Jao's photo blog

Clouds and tree

2012-01-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

Contrast, clouds, orange. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55 mm at 32 mm, f/8.0, 1/160s, ISO 200
Flickr image. Google+ post.

This is in local open space park Mount Galbraith. Most of the trees in this area burned last year (picture in this blog post) and so all the trees look quite forlorn. I processed this in image in LR 4 beta. This gives just wonderful final quality but is still quite slow.

Dutch perspective on San Francisco

2012-01-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

Dutch perspective on San Francisco. Click for bigger. Click here to buy a print. Image on flickr. Google+ post.
Technical info. D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 at 11mm, f/8.0, 1/640s, ISO 200. Processed in LR 4 beta.

This was taken on a sail boat ride on the San Francisco bay when we were returning to harbor. The title of course is a pun.

SOPA and PIPA protest

2012-01-19T09:27:00.002-07:00

As many may have noticed, yesterday I joined in the protest against SOPA and PIPA by blacking out this website. I realize that may have inconvenienced visitors but I felt a strong statement had to be made. These onerous proposed laws would have really put a damper on free speech and open expression. For an interesting (albeit a little too conspiracy theory for me) perspective on all this read this article.

Chrome suddenly color managed

2012-01-16T13:02:00.002-07:00

This one snuck by me. I have complained many times in the past about deficiencies in browser color management. Chrome and Firefox are seen wavering back and forth all the time. I recently lamented the fact that Chrome was not color managed. However, I happened to open it recently and noticed that the color was not off as I was used to on my wide gamut screen (Chrome version 16.0.912.75). In fact it looked 'normal'! So I quickly whipped up a comparison between browser and the gold standard in color management: Photoshop. The screenshot was converted from my monitor profile to sRGB for web display.

As you can see, contrary to my previous post using Chrome 13, it is now color managed! This is great news as we now have three browsers that are color managed, at least on Mac OS X. I understand that on Windows, the latest Chrome is not yet color managed, which if true, is a shame. Nevertheless, this is a great development and a return to what I called "web browser bliss" years ago, but what was dampened from that initial optimism since then because of regressions at Mozilla and Google. Here is to hoping that the last holdout IE, which still does not convert to the display profile as it should, will at some time join 21st century even if 2012 is a little late for finally doing what was proposed by Microsoft themselves in 1996.

Finally, by checking the icc v4 testing page in all browsers, I can now report the following for the browser versions current at the date of posting:

Browser	icc v2 compliant?	icc v4 compliant?	converts to display profile?	assumes sRGB for untagged images?
Safari	yes	yes	yes	no
Chrome	yes	yes	yes	no
Firefox	yes	no	yes (some v4 profiles work!)	no (yes with secret setting enabled)

In conclusion, if you are on a Mac and care about color rendering, I can now heartily recommend Chrome next to Firefox and Safari.

Lake Helene and Notchtop

2012-01-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

I blogged a little about this trip before here, here, and here. This early morning hike was one of the most impressive I ever did. It was windy and miserably cold, but the experience was unforgettable. I try to do many trips like this but seldom all conditions arrange for a great sunrise where geography, clouds, and sun cooperate. When everything comes together it is truly magical. The images of this trip were for me so ingrained in my mind that it has taken me a while to show them on my blog. One of the ways I check out geography and sun is by using Stephen Trainor's outstanding The Photographer's ephemeris app (for iPad/iPhone here, for Macs/PCs here). I also use Google Earth. I had decided that Lake Helene would be nice with a view of Notchtop illuminated by the rising sun.

View Larger Map

This was also my first outing with my new F-stop Tilopa BC pack which I highly recommend. On to the photos! The following two I showed before but only as a quick comparison.

This is a few minutes before sunrise. Imagine the clouds flying by at very high speed because of the high wind and a blisteringly cold wind flowing over the frozen lake. I really like the composition of this with the rocks and structures in the ice which mirror in the mountain and in the clouds.

Blueness. Buy a print.
Technical data: high resolution image assembled from 9 images from Nikon D300, 18-55mm at 24 mm, f/16, 2.0s, ISO 200.
Here is a slightly different viewpoint done as a single image instead of a high resolution composite that you might find interesting.

These assembled images I create will easily print 8 feet high with impeccable detail. If you're interested in such prints contact me as they take some special care to do right. The standard sizes that my site offers will print gorgeous as is straight from my website.

Just a few minutes later the sun had come up revealing this:

The moment. Buy a print.
Technical data: high resolution image assembled from 9 images from Nikon D300, 18-55mm at 24 mm, f/16, 1/8s, ISO 200.

As you can see from the much 4 stops faster shutter, the intensity of this light is quite a difference bathing the entire scene in warm light.

I stayed around for a little longer finding different viewpoints such as this:

Head in the clouds. Buy a print.
Technical data: high resolution image assembled from 9 images from Nikon D300, 18-55mm at 24 mm, f/16, 1/13s, ISO 200.

and this:

I wonder. Buy a print.
Technical data: high resolution image assembled from 9 images from Nikon D300, 18-55mm at 24 mm, f/16, 1/13s, ISO 200.

At this point, I could hardly move my fingers anymore and I really had to get out of the wind. I haven't found a really good solution yet for gloves that allow me to control the camera but still keep my fingers warm.

This was truly an extraordinary morning. Hope you enjoy the images.

Panoramas of the San Francisco city front

2012-01-12T14:26:00.000-07:00

Taken from the sailboat that we spent a delightful day on cruising around the bay. These are all hand held and assembled in hugin. Remember to click on them for a much bigger view. The vertical format of this blog does not allow me to embed a very wide image here. See also the Google+ post.

San Francisco, bay bridge to Alcatraz. Buy a print (logo will not show up on the print!)

The bay bridge. Buy a print.

City front (mostly fisherman's wharf) and two bridges. Buy a print.

Alcatraz island. Buy a print.

Film simulation with the new R,G,B curves in Lightroom 4 beta

2012-01-11T10:51:00.001-07:00

There is lots of really nice additions to LR 4. The new processing is superb (more later). One nice addition that was done is that we can now individually manipulate the red, green, and blue channel curves. So I played with them a little last night and generated a few presets that sort of simulate cross processing, as well as a set of film stock. I glanced most of the ideas on this from the web where I found lots of advice on how to do this with the same curves tools in Photoshop. Below is an example of their effect using a silly outdoor picture of my son at the train museum, a sunset over the Golden Gate, and a sunset at Yosemite (click for bigger)

These are a little over the top (they were made late last night) but illustrate the concept well. If you want to try for yourself, download a zip file I made of them here. You should be able to double click them to install them into LR 4 or you might have to import them in the Lightroom develop module.

Have fun.

Adobe Lightroom 4 beta

2012-01-09T22:56:00.001-07:00

Hot of the presses. Downloading now. Apparently includes softproofing, photobooks, GPS, an even better demosaic. Can't wait.

Ice fall in black and white

2012-01-07T13:58:00.001-07:00

I suddenly remembered that I had visualized the icy waterfall image (Vernal falls in Yosemite) from a few days ago in black and white. Shades of Ansel I guess. I only looked at the images many days later when I got home as I intentionally did not bring a laptop on our Cali vacation so I forgot about that completely. I was taken away by the fact that the late afternoon light came through much better than I had anticipated in the raw images and so the color version was still great. Anyway, here is the image as I imagined it would turn out. I like this quite a bit myself.

Ice Fall Black and White. Buy a print. Same image on flickr. Google+ post.
High resolution composite of 9 images from a Nikon D300 with a Nikkor 18-55 mm DX lens at 32 mm, f/11, and 1/4 second shutter. Field of view equivalent to using a 11.5 mm lens on DX or 17 mm on a full frame camera.

