Cosmicar MC 70-200 f1:4 does the Portland, OR ZOO!

I was really quite excited to take my newest lens to the Zoo. I have been finding that it is a sharp and contrasty lens and a heck of a lot of fun! See?

The only drawbacks to this lens are that it is Manual Focus, and it has a bit of a green cast especially in the shadows or in lower light. But that can be fixed fairly easily.

Obligatory Photo Stop at Multnomah Falls

As is our usual we stopped at Multnomah Falls as we exited Portland. This was the only time on the trip that I missed having access to my Friends Sigma 10-20 ultra wide angle lens. I had trouble getting wide enough at times.

Now these are not the most absolutely best shots ever, I was dumb enough to leave the Tripod in the Van... sigh... when will I learn... Hand Holding/bracing at anything longer than 1/3 sec is asking for blurry shots, which I got a lot of. I do like what I got though.

Hopefully some of them will tickle your fancy, I am afraid I have posted more than I should but I just couldn't weed them out more. Maybe you can help, leave a comment and let me know which ones you like!

And now an angle you see less often!

Now with a slower shutter speed.

Duck Hunting With Some Borrowed Lenses

Had the chance to meet up with a fellow DPReview Forum member (brandrx) and play with some of his fantastic (and out of my price range) Telephoto lenses. The Sigma 50-500, and the 500mm Prime (or non-Zoom) lens.

I had a BALL, and just wished I had had more time before it was time to pick up my youngest from my sisters. These are my 5 favorites.

Oh What a Morning!!

Some more shots of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple from last Friday morning. We had been experiencing a few mornings with partly cloudy skies and impressive sunrises. Seizing the day I sallied forth to try to capture the best images I have yet. I think I got close.

This first image is similar to one I shot in the evening of Valentines Day 2009, but with completely different lighting. I am eager to try this in the winter with fresh snowfall. I am curious how that much reflective material will alter the lighting. I really like this one and my wife more than really likes it. I haven't decided which way to crop it, I think I will most likely crop off the left edge but I am not totally sure that having it that off center is a good thing.

This is the only HDR shot that really looked OK, the others I tried had WAY too much cloud movement, I liked the overall look of the sky quite a bit.

I felt that the symbolism of this shot with The statue of the Angel Moroni on the top amid the storm clouds and looking toward the clearing of light and blue sky was worth the effort of making this shot. I spent a lot of time lightening the steeple and the statue.

This is a shot where HDR failed me due to cloud movement. I ended up copying the temple from one shot and superimposing it on top of the too dark one from a shot that had the best sky. There are a few small cloning oopsies, but I really like the overall impression.

Monday Morning 7am with the Pentax K-28mm f3.5

Worked an extra day this last Monday at a local hospital. On the days I work there I ride the bus and then catch the Light Rail (TRAX) to the hospital. On days that I go downtown I tend to take my camera with me just in case. Monday, I missed the first connecting train and I had about 8 minutes before the next one. Except for the first one, these were all shot in a bit of a hurry.

This was taken as I was leaving my house. It is a mild crop to get rid of a lot of boring sky.

This is the Salt Lake City/County building, where the city and county offices are located. (Funnily enough) This is a crop to about 1/3 of the frame. I probably should have put the 50mm on but I was trying to just use the 28 and see what I could get. I still think it is reasonably sharp.

This is an panorama with multiple exposures blended by PTgui. I actually really like the shadow detail this gave me. I shot this handheld and I believe it was 7 blended shots.

Now for another software experiment. This is the exposure blending setting in Photomatix of a different set of photos. I think the exposure looks really nice and the shadow details are quite good, but it didn't handle aligning the images very well, with handholding the camera I was unable to re-align the camera that precisely between changing the exposures between shots. Clearly I need to pay to get the license for this and PTgui.

This is the same set of photos processed in Photomatix using HDR and the Tone Compression algorithm, there are other algorithms but like in the above shot, it puts a watermark on the shot unless you have the license. This looks ok, but I think I should have dropped at least one of the darker shots to lighten the shadows.

More shots from last Wed.

These were shot just an hour or so ahead of the next post, I was on my way from the bike shop to my parents house and noticed these clouds to the west, I drove to a favorite spot high on the East Bench and took a few shots. The sun then quickly went behind the clouds and gave no sunset colors at all. I just loved the drama of the multiple layers of clouds.

This is from a slightly different spot and processed very differently from my ususal. Don't know if I like it all that much but I thought it was interesting.

This is Old Mill Golf course, a favorite of mine. There is a freeway right above the top of the image that I cropped out, not sure if it totally ruins the shot, but I just couldn't stand to see it in there.

Just Can't Get Enough

I just love to take pictures of the Temples around here. They are challenging and beautiful and lit up at night. Good Combination for someone who often doesn't get out until the kids are in bed. For those of you who are not LDS or From Utah: Temples are some of the most important places on Earth. They are more sacred than a regular meeting house, and are set apart as a special place for the spirit of The Lord to dwell on the earth. We get Sealed (Married) for not just this life, but for the afterlife too in these buildings. Very few things in this world are more important than temples to people in my religion.

Anyway, my brother and I buzzed up to the Draper Temple on Wed Night, we took a bunch of shots, these are some HDR's I went for. Enjoy

OK, this worked a little better, sorta...

This is a Panorama done with Microsoft ICE. I got it to put everything together in the right order, but with some funky distortions from side to side. Hmmmm will have to keep trying.

My First Panorama Shot(s)

If you scroll down you will see my previous post about my trip to the Utah State Capital, these are panoramas I shot there. The bottom one is incomplete because the the panorama software had issues with the matching parts of the image and did some really weird distortions trying to make the two ends the same. Just a pain, so the bottom one only goes to the far side of the rotunda.

Anyway, Enjoy! This is a 180+ degree shot looking from the north side of the rotunda, rotating from the East Hall to the West Hall.

A Few Goofy Self Portraits

Not a self portrait shooter at all, not much of a portrait shooter really. Just don't enjoy it much. But I felt it was time to shoot a few "selfers" it came at a serendipitious time, there was a thread on DPReview on self portraits in the afternoon on Sat that I just happened to have images handy for. That was nice.

Anyway here I am in all my goofy glory.

This is at one of my favorite places by where I live. This is a manmade lake but I still love to go up there, it is peaceful and quiet and a place to think.

I can often be found in this position, thinking, or just trying to clear my mind. Don't tell me wife but I (on occasion) stop for a little while on my way home to take a breather before jumping into the chaos of kids and dinner and bedtime. Need to drink a little peace into my soul.

These next shots were taken in the Utah State Capital, see below for other interior shots. As I was getting ready to leave, after wandering the upper galleries, I noticed a shaft of light from one of the windows in the rotunda resting on the railing of the stairs. Being the goofball I am I couldn't resist laying on in for one shot.

These are all taken just to the right of that stair case. the light moved off the railing and onto the floor. I had a lot of fun with these.

Tough Guy pose. Yep, just a pose.....

Looking off into the ??????

I vill break you!!!

Uh Oh, the aliens are about to beam me up!