Tag Archives: Landscapes

California Winter

Although the pandemic has dampened our air travel, I have not slowed down on my weekend road trips.  Winter is a special time offering unique spectacles.  In Northern California, it is easy to get to snow, as you go towards the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Last month, as I was passing through Groveland, California, I came across this hillside forest.  It had fresh snow, perfect side-lighting and a great pattern of the vertical tree trunks.  I loved the pattern, the contrast and the texture.  A great representation of California’s winter.

This scene was a bit away from me and therefore I used the Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 lens and framed this at about 180mm.  Since the nearest part of the image is already far away, I knew that an aperture of f/11 is enough to meet the depth of field needs.  I bracketed several exposures to finally picked the capture with the right leaning histogram.

https://www.pixgaga.com

Snow laden forest, Groveland, California, USA

Alaska#19

Denali National Park, Alaska.  Shot under similar conditions as and just minutes after Alaska#18.  Nikon D4S with Nikkor 200-500mm f5.6 lens.

Denali National Park, Alaska, USA

Buy a print – Link

Register for my next webinar or ask a question for potential inclusion in my upcoming ebook, “101 tips for Digital Travel Photography” – Link

7 Lessons from a Waterfall Image

Fall leaves and small waterfall, Uvas Canyon, Morgan Hill, CA, USA

Fall leaves and small waterfall, Uvas Canyon, Morgan Hill, CA, USA

  1. In overcast conditions, look for colorful subjects (flowers, foliage etc) to make intimate landscapes.  Given the time of the year (mid-Nov), photographing fall leaves was a no-brainer for me.
  2. If possible, emphasize something in the foreground, against the background subject.  In this case, I found this colorful leaf for the foreground to anchor the shot of a background waterfall and more leaves.
  3. Photograph extensive depth images with a wide angle lens.  I used my 17-35mm f2.8.
  4. Use f22, if there is a foreground object very close to the lens, along with background that is far away.  This ensured front to back sharpness due to extensive depth of field.  My lens was about 9 inches away from the foreground leaf.
  5. Use your camera’s native ISO to keep the noise to the minimum.  I used ISO 200, native to my Nikon D300.
  6. Use a tripod.  The shutter speed for this shot was 30 s.  I could not have done it hand-held.  I used my light GK1580TQR5 tripod, coupled with my Kirk BH-1 Ball head.  This tripod is light enough and small enough to actually fit inside my camera backpack.  At the same time, I was not impressed by the ball-head that came standard with this tripod.  I therefore took it out and fitted my Kirk BH-1 ball-head to it.  I now have a fine light tripod, with an extraordinary ball-head.  This tripod provides the stability to shoot long exposures.  This ball-head provides ability to quickly and easily fine-tune my composition, once the tripod is setup.
  7. Do not trigger with your finger.  Use an electronic cable release.  I used one for this shot, to eliminate any camera shake, resulting in a sharp image.