El Capitan sunset

2012-01-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

During the few days over Christmas I spent with my family in Yosemite, we had just gorgeous weather every day. Unfortunately for photography that is not ideal. There also was not a flake of snow in sight. Nevertheless I got some nice images out of the trip. The below is a sunset image looking at El Capitan and Bridal Veil falls. I believe this view is called "Gates of the Valley". When I got here in the evening before sunset it looked like nothing was going to happen as some high clouds were turning everything dull and gray. However, for two minutes or so right at sunset, the sun peeked below those clouds. I shot of a few guide images using my Tokina 11-16mm and then created a composite using my nodal ninja rotator and a 35 mm lens. The light had already faded before I was able to change my setup to get a high res image, so the red is more soft than it was in the guide images and the contrast lower. Also in this image, the red is like a little band of light instead of the entire top of the rock. I like it this way.

El Capitan sunset. Buy a print. Google+ post. Flickr image.
High resolution composite stitched from 9 images from a Nikon D300. Nikkor 35 mm f1.8 DX at f/11, 0.5s, ISO 200. 1 stop grad ND applied in software.

As a comparison, here is a guide image that I shot right before the high resolution composite above.

Red, White, and Blue. Buy a print.
Nikon D300. Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 at 14 mm, f/11, 0.6s, ISO 200. 2 stop graduated ND.

The red was much brighter here than in the high resolution image taken a minute later or so. A nice example of how much timing matters in landscape photography.

The tree

2012-01-06T15:12:00.001-07:00

Evening light at Mount Galbraith. The city you can see down there is Golden (you can clearly see the Coors brewery) and in the distance is Denver. From a few weeks ago on a quick afternoon hike. As always click the image for a bigger view.

The tree. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 at 11mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 200

Image link on flickr. Google+ post.

Sequioa

2012-01-05T12:22:00.002-07:00

This is an image of a group of giant sequioa that can be seen in the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park. This group is very well known and is called the "Bachelor and the Three Graces." As the google link before shows, one can find thousands of images of this across the web. This photo breaks all the rules you are supposed to follow for the photography of these trees. They should be in fog (no fog for any of the days we were in Yosemite so no go there), snow (no snow in Yosemite this year!), and definitely not full sunlight. I largely just focused on the composition of the image with the foreground tree dark and brooding and the background trees (the graces in the name) in radiant sunlight and to juxtaapose these. I basically took it to hone my skills. To my surprise it actually is quite an interesting image. I made a 16x20 print of it that is just luminescent with beautiful deep but detailed shadows and radiant highlights. The detail on the bark in this high resolution image is stunning (at least I think so ;-) ). The image is pretty close to how it came from camera and stitching.

Bachelor and three (?) graces. Buy a print.
Composite of 12 images. D300, ISO 200, nikkor 18-55mm at 48 mm, f/11, 1/10s. Circular polarizer.

I also generated a tighter image that I took to black and white. It is meant to convey the size and solidity of the trees by excluding most of them.

trunks. Buy a print.
Composite of 9 images. D300, ISO 200, nikkor 18-55mm at 48 mm, f/11, 1/10s. Circular polarizer.

For those socially inclined:
Flickr image. Google+ post.

Sailing the Bay

2012-01-03T22:13:00.000-07:00

From 2012-01-03

That is me on our friends Jim and Deb's beautiful sailboat steering around the San Francisco bay. Here we're close to going under the Bay bridge heading towards the SF cityfront. Photo by Mariska. I'll post some more pictures I took around the bay at a later time.

Google+ post on this.

Ice Fall

2012-01-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

This image was taken on Christmas day at Vernal Falls in Yosemite National Park. I hiked up to this falls and the next one with my daughter. This year, there was basically no snow whatsoever in Yosemite making the waterfalls run very low. People working in the park were all worried and surprised by this long drought. Normally this falls is as wide as the lighter area you can see in the image. It was cold enough however for the water mist to freeze up. Quite spectacular. I tried to capture the extreme contrast in light and feeling between warm mountain and cold waterfall here.

Ice fall. Buy a print.
50 MP Composite of 9 images from a Nikon D300 with a Nikkor 18-55 mm DX lens at 32 mm, f/11, and 1/4 second shutter. Field of view equivalent to using a 11.5 mm lens on DX or 17 mm on FX.
Same image on flickr. Google+ post on the image.

Resolutions

2012-01-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

Last year around this time, I resolved to lose some weight as many people do every year. I wasn't that much overweight and nobody had told me that I needed to, but my spouse was going to lose weight and I thought it would be good to help her by showing solidarity. My goal was to go for my college weight which was between 145 and 150 lbs (65 kg or so in real SI units instead of silly imperial units (how many ounce in a pound again?)). Amazingly I reached that goal around May exactly on schedule (see figure on the right) and have been maintaining it since. What's the secret? Very simple. I just restricted caloric intake and exercised regularly. In my case, I was always very active but simply ate too much and drank too much beer. The body is a pretty straightforward calculator in this respect. If you take in more calories than you burn, you'll gain. Take in less and you'll lose. Take in as much as you burn and you will be stable. Of course people differ in how many calories they burn just living so the equilibrium point is different for different people. You just need the discipline to actually do it and have ways of exercising that are effective for you. My two major ways of exercising are mountain biking and hiking with heavy backpacks (photo gear) in the mountains. Both extremely caloric. So if you are considering resolving to lose weight, realize that it can be done if you stick to it, be honest with yourself, and don't get tempted by silly diets. Just follow Pollan's excellent advice to eat food, and not too much. Food meaning something that our great grandparents would have recognized as food.

The screenshot on the right is from the excellent iPhone app Loseit. It is very effective and free. There are many tools like this to help you if you need it, but simply being aware of what you eat and not eating as much as you might normally works just fine too.

Now I just need new New Year's resolutions for next year.

A few more Boston images

2011-12-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

Walking between the conference center and the hotel I stayed in, I was able to shoot one or two pictures. I like to stay in hotels that are not too close to the conference center so I get a little walk in going to and from the talks. I'll spare you all the iPhone images from bars and such as they are really only interesting to the people in them. The below is a tree in the same park as the previous post was from:

Radiant. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/80s
Google+ post. Image on flickr.

Nature's bed (I know cliché!). Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/25s
On flickr.

Reflection. Buy a print.
Composite of three images from Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f1.8DX ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/60s
I love how the building becomes sort of radiant because of all the reflections bouncing around in these urban canyons.

Geometric. Buy a print.
Composite of three images from Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f1.8DX ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/60s
This is a different crop of the above image.
On flickr.

Having a smoke. Buy a print.
Composite of four images from Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f1.8DX ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/400s

Corridor. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f1.8DX ISO 800, f/6.3, 1/500s

Fall color in Boston

2011-11-27T15:14:00.001-07:00

Spending a few days in Boston (work) and I was amazed to find a bit of fall color left on the trees here.

From 2011-11-27

This came from my phone using the pro HDR app. Just added my name. Not fine art but I thought it was neat.

Purple predawn colors on the Great Sand Dunes

2011-11-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

Last August I spent some time on the great sand dunes. This place is very interesting, especially in its setting rimmed by a high mountain range and at the end of a high valley. It's a vast field of dunes that is a lot of fun to explore and offers many gorgeous photographic opportunities. I recently posted images from the sunset on this blog. I also showed some coyote tracks I found the next morning. Below I'll post a large set of images from that same morning I found the coyote tracks. I'll focus now on the predawn images. Later I'll show some postdawn images. You can look ahead if you want to those by going to my Sand Dunes gallery on smugmug.

