The iPad

The best reaction to it I read here. Saw this linked on daring fireball. I think the iPad looks like it might be a fantastic tool to carry around for presentations (Keynote looks like it is great on it), to have an image portfolio on it to show around and much much more. I am most definitely a major technology nerd and I like complete control over my computers but I can see how this thing might be fantastically useful without needing constant attention to keep it running. The paradigm is finally shifting to the instantly usable and super simple computing appliance we were promised years ago instead of the crap we get from the computer shop today that you have to spend hours on to get running smoothly even if you are an expert at it.

More from Emerald Lake

Going through my Lightroom library I was struck by another image from Emerald Lake. I worked it up and put it on my site. Enjoy!

redone 360 degrees panorama from Emerald Lake

I redid an old panorama I made of Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park several years ago. Much more aggressive development (read higher contrast) and I am using a cylindrical projection that looks much better on a flat web page than the original equirectangular projection. This looks very good in the link behind the picture which will give you a bigger view.



On flickr here.

Crystal Cave

Absolutely astonishing!

Calf Creek Falls

Last November, I visited a fantastic place near Escalante, Utah. I had just visited Zion with my friend Dave, and he suggested that on our way back, we would visit Calf Creek Falls. I had seen pictures of this place before, but I had not expected the beauty and sheer magnitude of it. The falls are in the Grand Staircase National Monument and you start the hike from a small campground that is right of highway 12. From there you hike along Calf Creek in a very hot desert and in sandy conditions, until you reach the end of the canyon where it is very lush and forested and turkeys can be seen and heard. At the end there is a small lake in which Calf Creek Falls plummet from the edge of the canyon down. This is a very large waterfall and you can easily see it on the satellite pictures of this area. It's an almost surreal experience to reach this place after hiking through the desert. We took many pictures there and I'd just like to show a few. These are all very high resolution images that can be printed at extremely large sizes while retaining detail. I slowed down the falls by using a neutral density filter. The falls have beautifully colored moss behind them and in spring there must be many blooming orchids of which I saw a lot of evidence, but no flowers of course.

Reflection:


Changing trees:


Side view



Vertical pano:



This last image is extremely high resolution and will print 8 feet high without any issue. It was inspired by an image of the same falls my friend Pete has in his living room that he shot with a very large format panoramic film camera.

There are several more images in the smugmug gallery I created for this place. You can also go to flickr to do the social networking thing.

Waterfall image

Here is a full resolution version of the image I blogged about before. The image I showed was a low-res tryout of the larger version I assembled later. Here it is:



This is using a white balance slightly between shade and from the neutral patch. The final image is a 40MP composite from 9 separate RAWs and has exquisite detail. I limit it to about 40 MP because of the filesize limit of smugmug. The image has more resolution than that (effectively double this), but because of the Bayer mosaic, 40 MP is not a bad choice and it still allows prints larger than you can hang in any normal room.