Miscellania from the last few weeks.

Haven't taken many photos intended for general consumption recently, mostly family stuff and Halloween shots. Anyway, Here are some semi notable shots from the recent past.

Olympic Bridge at the University of Utah, K24mm f2.8, I really liked a shot I took of this with my dad's film Voigtlander, and I wanted to try digital and see the look I would get. I think I like the second one better but both are kinda nice.

I have been riding the light rail train a lot, and riding it at night, this is less than perfectly conducive to creative photography but I have tried to give it a whirl. Twisting the camera can be fun.

So can a swirly panning motion.

Last Sunday I got out the Sigma 300mm f4 and rattled off a few shots of the cool clouds to the east of my home. Love my view sometimes.

Mt. Timpanogos 2 shot panorama.

Will post anything decent I get in the near future for all y'alls entertainment!

"Buggy" Lenses

One of the many reasons I wanted to get a Macro lens was to be able to get up close and personal with small things... like bugs for instance.

This bad boy was hanging out on the foundation of my garage and moving very little, I think it was dying from the cold maybe? Anyway, I saw him while I was putting up some Halloween decorations and after I got done I went and got my tripod and camera and started playing.

These were the two I liked the most. Enjoy..... if they don't creep you out too much!

Ah... Glorious Night! Thou That Reveals Thy Secrets to Those That are Willing to Stay Awake!

Back to the Goblin Valley are again, just can't get enough of that place really. Took my Brother-In-Law down so he could see the place for the first time. We left in the early evening and got down there a bit after 10:00 pm. After setting up and turning off our headlights so that our eyes could adjust we were treated to a spectacular view of the Milky Way. (You can see a timelapse of the Milky Way rotating at the bottom of the post.) We stood there for awhile and watched meteors zip across the sky and took in the silent peace. Then went to bed after we got too cold to stand it anymore.

This shot was taken at 1600 ISO and f3.5 for 3 minutes, with the dark frame noise reduction setting turned on. Heaven knows what it would look like if it had not been. This is noisy and unsharp enough as it is. The lens was my 8mm fisheye.

I got up around 5 to a camera with dead batteries (mid 30's will do that to even the best of them.) so I changed them and took a longer exposure, that got to about 45min.... ish.... before the batteries in the remote died..... can't win for losing. The moon was out, which gave me more general illumination, and blued the sky a bit. The large blob in the upper left is Jupiter I believe.

Morning came early enough, and brought some wonderful color. One of the best sunrises I have seen in that area.

We quickly broke camp, stowed the tents and headed to Little Wild Horse. I had never seen the cottonwood trees in fall color (at least I think they are cottonwoods.....) it certainly fit with the landscape colorwise.

Back into my favorite scenery: a slot canyon. I was deliberately trying to think in B&W this trip. Looking more for tonal differences, texture, and shadow than color. this actually made it easier to visualize the shots for me.

In some ways this is a failed shot, I was so close to the tree that it was hard to get both tree and butte in reasonable focus. Even stopped well down. I still kind of like it, but not that much.

I had seen this before but had been unable to actually get close enough to shoot it. Finally got it, a good feeling.

A particularly favorite motif, or hackneyed and overused device depending on who you talk to. Is the dead tree in the desert. Heck if I care if it is overused, it still warms my heart.

Something about this butte just symbolizes being out in the desert to me. Stark strength in the midst of harsh and unforgiving dryness, enduring majestically, despite the slow erosion that will one day reduce it to blowing sand. Uncaring of man and his efforts to overawe the world around him, the marks in the sky of his ultrafast transit only serving to emphasize the stillness and peace surrounding it.

Here is my BIL, first time I hiked this slot canyon, we had to crawl under this rock. A lot of sand and gravel has gone away in those 2.5 years.

Down in the Hoodoo's of Goblin Valley now, we got a kick out of finding faces in the rock. This conehead was pretty cool.

Miles of walking can be had in the valley, some so densely packed it is hard to see where you are. Looking up all you can see is rock and sky.

After sadly parting from gods playground, we headed back to civilization, but not without spotting some four legged friends. This larger fella was chasing off some younger bucks, and protecting his ladies.

This guy didn't give a crud that I was there shooting him, or so it seemed.

Hope you enjoyed the trip with me!

Film! Film? Really.... FILM!!! I shot film!

Having had the opportunity to use my fathers old Voigtlander Vito II camera, a folding 35mm film camera made in 1954...ish... I am excited to announce that it works, and actually works quite well!

I put in a roll of 24 exposure, Tri-X 400 and off I went. Now just so you don't think this was an easy painfree experience, here is a description of what is involved with taking a shot. After you have figured what you want to shoot.

1) Pull out the light meter, spend a minute or two using it to estimate the best exposure.

2) Put away meter, pull out camera, unsnap case, release folding mechanism and fold lens out locking into place.