Purple dune. Buy a print. Black and white version here.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 14 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 25s

That is not a misprint. I needed a 25 second exposure for this. In the large image, you can actually see the coyote tracks I referenced before going over the dune. After sunrise I spent some time following them around the dune field.

The thin purple line. Buy a print. Black and white version here.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 14 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 10s
This is a different perspective on the same dune as before.

One grain of sand. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 14 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 6.0s
There are many different types of sand on the dunes. This was very course stuff forming very interesting patterns.

Reflections. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 0.5s

Color starting to show in the sky.

Waves. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 0.4s
I loved these wavy patterns formed by the wind. The black and white version of this is very nice too.

Steps. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11 mm, ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/25s, handheld.

diagonal. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Nikon 18-55mm at 18 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/15s, handheld.

The colors are turning yellow now. Here I was mostly interested in the geometric shapes of the dune and how the little grass breaks that.

Soft Dune. Buy a print.
High resolution image stitched from 9 images shot with Nikon D300, Nikon 18-55mm at 50 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/15s.
This image will print super large with amazing detail in the sand.

Sideswipe. Buy a print.
High resolution image stitched from 9 images shot with Nikon D300, Nikon 55-200mm at 70 mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/30s.
Again, this image will print very very large without issue. You can see the edge of dawn in the haze on the mountains. I love the color of the sand here.

A line in the sand. Buy a print. Black and white version.
Nikon D300, Nikon 55-200mm at 145 mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/30s.

This is a detail that I really liked. The black and white version really brings out the ripples very well.

Later I'll get to the images during and after sunrise.

Nikon D800?

2011-11-21T10:49:00.001-07:00

You have undoubtedly already seen this on the internets but in the off chance you haven't: there is an interesting picture and set of specs on what is likely going to be the D700's successor, the D800, on nikonrumors.com. If true and not a photoshopped picture, this looks like one very interesting camera. With 36 MP it will have basically the same pixel density as the 16.2MP crop sensor D7000. This means it should be a a great compromise between noise, dynamic range, and resolution if it uses the same or better sensor technology. A fantastic DSLR camera for landscape photography in other words. I am always looking for ways to get really large prints to look good at least to me that do not involve all the stitching I do now. This is because composing the image in the field with the stitching in mind is not trivial and involves a lot of visualization. Having to visualize is not a bad thing overall of course but even Ansel had a ground glass plate to see the composition in the field. I have to approximate this with some kludgy comparisons that are not super exact (see here for an example). Also, the viewfinders on full frame cameras are so much better than on crop cameras as I am reminded of every time I put my eye to my old 35 mm film DSLR. Of course, when you use live view, as I do all the time on my D300 when doing landscape work that doesn't matter that much. It makes a huge difference in candid and other types of photography though and is therefore a very useful thing to have and a major advantage of full frame cameras over crop sensor ones.

So to Nikon I say: if you need any beta testers or reviewers, send one my way. I will test the heck out of it ;-) . Of course, when this camera would actually come out, I am sure Nikon will price it at a price point equivalent to "Canon 5D mkII + one or two nice lenses" so as to still make it unattainable to only a few. Hopefully it won't be anywhere near the stratospheric D3x range, but even that wouldn't surprise me.

Fiery vision

2011-11-13T17:29:00.001-07:00

This is Notchtop in Rocky Mountain National Park in the clouds about an hour after sunrise.

Contrasts. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 16mm, f/8.0, 1/250s
Same image on flickr. Google+ post.

As people who have been on this trail in winter know, the wind can get very strong here. This was indeed one of those moments. From the image you would hardly know I took this image in gale-force winds and I was quite cold and actually shivering, but couldn't let this scene pass by without taking it to the plate.

It turns out I took this image in the exact same spot I shot another image at sunset a few weeks earlier. I posted it before, but I'll repeat it here so you can compare.

Fire over Notchtop. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 13mm, f/8.0, 1/20s

What a difference a few weeks makes!

Butler Gulch sunset in black and white

2011-11-13T14:16:00.001-07:00

Buy a print.

Black and white version of the high resolution image from yesterday. I love the luminosity/glow of the rocks in the foreground.

Butler Gulch evening

2011-11-12T09:23:00.001-07:00

I went on a quick snowshoe last week with my friend from Switzerland, Jean-David. We went for a quick trip to Butler Gulch, which is at the same trailhead as Jones Pass road, near Berthoud Falls and Berthoud Pass. Here is Jean-David sans snowshoes, getting ready for the hike up.

Even though I expected it to be blown bare most of the way, there was more than enough snow to have done it on skis/snowboards. We only had snowshoes with us though.

We went up to the bowl at the end of the trail and climbed a glacial knob that sits in the middle of it to look out over the valley. Up above treeline, the snow was less deep and we would have had to plan our route more carefully were we on skis. The sun was low over the mountains and bathed the bowl in nice yellow light that well contrasted with the blue snow. Here is a picture of my backpack in its natural state:

It's a f-stop Tilopa BC that I recently got and that I am extremely happy with. I'll perhaps review it later. Colby Brown recommended f-stop gear for the sort of backcountry trips I do with my camera gear and he is absolutely right. They make some of the only camera bags that are actually good backpacks and that can carry the non-photo gear that you need on backcountry trips, such as extra layers, food, water, shovels, tents, stoves, etc. It will do it all without compromising on the camera/tripod front. Highly recommended. Anyway on this knoll I created a few images.

Butler Gulch evening. Buy a print.
Composite of nine images from Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 at 35mm, f/16,1/160s, ISO 200.
Same image on flickr.
Post on this image at Google+.

This image will print as high as your wall with impeccable detail. In large prints, the sunlit area will come alive. On the downscaled image, the sunlit area somehow turns orange. This is because the yellow from the sunlight is mixed in with the red of the rocks I guess.

A bowl of sugar. Buy a print.
Stitch from 9 handheld images horizontally arranged. Individual images from Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 at 11mm, f/16,1/60s, ISO 200.
Same image on flickr.

Primordial. Buy a print.
Single image from Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 at 11mm, f/16,1/60s, ISO 200.
Same image at flickr.

At this point my fingers were starting to freeze a little too much so we decided to turn around and after crashing down through the glades instead of over the trail, drove over to the traditional stop at Tommyknocker brewery in Idaho Springs to eat some well deserved nachos:

From my iPhone.

I have a great backlog of images I promised, so more later.

Blast from the past

2011-11-05T00:43:00.002-06:00

Actually only a year ago or so. This is a panorama taken at sunset at Roxborough State Park. It had just snowed like mad the days before. The same storm I think that produced these images. I went on an evening hike in Roxborough with my daughter and we had a blast. The below images were created during that outing a year ago. Can't believe I never posted these. Lovely yellow glow in the sky I think. These images have to be experienced large, which can be done by clicking on them and viewing them in the lightbox.

Glowing hills. Buy a print.
Assembled from 10 images (two rows of five). Nikon D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55 mm at 48mm, f/16, 1/50s. Developed in Lightroom and assembled in hugin.
Same image on flickr. Google+ post.

And just to give you a little extra. Here is another image created on the same outing.

Overview. Buy a print.
Assembled from 12 images (3 rows of 4). Nikon D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55 mm at 48mm, f/16, 1/40s. Developed in Lightroom and assembled in hugin.

Lake Helene sunrise panorama

2011-11-03T17:12:00.000-06:00

I still need to work on the images from this trip up to lake Helene, but I think the following image will be one of my favorites. It is a panorama taken at sunrise over Lake Helene. You will get a much larger version if you click on the image below. In my opinion it should really be seen large on a darkish background. This image was created by stitching five images taken in a row together. It will of course print very well very large on the longer aspect ratio sizes and I would highly recommend sizes such as 10x20, 12x20 (exact!), 14x22, 20x30. I can do much larger custom prints too. Just contact me. As many people ask me about this: The logo will NOT show up on your print.

