Tag Archives: pack

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street, Photographs: Wildlife

Raccoons and Brick Wall, Mare Island

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Raccoons and Brick Wall, Mare Island

Raccoons and Brick Wall, Mare Island. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. August 30, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of nocturnal raccoons emerges from beneath a brick wall with boarded up windows and doors at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

I’ll have to admit that wildlife photography was more or less the furthest thing from my mind when I was shooting this scene of an artificially lit weathered brick wall in the core of the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard near the end of August. The thing that interested me in this shot was the shape of the pipe attached to the outer wall of this building against the bricks, along with the way it snaked between various windows and doors. So I set up the tripod and made a couple exposures. While making the second one I suddenly thought I saw something move – which seemed completely unexpected. Although it was much darker that it appears in this shot, I eventually saw a furry shape emerging from a gap between the sidewalk and the building… and then another…and another. Eventually there may have been as many as a half dozen raccoons in this little cluster of critters.

It may be hard to see them in this reduced size version of the photograph, but they are the small fuzzy area near the lower right below the valve on the wall. On the full size image it is possible to make out a few paws and the vague outline of their faces.

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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keywords: raccoon, animal, nocturnal, pack, group, emerge, hole, under, building, brick, wall, boarded up, pipe, sidewalk, concrete, panels, window, door, reflection, night, photography, pattern, structure, historic, mare, island, naval, ship, yard, vallejo, california, usa, abandoned, dilapidated, run, down, valve, industrial, wildlife, wood, stock

Commentary

A Couple Quick Updates

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PeterP wrote left a “comment” asking how I do black and white conversions. I replied with a brief overview of my approach to using the “Black and White” layer in CS4 and then working with multiple masked curves layers to fine tune the resulting image.

I returned yesterday from a four-day pack photography backpack trip into the Young Lakes area of the Yosemite back-country out of Tuolumne Meadows. I’m currently going through a few hundred RAW files and beginning to work on a few of them. Conditions in the Sierra this past week were “interesting” – meaning some pretty good sized thunderstorms every afternoon and lots of interesting light somewhat marred by occasional smoke floating up from a wildfire burning lower in the Tuolumne River drainage.

Commentary

Quick Report on Canon EOS 5D Mark II Battery Performance

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After four days photographing – in sometimes stunning conditions – in the Tuolumne Meadows area of Yosemite, it seems odd to make my first post about a technical issue. But, here I go.

People wonder about the LP-E6 battery performance of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera. While I haven’t conducted and “scientific” tests of battery performance, what I have observed thus far is quite encouraging. Over the past three and a half days or so I made 533 exposures plus a few more that I deleted in the camera. I do a fair amount of “chimping” and I used the live view feature just a bit. After all of that the battery life indicator still showed two our of four bars.

All in all, I think this seems like great battery life. Many 5D II shooters will find that one battery is sufficient, and very few  should need more than one spare. (I currently have one spare. Because of some unusual use patterns – including backcountry pack trips of one to two weeks duration – I’m considering one more spare.)

If you are purchasing a 5D II, an extra LP-E6 battery for your 5D II, or other camera gear, doing so at B&H Photo Video via links at this site helps support this blog.

Photographs: Sports

Paceline – American Velodrome Challenge

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Paceline - American Velodrome Challenge

Paceline – American Velodrome Challenge. Hellyer Park Velodrome, San Jose, California. June 26, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The pack is strung out as the pace increases in a bicycle track race at the American Velodrome Challenge, Hellyer Park, San Jose, California.

The paceline in the late stages of a miss-and-out race at the American Velodrome Challenge at the Hellyer Park Velodrome in San Jose, California. Yes, another “blurry bike racers” shot! And it won’t be the last.

I was having great fun shooting this series. There are a few tricks that I use to make this work. Before I make the exposure I decide where in the frame I want the relatively focused rider to be – in this case I wanted him closest to me on the right side of the frame. I selected a single autofocus point on the camera and made it the one furthest to the right from the center. I used the AI servo mode on my Canon 5D II since it continuously adjust the AF and since it attempts to predict the position of moving objects, thus tending to keep them in focus… as long as you can manage to keep the AF point on the target as it moves by very fast and very close. So the trick was to begin to follow the riders around the far end of the turn that you can see at top left, and then to work carefully to keep this AF point on the lead rider – not as easy as you might think – while also keeping a watch on the positions of the other riders. Making this even more “fun” is the fact that I had absolutely no control over what the riders would actually do when they came around. Sometimes a rider might come up the bank and block my shot; sometimes a single rider might be too far separated from the others to make the composition I had in mind. Generally – but not quite always – I shoot anyway, and I’m more than willing to admit that there is a certain element of luck in making this work.

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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