All posts by G Dan Mitchell

G Dan Mitchell, photographer and visual opportunist focusing on the Pacific coast, the Sierra Nevada, redwood forests, California oak/grasslands, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography and more. Posting daily photographs since 2005, along with articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Ducks, Pond, Fog

February 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ducks settled in on a San Joaquin Valley pond on a foggy morning

Yet another foggy winter morning in the wetlands of California’s San Joaquin Valley. I had started photographing not too long before I made this photograph, though the beginning of the day was both foggy and nearly dark, with barely enough light to photograph. Working in the near darkness and thick fog, right through a sunrise that I could not see, is a mysterious experience. I could hear birds, but I could only barely make out a few of the closest animals though the murky atmosphere.

I moved on and eventually came to this flooded field — to my mind it is a pond, since I’m only in this place to see it in the wet winter season. Aside from an occasional noisy liftoff by one duck or a small group, the scene was very quiet and still. Occasionally a few geese or cranes flew over as the ducks fed silently, moving slowly across the water, and birds that were a bit farther away from me quickly faded into the fog, through which the faint shapes of trees on the other side of the pond were barely visible.

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

Canon 50MP 5DS Body, 11-24mm Lens, and Updated Rebel DSLRs

February 5, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I’ll start with a list, and I’ll add a few comments below.

EOS 5DS DSLR Camera — (body only) $3,699
EOS 5DS R DSLR Camera with no AA-filter — (body only) $3,899
EF 11-24mm f/4L USM Lens — $2,999 available for pre-order
EOS Rebel T6i DLSR — $749 body only, $899 with 18-55mm lens , $1099 with 18-135mm lens (available for pre-order)
EOS T6s DSLR — $849 body only, $1199 with 18-135mm lens (available for pre-order)

You may feel differently, but the most interesting announcement to is that of the two versions of the EOS 5DS, a 50.6mp full frame DSLR that seems optimized for image quality. While not everyone will need 50MP in a full frame body, some of us will most certainly benefit from sensor resolution that more than doubles what was previously available from Canon. There are two models, the 5DS and the 5DS R — the 5DS R doesn’t apply anti-aliasing filtering. This has the potential to maximize image sharpness for certain kinds of photographers, and the potential risk of some moire artifacts in photographs of certain types of patterned subjects. The cameras are supposed to begin shipping in June, and I plan to get one — most likely the R model.

For those who like really wide angle zoom lenses, the EF 11-24mm f/4L lens is arguably going to be king of the hill. Early reports are that it is optically excellent, and 11mm is 1mm wider than the excellent 14-24mm Nikon f/2.8 zoom. This lens (as noted above) can apparently now be pre-ordered.

The Rebel T6i and T6s are the newest updated models in the family of consumer Rebel DSLRs. These are fine cameras at a good price, and Canon will no doubt sell tons of them. They use 24mm cropped format sensors, and they are available in body-only version and it kits that include a basic zoom lens. The T6s is said to have a few more “advanced” features added.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Marsh, Tule Fog

February 5, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Early morning winter tule fog about a San Joaquin Valley marsh

When I first went to this place in the San Joaquin Valley a few years ago, I was only looking for birds. I had visited some wildlife refuges further up the valley already, I heard of this place, and I was intrigued by the name of the roads that go there. On the way back from an early spring photographic trip to Death Valley I detoured this direction on my way home, arrived just before sunset, and found sandhill cranes — I made a photograph that is still one of my favorites of these birds. I returned, sometimes alone and sometimes joining like-minded friends. I learned a lot more about the birds — though there is still much more to learn — and I began to see the place in a wider variety of conditions, and soon began to see not just as a place to photograph wildlife, but also to see it as a landscape.

The experience has reinforced something that I already learned from returning many times to photograph a different area near my home — namely, that there is often far more to see in a seemingly unexciting place than you might first imagine, and that over time such places can become the source of astonishingly varied photographs. Today when I go to this location, I always find something new or a new way to see and photograph something familiar. This morning was very foggy, and long-distance views were unavailable. It was so foggy that photographing wildlife was quite difficult at first. Instead I traveled along slowly and watched as grasses and other plants growing in ponds assembled themselves into surprising compositions as I passed.

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese, Twilight

February 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Abstract photograph of low-flying flock of geese in twilight

It has been a while since I share a fuzzy goosescape, so I’ll try to make up for it with this one. Late in the evening of a long day photographing migratory birds and the San Joaquin Valley landscape, after the sun had set, I made this last photograph of the day in very low light. As we photograph on into the evening — typically with the camera off the tripod when photographing birds — we try to keep up with the fading light by opening up the aperture, raising the ISO, and gradually lengthening the shutter speed.

Eventually there comes a point where the light is so low that this won’t allow sharp photographs of moving birds any more. I actually look forward to this end-of-the-evening time and I happily switch over to intentional motion blur photographs. I lower the ISO, close down the aperture, lengthen the shutter speed and try for soft, blurring photographs. A lot of this work is rather experimental, since you can’t completely know what you’ll get ahead of time. You do have some control — shutter speed controls just how much blur there will be; by panning the camera you can get moving subjects to be defined enough to recognize; by moving the camera you can control the angles and curves of lines of blurred light. And when it all works out just right the result can be quite beautiful and, in some ways, more suggestive of the feeling of this place at twilight.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

All posts by G Dan Mitchell

Ducks, Pond, Fog

Canon 50MP 5DS Body, 11-24mm Lens, and Updated Rebel DSLRs

Marsh, Tule Fog

Geese, Twilight

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.