Fire in the sky. Buy a print.
Technical data: 5 stitched images from Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/10s.
This image is also on flickr. Google+ post on this image.

More fall color in Eldorado Canyon State Park

2011-11-02T15:21:00.000-06:00

This image was taken two weeks ago in Eldorado Canyon State park (for earlier pictures from the same outing see here and here). This was quite a while after sunset while I was walking back to my car and the yellow trees were positively glowing.

Blast. Buy a print.
Boring technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 8.0 seconds. Two different developments in Lightroom of the image were combined in enfuse to balance sky and foreground.
Same image on Flickr. Google+ post.

Fifteen minutes

2011-11-01T09:23:00.001-06:00

I haven't had time to do much with my images from Sunday morning yet (let alone the gigantic backlog of images that I think need to be shown off), but I wanted to share the below juxtaposition. The two images are both composites of 9 images each. The two sets were taken 15 minutes apart. The left one about 13 minutes before sunrise, and the right one about a minute or two after that. The difference in mood and color is very large as I am sure I don't have to tell you. I always love the light just before sunrise. A minute later after the second image the sunrise light got even more intense as I already showed yesterday. the Click the image to see the comparison larger. The mountain is Notchtop mountain and the frozen lake is called Lake Helene. The lake is reached after a 3.2 miles hike from Bear Lake trailhead. Normally that is an easy hike (moderate in the guide books) but at night in the blowing snow and with a disappearing trail because of that, that is a little more challenging. More about that later.

Because of the format of this blog, I can only include a small image inline here, so you should really click to scale it up to a nicer size.

Click for bigger. Not posted online for sale yet, but will be soon - I promise.

A Notchtop Morning

2011-10-31T09:23:00.000-06:00

I was out at Lake Helene yesterday morning and it was just absolutely spectacular if not very cold and quite deep in the snow (I had not expected to need snowshoes so I was sinking deep at every step). I am still going through the images but I quickly wanted to already share this image with you. It shows Notchtop mountain at the moment of sunrise but covered with a blanket of clouds. The wind was so fierce that these clouds were puffing around really quickly almost as if I was looking at a timelapse video but happening in real life. Quite neat.

A Notchtop morning. Buy a print.
Tech info. Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55mmf/3.5-5..6 at 24mm. f/16, 1/13s. Raw image developed in Lightroom.
Same image on Flickr. Relevant Google+ post.

Quiet symmetry at Marigold ponds

2011-10-28T12:18:00.000-06:00

This image was taken on a quiet evening a few weekends ago in the Odessa Lake area in Rocky Mountain National park. This shows the Marigold ponds, a little lake hidden from sight from the trail. The reflected peak is called the Notchtop. This evening was superbly quiet and the watersurface was completely undisturbed safe for some insects. I love the strong symmetry created by the clouds and their reflection. As you would see in a large print, the reflection is more perfect than any I have ever seen before.

Buy a print.
Technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11.5 mm, f/11, 1/13s, circular polarizer, 2 stop grad ND. Processed from raw in Lightroom.
Same image on flickr. The relevant Google+ post.

Coyote tracks

2011-10-23T18:03:00.000-06:00

On the great sand dunes just after sunrise.

Buy a print.
Technical data: Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 at 18mm, f/8.0, 1/320s.

More fall color in Eldorado Canyon

2011-10-18T10:05:00.000-06:00

This image was taken at dusk. I have some nice images looking out over the rock formation with sunset glow on them that I will post at a later time. Now fall color is still topical so I'll show that here. This is a followup to the previous post. This waterfall is fairly easy to find right at a pullout to a big bouldering boulder. You have to scramble down a little through some brush and there it is. There are many nice waterfalls in this area but it is often difficult to get a good angle on them. I think this one works.

Dusk fall. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, f/11, 1.0s. 3 stop grad ND to darken the sky. Processed in Lightroom (no HDR).
Relevant Google+ post. Image on flickr.

Fall in Eldorado Canyon State Park

2011-10-17T10:50:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I dropped the little boy off with mom and sis who is selling tickets as a fundraiser for the awesome organization she rides horses with - The Westernaires. She is close to having sold 400 tickets now, which means she will have two chances to win that horse that we have little idea where to keep but we'll deal with that if it actualy happens. I am very proud though that she is working this hard to accomplish her goal with actually fairly little help from us except for giving rides and keeping her company. She is a better sales person than me. Anyway, I did a quick evening run after this to Eldorado Canyon State Park, a very nice park just southwest of Boulder that is famous for its climbing. I posted some winter images from this place before. The picture I will post below is quite different from those images. Even though as I showed before the high country of Colorado is getting snowed on already, the foothills are still in full fall mode. So I went to Eldorado Springs to hunt for a waterfall surrounded by fall foliage as well as to recreate a sunset shot I did with my phone a while ago but with better gear. The latter didn't pan out as I had hoped (I'll post some images anyway when I get to them), but the waterfalls wwere great. The below is one of those images I found.

Fall in Eldorado Canyon State Park. Buy a print
Technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11.5mm, f/16, 0.4s, 3 stop ND and 3 stop grad ND filters to slow down the water and darken the sky. Edited in Lightroom (no HDR here!).
Relevant G+ post. The image on Flickr.

More from the Loch and Lake Haiyaha

2011-10-15T10:46:00.001-06:00

Previously I posted a few images from The Loch here and here. Here are a few more that I took, as well as on my hike over to Lake Haiyaha. First this is at the outlet of The Loch:

Ice and Fire. Buy a print.
Technical data: D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f/10, 1/500s, ISO 800. I painted in a 1 2/3 stop graduated ND in Lightroom to darken the sky.
Relevant Google+ post. Image on flickr.

I really love the yellow glow over the mountain here. This is the Sharktooth. The name of which is much clearer when you take a look at it from the other side.
Keen observers will notice that I made a mistake here and left the camera at a high ISO that I used for family pictures the evening before. Luckily noise reduction in modern raw conversion software is so good that you don't notice even zooming at 1:1 so it's not a big deal at all and the quality of this image in print is just great.

Here is a horizontal pano that I shot on the same spot as where I took the iPhone panorama posted a few days ago.

Surround. Buy a print.
Technical data: Assembled from 10 images (2 rows of 5). D300 with 35mm f/1.8 DX at f/11, 1/100s, ISO 200. 1 stop darkening of the clouds painted in in Lightroom.
Relevant Google+ post. Image on Flickr.

This should really be seen large. As you can see, the sky is much more dramatic in the DSLR image than in the iPhone panorama, but the iPhone holds up well in the web image. Of course, when you make a large print of this 45 MP image (out of a possible 100 MP or so when rendered full resolution), you'll get incredible detail out of it. The iPhone panorama will not hold up to close inspection in that case. Of course only photographers really care about resolution. People who love the art of photography are looking far more to composition, color, and what kind of story the image tells. Both images work fine in that respect with the dramatic color advantage to the DSLR panorama in my opinion.

Echoes of Grandeur. Buy a print.
Technical data: D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f/10, 1/500s, ISO 800. I painted in a 2/3 stop graduated ND in Lightroom to darken the sky.
This is basically a horizontal version of the vertical high resolution composite I posted before. I like both perspectives but slightly prefer this handheld image.
Relevant Google+ post. Same image on Flickr.

