybe recognize some areas for improvement.</li><li>To my more experienced readers and friends, I hope you'll point out anything I might have done better.</li><li>Finally, I hope you learn something from it!</li></ul>The original image:<br /><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSAp-pl-P5I/AAAAAAAABS4/Ldd3MGdhKeI/Leadbetter_Orig_Prev.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 660px; height: 440px;" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSAp-pl-P5I/AAAAAAAABS4/Ldd3MGdhKeI/Leadbetter_Orig_Prev.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Some initial work in Lightroom:</span><br /><br />1. Rotate -.67 degrees, it was just a touch crooked. To get my landscapes level, I generally take a test shot (in this case with high ISO and wide aperture to make it quick), then zoom in and compare the horizon to the frame of my camera's LCD to check if it's level.<br /><br />2. Color Temperature to 3100K. When shooting at night, I use the 'tungsten' white balance setting to get it close (this ensures the sky comes out nice and blue). I shoot in RAW, though, so I can always tweak the white balance later. Here, I wanted it just a little cooler.<br /><br />3. Darken the left-hand-side with a gradient filter in Lightroom. The glare from the moon is visible here, so I wanted to counteract that to balance the image, and applied a graduated filter of -2/3 stops. From playing with the image in both Lightroom and Photoshop, it seems that Lightroom has an advantage here because it's working with the original RAW file.<br /><br /><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSAs5DRLwVI/AAAAAAAABS8/qYHgvqvqucw/Gradient.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 660px; height: 443px;" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSAs5DRLwVI/AAAAAAAABS8/qYHgvqvqucw/Gradient.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I made a similar adjustment to the top right corner of the image to lighten it a bit.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Now into Photoshop </span><br /><br />I screwed around in Photoshop a lot, but here's what I landed on.<br /><br />1. Apply a curve to the sky to control the contrast there. I added a curve adjustment layer to the image, and after a lot of tweaking, decided on the following curve.<br /><br /><center><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSAuh_Hu40I/AAAAAAAABTA/HqA5GT0TFBU/Sky%20Curve.png" /></center><br />I think my reasoning for this curve goes something like the following. This is where I'd love any input on my thought process.<br />- I know I want to add contrast, so I know I'm going for some kind of S-shaped curve.<br />- The highlights in the clouds are far from maxed out, so I push those up hard.<br />- I use the pointer tool in the top left of the dialog to select a dark part of the sky, then click, hold, and drag down to darken the sky. There's not a lot of deliberate thought guiding how far I go with this--I'm just going off my instincts for what looks good. I don't really trust my instincts yet, but I'm stuck with them for now!<br /><br />I use a feathered brush to paint a vector mask for this curve adjustment layer so that it's only applied to the sky, and not the cliff. I also masked out the oil rigs to protect the highlights there. For the oil rigs, I reduced the brush's "flow" to about 20 to apply a lighter mask there.<br /><br /><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSAw8fl4RzI/AAAAAAAABTE/MQ5VRqubUM8/Cliff%20Mask.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 575px; height: 383px;" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSAw8fl4RzI/AAAAAAAABTE/MQ5VRqubUM8/Cliff%20Mask.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>Tip: You can hold option and click on a vector mask to see it as in the above screenshot.<br /><br />Roll over the below image to see the before and after of just applying this curve.<br /><center><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSA36FhuAHI/AAAAAAAABTQ/EIVVSWjwnHk/LeadBetter_BeforePS_Prev.jpg" onmouseover="document.sky_curve.src='http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSA11KK_yGI/AAAAAAAABTM/_RzYfLJJwdE/LeadBetter_CurveOnly_Prev.jpg'" onmouseout="document.sky_curve.src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSA36FhuAHI/AAAAAAAABTQ/EIVVSWjwnHk/LeadBetter_BeforePS_Prev.jpg'" name="sky_curve" /></center><br />2. Apply a levels adjustment layer to the cliffs to add contrast there. I'm not entirely sure how I decided to do levels on the cliffs rather than another curve. It's likely that I just tried it, liked the result, and kept it.<br /><br /><center><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TSAynzN54BI/AAAAAAAABTI/WcqbSoMr7nc/Cliff%20Levels.png" /></center><br />You can see that I just brought the white point in to push the lighter parts of the cliffs up, then moved the grey point to darken the cliffs back down a little.<br /><br />I wanted these levels to apply to just the cliffs, so I used an inverted version of the mask from the curve layer for the sky.<br /><br />Tip: You can hold option + shift, then click on the vector mask from one layer and drag it to another layer. This copies the mask and inverts it in one step (holding 'option' makes a copy of the mask rather than moving it, and holding 'shift' inverts the mask).<br /><br />3. Finally, a few basic adjustments.<br />- Added a brightness and contrast layer. I boosted the contrast some because I was still looking for more contrast in the cliff and in the clouds against the sky. Also, I nudged the brightness up a bit just to lighten the image.<br />- Added a hue and saturation layer. I actually desatured the image some, because I felt like the curve had made the sky's blue overly rich.