Tag Archives: Equipment

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Shipyard Structure and Star Trails

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Scaffold and Star Trails

Shipyard Structure and Star Trails. Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California. February 7, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Shipyard scaffolding illuminated by artificial light and moonlight with star trails – Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California.

One more night photograph from Mare Island, this one being the last frame I exposed before my shutter went to shutter heaven. (Well, actually it went to the Canon Factory Service Center a day later…) This was shot with the camera pointing almost straight up, with the north star just outside the frame at the lower right, and the star trails rotating around that position. The illumination is from a combination of light from the nearly-full moon and nearby artificial lighting – and a very long exposure. I don’t understand exactly how this massive steel structure was used, but it is part of the shipbuilding facilities at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard. These structures tower over the old shops and other buildings at the facility.

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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Commentary, Equipment

‘Low End’ Cameras – Interesting Choices

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An interesting juxtaposition caught my attention this morning.

Yesterday Michael Reichmann posted a very interesting article (“You’ve Got to Be Kidding“) in which he compares the image quality from the (arguably high end point and shoot) $500 Canon G10 with that obtained from his high end Hasselblad medium format digital system. While some are misrepresenting the point of his article to be that the G10 is equal to the Hassy MF system (it isn’t, and he didn’t write that), the significant point is that for many uses the G10 can produce good size prints (13″ x 19” in Reichmann’s article) that are largely indistinguishable from those that came from the MF camera.

At about the same time I saw a link to a dealmac.com posting about sub-$600 prices for the Canon XSi 12.2MP APS-C DSLR with the quite decent EFS 18-55mm image stabilized lens. Anyone who looks at the features of this camera objectively and knows about the generally quite good reviews of this lens understands that this is a tremendous value for a camera system that is more than capable enough for the vast majority of DSLR purchasers.

So, on one hand we have a small almost pocketable camera (the G10) that can produce excellent quality prints as large as most people will ever produce (much larger, in fact). If your point of comparison is DSLRs of a year or two ago – $1000+ in many cases – this is a quite amazing thing, and could induce many buyers to think about the G10 or a similar camera, either as the camera or as an adjunct when traveling light is important. But wait, the cost of a quite decent DSLR isn’t $1000+ any more – it now appears to be perhaps only $100 more than that of the G10.

Equipment, Ideas, Technique

Wide Angle Lenses and Image Stabilization

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I often hear people claim that image-stabilization is only of value on normal to long focal length lenses, and is not useful on wide angle and ultra wide angle lenses.

The photograph posted earlier today was shot handheld on a full frame DSLR at 1/25 second at ISO 800 and 32mm. (32mm on full frame is equivalent to using a 20mm focal length on a 1.6x cropped sensor body.)

I had just finished a session of tripod-based landscape shooting on the summit of this dome, had packed up, and was heading down when the lone hiker crossed the ridgeline below me just as some lovely post-sunset light gently illuminated the landscape. Having no time to set up a tripod – hiker and light would have been gone by then – I dropped everything, pulled the camera with image-stabilized 24-105mm lens from the pack, made some quick seat-of-the-pants exposure calculations, and got of three quick frames before the scene was gone. Without IS I simply would not have gotten a usable version of this photograph – a photograph that has since been licensed for use in a print journal.

Even as one who often shoots from a tripod – and almost always carries one – I have found the notion that IS has no value at shorter focal lengths to be a myth not born out in actual practice.

Equipment, Technique

Lowepro Toploader AW

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I do a lot of backpacking photography, frequently going out for periods of many days or even a couple weeks and carrying camera equipment across high (occasionally trail-less) passes in the Sierra Nevada range. There is a whole range of issues to sort out when you do this sort of back-country photography including:

  • How much gear to take — what do you really need and how much weight are you willing to lug?
  • How to keep the camera and necessary accessories reasonably accessible.
  • How to sufficiently protect the camera equipment from weather and from other dangers.
  • How to integrate systems for carrying camera equipment with those used for carrying regular backpacking gear.

I’ve described my current backpacking photography setup in detail elsewhere, so here I’ll focus on one key element in my solution, a Lowepro Toploader AW bag. (Mine is a slightly older model – a “TLZ AW.” The current incarnations have a slightly different name. The last time I checked they were the “Lowepro Toploader 75 AW Camera Holster Bag” and the “Lowepro Toploader 65 AW Camera Holster Bag.”) Continue reading Lowepro Toploader AW →