After the Loch I was first planning to walk up to Andrew's tarn, but decided to walk over the small trail from Glacier Junction to Lake Haiyaha and Dream Lake. This was very nice and I shot some images of small waterfalls and a little pond I came across. Here is the outlet to Lake Haiyaha. The name Haiyaha apparently means "rock" in a native american language which is an apt name as the lake shore is riddled with enormous boulders hinting at its glacial origin. This is not the actual lake which is further behind, but I didn't take any images over there as it was very windy here and I doubt I could get any nice reflections on it. The outlet however was quite sheltered and offered some possibilities for reflections as you can see below:

Hallett peak reflection. Buy a print.
Technical data: D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f/5.6, 1/25s, ISO200

Here is another one at a slightly different location.

Misty evening. Buy a print.
Technical data: D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f/5.6, 1/25s, ISO200

On the hike over to Dream Lake from Haiyaha, you come across a very exposed ledge that is actually quite scary in winter with deep snow, but that always offers a great view of Longs peak. Here are two more images looking back from that point to Longs. Unfortunately, I did not get any sunset light on it (which is always quite dramatic) but the clouds were very dramatic so I decided to post them anyway.

Longs peak in the mist. Buy a print.
Technical data: D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f/5.6, 1/50s, ISO200

Parting the clouds. Buy a print.
Technical data: D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f/5.6, 1/25s, ISO200

If I don't decide to go back in time to my gigantic backlog of images, next up will be some images from Dream Lake and Nymph Lake at dusk.

Elk herd in Apex open space

2011-10-12T09:09:00.002-06:00

From 2011-10-12

This herd lives in one of my favorite open space parks to do a quick lunch or end of day bike ride. There are lots of elk in the Denver foothills and you don't really have to go up to Rocky Mountain National Park to see them. As long as you are willing to walk/bike a few minutes you can see them up close. This image is from two exposures on my iPhone shooting against the sun combined using a quick mask in Photoshop. The built in HDR as well as the HDR pro app didn't do a good job here as the elk moved between exposures.

iPhone panorama of the Loch and Loch Vale

2011-10-11T10:33:00.000-06:00

This was created by 6 shots on my iphone4 (non-S ;-) ) in HDR mode. I stitched them together using hugin later. I did have my phone stitch a similar image using the autostitch app which looked great too, but it lowers the resolution (probably a setting somewhere I should change). I slightly warmed the tone in Lightroom but otherwise this is as is. The image is about 12 MP resolution. Click on it for a much bigger view. It is quite impressive what you can do with a cellphone nowadays.

The Loch iPhone panorama. Buy a print.
relevant Google+ post.

Snow on the Loch

2011-10-10T19:11:00.000-06:00

It snowed around here and in the mountains on Friday and Saturday and on Sunday I decided to go on an evening hike in Rocky Mountain. I had an extraordinarily pleasant walk (albeit somewhat cold at times). I visited The Loch, Lake Haiyaha, Dream Lake and Nymph Lake. I had not expected much fireworks lightwise, because these are all traditional sunrise pictures. However, as it turns out the clouds that were hanging above the high peaks actually lit up in pinkish and yellowish hues. Also some sunset light actually hit Half Mountain (at least I think that is what it is called). Together these provided some backscatter into the valley which gave a nice warm light. I have a lot of nice images that I will share when I get the time (the backlog is terrible!) but for now here is an image created at the far tip of The Loch.

Snow on the Loch. Buy a print.
Technical info: Composite of 9 images (will print wallsized with impeccable detail). Individual images D300 with 35mm f1.8 DX at f/11, 1/80s, ISO 200. Field of view equivalent to about a 13mm lens on DX or a 20mm lens on full frame.

Google+ post on this image. The same image on flickr.

Rocks and reflections in Summit Lake

2011-10-08T09:48:00.001-06:00

This was taken a while ago at Summit Lake below Mount Evans. I shot much more the other way too, but right now I just wanted to show this image.

Summit Lake rocks and Mount Warren. Buy a print.
Technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/8.0, 30s, circular polarizer.

Same image on flickr.
Google+ post.

Fall comes to the foothills

2011-10-07T08:56:00.001-06:00

Snapped this using my iPhone on my daily bike ride a few days ago. I used the HDR pro app to combine two exposures to avoid the blue sky from blowing out.

Also see the relevant Google+ post.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

2011-10-05T19:46:00.001-06:00

Just heard it on NPR. From the apple.com homepage today:

Sad day. I thank Steve for enabling all these innovations that have made a profound difference on my life and that of millions of other people. A lot of what I do in my science work and my photography would not have been possible or would have been far harder and probably quite frustrating without them. Buying my first iPod (when they were still Mac only and the iTunes store didn't exist yet) made me rediscover my love of music. Steve was truly remarkable. The epitaph at the Apple site says it well. Also a worthwhile read is his 2005 Stanford commencement address.

Edit: A very good write-up by John Siracusa at ars. Mirrors my feelings quite well but John is actually a good writer.

Fire over Notchtop : or it pays to look back

2011-10-05T12:19:00.000-06:00

Shot while walking away from the lakes. I look back over my shoulder and suddenly there is a flash of color in the sky.

Fire over Notchtop. Buy a print.
Boring technical info (I get asked all the time): Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 13mm, f/8.0, 1/20s, ISO 200. Developed in Adobe Lightroom.

Fall color in unconventional places

2011-10-04T22:01:00.001-06:00

From Sunday's hike to Two RIvers Lake in RMNP. I noticed these tiny leaved plants on the forest floor had gorgeous yellow and orange colors. On my way down I shot a few images of it. Most very long exposures as it was getting quite dark quickly.

The forest floor comes alive. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/8, two exposures of 1/4s and 2.0s blended manually in Photoshop. Originals developed in Lightroom.

I really like the color contrast here with the greens from the trees, the yellows and reds from the shrubbery, the sunset colors and the blues in the sky.

A bed for tired bears. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 4.0s. Original raw file developed in Lightroom.

Fallen giant. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 2.5s. Original raw file developed in Lightroom.

Patches. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 15s. Original raw file developed in Lightroom.

There was a lot of fall color in the park but I thought it was nice to see images that did not involve seas of aspen once in a while.
Google+ post.

Marigold Pond Evening Stillness

2011-10-03T16:27:00.000-06:00

I went to RMNP yesterday evening ostensibly to photograph fall colors, but ended up scouting out the trail to Two Rivers lake and Lake Helene as I just felt like hiking and escaping the throngs and throngs of people that were in the park gawking at Elk and leaves. That turned out to be a good choice as I met only a couple of hikers and had the place to myself. This area has several traditional sunrise pictures and has been on my wish list for a while. On the other hand, I have never seen an image of it in the evening. This makes sense as the light comes from behind then and you don't get the nice glow on Notchtop mountain which is what people go for. Unfortunately for a variety of reasons I did not make it for sunrise but the evening turned out to be very nice too. The water in the lakes was the most still I have ever seen it anywhere in RMNP ever. Below is an image that will be followed by more from different lakes and areas around the trail.

Marigold Pond evening stillness. Buy a print.
Technical data: D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, f/11, 1/4sec, ISO 200, polarizer to emphasize reflection and 2 stop grad ND. Image interpreted in Lightroom.
Google+ post. On flickr.

Friends under the stars

2011-09-29T11:44:00.000-06:00

From Canyonlands

This image was taken on a bike trip along the white rim trail in Canyonlands National Park. This is ISO 200, 11mm, f/2.8 and a 30s exposure. three stop filter lowering the exposure of the bottom half so we can see the milky way at the top. My buddy Craig had built a propane fueled firebox, so that we could have a campfire where we were not allowed to have one. Brought us much attention from the park rangers who could see us from the Island in the sky but didn't realize it was a propane flame instead of a campfire.