<br /><br />And that's it!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-68664547233235632962010-12-22T08:00:00.000-08:002010-12-22T10:23:55.996-08:00Butterfly Beach Sunset<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5282056285/sizes/l/"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5045/5282056285_20ff4fea01.jpg" /></a></center><br />This was from a pretty spectacular sunset back in November that I had a tough time figuring out how to shoot.<br /><br />Early on, the clouds were exploding with some amazing color, but they were all overhead rather than out over the ocean.<br /><br />Instead, I spent most of my time focused on the moon, hanging low in the sky (and looking huge, though I've learned this is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion" rel="nofollow">just an illusion</a>!). There were also some colors to the sky itself that I don't think I've seen before--the sky was actually teal close to the horizon, as you can see here.<br /><br />I've been trying to work on managing the contrast available in my images. Here, I pushed the highlights to bring out contrast in the clouds and in the reflection of the moon on the water. I kept the rocks in the foreground purposefully pretty dark in hopes of bringing more attention to the reflection from the moon.<br /><br />Here is the unedited <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TRHB0x-eoPI/AAAAAAAABSU/rCu-fxMKmxk/s720/IMG_8698_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">original</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-20547159549279314642010-12-04T08:00:00.000-08:002010-12-04T08:00:02.648-08:00Three Friends<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5231107172/sizes/l"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5246/5231107172_6bd8635165_z.jpg" /></a></center><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">.5 seconds at f/5.6 and 17mm</span></span><br /></div><br />I definitely went through some Photoshop heroics to pull this one together.<br /><br />I blended separate images for the foreground and sky--the range of the scene was too big to capture in a single exposure. After some editing, there's about a 3.5 stop difference between foreground and sky.<br /><br />There's some barrel distortion here, so the horizon is ever-so-slightly curved. This meant I couldn't use a simple gradient to blend the exposures. Instead, I created a selection of the sky and used the Select -> Refine Edge tool to blur the edge, then created a layer mask from the selection. Good Photoshop practice!<br /><br />One issue I ran into, though, was that I made a crop and then continued to make a bunch of other edits. I'm used to being able to go back and tweak the crop in Lightroom, but in Photoshop it seems to be permanent. Any suggestions anyone? I guess I should have waited till the end to crop!<br /><br />The original, unedited <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TPoFBlwD65I/AAAAAAAABRg/aNZG1XY3gVo/IMG_9342_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">foreground</a> and <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TPoFBwWIVUI/AAAAAAAABRk/VfVVSPn505U/IMG_9336_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">sky</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-98530817002252082010-11-23T08:00:00.000-08:002010-11-23T09:46:25.097-08:00Point Mugu<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5192755091/sizes/l/"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4144/5192755091_90c1e264bb_z.jpg" /></a></center><br />I met another <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickstanbro/">photographer</a> recently who was a student at Brooks in Santa Barbara and has been shooting around the area for a while.<br /><br />With a favorable "partly cloudy" weather report, we drove 45 minutes down the coast to a spot called <a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=34.085436,-119.060726&spn=0.013862,0.01929&t=h&z=16&iwloc=lyrftr:h,391435799499331786,34.085507,-119.060318" rel="nofollow">Point Mugu</a> for some sunset seascape photography. The sky looked great as we left Santa Barbara, but got progressively worse as we drove farther south :).<br /><br />The clouds never ended up breaking, but it was still a great time.<br /><br />Santa Barbara has mostly sandy beaches, and doesn't have this kind of dramatic meeting of jagged rock and violent waves. So just being there and watching the waves crash was awesome.<br /><br />Getting to shoot with a much more experienced photographer was a lot fun--I pummeled him with questions the whole drive down, and it was interesting to watch someone else work. Probably the best part, though, is getting to compare results and see a different perspective on the scene. Have a look at his <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickstanbro/5113712130/">image</a>!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-87013084142401282452010-11-19T22:10:00.000-08:002010-11-19T22:14:33.966-08:00Let's shed a little more light...<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5191520650/sizes/l/"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4131/5191520650_5dfd26d1eb_z.jpg" /></a><br /><br />1/2 sec. at f/8.0 and 200mm<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">This is the same spider from the last image, taken on the same night. I wasn't sure if my exercise in "ambiguity and delay" was going that well, so I decided to try a more traditional approach in case my experiment didn't pan out.