Category: Travel

Bridalveil Falls, Yosemite

~ Sudhi ~ 11 Comments

Bridalviel Falls, Yosemite

Tech Info: Nikon D300s with Nikkor 50mm lens, f/8 at ISO 200 for 2s

This was the last shot taken during my recent visit to Yosemite. The view is from the parking lot. During my next visit, will take the short hike up to get a much closer view.

About this falls: Bridalveil is 188 metres (617 ft) tall and is the only waterfall that flows throughout the year in this park. All the other falls in the park peak during late spring when all the snow has melted away and taper down during the summer, coming close to non-existent. This is one though continues, but of course with varying speed. It is said to peak during late spring, but the view certainly didn’t seem like it wasn’t at its peak. I can only imagine how it would be during late spring when its in full flow.

About this shot: It was mid-day and the light was pretty harsh. Usually cloudy conditions give out a very diffused light, but sometimes the clouds open up and make way for the harsh light. This was one of those moments. In order to get motion for the water flow, I used a filter Hoya NDX400 which cuts down the light reaching the camera’s sensor by 9 stops. Since my filter thread size was for my wide angle lens (77mm), I had to hand-hold this for the smaller 50mm lens. Processing was the usual one too; some contrast adjustment using levels and then resized for the web use.

What are filters? In short they are like sun shades we use for our own eyes. They cut down the light, minimize polarization etc. There are quite a lot of filters available and each has its specific use. They come either in square/rectangular shape which needs some holder to place them in front of the lens, or circular shaped which directly screw-on to the lens. This particular filter (Hoya NDX400) is a dark circular shaped one. Its so dark that if you screw-it on the lens, you literally can’t see anything in the viewfinder. You have to compose the scene before and then screw this on.

How does this filter help here? In order to show any kind of motion in pictures, you would need a slow shutter speed. As the lighting conditions fade for the human eye, its very good to capture motion in waterfalls. My first experience was during the yellowstone trip and you can read about those 2 shots here and here. For those 2 shots, I didn’t have to use any filters to get the motion for water as the ambient light was good enough to give me a slow shutter speed. Here since it was pretty high during the day I had to put something which will cut down the light and hence this NDX400 filter usage. It cuts down by 9 stops and thats quite a lot in reduction thereby getting slow shutter speeds. I’m in love with this filter and I’m always looking for its usage 🙂

If you are buying filters, don’t go for the cheap ones. I do have some cheap ones and suffer from the loss of quality in the images. So it does help to get the best ones and they can cost a bit. But like most say “You get what you pay for” is very true in this case.

Update: Here is a shot of the same view without the Hoya NDX400 filter where the water of the falls doesn’t depict any motion, but rather frozen in time due to the fast shutter speed.

Stormy start to Yosemite

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Storm headed towards Yosemite

Tech Info:D300s with Nikkor 50mm prime, f/16, 1/3 of a sec with a EV bias of -2. ISO 100

Please view large.

Its been just over 3 years in the bay area and I can’t believe that I hadn’t been to Yosemite. Its another paradise (though Yellowstone is my all time fav). This place has so many opportunities for pictures, you can just spend an entire day sitting at one location and play with the changing light. No amount of adjectives can truly describe it and you have to make a visit to experience it first hand. If you ever visit bay area, time it in a way that you can spend some days to experience the winter magic at Yosemite. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

I was supposed to carpool with 2 more folks starting from San Jose. Since I stay a good 20-30 miles away, I decided to take the Caltrain. I’ve always wanted to experience this train ride and I was thrilled at this opportunity. At the same time I was scared to death. The reasons are pretty weird (at least that’s what my wife says). For many folks it just a train ride taking me from northern part to the southern side. Its as simple it can be. But for me it isin’t. I’ve been known to make a mess of simple things. As it turns out, I finally did make a mess out of this one too.

My wife did all the checking of train timings and instructed me with everything I need to know to make this short train journey. Another friend of mine drove me to the station which is pretty close to my house. Looking at my state, she even wanted to stay there till I board the train. But I insisted on her leaving as I was pretty confident of making it myself…comeon..I’m old enough to figure may out.