Boulder brook - Fall color in RMNP

2011-09-28T12:29:00.001-06:00

This last Sunday I was working on finishing up a book chapter that I was already behind on on the deadline. I finished it somewhere Sunday morning, so I had some time in the afternoon to go out. So I set off for RMNP to see some fall color. Last year I visited Boulder Brook and I wanted to do this again as it was gorgeous. This is a small stream that runs along aptly named Boulder Brook trail for a while. It is only a short way from the trailhead, but I decided to explore the entire trail as it was still some time before sunset. It turns out that the most interesting parts I think are at the bottom in the part where the brook can only be heard from the trail, so a little bushwhacking is involved.

The red, the yellow and the green. Buy a print.
Stitched from 9 images (3 rows of 3) shot at 35 mm using the 35 mm f1.8 DX. ISO 200, f/16, 4s.

I love the red roots from the mosses that grow beside the trail. The color contradicts very nicely with the yellow of the fallen aspen leaves. I now realize that this is close to the same view (but more intimate) of an image that I shot last year in the rain, which can be found here and is described in a previous blog post.

A second viewpoint is here:

The thin blue line. Buy a print.
Stitched from 9 images (3 rows of 3) shot at 35 mm using the 35 mm f1.8 DX. ISO 200, f/16, 2.5s.

Walking back I saw some great color up in the sky, but arrived at the trailhead just too late for the really gorgeous sunset colors. Nevertheless I shot a quick pano that I will include below.

The gorge. Buy a print.
Assembled from 8 shots (4 each two and a half stops apart) at 35 mm, f/8.0, 1/5s - 1s, ISO 200.

Due to the vertical format of this blog, I had to make the image small. You can get a very large view of it by clicking on it.

Speaking of Dream Lake

2011-09-25T10:54:00.000-06:00

Here is an old image from it in winter. I Developed it to be close to what the Velvia looks like that I shot simultaneously (and never scanned at high quality).

Buy a print.

There is also a newly developed vertical composition available here. I need to get back to it and Emerald Lake at sunrise sometime soon.

I'll leave you with a shot of Hallett peak coming up to Emerald Lake (visible through the trees):

Buy a print.

Dream Lake the "other way"

2011-09-18T12:30:00.000-06:00

Dream Lake is one of the most photographed places in Rocky Mountain National Park and probably in North America. It is a short and easy hike from the trailhead and can easily be done at sunrise. I've been there many times and am usually passing through. I photographed the sunrise there many years ago at sunrise in the winter. Should do it again some time soon with better gear. The typical way people photograph this lake is looking towards Hallett peak. There are however other nice viewpoints on this lake. One is further up towards Lake Emerald looking back. On the hike to lakes Haiyaha and Emerald with my daughter on labor day, we passed by the lake and I had to take the image again, once on the way up and once on the way down.

On the way up:

Symmetry. Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/4.0, 1/80s. Single handheld exposure.
Considering how windy it was at the usual viewpoint where people take pictures I was very surprised how still the lake was here giving a great reflection.

And on the way down:

Clarity. Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f/8.0, 3.0s, single exposure on tripod.
Also check out the horizontal version of this. Amazing how clear it was here even when I needed a 3 second exposure!

As a comparison here is the shot I took years ago during winter:

Frozen. Nikon D50, Nikon 18-55mm at 18mm, f/8.0, 1/500s, single handheld exposure.
I couldn't go quite as wide yet at that time without tricks as you can see. I just snapped that off as an afterthought, thinking that the light was already gone as it was 2 hours after sunrise or so.

Sunset on the Great Sand Dunes

2011-09-17T16:43:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, I spent a night near the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Due to the fact somebody drove through a stop sign and hit me in the rear of my car in Durango, I arrived too late to get a spot on the NPS campground. Luckily the very helpful ranger told me about a BLM just south of the park near Zapata Falls. This was a great tip as that is just an awesome campground with very few people on it and it is free and maybe 20 minutes from the dunes including the dirt road leading to it. So I set up my tent and set off to the park again to be on the Dunes by sunset. This was just fantastic. I posted three panoramas from the sunset before here. I hiked along many of the ridges near the high dune in order to find some good shots and found many. The wind was blowing like crazy and it was a major challenge keeping sand out of my gear. Below I'll show a few. Most of these shots, excluding the composites were done handheld as it was just too windy. Later I'll post images from next morning's sunrise expedition which yielded a lot of very nice pattern shots that I am dying to show.

Backbone. Buy a print.
High resolution composite from nine images at 48mm, f/13, 1/80s, ISO 200, Nikon D300.

A gigantic nuclear furnace. Buy a print.
Single shot at 26mm, f/16, 1/80s, ISO 200, Nikon D300.

Windblown steps. Buy a print.
Single shot at 24mm, f/8, 1/60s, ISO 200, Nikon D300.

Sun worship. Buy a print.
Single shot at 18mm, f/5.6, 1/200s, ISO 200, Nikon D300.

Smoke Signals. Buy a print.
Single shot at 55mm, f8.0, 1/100s, Nikon D300.

The long S. Buy a print.
High resolution composite from 9 images at 46mm, f8.0, 1/50s, ISO 200, Nikon D300.

Contrast. Buy a print.High resolution composite from nine shots at 48mm, f/16, 1/40s, ISO 800, Nikon D300.

retrace. In the print you'll see the people that are trying to get to the top of high dune which is the dune on the right side. Buy a print.
Assembled from 2 shots at 18 mm, f6.3, 1/60s, ISO 800, Nikon D300.

Visitors on Mars. Buy a print.
Single shot at 16mm, f/5.6, 1/25s, ISO 400, Nikon D300.

The road travelled. Buy a print.
Single shot at 11mm, f/4, 1/13s, ISO 400, Nikon D300.

On High Dune. Buy a print.
Single shot at 16mm, f/4.0, 1/80s, ISO 200, Nikon D300.

Purple dunes at dusk. Buy a print.
Single shot 16mm, f2.8, 1/4s, ISO 800, Nikon D300.

And last and not least here is me on top of the dune. Shot by a kind stranger.

From 2011-08-31

Snapshots from the black canyon

2011-08-29T16:21:00.002-06:00

Just a few more snapshots I shot while at the black canyon. I posted some more "formal" imagery from this excellent place before but of course I cannot help snapping a few more images here and there.

Flower ... depth
D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f8.0, 1/50s, manual exposure

Radiance
D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f8.0, 1/50s, manual exposure

My tripod on the cliff (you can see I don't suffer much from vertigo). It is about 2000 feet down over that ledge.
D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f8.0, 1/50s, aperture priority exposure

Contorted
D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f8.0, 1/25s, manual exposure

Lava dyke in black and white. This image is also on smugmug where you can buy a print. It's a high resolution composite of 9 images.

V. A view of the river from the Oak flats hiking trail where I did a quick morning walk before heading to Telluride.
D300, Nikon 18-55mm at 40mm, f11, 1/30s, manual exposure

Sunset panoramas on the Great Sand Dunes

2011-08-28T11:18:00.000-06:00

These are images I created during sunset on the great Sand Dunes. I have many non-panoramic images both from this sunset as well as the next day's sunrise. I haven't had time to work everything up but in the mean time thought I'd share these panoramic images with you all. This place is absolutely magical during sunset and sunrise and I would highly recommend heading out on the dune during those times. Hard to keep your camera from gathering sand inside though as during sunset the wind can blow quite hard.

All these panoramas are extremely high resolution and will print superbly at the largest sizes available. Prints will not have my logo on it (many people email me to ask). To get a better impression click on the image to get a much larger version.

Dune ridge sunset. 13 images at 18 mm, f/16, 1/30s, ISO 200, D300. Tripod. Buy a print. Clock on image for bigger.
This is right at sunset on a ridge near the high dune. I was photographing lines in the dune to the right and decided to make a quick panorama. You can clearly see my trail leading up to my position on the left.