<br /><br />Both were taken at night, with the only light coming from a street light across the way. For this one, I actually grabbed a halogen work light from the garage and lit him up :)<br /><br />The best part is that this guy is still out there, in the same spot, almost three weeks later! I've actually discovered the particular leaf that he hides behind during the day, and I've been checking on him periodically. It's supposed to rain a lot this weekend, though, so I'm curious to see if that does him in.<br /><br />If he's still around, I may tear his web down and try and get a timelapse of him creating a new one. We'll see...<br /></div></center>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-50795839620873592232010-10-30T21:56:00.000-07:002010-10-30T23:20:57.571-07:00Happy Halloween!<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5130904424/sizes/l/"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1411/5130904424_85a38f20cd_z.jpg" /></a></center><br />I've been reading an awesome book on composition and design in photography called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240809343?ie=UTF8&tag=discovephotog-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0240809343">The Photographer's Eye</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=discovephotog-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0240809343" alt="" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> by Michael Freeman. There were two concepts I learned about recently that I tried to apply in this photo: "ambiguity" and "delay".<br /><br />Ambiguity is simply where the image isn't obvious and straightforward, and is "slower to read". One of Freeman's examples was to focus on a subject's shadow rather than the subject itself. The viewer becomes more involved in the photograph when they have to complete it. "In a sense, it is like hearing a clever joke--just understanding the point is rewarding."<br /><br />Delay is a closely related subject that I thought was really cool. The idea is that you hide an important part of the image by applying design techniques to draw the viewer's eye to other places first. Delay is essentially how you create ambiguity in your image.<br /><br />When I saw this huge spider on the side of our house, and then its shadow, it seemed like a great opportunity to apply these concepts. I've tried to enhance the contrast on the rose as much as possible to make it "pop" and grab your eye first. Hopefully your eye moves next to the shadow of the spider, which gets your imagination working about the creepy critter. Finally, further scanning the frame should reveal the spider itself, though it's camoflaged and out of focus.<br /><br />My biggest regret here is that the background is pretty confusing--the shadows of the leaves are a mess and I have to imagine it's hard to make out here that you're looking at the side of a house. You'll have to let me know if you think it worked!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-51436765347479307842010-10-01T08:00:00.000-07:002010-10-01T09:49:52.372-07:00Lightning<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5042066862/sizes/l/"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 640px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4113/5042066862_85bcc9d578_z.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Anyone else enjoy the lightning last night?<br /><br />I set the camera on the tripod on our back porch / landing, set up a 30 second exposure, then locked the cable release. It fired away while I went and put Logan to bed :).<br /><br />I caught maybe fifteen strikes, this was one of the best (most of them didn't show much of a bolt). This is a single exposure, but I can't testify to whether or not there were multiple strikes in it.<br /><br />This is from downtown Santa Barbara, looking out towards Hendry's beach. The view from here is great for figuring out whether there will be a good sunset at the beach :).<br /><br />Here's another one. This one is three separate exposures merged in Photoshop.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5041444755/sizes/l/"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 640px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4085/5041444755_9dff3018d6_z.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-20566221141308302752010-09-28T08:00:00.000-07:002010-09-28T10:29:32.980-07:00There's Still Hope<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/5000420194/sizes/l/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 427px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4131/5000420194_b571bf3dd7_z.jpg" alt="" border="0"></a><br />This photo outing was encouraging for a number of reasons.<br /><br />First, the EF-S 17-55mm proved once again to be a fantastic lens, and I'm really pleased with how big of a difference it's making in the sharpness of my images.<br /><br />Second, it was pretty painless to edit, and only took me about 30 minutes of tinkering, so I'm definitely building confidence there.<br /><br />Finally, I dragged the whole family with me, including the ~2 year old and the ~2 month old, and it wasn't impossible to make that happen. We piled in the car just before sunset, drove up the road a bit, and spent about a half hour at the beach, and nobody was too upset about it.<br /><br />Basically, I was able to pull together an image that I'm really excited about without having to make a huge investment. It was reassuring to see that there's still hope for me in this hobby, even with two young kids and precious little free time! :)Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-81293044807654996982010-09-17T08:00:00.000-07:002010-09-17T14:49:15.152-07:00Isla Vista Steps<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/4780268649/sizes/l/"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 333px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4780268649_c38e8f6076.