Monthly Archives: November 2011

Deals and Sales, Equipment

‘Black Friday” Canon “double instant rebate” deals at B&H

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(Update 11/25/11: Please take a look at the “deals” page on this web site for updates. B&H is sending me emails about other deals – including Adobe Lightroom for only $89.95 and a “$200 off” price on the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens.)

Right on the heels of the previous “instant savings” promotion and as part of the seasonal Black Friday sales, site sponsor B&H has announced Canon Double Rebates on the EOS 60D, EOS 7D, and EOS 5D Mark II cameras and a wide range of lenses and electronic flashes when purchased as a package. Lenses include many L primes and zooms, speciality lenses such as macro and tilt/shift models, most of the better EFS lenses, and a few excellent non-L lenses. It looks like essentially all of the major Speedlite models are included. This extended Black Friday deal only lasts a short time – prices expire on Sunday, November 27 at 3:00 a.m. EST.

If you are considering a body and lens, these are some of the best prices you are likely to see. Some of the discounts are significant enough that you might even want to get that body/lens that you were just thinking about… To see the details of this promotion at B&H, follow this link.

NOTE: B&H is a site sponsor and the blog earns a small commission on sales made via links on this page. Also note that B&H is closed for a period this weekend. If it is your intention to buy though my links to help support this blog, please return to this page and click though these links to make your purchase rather than adding them to your “cart” at B&H. Thanks!

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Dissipating Storm Clouds, Sunset

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Dissipating Storm Clouds, Sunset
Dissipating Storm Clouds, Sunset

Dissipating Storm Clouds, Sunset. Yosemite National Park, California. September 20, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunset light on dissipating thunderstom clouds above granite slabs, Yosemite National Park.

Late on this September afternoon in the Yosemite back-country I had a good idea that something might happen around sunset, but I could not have known in advance just how intense the cloud color would turn out to be. The set-up was classic. Thunder storms had built up throughout the afternoon, and by late in the day I would see and hear large storms to my north and east – though I remained right on the edge of the storm potential as I was a bit further west. As evening approached the cloud-building forces began to diminish, leaving the tops of the larger cells unsupported, and they began to thin and stretch westward, curving up and over my location along the Tuolumne River.

Knowing that interesting light of one sort or another was probable, I walked to an area of granite slabs and bowls that I had photographed when visiting this area at the start of my trip nearly a week earlier. As I considered a few photographs of the granite and trees in that area, my attention kept being drawn to the sky. At first it remained a relatively low contrast mass of gray, though the thinning clouds started to allow views through falling virga towards more distant clouds that rose into the sunlight. Then, as the sun dropped and the foreground lost the direct light, the clouds began to light up and take on wildly saturated colors. (A technical note: in many of the photographs, though not in this one, the dynamic range between cloud highlights and foreground was so large that it required multiple exposures separated by up to five stops to capture it all!)

I moved to the base of the granite bowl in which I had photographed rocks and small trees a week before when I saw these spectacular clouds building to the north west. The color was simply unbelievable – and you can see that the intense saturated light was not just in the sky, but that it also colored the granite near the bottom of the image. For this photograph I used a short focal length to try to take in a large section of the flowing and wildly shaped and colored clouds.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Deals and Sales, Equipment

One Last Time: Canon Sale Ends Today

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The Canon “instant savings” promotion ends today. Lower prices are available on a bunch of cameras (bodies and kits), lenses, and flashes through today only, so this is your last opportunity during this sale – and the last time you’ll see post about it here! The following list includes most of the eligible items, with links to blog sponsor B&H Photo:

Lenses

Camera/Lens Kits
Speedlites
Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Tree Above Glen Aulin

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Tree Above Glen Aulin
Tree Above Glen Aulin

Tree Above Glen Aulin. Yosemite National Park, California. September 16, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A lone tree above Glen Aulin, with haze-obscured domes and cliffs beyond in late-afternoon light, Yosemite National Park.

I think this is a bit of an unusual perspective on the valley that contains Glen Aulin and on the haze-filled valley of the Tuolumne River beyond. I wasn’t quite sure where I would shoot on this evening, but my friend Karl Kroeber mentioned that he had ascended a nearby hillside by means of a granite “whaleback” to find some interesting vistas above. So I decided to check out this hill and started up the hill beyond our camp. The hike wasn’t very long and I soon found my way to the top of the whaleback, where there was a low, long granite dome topped with a few glacial erratics. The dome provided a 360 degree vista taking in the Tuolumne River canyon, peaks to then north and northeast, the dome-like ridge across the valley below me, and a bit of the valley holding the trail towards McCabe Lakes.

At first the photographic potential of the scene seemed a bit limited. While this panorama was appealing, when I arrived it was still not all that late in the day and frankly the light was a bit blah. But since I didn’t have any other pressing engagements nor any other specific plans about what to shoot, I decided to devote the next hour or so to hanging out on top of this dome and waiting to see what the light would do. At first I thought that the shot might turn out to be something back up towards the start of the drop of the Tuolumne into this canyon. I made a few exposures of that scene but so far don’t think I have anything amazing. Then some broken clouds passed overhead and I made some photographs of the alternating patterns of light and shadow on the trees of a nearby ridge.

Then something much more interesting began to happen as it become later in the afternoon. Looking back past this nearby tree and into the Tuolumne River canyon, the sun began to backlight the trees on the nearest ridge and to increase the visibility of the haze. Some claim to dislike this sort of haze, but when backlit it can create some subtle and glowing effects and enhance the sense of depth and distance in the scene. So I ended up working a variety of different “takes” on the backlight, including this one that places a closer tree almost square in the middle of the frame.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.