Sunset on the Dune 2. Stitch from 10 handheld images at 18mm, f6.3, 1/50s, ISO 200, D300. Buy a print. Click on image for bigger.

Dusk on the dune. Stitch from 18 images, 16mm, f2.8, 1/20s, ISO 800, handheld. Buy a print. click the image for much bigger.
This is on the top of the high dune after sunset. The full moon is visible on the left. The wind was blowing like crazy.

Much more to come.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison sunrise

2011-08-20T09:22:00.001-06:00

On my way to a workshop in Telluride I did last week, I spent the night in the campground of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park as I could not get to Telluride before midnight after leaving from my grad student Allison's thesis defense (she passed) and subsequent party. Even though I arrived at the canyon after 9 pm, there were still plenty of campsites in the very nice campground. This gave me the unexpected opportunity to see the sun rise on the canyon. Looking at Google Earth and using the highly recommended Photographer's Ephemeris app (Mac/PC version here, iphone/iPad version here), I figured out that the best opportunity would be painted wall or Cedar point. I chose Cedar point because it appeared to give a nice view of the river too. The sunrise was beautiful and very serene as there was absolutely nobody anywhere near.

Dawn on the painted wall seen from Cedar Point.
This is taken not long before the actual sunrise and is a horizontal stitch of many images. It has to be seen large on black. You can buy a print here which will look highly detailed even at the very largest sizes.

River gorge and yellow sunrise.
This image is a stitch of 10 images shot at 35 mm on f/8.0, 1/15s and ISO 200. It is again highly detailed and will print gorgeously even may feet long. See it large here and buy a print here.

Sun hitting the canyon top.
This panorama was assembled from 10 images shot at 35mm, f8.0 and 1/40s (ISO 200). See it large here and buy a print here. I just love how the river seems to glow.

River gorge in yellow and blue.
Assembled from 9 images shot at 50 mm, f/8.0, 1/60s, ISO 200. The haze is starting to come in giving the canyon a blue appearance. See it large. Buy a print.

Black Canyon wall.
Assembled from 9 images. 50mm at f/11 1/60s, ISO 200.
See large. Buy a print.

Lava dyke. Also in black and white.
Assembled from 14 images shot at 50mm at f/11 1/60s, ISO 200. See large. Buy a print.

If you ever get a chance you should visit this place. It is stunningly beautiful. See more images from this place in the smugmug gallery.

Wild Basin waterfalls

2011-08-06T14:24:00.003-06:00

Last sunday, I went hiking with my daughter in the Wild Basin area of RMNP. It was cloudy and overcast, so we went for late afternoon with the hope of photographing a few waterfalls and perhaps a lake with some clouds. The strategy for the Wild Basin trailhead as is true for many others in RMNP is to either come extremely early (i.e. 4 am or earlier) or later in the afternoon (>3pm), otherwise you'll have to walk quite a ways along the very boring road. We parked right next to the ranger station. We did not make it all the way to the lakes (Ouzel and Blue Bird) we were aiming for because not far before Ouzel falls we got in a major thunderstorm right above our heads and were pelted with heavy rain. Thunderstorms like this are the disadvantage of starting late and make it a very questionable idea to go up above treeline. So we turned around and photographed Calypso Cascades and the many nice waterfalls in Ouzel Creek in between heavy periods of rain. I am always proud of my 9-year old for not complaining about the rain and generally just having fun even when wet.

Calypso

Mosaic of 9 images for high resolution stitch. Individual images D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55mm at 34mm, f/22, 0.5s.
Buy a print.

Misty

Mosaic of 9 images for high resolution stitch. Individual images D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55mm at 34mm, f/22, 1.6s.
Buy a print.
The mist in this image is caused by the higher parts of the waterfall and of course the rain.

Casualty

Mosaic of 9 images for high resolution stitch. Individual images D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55mm at 34mm, f/22, 1.0s.
Buy a print.
This is the view from the bridge over the cascades. They are really quite impressive. There are not many flowers out yet which is quite surprising to me but probably owes to the long wet spring we had.

Unnamed Falls in Ouzel Creek panorama. This really should be seen large.

Mosaic of 10 images (five columns of two) for high resolution stitch. Individual images D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55mm at 34mm, f/16, 1/4s.
Buy a print.

The flow. Should be seen large for full effect.

Crop of above image and different treatment.
Buy a print.

There are a few more interesting images in the smugmug gallery. You can also check out a subset on flickr. They are also on Google+/Picasa. Enjoy!

Edit: Mariska noticed a very funny error in the post where I had replaced am with pm making it sound like it is hard for me to get out of bed before 4 pm. Of course am makes a lot more sense there.

Why I do not use Chrome - even though it is fantastic

2011-08-04T08:55:00.001-06:00

Is captured in the below screenshot

Click for full resolution.
Left Firefox 5, middle Safari 5.1, right Chrome 13.0.782.107. As you can see, Chrome renders the desert sunset image drastically different. The subtle orange hue turns into red.
This is as seen on my wide gamut display that was calibrated user a Spyder 3. I converted the screenshot from my display profile to sRGB for web display so this cut down a large portion of the difference as the red orange is out of sRGB gamut. In reality it is more drastic than can be shown on the web. The sidebar image of the patch of marsh flowers in Mayflower Gulch for example renders in a very garish green and comically red mountain range. The shadow portions under the flowers are too dark and some detail disapears.

The reason for these differences is that Google in their infinite wisdom when they released chrome cut out color management which had been enabled and present in the developer releases for mac. And despite widespread outcries, it hasn't been fixed and the flag that you can use on windows to enable color management does not work on Macs and apparently not even on windows anymore. If you are a photographer or designer who calibrates their screens, this really impacts you and all your images will display wrong in Chrome on your system. Only Safari and Firefox (if you make sure to calibrate to a v2 icc profile) will work correct. Firefox has an advantage over Safari in that it will even color manage untagged images if you set it up to do so in the secret settings. The failing of Chrome in rendering images correctly is especially strong if you work on a wide gamut display or on a laptop display. On good normal (sRGB gamut) screens it is even a problem for shadow rendering where unmanaged browsers will show you plugged up shadows. This is due to the fact that the display is calibrated for gamma 2.2, while sRGB has a linear tone curve in the shadows. This might not be that big of a deal as the hyper saturation that you get on wide-gamut displays though.

I understand that Chrome cut out its color management to make sure Chrome renders like Internet Explorer and to be slightly faster than with color management, but why would you want to target the lowest common denominator? It's a pity because it is otherwise a fast and capable browser and I actually prefer it for most other uses especially Google+. I would be happy with a simple flag I can enable somewhere as I realize that not everybody needs this.

Please Google, give me a flag!

Links: Why color management is so important in browsers. All about color profiles and color managed apps here.

Sunset in Saguaro National Park

2011-08-03T09:35:00.000-06:00

This image was created in the west side of Saguaro National Park this summer in the Sonorran desert. I searched for some place where the sunset light would create interesting color. Unfortunately, there were almost no flowers except for the Saguaros themselves which still had some next to their fruit (which is yummy but don't try to pick it yourself). The below image is a composite of 9 images, so it is extraordinary high resolution and will print very well at the largest sizes available. The cacti in front are Teddybear Chollas, and the iconic ones in the back are Saguaro. Read more about the saguaro and the cholla on wikipedia. It takes Saguaros something like 70 years to develop their first sidearm!

Buy a print.

There is a more square crop of this image available too.

