Thursday, October 29, 2015

Lookup Season - fall in the Eastern Sierras

Aspen grove lookup, Bishop CA

What's a trip to see the fall colors without at least one of these? I still love the one I did last year in June Loop but the tips of these ones were nicely colored from yellow to orange. This was taken with the 14mm so the FOV is real wide. Figured I'd add the sun in there for some extra interest. Taken in the table mountain campground on the south fork outside of Bishop.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24, f/18, 1-100 sec, ISO-250

www.bay-photography.com

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Stars and Stripes - Eastern Sierra petroglyphs

Petroglyphs under the airglow sky


 After I was done shooting the milky way from this spot I turned around to capture the stars facing north as I ran my intervalometer for a startrail shot that I am working on. Before that, I captured a few single frames to see how it would look. Was picking up some airglow so I first setup my foreground focus and used some light painting, then focused for the stars and bumped the ISO up to 10k to get as much as I could out of it. I then blended the two in photoshop. The tail end of the Milky Way is on the right which is why the stars are brighter on that side. One of the coolest places I've spent under the stars.
 
Foreground: Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24, f/4, 25 sec, ISO-3200 Sky: Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8, 25 sec, ISO-10,000
 
 

Friday, October 23, 2015

6th street farewell - Los Angeles Cityscapes

Re-took a few shots from the iconic 6th street bridge before they close it for remodel which is expected to be completed in 2019.

Climbed up the right side to catch the sunset

6Th street bridge sunset, Los Angeles

and the left side for twilight



Cant wait to see what the new bridge has in store.

www.bay-photography.com

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Eastern Sierra shots

Here are a few more from my recent trip to the Mammoth area in the eastern sierras.

Had to visit that395 house

395 abandoned house and milky way, eastern sierras

South Lake had some awesome color:



Fall Bokeh, Eastern Sierras


North Lake road was peaking too:

North lake fire aspens, Eastern Sierras


Will post more as I edit them.

www.bay-photography.com

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Wheels in Motion - Eastern Sierra Petroglyphs


Came back out here while I was up in the Eastern Sierras. I wanted to use a wider lens and a different technique. Focus here is challenging as the petroglyphs are inches in front of you. So I shot the foreground at twilight in order to achieve maximum depth of field and the stars about 1.5 hours after when it got darker. Since daylight and night time shots look different, you can't just throw the two together as it looks odd. For the foreground a good tip is to desaturate the image a bit to tone down some of the color as night images are a little flatter. Also, use a blueish photo filter to remove the whites from the image. Brightness varies by preference. I tend to leave the image a bit darker to match the sky, just enough to make out the details. Still had some snow on the sierra range from the past weekend. Not the darkest area but still one of the coolest in my book. Can't beat thousands of year old rock art under the night sky. Hope everyone got their astro shots in, Oct was really the last month this year where the core is visible. If not, gotta wait until Q2 of next year.
 
Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24, foreground: f/14, 1 sec, ISO-100 sky: f/2.8, 15 sec, ISO-6400
 

 

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Redheads - South Lake Eastern Sierras


 
 
Captured this awesome grove on the south lake fork right below mist falls. Saw this one from far away as the yellows were very vibrant with some orange/red tips. Captured this from the road so used my 70-200 with the 1.4x teleconverter. Shoulda brought along my 300mm but didn't want to carry both that and the 70-200. Snapped this as the sun was coming up over the mountain from behind. Not where any direct sunlight hit the grove yet, but enough to give it some nice warmth. The south lake fork still has plenty of potential with lots of lime green. Should be good this/next weekend.
 
Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200 + 1.4 TC, f/16, 1 sec, ISO-50