A New Host… And a New Start?

October 18, 2008 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

After dealing with a non-responsive and arbitrary hosting company for the past month, things finally reached a breaking point this week when they took my site off-line without any warning and then failed to respond to my tech support emails.

I’m with a new hosting company now.

I believe that all of the text content made it over from the old site, but I’m quite sure that many images – especially older ones – did not. I’m still thinking about the best way to handle this. I may try to reconstruct the image links in the thousands of older posts that included them, or I may just delete them and gradually repost the best of those photographs in an updated format.

I’m afraid that site memberships were not successfully transferred. Please accept my apology for this, and visit the site membership page to find out about re-registering.

In one bit of good news, it does appear that the old RSS feed is still working.

Dan

Commentary, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

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

Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow

October 16, 2008 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

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

On my second trip to the eastern Sierra this fall – a much less successful trip than the first one a week earlier – I visited Lee Vining Canyon in the late afternoon, after the sun had retreated behind the very high peaks around Tioga Pass, leaving the bottom of the canyon in shadow. My last stop in the canyon was at this well-known cascade near the Bend campground. I did several long exposures of the cascade so that the water would diffuse. As you can see, the fall foliage here was less spectacular than in some other years, but the recent snow on the branches and the creek bank along with the frozen water under the overhang at the upper right created a wintery quality in the scene.

Equipment, Reviews

Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 Lens

October 15, 2008 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I almost titled this post “In Praise of Cheap Little Lenses” – but that would have been inconsistent with my other lens report posts, so I’ll leave the title as is.

I recently picked up a copy of this lens for several reasons. First, it is very small and light, and there are times when a single slightly-wide prime can be just the thing. It is also fairly inexpensive, especially compared to other Canon alternatives. On top of that it is a fine optical performer, especially if you use it where it is strongest – shooting at relatively small apertures on full frame and/or using it as a essentially a “normal prime” on a crop body.

I have had a few weeks to use mine now. I’ve mostly used it for landscape photographs where I had some flexibility to compose the shot by moving forward/backward or in which the 35mm focal length turned out to be exactly right. (In some cases I first did the shot with my 24-105mm L zoom, and when I noticed that I was at 35mm I switched to the prime.) In general terms the optical performance of this little lens is quite decent, but when stopped down to f/8 or smaller it really shines – it is capable of producing photographs with very good resolution.

Are there any negatives to this lens? Of course, but for my purposes none of them are “deal breakers.” The AF system of the lens is (notoriously) noisy. Users have described it as sounding like “buzzing bees.” I don’t think it is that bad, but it is not as quite as most other Canon lenses. In addition you must move a switch if you want to focus manually rather than rely on autofocus – other more modern lenses will let you do either with out choosing between them. Its performance wide open is nothing all that special. Finally, it is a small and cheap looking lens! But that doesn’t really matter, as far as I’m concerned. I’m far more interested in what it does than in what it looks like.

One interesting note… Canon makes a much more expensive and highly regarded 35mm f/1.4 L lens. Some who think they need the “best” go straight for that excellent lens – but not everyone will benefit from that choice. While the f/1.4 L is reportedly a very fine lens and excellent at the larger apertures, if you don’t need f/1.4 it may provide no real advantages at all. For example if you mainly need a 35mm lens to shoot stopped down there is little or no advantage to the more expensive lens. Tests I’ve reviewed suggest that the f/2 cheapie produces equivalent IQ at the smaller apertures.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

A New Host… And a New Start?

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

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow

Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 Lens

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