Category Archives: Commentary

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow (black and white)

October 17, 2008 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cascade on Lee Vining Creek on an autumn afternoon following an early snowfall.

I’ll make the text short this time since yesterday’s post included the same photo – and the backstory – in color. So this is a black and white version of the same photograph from Lee Vining Canyon. I thought I’d try this since a) there wasn’t really a lot of color in the scene and b) the “cold” effect of the scene seems to work fairly well either way.

keywords: lee vining, creek, canyon, cascade, water, fall, waterfall, blur, motion, forest, ice, snow, fall, autumn, fall, october, cold, tree, bush, rock, boulder, log, scenic, travel, landscape, stock, california, usa, sierra, nevada, tioga, pass, yosemite, national park, black and white

Commentary, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Snow Squall, North Lake and Piute Crags

October 7, 2008 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Autumn snow falls on Piute Crags above the fall foliage at North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California.

This photo marks – knock on wood! – the return to more a regular schedule of posting new photographs.

As always, there is a bit of a story behind the photograph. Last weekend (the first October weekend of 2008) I managed to do one of my annual aspen chasing expeditions, timed to catch the trees as they change from green to golden, yellow, red, orange, and a thousand intermediate hues. I left the Bay Area on Friday afternoon and drove over Tioga Pass, stopping there for a moment to feel the force of the first incoming Pacific storm of the season. After dropping down from the pass and stopping for dinner at Whoa Nellie Deli I continued on to Bishop, where I checked into a motel at 9:30.

I wasn’t certain what the next morning would bring since the weather report called for the passage of the weather front and then some showery weather and dropping snow levels. When I left Bishop well before dawn the stars were out, so I was optimistic. As I drove west and up into the Bishop Creek drainage, however, the clouds increased, and by the time I arrived at North Lake before 7:00 a.m. it had clouded up completely. No problem, I thought, the air is still and I like shooting in overcast conditions, especially with the saturated colors of the aspens. I got out of the car, put my camera on the tripod, grabbed the rest of my gear, and started towards a spot with a good shot. Within moments the wind whipped up and it began to rain, very quickly turning to wet snow. I was quickly back in the car, hoping to wait it out and see what developed.

Before long there were breaks in the clouds, and although the cold wind was blowing like crazy and there was still some intermittent precipitation, I decided that the conditions were special enough that I’d better get out there and start shooting. (While I can imagine more comfortable conditions for photography, sometimes the most interesting conditions are not comfortable.)

Eventually I made a fairly extensive set of photographs from various areas along the shoreline of North Lake. This one was made near the outlet of the lake, looking back across the nearby grassy shoreline, and past wildly colored aspen trees to the more distant Piute Crags, where a snow squall was partly obscuring the summit.

keywords: fall, autumn, storm, squall, snow, piute, crags, north, lake, bishop, creek, aspen, grass, meadow, water, tree, forest, branches, cloud, scree, talus, landscape, scenic, stock, nature, wilderness, shore, shoreline

Commentary, Locations

Chasing the Aspens… And a Storm?

October 3, 2008 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I have plans to photograph the eastern Sierra aspen color this weekend, but it looks like there will be a “bit of weather,” as the first real Pacific weather front of the season will pass through. My first instinct was to perhaps not make the trip since this sort of weather makes things a lot less predictable. But my second instinct – hopefully the better of the two! – was to note that the front will pass and that the conditions may turn out to be a lot more photographically compelling than the usual pre-front weather.

In any case, I’ll have more to report soon – either from on the road or when I return.

Commentary, Equipment, News

Canon EOS 5D Mark II Announced

September 16, 2008 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

This evening I’m seeing quite a few links to the announcement of the updated EOS Canon EOS 5D Mark II. (Here is a link to a Canon press release.) Unlike some previous Canon updates that seemed rather trivial – e.g. 20D to 30D – this one includes quite a few compelling new and improved features, and I’m sure this will be a very popular camera.

Some highlights include:

21MP full-frame sensor
HD video capture
The expected sensor dust reduction/cleaning features
Live view shooting
Some interesting software additions – a “new creative mode,” “peripheral illumination correction” in jpg modes (sounds like compensation for vignetting), and “auto lighting optimizer” (seems to try to deal with recording details in high dynamic range scenes)
Continuous shooting at 3.9 fps
Larger and higher resolution LCD
150,000 shutter cycles
Expanded ISO range
Price: $2699

For many of us who are attracted to the 5D image quality, the 21MP sensor is a good thing – this camera should compete with the 1DsMKIII on an image quality basis as long as one has good enough lenses and uses careful technique. (I doubt if there will be much IQ advantage if one hand holds the camera in most cases.) It is interesting to note that the increased shutter life is competitive with 1-series cameras as well.

Video capture is quickly going to be a standard feature on DSLRs – though the usefulness of the feature is something that will perhaps only become apparent once these cameras find their way into the hands of those who know how to use the feature effectively and creatively.

The relatively leisurely 3.9 fps burst mode is no surprise. The 5D is not a camera optimized for fast action sports photography that relies on high speed burst mode shooting. But still, at nearly 4 fps it won’t exactly be unusable in this regard either.

The pricing is interesting as well. Whether due to the recent announcement of a $3000 25MP full frame Sony camera and the anticipated competition from a 20+MP Nikon camera or something else, it seems that the prices of full frame cameras – and very capable ones, at that! – are starting to drop.

Will I buy one? I had pretty much decided that I would not buy a 5D upgrade that only provided a 16MP sensor. However, at 21MP this body provides close to double the number of photosites – and such a doubling has been more or less my trigger for an upgrade. Of course, I’m not one to rush to be the first to buy. I’ll let those who are willing to pay any price to be “first on the block” get theirs right away, and I like to see what initial problems are discovered as the first units are released. All of that being said, I think there is a fair chance that I’ll do this upgrade within the next 6 months or so.

Also: Canon announced one new lens, an upgraded EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM. The previous version was thought by some to be less impressive than its 35mm f/1.4 big brother, so it isn’t too surprising that Canon updated this lens. There is also some thought the Canon will update some lenses in order to take better advantage of the higher MP count sensors – they can exceed the resolving ability of some good lenses. It will be interesting to see whether the new 24mm L is a significant improvement over the previous version… and whether it is worth the somewhat shocking (for a prime!) $1699 list price.

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