I head to the booth to buy my tickets. You insert your credit card or cash into the machine and select some buttons and get your ticket. But I got stuck in the first step; the machine wasn’t recognizing my credit card. I kept trying and trying and finally it read the damm thing and gave me my ticket. Being little frustrated at the booth for behaving like that, I made my way to the platform and waited for the train to arrive. It was supposed to make the stop at 10:06 AM and they keep it pretty punctual. I see a train arriving and I’m all set to board it. As the train came near by, I realized that the train had 3821 as its number and the one I’m supposed to take should be 236. Just to make sure, I saw a guy with the Caltrain jacket get down and I asked him, politely, as to what was the train’s number. Again, not sure why he was so pissed with that question, he just pointed his index finger to the big board which said 3821 (to his fairness it probably was a dumb question to ask). I mustered some courage and asked another guy who immediately responded “I don’t know”. But seeing the disappointment on my face, he went to a nearby board and started checking something. About 40s later, he says “its 236”. On hearing that, I started to run towards the door, but wasn’t quick enough to make it and the doors got shut. Initial instinct was to whistle (yeah, I can whistle quite loud) to the driver to open the doors, then realized that those things hardly matter here. The only train in the morning going towards San Jose left the platform with me standing with my luggage on the platform and yeah, having bought the ticket for it too 🙁

All my friends tell me that I should have just got on it…irrespective of the train number. How am I supposed to know that the train number doesn’t matter here. Its like you want to take a train to Delhi and you are standing on the platform waiting for it eagerly and the train that comes by (at the same time) has got a board of Nagpur or some city in the same northern direction. Would you take it? Of course not. You would wait for the train with the right board to arrive and thats exactly what I was going to do. But now I learnt a thing about Caltrains; numbers don’t matter. So next time I’m going to board the train and then ask questions 🙂

Since I didn’t make it to the carpool, I had to drive all the way to Yosemite, alone in my car. It was fun in its own way, but I would prefer to avoid it anytime 🙂

The weekend’s weather was pretty bad…snow storms and rains throughout saturday. As per the prediction, it was supposed to start on Friday at 4pm. So my wife made sure I understood that if I’ve to avoid driving in wet conditions, I had to reach the place before 4pm. I started pretty late, but eventually made it to the destination at 3:30pm. I guess thats why my wife was pretty scared of me driving alone. All iz Well in the end.

About this shot: En route, you could literally see the storm clouds getting formed. I stopped at a pullout and decided to do an HDR of the scene as there was so much amount of drama unfolding in the sky. Used my umbrella to protect the camera gear and took some shots. The movement in the clouds was so fast that I couldn’t avoid it with having a gap of 1s between the shots. That’s the least amount my remote cord can function at. So I chucked the idea of HDR and used a single exposure to process. It isin’t that bad as it does give you an idea of how the weather was going to be. Bad weather sure does give you some interesting shots 🙂

Boston Skyline

~ Sudhi ~ 4 Comments

Boston Skyline

For best effect view large.

Tech Info: Nikon D300s with Tokina 12-24mm lens @15mm, ISO 200, f/8 for 10s

Again this is from my recent Boston/Hanover trip. To get to Hanover, I had to take a flight to Boston and then drive down the remaining distance. Its a good 2½ hr drive. My friend had taken a bus and arrived at the airport to pick me up. From there we just took the rental and drove all the way to Hanover…well, he drove and I took a nap 🙂

One of the conditions that I put forward before visiting him was that he would take me to a nice vantage point for me to capture the Boston Skyline. After some googling around, we finalized on this location and he literally drove like a maniac to get me to this location (back from Hanover) before the blue hour expired. The roads were pretty slippery, but yet he managed to get me on time and I must add..in one piece 🙂

The weather pretty much matched that of Hanover – icy, cold and windy and the wind chill going as low as -45°F. At these temperatures, if the skin gets exposed to the chill, they just turn numb. And thats what happened to my fingers too. Its like the mind is telling the thumb to rotate the dial, but the thumb has got a mind of its own which is sleeping. This was the hardest “chilly” weather I’ve ever faced. Inspite of all this, if I ever get a chance, then I’ll do it all over again 🙂

This picture is from a single exposure. At the location, I did manage to capture more frames in the hope that I’ll do some digital blending, but I’m not yet up to it. So for now will have to settle with this single frame shot.

