Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Black and White Seals

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Black and White Seals

Black and White Seals. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. December 20, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white seals resting on rocks near the shoreline at Point Lobos State Reserve.

These “guys” were resting on a rock very close to the shoreline near the Bird Rock trailhead. I had never seen a white seal before so I spent some considerable time photographing them – the combination of the lighter and darker seals was especially interesting, and the white one apparently was almost as interested in me as I was in them. It frequently gazed up to my position on the cliff.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens, Forest, and Snow Showers – North Lake

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Aspens, Forest, and Snow Showers - North Lake

Aspens, Forest, and Snow Showers – North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California, October 4, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn snow falls on peaks above the aspen groves at North Lake, California.

I had arrived at North Lake on this early October morning to photograph the renowned aspen stands surrounding the lake. After arriving before dawn and getting all of my gear out and ready to shoot… it began to snow! I retreated to my car for nearly an hour, but soon the early season front passed through and the sun began to shine through in between the light snow showers. This photograph was made from the road near the “aspen tunnel” near the upper end of the lake. I like the multiple layers of bright fall aspen color in the foreground, green forest on the ridge in the middle, and the combination of thin sunlight and snow showers on the high peaks beyond.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Equipment, Tests

Using Prints to Test Four Canon DSLRs

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Miles Hecker has posted interesting test results in his Canon EOS big guns image quality shootout:

As some of you know, I am a landscape photographer. I migrated to full frame digital SLR’s from medium format film. I used to shoot 6×4.5, 6×7 and 6×9 film with the end product being prints of 20″x30″ and larger. As such, I chose to investigate only one area of the 5Dmk2 in this exercise, overall image quality or IQ for short. For this test, I decided to construct a still life with a wide range of color, lots of detail and very controlled lighting to obtain what for me are valid results.The test would produce 100% crops for pixel peeping. The final analysis of IQ however would be made using real life obsevers and detailed sections of 16″x24″ and 20″x30″ photographic prints.

What I like about his test methodology is that it eliminates the very difficult issue of normalizing on-screen tests of cameras with different sensor sizes and photosite densities but doing something that I have felt would make the most sense, comparing large prints from the different test cameras. In this case he tested the Canon EOS 1DsM3, 5D2, 5D, and 50D. 

I won’t spoil the fun by telling you the results here, but let’s just say I’m not at all surprised at the results.

Commentary, Equipment, Tests

Testing the Canon 5D II for Noise

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From Night Photography blog by Andy Frazer: More 5D Long Exposure Tests:

Seattle-based night photographer Brian Chapman has posted another set of 5D MkII long exposure tests, this time all taken at night. Although this set was taken at ISO 400, underexposed, and then pushed during RAW conversion, the results are very interesting.

Brian Chapman’s experiments are essentially a night photographer’s torture test – shooting at high ISO, underexposing, compensating in post, adjusting the image, and including areas of uniform color and luminosity. If you aren’t familiar with real life noise issues in digital photography you might think, “Ugh! Noise.” If you have done night photography and made prints for images like those in the test you might be thinking, “Hey, that’s pretty darn impressive!”

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