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

Plants, Granite, Morning Light

2 Comments
Plants, Granite, Morning Light - A few sparse plants grow in thin cracks in granite slabs, Yosemite National Park.
A few sparse plants grow in thin cracks in granite slabs, Yosemite National Park.

Plants, Granite, Morning Light. Yosemite National Park, California. August 12, 2011. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A few sparse plants grow in thin cracks in granite slabs, Yosemite National Park.

Portions of the Sierra high country in Yosemite have been heavily glaciated. The evidence is widespread and familiar in all of its variations: domes, U-shaped canyons, remnant glacial ice-fields and a few vestigial glaciers, glacial erratics everywhere, a terrain crossed with the remains of lateral, medial, and terminal moraines. And it places, such as this area along Tioga Pass Road, there are huge expanses of granite slabs, sloping and rounded nearly solid rock broken by cracks and dikes and surrounded by the debris of gradual erosion.

Lots of things managed to live on and in these slabs. The tiniest cracks collect sand, then dust and gravel, and soon small plants spring up and even wildflowers. In some places – including the more distant ridge in this photograph – large trees manage to sustain themselves by growing entirely in these cracks. In this photograph I juxtaposed the nearby small plants crowing in a couple of shallow cracks with the receding sequence of rolling dome-like ridges with shattered rock and a few trees, some of which catch the early morning sun, with details softened by the (perhaps unusual, for landscape photography) use of a small aperture to minimize depth of field.

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.

Deals and Sales

Great Deal on Adobe Lightroom Plus Photoshop CS6 Bundle… and More

2 Comments

(Corrections – two expiration dates were inaccurate in the original version of this post and have now been corrected.)

Right now – and apparently only for today and perhaps tomorrow* – you can purchase Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop Lightroom 4 together for $389.90 from site sponsor B&H Photo. That is a tremendous price for  the current versions both programs, and if you have been holding off on getting them, this is probably something you want to take advantage of. The bundle includes a couple of free Scott Kelby training DVDs on the two programs. This pricing apparently ends on Friday, August 31, 2012.  (Update 8/31: A reader reports that the prices on the Adobe Photoshop bundles returned to the pre-sale levels today, August 31. I contacted B&H since they originally reported that it would be good through August 31. The reply: “This was our mistake [and] the Adobe promotion ended yesterday.” Hope some of you were able to take advantage of this deal while it lasted!)

A similar deal bundles Adobe Photoshop CS6 plus Adobe Elements 10 for $314.90, and includes the Kelby Training DVD: What’s New in Adobe Photoshop CS6. (This may also have the same expiration as the above deal.)

The current Canon ‘Instant Rebates’ on lenses and speedlites will expire on September 1 29, 2012 . See the Deals page August 23 entry for a complete list with links to eligible products. (Note that B&H is often closed on Saturday, so if you plan to purchase from them, the effective expiration is tomorrow, Friday, August 31!)

Commentary, Equipment, Technique

Thoughts About the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS Lens

17 Comments

(This is another post based on something I wrote elsewhere as a response to a question about this lens – I’m re-sharing it here with minor editing.)

I’ve used the Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS lens  a lot – for things as varied as handheld shooting of bicycle races and tripod-based landscape photography. Over time I’ve developed a few thoughts about the performance of this lens and some of the comments that I frequently hear and read about it.

First, especially from my tripod-based work, I have found that the lens is capable of very good performance in terms of image quality – e.g. “resolution.” This is true at all focal lengths, but more so perhaps at some than at others. To give one example, I also own the f/4 IS 70-200mm lens. At one point I tended to always switch to the shorter lens when shooting in the range up to 200mm, concerned about a potential sharpness hit with the 100-400. Over time I figured out that while the 70-200 is probably a very tiny bit sharper here, in most cases the difference in many kinds of shooting is insignificant and invisible in real-world output – and in many cases where I would have switched lenses I now leave the 100-400 on the camera. Continue reading Thoughts About the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS Lens →

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

People Hurrying, Grand Central Station

Leave a comment
People Hurrying, Grand Central Station - People hurrying along a ramp in Grand Central Station, New York
People hurrying along a ramp in Grand Central Station, New York

People Hurrying, Grand Central Station. New York, New York. August 19, 2011. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People hurrying along a ramp in Grand Central Station, New York

During our last trip to New York City, in August of 2011, at one point we ended up wandering in to Grand Central Station, perhaps just “because,” though now I don’t remember for sure. This is an iconic Manhattan location, for sure, and the central hall is quite a place, with its conjunction of contemporary hurry and its connections to history as seen in its architecture.

I did not have a tripod, nor did I really want to be burdened with one while moving around Manhattan on foot and by subway, so I shot handheld in the low light. Here I was looking down at a long ramp between two levels of the building, where I could photograph people as they walked past – and I made this photograph just as the group of women passed through the pool of light from the overhead lighting.

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.