Hanover Star Trails

~ Sudhi ~ 4 Comments

Star Trails over Hanover, NH

Here is another attempt of star trails taken during my Hanover visit. The entire day we were busy skiing and in the night we just headed out to a nearby falls to take some pictures, which I’m yet to process them. While taking those shots is when I realized that the light pollution which we get in the city was very minimal in this place. I was getting a clear view of the stars in my long exposures of the falls.

It was very considerate of my friend to bear the freezing weather while I tried my star trail attempt. Initial thought was to get 1/2 hr worth of exposure time in it with the falls in the foreground. So I set my intervalometer with the desired settings and started the first exposure. Ignoring the thought of getting cozy in the car, I kept waiting near the tripod to make sure that things were going on fine with my exposures. After the initial one, the intervalometer decided to go crazy. It suddently switched to a “count-down” timer mode with some random number. The first reaction was like “What did I screw up now?” But after a closer inspection, found out that I had set everything correctly and yet wasn’t getting more than one exposures.

We returned home for dinner and I cursed myself for not bringing the manual of it (still thinking that it was my fault with the settings). But then again, I was very sure that I had got it right. So while at the dinner table, took my intervalometer and started playing with the controls. With couple of attempts, I was sure that the internal clock on the device is not right and hence its stupid behavior. With couple of more tests, was able to find a workaround for it. But we had come back from the location and I didn’t have the nerve to ask my friend to take me back there 🙂

Since I was so desperate to get one, went out, setup the tripod right in front of his house, stuck to a simple composition to make sure that I can watch the camera and tripod from within the house 🙂 and after all the processing, got this one. I’m reasonably happy with it as 90% my mental image is present in this

From my earlier start trails pics, I had learnt that its better to have some foreground to the overall composition. So I had to account for that during this attempt. Identifying pole star was very easy (my friends were more avid star gazers than me during our schooling times). I was scared of leaving the camera out of my sight, so the initial composition that I had in mind was ruled out. Also I would be making frequent visits outside to check on things which would ruin some frames.

After the elements of the frame was decided, I had to get the focus right. It was a moon lit night, but still not enough contrast for the camera’s autofocus to lock onto something. So I asked my friend to stand on the deck with a flash light pointing right to the camera. Its a simple LED flash light, just enough to get my auto focus to lock on and later switched to manual focus. Each frame was with an f/8 and 61s exposure. Due to my intervalometer’s limitation of having a minimum requirement of 1s, I wanted to have a longer time than 30s, which would mean I’ll get a more even trail than a dotted one. All of the 99 raw frames was converted to TIFFs and then fed to a program Startrail.exe The program stacks each image which gives you the trail effect. The final image was given a boost to its brightness using curves in Photoshop.

Processing: Here are the steps that was taken to get the above image:

– All of the 99 images was converted to TIFF using Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). Since I needed all of them to contain the same settings, just worked on one frame and copied it over to all the others.

– The resulting TIFFs was then fed to Startrail.exe to generated a single composite image.

– The composite image was then given a boost to its brightness in Photoshop.

Vintage look of SF skyline

~ Sudhi ~ 2 Comments

vintage SF Skyline

Tech Info: Nikon D90 with 18-105mm lens @26mm, ISO 400, f8 for 1/500 sec.

Some of my Bangalore friends had made a visit to CA over work assignments. Of course the weekends were reserved for sight seeing and I joined them for a SFO tour. Till date, I hadn’t been to SFO that much, other than visiting known places like Golden Gate and the wharf. So I tagged along with them to get first hand experience of driving around SF.