3) Set exposure on camera, cock shutter, guess your focusing distance. No there is no way to confirm your focus. This is not even a rangefinder, this is point and guess.

4) Frame the shot, make whatever adjustments need to be made, take a deep breath, let it half out, hold and gently press the release button, trying not to shake. There is no Shake Reduction, or Vibration Reduction, or Image Stabilization.

5) Wait till you finish the roll, get it developed and find out if you messed up or not.

In this age of instant review.... this is hard to deal with, kind a fun though.

Now... on to the pictures. (Just as a side note, Blogspot is doing something weird with my thumbnails, and putting some kind of sharpening on them that is giving me halos at the dark/light transitions. This is not intentional, I try to avoid them at all costs.)

These are the "Keepers" from the roll, I was not super choosy, lowering my standards in difficult shooting situations keeps me sane!

Olympic Bridge at the University of Utah, this was part of the athletes village during the 2002 Olympics.

I have NO CLUE, where this shot was taken, likely someplace downtown, but I do not remember taking it at all. Absolutely LOVE the shadows though.

I have shot this staircase at the human genetics building at the U of U since I took this image and posted it here, but this was the first shot I tried.

Downtown Salt Lake, cast iron chair in a new plaza.

New Fountain on the plaza, I really liked the arch of the water, with the Salt Lake Temple in the background. I may try this shot during the Christmas Season when the trees are lit up.

This was a very unique fountain that caught my eye, the curves please me.

Back to the other fountain again, this could end up being a staple for me, I think there are lots of ways to photograph this.

The rest of these shots are from the Tour of Utah. I went up to the Presidents Circle after getting off of work and shot some of the cyclists as they went past. I really didn't expect any of these to turn out, but I got more keepers than I had any right to.

I'm NOT ready, but Fall is here anyway!

This last week has seen an explosion of color here in the Salt Lake Valley. I HAD to get up and see what was out there yesterday morning. Fortunately I live close to several canyons and I was able to get into the color altitude quite easily. I was there before dawn (all part of my nefarious plan) to try to set up before the sun was up. I found a spot I liked, hopefully you will like it too.

Now, a caveat here, I am not a huge fan of overdone HDR, this borders on overdone, but it was the only way to get any foreground details at all. I am not really all that convinced that it is a shot to be proud of, but I am liking it a bit.

8 shots in 1 stop increments, tripod of course, @17mm.

Another HDR, but less of a push to get the details. This I like!

Everything is rusting except the dead tree and the evergreens. Due to the warmness of the early morning light, I had to cool this down a bit so that the greens looked like they should.

This little stand of Quakies was my favorite. Just turning and standing up for themselves.

My friendly dead tree, not sure why but I liked him enough to shoot again.

Further down the canyon, I found time to tramp around a secret part of the little stream that runs through it. Glad I have Gore-Tex waterproof boots, and that I take the time to look in the hidden places.

This little spot captivated me for quite awhile, I LOVED that God put some delicate little water droplets on a leaf in the midst of rushing water just for me. He knows I really like that kind of stuff.

Multiple shots follow.

Cropped and converted to B&W.

The original.

Trying to get closer, I slipped and splashed water over the leaf... sad.... sad... but there was still beauty to behold.

Happy Fall!

Finally a chance to shoot Macro in a Controlled Enviroment.

I have been waiting since I got my new Macro lens for the chance to really put it through it's paces in a controlled enviroment. Getting to know a new lens takes time and pushing the limits to find where the lens will not do what you want it to do, and to find where it shines.

This lens is a challenging beastie, macro lenses at close focus will challenge your ability to hold your camera steady, when your depth of field is measured in tenths of inches there is little room for error. That is one thing that has challenged me so far when shooting handheld. The other difficulty is related to that, to get a larger depth of field, you need to stop down, well even in broad daylight stopping down to f16 with a 100mm lens requires higher ISO's or a tripod.

Anyway, I took the opportunity on Sunday to get out my softbox and tripod and see what this lens can really do.

First: My favorite flower along with Daisies, The Sunflower. While not at 1:1 magnification this type of shot is something that a Macro should excel at. I was not disappointed.

Moving in closer, makes things more tricky. Both exposure (increased to get detail in the middle of the flower blowing the petals) and point of focus have to be carefully set, often by positioning the camera and moving the subject.

Turning the flower and a larger aperture allow for isolation of certain parts of the flower. While not the best shot, it allowed me to see the effect of what I was doing.

Abandoning the flower, I photographed a treasured piece of Caithness Glass, I love this stuff, and it was fun to make a beautiful photo with it.

Getting closer is always a temptation.

Then getting a little more out there I put some water droplets on a CD and played with my LED Maglight. Liked the effect, but not as much as I had thought.

I learned a lot about my lens which will help me when I get to a more critical point when I need to get the shot and I need to absolutely trust the lens will do what I expect. So far I am really confident that this lens will deliver.