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.

Deals and Sales

A B&H Update – March Deals and Promotions

March 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I would like to share some updates on current B&H promotions, some of which expire soon.*

Fujifilm

Fujifilm has a current promotion on mirrorless cameras and lenses this month, primarily as bundles when you purchase one or more lenses along with the X-E1 or X-Pro-1 bodies. I recently acquired the X-E1 to augment my Canon DSLR setup, along with several lenses, and I took advantage of one of the bundles. The primary “deal” bundles one of the bodies (X-E1 in black or black-and-silver) with the excellent image-stabilized 18mm-55mm zoom or with one or more of the Fujinon primes: 18mm, 35mm, and 60mm macro. There is also an excellent (though pricey!) 14mm f/2.8 prime – and I can vouch for its fine image quality based on my personal experience.

The number of combinations eligible for this promotion is quite large, so rather than linking to all of them here I have linked to a few basic versions – and you can click through from the landing pages to find the variations. This promotion ends this month.*

Fujifilm X-E1 Digital Camera Kit (Silver) with 18-55mm zoom lens – $1399
Fuji X-E1 (black) with 35mm f/2.4 and 60mm macro lenses – $1772
Fujifilm XF 14mm f/2.8 R Ultra Wide-Angle Lens – $899
Fujifilm X PRO-1 – $1399 – click on links to lens bundle promotions

Sony

A Sony promotion offers up to $500 off on Sony Camera and Lens bundles the featuring popular NEX bodies. Expires on March 30, 2013
Another promotion offers two 16GB Sony SDNC Memory cards for only $18.95 – a “buy one, get one free” deal
Class 10 UHS-1 Sony SDHC memory cards in 16GB, 32BG and 64GB capacities are in stock and available for $17.50, $27.50, and $59.50 respectively

General

Nikon D7100 DSLR Camera (Body Only) $1, 196, 95 plus 2% reward. Newly introduced body from Nikon. Limited stock now at B&H.
6% “reward” on a number of items including Nikon, Sony, and Canon DSLRs. (The “6% rewards” give buyers B&H credit at 6% of the purchase price. See B&H for details)

Rebates – some expire very soon*

New Arrivals, Interesting & Innovative Items

Sanho iUSBportCAMERA – $298.98
Lomography – $249-#349
Lytro

*Important Note: B&H will be closed from Monday, March 25th through April 2nd in the observance of Passover and will reopen on Wednesday, April 3rd at 9:00AM EDT. Orders placed by 12:00PM Noon EDT on Sunday, March 24th will ship before the closure. Orders placed after this time will ship when B&H reopens. Some current promotions expire at the end of March, but you’ll have to order before the closure if you plan to get them from B&H and take advantage these offers.

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.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Love Window, China Camp

March 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Opaque window and door of a weathered wooden building at China Camp, California

There are any number of places with name “China Camp” (or similar variations), but this one is located along the shores of the northern San Francisco Bay. I’m not an expert on the history of the place by any means, but I understand that the village was established by immigrants from China in the 1800s and was, over a century ago, a thriving village of several hundred people who focused on harvesting shrimp. Today it is part of a California State park and can be a very quiet and peaceful place.

I visited for the first time this winter, along with a number of other photographers who went there as part of a “photo walk.” After photographing some nearby landscape subjects I walked over to the remaining buildings from the old village and spent some time poking around the area looking for photographs. While I think of this as a sort of ghost town, unlike some other such places in California, this one includes some modern improvements and restoration and even some museum facilities. I was intrigued by some windows and doors on the exterior of this wooden building, including this four-pane window on which someone had inscribed the word “love.”

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Stairway and Broken Windows

March 19, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Exterior staircase, broken windows, and peeling paint on the wooden side panels of an abandoned building near Vallejo, California

I had joined up with a group of night photographers that I often shoot with on this evening, and we were sitting around in the late afternoon hours sharing pizza when someone made the radical suggestion of going out to shoot before darkness arrived! In the past, this has been just about the only group of photographers I’ve ever met who would stay inside during a San Francisco Bay area golden hour and sunset period, anxious for the light to go away so that shooting could begin! But on this evening, the radical concept of shooting in the daylight must have seemed so innovative that quite a few of us headed out to find either landscape-style shots over the San Francisco Bay or else abandoned and dilapidated industrial subjects nearby. I opted for the latter, and hoping to cover a bit more ground before dark, rather than walking nearby I drove, trying to figure out where I wanted to be in the fading light.

I ended up near this lonely, abandoned and partially destroyed building that has been left to vandals, who seem to be doing their best to accelerate the natural destructive forces that eventually take such buildings. Many windows are broken, there is spray paint in many places, and the exterior of the building is tremendously weathered and worn. Just a few minutes before sunset I made a series of exposures of this building, using a long lens to isolate smaller sections of the building. The sunset light turned the otherwise-dull building a much more intense shade of brown/yellow, and the brighter sky and clouds over San Francisco Bay are reflected in the broken windows. Soon after I finished shooting, the sun set, and I headed back to where my nocturnal friends awaited, and we headed out to photograph in the night.

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

Geese in Dusk Light

March 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese take off into the dusk sky above marshes, San Joaquin Valley, California

Yes. More geese. I photographed these on my New Year’s Day visit to the San Joaquin Valley with a group of fellow photographers and other folks with an artistic bent. We were out there to join the migratory birds in greeting the first sunrise of 2013. Joining us were many Ross’s geese, a heron or two, some egrets, thousands of geese, one flock of white pelicans, quite a large contingent of cranes, the odd coyote, and many others. We arrived early, photographed all morning, broke for a movie in a nearby town during the middle of the day, and returned to photograph until dark.

It is an interesting though challenging atmosphere on this day, one of those days that isn’t remarkable for extremes of weather or light – thick fog, brilliant sunrise light, etc. Instead, it was sort of gray in the morning with light fog and mostly very subtle colors at dawn. It never fully cleared, but near sunset the sky turned interesting colors of pink and purple and there was a last-minute bit of colorful light, as seen on the birds in this photograph. They had been settled in on a pond, but as the day ended they took off on the evening “fly out” to some other place. The lifted off in groups ranging from a few birds to a few hundred at a time and then mostly headed north or northwest. In this photo there is a close group that has just taken flight but beyond there are several other groups at varying distance that had left moments earlier. The result, as often seems to be the case with geese, is a sort of organized chaos. There are various ways to try to photograph this, but here I was trying to find instantaneous composition in which the various groups of birds aligned themselves, both within their groups and among the separate groups, in interesting ways.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

All posts by G Dan Mitchell

A B&H Update – March Deals and Promotions

Love Window, China Camp

Stairway and Broken Windows

Geese in Dusk Light

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