One of them also has photography as his hobby which made it very clear that we were going to stop at places where we could snap away to glory 🙂 The other two didn’t put up a fight and were happy to tag along. First stop was at fisherman’s wharf. We used that to grab a quick lunch too. Next we headed to Coit Tower. I hadn’t even heard of this place before and kept searching for “Quite Tower” in the GPS. Finally somebody got the address and only when we reached that place, did I realize that its “Coit Tower” and not “Quite Tower” as I had assumed 😛

The Tower is about 210 feet (64m) on top of the telegraph hills. Its named after a woman Lillie Hitchcock Coit who was a firefighter. There is an elevator which takes you on top for a small entrance fee. Once you reach on top, the view of SF skyline is just gorgeous. Since tripod wasn’t allowed, this had to be done hand-held. Before I took this shot, I knew that it had to be in B&W and processing it wasn’t that much of an effort. A simple B&W conversion and it was all done.

Another shot that I do have in mind is to get the skyline during the blue hour. That may not be possible as the tower is closed after 5 PM. I’m not sure what days or even how many days are there in a calendar year to get the blue hour before 5PM. So I’ll have to check for other vantage points around this tower to get that kind of a shot.

Waves of Sand

~ Sudhi ~ 2 Comments

Waves of Sand

Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f16
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-105 @ 45mm

During the weekend crazy trip that I made with couple of other crazy friends, we stopped at this beach on the way back. Its a very long beach with cars/trucks/RVs/4x4s …etc driving on the beach. The beach has a speed limit of 15 mph and is supposedly strictly enforced.

The reason why we stopped at this beach was to take pictures of the sand dunes. Yeah, there is a small set of dunes which are preserved with barb-wire fences. They also allow bikes and other rides on the dunes, but some of them are part of the preserve and not for recreation (good in a way as the dunes are not contaminated by footsteps 🙂

All 3 of us (three idiots) decided to head out to take some pictures and did a short hike to get close to some dunes. These are small dunes and not as big as what you would find in Nevada, but they are beautiful. Though we weren’t at the ideal time for the light to be right, we were good to get some test shots or at least make an attempt at it. During the short hike, you would come across these sand patterns which looked like waves, of course they are formed due to the strong ocean winds coming mainly from the pacific ocean. The dark/light combination was really pretty and the picture doesn’t do justice to the sight we saw. I could only imagine how it would glow during sunset or even the light falling on them at an angle. Hopefully when I visit the big sand dunes, I’ll make sure that I stay either for sunrise/sunset. But for now, will be happy with this one 🙂

…and yeah, the title is named after the guy who drove us all the way for the crazy trip 😉

Pigeon Point Lighthouse

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Lighthouse

Exposure: 1/2500 sec
Aperture: f8
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-105 @26mm

Pigeon Point Light Station or Pigeon Point Lighthouse is a lighthouse built in 1871 to guide ships on the Pacific coast of California. It is the tallest lighthouse (tied with Point Arena Light) on the West Coast of the United States. It is still an active Coast Guard aid to navigation. Pigeon Point Light Station is located on the coastal highway (State Route 1), 5 miles (8 km) south of Pescadero, California. The 115-foot (35 m), white masonry tower, resembles the typical New England structure. Because of its location and ready access from the main highway, Pigeon Point entertains a large number of public visitors.

The lighthouse and the land around have been preserved as Pigeon Point Light Station State Historic Park, a California state park. It is between Santa Cruz and San Francisco.