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />This photo was taken last December on one of my all-time-favorite photo outings.<br /><br />Isla Vista is a tiny town which is home to most of the college students attending UC Santa Barbara. The town butts right up against some small cliffs along the ocean. When the tide's at its peak, the beach along IV is completely submerged, and the waves crash against the cliffs. On one end of the town are these steps which lead down to the beach and are submerged at very high tide.<br /><br />It had been raining for days, and was supposed to keep raining that morning. Packing the night before, I grabbed a rain coat and an umbrella in case it was still going. The clouds broke, though, and made for quite the sunrise.<br /><br />We had recently purchased a Flip video camera, and I took it along to share the experience a little bit. Check out the video below.<br /><br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YQUEdwXF07E?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YQUEdwXF07E?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-87095988240061364452010-07-20T08:00:00.000-07:002010-07-20T15:27:18.649-07:00Lighthouse<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/4780166887/sizes/l/"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 333px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4780166887_73db40047b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />The coast guard has a small lighthouse on the cliffs on the mesa. I think it's more like a small rotating spotlight than a lighthouse, but I don't know what else you'd call it. It sits on a piece of property owned by the coast guard which includes about eight homes occupied by coast gaurd members, half of which have unobstructed views of the ocean. Not a bad deal!<br /><br />This was a couple hours after sunset with a mostly full moon shining behind me. It's a three minute exposure, and the lighthouse light was rotating, so that's why the starburst is a little funky.<br /><br />This was shot from Thousand Steps, and was one of my first outings with our new EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens. I'm very pleased with how sharp it turned out!<br /><br />The original, unedited <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TDjCTzHDaEI/AAAAAAAABK8/HfadRgZgMl8/s640/IMG_5210_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">image</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-30254242898776591062010-07-10T12:11:00.000-07:002010-07-10T12:15:51.934-07:00Tide's Coming In...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/4741492600/sizes/l/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 333px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4082/4741492600_6aa6b19e68.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />A couple weekends ago my mother-in-law was in town to help Jess around the house and with Logan, so I had some more flexibility than usual for photography. To take advantage of the situation, I rented my current dream lens, the EF-S 10-22mm, for the weekend.<br /><br />The lens was great--very sharp, and I really appreciated the extra wide field of view.<br /><br />I'm excited with the results from this outing, though not necessarily about the images themselves. There wasn't any color in the sky, so the images are missing that drama that I love. I'm excited, though, because I think I <i>finally</i> nailed the exposure in terms of balancing the foreground and the sky while still getting the water effect that I was after. Now I just need to wait for a dramatic sunrise or sunset to come along, and I should be golden!<br /><br />The original, unedited <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TCguJRpXEVI/AAAAAAAABKg/2c7PA7iR6to/s640/IMG_6005_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">image</a>.<br /><br />Also, here are some more details / notes that I posted in the comments:<br /><br />A couple notes on the exposure:<br />- I shot in full manual<br />- I zoomed in on the rock and metered off of the foreground, which ended up being about +2 stops overexposed for the whole scene.<br />- I experimented with different shutter speeds, from about 1/4sec to maybe 1sec.<br />- I occasionally took a 0ev exposure to capture the sky in case I wanted to blend it in. Turned out to be unnecessary in this case; I just used a virtual grad filter in Lightroom to bring down the exposure of the sky.<br />- I shot in RAW, then I sent the saturation through the roof in Lightroom.<br /><br />Finally, I picked a rock that was mostly out of the water, waited for a wave to hit, and then started the exposure just about as the water hit the rock. I experimented with starting the exposure at different points there, too. You can never really predict what the water's going to do or what it will look like, so experimentation seems key :)Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-34185561557518650832010-06-29T08:00:00.000-07:002010-06-29T11:05:46.270-07:00Chris<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/4698646452/sizes/l/"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 333px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1300/4698646452_c3df041cb8.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />My brother Matt braved the mosquitos with me for some night photography on the beach in Galveston, Texas.<br /><br />It ended up being too dark for the kinds of shots I had in mind--there was only a partial moon and it was hiding behind clouds--so we decided to mess around with some light painting instead. We used a AA maglite and took turns running in, trying to write our name, then running out and waiting for the 60 second exposure to finish. We had about 8 failed attempts before I finally got this one--the trick ended up being to write slowly, and move in between each letter.