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Commentary, Photographs: Nature

A Bunch of Saturday Links

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This past week I came across a number of interesting links. I didn’t have time to post then, but now that it is the weekend and I have a bit of time, here they are:

  • John Paul Caponegro has been posting frequent updates about a photographic expedition to Antarctica at the John Paul Caponigro Blog.
  • Speaking of Antarctica, the Boston Globe has published a stunning series of photographs from Antarctica, made by a variety of photographers all over the continent.
  • Over at his blog Jim M Goldstein has reported on his hard drive disaster and his successful efforts to recover. He also shares some interesting and useful ideas about backup strategies.
  • Yosemite photographer – and author of a highly regarded book on photographing in Yosemite – has started a blog: Michael Frye Photography Blog. He has a lot of good information to share about photographing the Valley, and he has already published useful information about photographing the iconic Horsetail Fall in the next month or so.
  • Andy Frazer has offered another in his ongoing series of commentaries on night photographers, this time with words about and links to Aaron Hobson.

All good stuff!

Commentary

Thinking of Photographing Yosemite’s Horsetail Fall?

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Horsetail Fall. Yosemite National Park, California. February 16, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell - all rights reserved.

Horsetail Fall. Yosemite National Park, California. February 16, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

During the second half of the winter season the setting sun lines up just right to cast a final beam of light onto a southwest-facing portion of El Capitan. When conditions are just right the snow-filled area above El Capitan warms a bit at about this time and seasonal Horsetail Fall may drop over the edge of El Capitan. If everything falls in place just so, the beam of warm sunset light strikes the upper portion of the fall, and if  you happen to be in the right areas in the Valley you can witness what has been called the “Yosemite’s natural firefall.”

If you are thinking of going to witness this event, whether as a photographer or just as a viewer, you might want to follow Edie Howe’s Little Red Tent blog. Edie lives in the Valley, and is known for posting firsthand reports on conditions that may – or may not – produce this seasonal spectacle. (If you want to see the light on Horsetail Fall, you should be aware that conditions have to be just right – and your chances improve if you have some travel flexibility and can be there for more than one day.)

Any post on this phenomenon should acknowledge Galen’s Rowell’s famous photograph of Horsetail Fall, and the fact that any later photograph of this scene will unavoidably be compared to his image.

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During the first week and a half of 2009 I noticed that a couple membership requests at this site that seem legitimate were blocked by my site software. If you tried to sign up but encountered technical problems, please drop me an email and let me know what happened… or didn’t happen. I’ll try to help you resolve the issue. Thanks.

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!”