My current state of mind in photography is to get a hang on digital blending. So far it has been going nowhere due to my lack of skills in photoshop. Initially I tried to blend 7 exposures by hand and gave it up half way. Just to get one photo processed, picked this one and did the usual work on it; curves, level and a different kind of a border. Hopefully by the end of next year, I should make some progress on the blending front 🙂

Update: Here is a tone mapped image of a slightly wider view of the lighthouse. It was blended using 7 exposures using photomatix.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Hoover Dam at Night

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Hoover Dam at Night

Exposure: Blend of 4 exposures at 10, 13, 15 and 20 secs
Aperture: f8
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-105 @28mm

During a recent visit to Vegas, we wanted to make a visit to Grand Canyon too, but the thought of driving all the way was a put-off for me. I love driving and do get my adrenalin rush once in a while, but long distances are not fun if it ain’t accompanied by frequent stops for my back. So my wife found out that there are bus tours which take you all the way there.

The comfort of not driving itself is a big plus. But the thought of one big bus with 40+ people and a toddler was a big concern. We weren’t sure how Nidhi would react if she goes crazy and more over how others in the bus would react to a cranky toddler. We took a chance and the experience was well worth it. Nidhi was at her best behavior and even got compliments from some of the folks on the bus. Since she was the only toddler on the bus, she even managed to grab some attention. Overall it was pretty smooth, more than I had imagined or hoped for.

The disadvantage of taking a guided tour like this one is that they don’t stop at places where you would want to stop for taking pictures. Plus you won’t get much time at each stop. So you have to make the best of it. I can’t and shouldn’t complain…if I wanted to stop at every spot, then I should have just driven myself right? 🙂 Anyways, the driver did recognize that I was more keen in shooting with the camera and mentioned that he would stop by the Hoover Dam at night specifically for taking pictures. He kept his word and did make a 10 min stop and this is the pic I got from it.

Its a digital blend of 4 exposures, each varying with the shutter speed, tone-mapped with PhotoMatix pro and given some levels and curves adjustments in CS4. I would have been happier if I could have manually blended them together, hopefully one day my aging brain can learn that too 🙂

Spiky Ostrich

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Spiky Ostrich

Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f8
ISO: 200
Lens: 70-300 @300 mm

The advantage of being alone is that I can head out whenever I want, but I was reluctant, so I dragged my friends who were just trying to get out jet lag to practice some sunset shots on the pacific coast. We headed towards Santa Cruz, didn’t find anything interesting and started driving back towards northern side in search of some beaches with no crowd around. After finding one and spending some time out there, one of my friend suddenly had this idea of heading out to Solvang, stay overnight and then head back home the next day. In a min, we were all in agreement with that crazy idea and had a ball of a time. It was more like a mini road trip. No agenda, just driving around to find some locations to take pictures 🙂

One of those places we stopped at was Ostrich Land. A place which is famous for feeding these lovely birds. Kids would love the place as they can get very close to the birds…of course taking all necessary precaution not to get bitten by them.

I used the 70-300 telephoto for these pics as the lens gives a good shallow depth of field which helps in blurring out the boring backgrounds. Here is another close-up view of one of them:

The sad part of that visit was seeing packets of “ostrich meat” in the freezer. It just makes you realize that its nothing but an Ostrich Farm.

Stream in Black n White

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Unknown Stream, Yellowstone

Another attempt at getting a milky water flow.

I’m still trying to process the huge backlog that I now have from the recent travel. During the initial screening I had decided not to work on this one. But everytime I looked at this one, I kept bursting out in laughter as it kept reminding me of the funny situation I was in while taking this shot.

The light was good to get some water motion in pictures and I had realized it. Unfortunately I wasn’t even close to anything that had some kind of water flowing. To top that, Nidhi was pretty hungry too and kinda acting cranky. So we stopped at Tower Falls. While at the parking lot, I was running around to figure out if there was any kind of flowing water which I was now so eager to try it out. My wife pointed out that she heard some sound of a stream. If she could hear it, then it should be nearby and I began running up and down the roads to see where the sound was coming from. Finally found it right under bridge and pretty close to the parking lot itself. With little bit of climbing, jumping across branches I got to the banks of it. Since the light was fading pretty fast, I just choose couple of areas and began shooting. Even have one with the bridge. My wife had a huge laugh looking at how desperate I was during this entire episode.

Tech Details:
Exposure: 1.6s
Aperture: f22
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-105 @45mm

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