Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Monolith, Storm Surf

November 25, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter surf breaks against a monolith on a Northern California Beach

On this day we gradually worked our way up the coast from Mendocino, through the town of Fort Bragg and on to where the coast highway, very narrow at this point, turns inland, leaving the coast behind as it travels up narrow, forested canyons. We had a particular spot in mind for photographs, a place where we have previously photographed pale, lichen-covered tree trunks in deep forest. The ideal light of this comes from overcast conditions and we certainly had that — but the lovely overcast soon turned into serious rain, and we decided to head back to the coast.

This was the sort of post-frontal rain that comes and goes. One moment there might be a bit of blue sky and some sunshine on the surface of the ocean; the next dark clouds would approach and we could see the approaching rain heading our direction. We stopped at this overlook as the rain let up a bit, giving us a more open view back up the dramatic coastline toward the mountains from which we had just retreated.

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Deals and Sales, Equipment

Fujifilm Camera/Lens Promotion

November 24, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

FUJIFILM PROMOTION

I’m a big fan of the Fujifilm x-trans cameras and the Fujifilm lenses. (I use the XPro2 and several of the lenses for my street and travel photography. Fujifilm has one of their periodic promotions going on up until close to Christmas, and it reduces prices on cameras and lenses by as much as $400. Here is a list the items from site-affiliate Adorama. (You can also fine many of them at site-affiliate B&H via their link in the sidebar, and their Black Friday link at the end of this post.)

(Link to all.)

Cameras

Some of the best bargains here are on older 16MP cameras such as the XT10, XT1, and X100T, but there is good pricing right now on the newer 24MP XPro2, the camera I currently use.

Lenses

The Fujifilm lenses are excellent, and they cover most photographers’ needs. The primes are excellent — I rely on the 14mm f/2.8, 23mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4, and 60mm f/2.4 macro. I’ve used the 18-55mm kit lens and the 55-200mm tele-zoom, which is a very nice lens in a compact, light and affordable package. Recently I have also been using the 50-140mm f/2.8, which is the equivalent of the high end 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses from major DSLR manufacturers. I’m likely to acquire the 16-55mm f/2.8 before long.

(Note: the numbers in parentheses are “angle of view equivalent focal lengths” on full frame cameras.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Bluffs, Autumn Storm

November 24, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An autumn rain storm and coastal bluffs, Mendocino

The surf, the clouds, and the light continually changed our plans on this mid-November day — not that our plans were all that set, in any case. But several times we thought we had come up with something resembling a plan, only to have the scene distract us. We had finally made it back into town for coffee, thinking that afterwards we might head out of town and look for more distant sights. Yet we soon realized that there were things to see and photograph right here, and we headed to the bluffs along the south side of the town.

The surf was up, with large waves associated with a passing weather front and lingering rain and wind. The light was constantly changing — atmosphere filled with mist and spray one moment, and patches of blue sky and sunlight the next. From the top of these bluffs we could look south across the bay to the next peninsula, where large waves were rolling up on the rocks, and beyond to where the sun shone through breaks in the clouds.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Leaf and Sand

November 23, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An autumn leaf in the sand of a California north coast beach

In many ways the spectacular and rugged Pacific ocean coastline of Northern California is a landscape of huge scale, from the ocean itself to the long views of rocky cliffs, shoreline bluffs, coastal mountain ranges, sea stacks, clouds and fog. I love this country and many of my photographs of this landscape focus on these very things.

But sometimes I do look down at my feet as well. On this afternoon we had stopped at a beach where the road dropped down to nearly the water level and the wintry ocean was wild with the energy of a passing storm, producing surf and swells so large that it seemed that we looked up at them. I wandered out toward the waterline and began to photograph the surf and some sea stacks that stood in the path of the waves. As I turned to walk down the beach I happened to look down and see this autumn leaf, stuck in the sand near the high water mark, with the faintly visible paths of water that had detoured around the leaf on its way back into the ocean.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Monolith, Storm Surf

Fujifilm Camera/Lens Promotion

Cameras

Lenses

Bluffs, Autumn Storm

Leaf and Sand

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