<br /><br />After that, we decided we couldn't tolerate any more mosquito bites (despite copious amounts of bug spray! I even got a bite or two <i>through</i> my t-shirt!), and headed back in before Matt had a chance to redeem himself :)<br /><br />There seem to be frequent thunderstorms in Galveston, and I had hoped to catch one while we were there, but wasn't lucky enough. Had fun hanging out with my brother, though!<br /><br />The original unedited <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TBWf9QPUW_I/AAAAAAAABJY/EpMERqpizlg/IMG_5461_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">image</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-26655477623212620602010-06-24T21:40:00.000-07:002010-06-24T21:45:44.124-07:00Harbor Under Fog<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/4625782547/sizes/l/"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 333px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3300/4625782547_95c85c483a.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></div><br />One last image from my harbor outing back in May.<br /><br />As I was heading back to the car, the fog was starting to roll over the harbor in broken chunks. The moving breaks in the fog created the nice gradation of light you see in this image.<br /><br />Also, the white balance was a big key in editing these photos. Most of the light sources in this shot, particularly the light from Santa Barbara illuminating the glow in the sky, are <b>very</b> orange. If you look at the original <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/S_02fybX-DI/AAAAAAAABHQ/lisSXeDFjZU/s720/HarborNight5_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">image</a> with auto white balance, it's overwhelmingly orange.<br /><br />I shot these in RAW and brought the color temperature way down to turn the orange glow into a cool blue. The original white balance is probably much truer to what my eyes saw that night, but I think the blue just has a much better atmosphere.<br /><br />I've learned that the white balance can have a huge impact on your night photography. If your images are coming back with an orangish-brown sky, try bringing down the color temperature and--poof!--you'll have a blue night sky. (Or, when you're out there, try shooting with your camera's "tungsten" white balance mode).<br /><br />The original, unedited <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/S_02fybX-DI/AAAAAAAABHQ/lisSXeDFjZU/s720/HarborNight5_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">image</a>.<br /><br />Another image from that evening. I didn't like how it turned out enough to put it at the front of my photostream, but I thought it was at least a cool idea.<br /><br /><div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/4626388520/sizes/l/"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4018/4626388520_983943f08f.jpg" border="0" alt="" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 102px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-66127404250861964572010-06-20T21:34:00.000-07:002010-06-20T22:12:18.095-07:00Saturate your Sunsets!I made an interesting discovery today that's left me feeling a little cheated. As Jess and I have felt our way through editing over the past five years, one thing we've learned is that you have to be careful with saturation. It's great to have your colors "pop", but you can easily overdo it--the colors start to bleed and you start losing detail and variation of tone. So, as a sort of rule, I never push the saturation very far, in either my photographs of people or my landscapes. I'm realizing that was a mistake, at least for my sunset shots.<br /><br />This past week I started to create a Flickr gallery of seascape images that inspire me so that I can spend some time pulling them apart and learning from them. One of the things I've realized so far is that a lot of the great sunsets on Flickr are <span style="font-style: italic;">heavily</span> saturated, and it's even pretty clear that detail has been lost in the sky for the sake of emphasizing those dramatic colors.<br /><br />So I grabbed one of my recent photos, and pushed the saturation slider farther. It looked pretty good! So I pushed it farther. Even better! I pushed it <span style="font-style: italic;">all the way to +100</span>, and it looked <span style="font-style: italic;">awesome</span>.<br /><br />Check out the before and after. The 'before' is how it looked when I originally posted it last week. I had boosted the saturation some, but only to about +23. Also, since I was spending some more time on it today, I tweaked the exposure some and brought up the foreground--so look at the difference in the sky more than the difference in the water and sand.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/4705880629/sizes/l/" onmouseover="document.sunset_pic.src='http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/4705880629_070ab4f8bb.jpg'" onmouseout="document.sunset_pic.src='http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TB7x4C0e_3I/AAAAAAAABKQ/mPWzRXEViy0/StormySunset_Prev.jpg'"><br /><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TB7x4C0e_3I/AAAAAAAABKQ/mPWzRXEViy0/StormySunset_Prev.jpg" name="sunset_pic" /><br /></a></center><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Move your mouse over the image to see the change</span><br /></div><br />I can't believe that something so simple has eluded me for so long!<br /><br />One thing that may be worth noting is that I always shoot in RAW format, and this may have been important in allowing me to push the saturation so far. We always shoot RAW because Lightroom makes it so easy--it's essentially transparent to us that the images are RAW and not JPEG.<br /><br />I'm looking forward to sharing more about the Flick gallery when it's finished. I think the other thing that's become very apparent already from assessing others' work is that my shots are underexposed. I've got to fix that next time I go out!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-56209305147121450442010-06-18T21:52:00.000-07:002010-06-20T22:16:38.346-07:00Stormy Sunset<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/4705880629/sizes/l"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 357px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/4705880629_070ab4f8bb.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Another one from my outing to Hendry's back in April.<br /><br />In hindsight, it would have been nice to have kept the shutter speed the same, but overexpose it by a stop or two to get the foreground exposed better. It's hard to know exactly what shutter speed is going to look best when you're out there. I am learning, though, that I have to overexpose it some to get the foreground right, and then I can pull the sky back down in post processing.<br /><br />I did bracket this exposure, and blended in some of the overexposed image to recover detail in the rock. The water only looked this cool in <i>this</i> exposure, though, so the rock was all I could take from the other one.<br /><br />Here's the original, unedited <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TBjpcQNq1pI/AAAAAAAABJ0/xvqJ9oEOOfE/s512/IMG_4506_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">image</a>. It's so off-level that you'd think I was drunk! This was one of my last outings with the $30 tripod before I got the new one, so that's probably what happened there. It needed to be cropped in anyway!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-48346568304940707412010-06-16T08:00:00.000-07:002010-06-16T16:14:57.767-07:00Everything's Bigger In Texas<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismcc/4683949227/sizes/l/"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1279/4683949227_28a4e122e5.jpg" /></a></center><br />This was taken on Galveston island in Texas at a place called Pointe West. I was looking inland, across the bay towards Houston.<br /><br />That cloud is <i>huge</i>. it's probably over 25,000 feet tall--taller than any mountain and probably more massive. You'll never see anything like that in Santa Barbara :). Check out the original size for some nice detail in the clouds.<br /><br />This is a panorama, stitched together from 5 vertical frames at 17mm.<br /><br />Here is the original, uncropped and unedited <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/TA8oDfp0HxI/AAAAAAAABI8/IHTJ6_DQLnM/s912/GalvestonCloud_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">panorama</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-85710670849487026232010-06-12T12:22:00.000-07:002010-06-12T12:24:45.960-07:00Harbor at Night<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/64307812@N00/4625782417/sizes/l/in/pool-60539497@N00/"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/4625782417_f0cbc6f249.jpg" /></a></center><br />Another shot from my outing to the harbor back in May.<br /><br />This is the Santa Barbara harbor at night, viewed from the breakwater. At the left of the frame is the yacht club, and the brightest lights in the middle are the SB City College stadium.<br /><br />There were so many different sources and colors of light in this scene, I think that's what excited me most about it.<br /><br />The atmosphere of these harbor shots is coming from a layer of fog over Santa Barbara--that's what's producing the glow along the horizon.<br /><br />The original, unedited <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/S_0yxsHnDOI/AAAAAAAABGo/hNhcPdsbevM/HarborNight3_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">image</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424337586806717603.post-58854971660440894912010-06-09T08:00:00.000-07:002010-06-09T13:46:33.889-07:00Huge Beetle<center><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3382/4634166313_d4a1a20734_o.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3382/4634166313_3854cd50f9.jpg" /></a></center><br />Jess was out pruning the roses and came across this monster beetle hanging on to one of the stems.<br /><br />Here's a less interesting, but more informative photo of the thing that I buried in my photostream:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4029/4634165237_490bf1e718_o.jpg"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4029/4634165237_4b6637b524.jpg" /></a></center><br /><br />This photo is a good example of how you can get a decent "macro" shot with your kit lens. The focal length of the lens doesn't affect the minimum focusing distance, so you can focus as close as possible then zoom all the way in to 55mm and get pretty good magnification. I wrote my very first blog <a href="http://mcc-photo.blogspot.com/2009/01/minimum-focusing-distance.html" rel="nofollow">post</a> in 2009 about this subject, and interestingly enough it's by far my biggest source of traffic. <br /><br />If you agitated this guy, he'd buzz something in front of his mouth and make a chirping sound; here's a little clip of it.<br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KIHaeX5X_dM&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KIHaeX5X_dM&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />Here's the original, unedited <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-3JC6jEiuvQ/S_032vgaHbI/AAAAAAAABHc/Cr6-CzZsa-U/HugeBeetle2_Orig.jpg" rel="nofollow">image</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832621834659862419noreply@blogger.com2