Patch of Columbine

2011-07-30T19:04:00.000-06:00

I shot this image a few weeks ago in Mayflower Gulch. I was there with my daughter to photograph the sunset which is often spectacular there. This evening, we had mostly gray skies and light drizzle rain. We still had a good time and once in a while some color appeared. There actually were a few seconds of good color that I was lucky enough to catch (you might see one of the images next to this post in the featured gallery sidebar). I will blog about those images later. The Columbine image below is a high resolution stitch that will print 6 feet high while retaining exquisite detail.

Assembled from 9 images, D300, ISO 200, 18-55 mm Nikor at 35mm, f/16, 1/30s. Grad ND to darken the sky.
Buy a print of this image.
See this image on flickr.

Leafy forest

2011-07-23T10:41:00.000-06:00

I've had this gallery linked as a featured gallery for a while now, but realized I should highlight some images. These were all shot on some hikes in the Blue Ridge mountains. I showed some waterfalls from the same place before here. First, the main smugmug gallery is here if you'd like to explore more.

Crossed purposes

Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 at 11mm, f/8, 1/40s. Buy a print.

lightplay

Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 at 11mm, f/8, 1/25s. Buy a print.

leafy

Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 at 11mm, f/16, 1/10s. Buy a print.

Patch

Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 at 11mm, f/16, 1/6s. Buy a print.

Soft bed

Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 at 11mm, f/11, 1/13s. Buy a print.
See it in color here. The purplish white in the back are seas of mountain laurels. You can see more laurels here and here.

Lastly, a simple slideshow of all images in the smugmug gallery:

Browsers used on this blog

2011-07-15T14:09:00.000-06:00

Is this a reflection of your geekiness?

(From Google Analytics for this site - a truly awesome and free resource)
The high occurrence of Safari is probably a reflection of the photographer crowd visiting this site, and Firefox and Chrome for the more computer geeks, but the very small amount of IE users visiting (only 17%) is a surprise to me. I use Safari, Firefox and Chrome myself and never use IE even on Windows machines but most of the people I know that use Windows still default to IE.

Black and white conversions of snowy landscapes

2011-07-11T21:47:00.001-06:00

I was rummaging through old material in Lightroom recently and I noticed some shots from an awesome multihut ski trip I did a few years ago (2008) with some friends. I wrote then about it on my blog and my friend Teresa actually made a writeup of that trip at that time here, where you can see some of the very few photographs that ever got made of me (elusive guy). I am in the red wind shell most of the time in the pictures from Teresa.

Anyway, I noticed that I never got around stitching several multi-image shots I made back then. For weight I was carrying my old Nikon D50 with the kit lens and I did not bring a tripod (more booze could be packed this way). In some cases I was doing handheld multishot panoramas to create higher resolution landscapes. If you do this right, they can still be stitched well even though you might have to do a little touch up afterwards. I worked up a few of these lost landscapes and below I'll post some. I am most focusing here on the aspect of black and white conversion as I noticed that this really works well with some of these. For example, this shot from the front of the Goodwin/Greene hut was captured around sunset. The sun was coming through a thin cloud of snow crystals and generated this absolutely gorgeous light. I cannot believe I never stitched this image.

5 shots using a Nikon D50, 18-55mm kit lense at 18mm, ISO 200, f/10, 1/320s. Assembled in hugin. Pretty much as shot - no nasty HDR. Buy a print

This image really has to be seen large, which you can if you click on the link. To get back here use your browser's back button.

I converted this to black and white in Lightroom simulating a light red filter which again has to be seen large.

Buy a print

Another new image that I really like is this panorama of our group coming up on a pass, rising out of a foggy valley.

5 images from a Nikon D50, 18-55mm kit lens at 30 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/500s. Buy a print

In the same place, but looking in the other direction, I took this image:

6 images from Nikon D50, 18-55mm kit lens at 24mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/500s. Buy a print.
At the moment, my blog's banner has another version of this image that was taken a few minutes later after the clouds on Castle and Cathedral peaks cleared up a little. This cloudy view is also quite nice and will print really nice large for on your wall ;-)

I have several more images waiting to be born in my library from this trip. We'll see when I get to them. I still have a gigantic backlog to deal with with some very nice images in them too that I haven't spoken about yet. I have a little picasa gallery of new snowy black and white conversions here.

Fourth of July Fireworks slideshow

2011-07-07T18:01:00.000-06:00

4th of July fireworks from Jao van de Lagemaat on Vimeo.

These are shots I made of our town's 4th of July fireworks. The music is Calexico's Mid-Town from their album Hot Rail.

Earlier I posted the below quadtich on flickr:

The same image is also on picasa/Googleplus.

Mesa Arch

2011-07-02T14:04:00.000-06:00

As I have written before, I visited Canyonlands last year in order to ride the white rim trail on my mountain bike. The bike I rode it unfortunately was stolen, but I digress. Because I got there the evening before (Halloween actually) our ride and was camping out on the campground (nobody there at that time of year), I visited false kiva in the evening and did Mesa Arch the next morning. A great surprise was to meet my buddy Dave at the trailhead. I have written about the gaggle of photographers at Mesa Arch before. This place is extraordinarily popular since it is an ultrashort hike and sunrise is spectacular. Some clouds would have made the scene better (with some gap light preferably) than I captured here but nevertheless I am happy with what I got.

Mesa Arch sunstar. Buy a print.
Assembled from 15 shots (3 rows of 5) at 35mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/5s. This is an ultrahigh resolution image. In large prints, you will notice reflections from puddles of water standing in the little pits that you see all around white rim.

Why it glows. Buy a print.
Single shot, Nikon 18-55mm at 18mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/40s handheld.

Everybody left, still glowing! Buy a print.
Single shot, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/8, 1/100s

Washerwoman and La Sals framed. Buy a print.
Single shot, ISO 200, 18-55mm Nikon at 48mm, f/9, 1/60s

See the entire gallery at my smugmug site. Many more Canyonlands images are here.

Contrast

2011-06-21T11:57:00.000-06:00

Shot on yesterday's bike ride with my iPhone using the pro HDR app. As it came from the camera. I liked the contrast between the yellow and the deep blue skies. I could only get that out using multiple exposure techniques. The built-in camera app gave blah results even with the HDR option turned on.

A few Virginia waterfalls

2011-06-20T12:48:00.002-06:00

Wispy, Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, f/8.0, 1/4s, monopod stabilization.

For work I had to spend a few days mostly locked up in a conference room in the Wintergreen conference center in Virginia. This is a ski area in winter and as apparently is common on the east coast has its base on top of the mountain instead of at the foot as we see around here and in Europe. This place is very far away from anything (we drove 3 hours from Dulles having had really bad experiences with the Charlottesville airport, which itself is still over an hour away from this place anyway). The National Park that appears close on the map, Shenandoah, is still an hour away if you want to do a little hike there. So when I had a few minutes off (skipping lunch mostly) I spent most of the time hiking around the extensive trail system around the mountain usually taking a fellow conference goer. The front desk had a free hiking trail map that I can heartily recommend if you ever have to spend some time there. The trails are quite nice even if they are close to civilization everywhere you go. You simply don't notice because of the very dense foliage. I took lots of images as I took my camera and a monopod with me. The monopod works well for waterfalls as long as you simply press the shutter multiple times and hope one will be OK. Below I'll show some more waterfall images. I took a lot of dense foliage shots as they really intrigued me. You don't really see that around here. I'll post those later. There are a few already in the growing flickr set.

Green, Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16 mm at 13mm, f/8.0, 1/6s, monopod stabilization.
This place was buzzing with mosquitos as you might imagine.

Looking right through you, Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16 mm at 13mm, f/8.0, 1/15s, monopod stabilization.
Basically a vertical of the previous image. Somehow reminds me of Tolkien.

Stony Creek falls. I forgot the actual name of this place but it is not named on the topo.
Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, f/16.0, 0.6s, monopod stabilization. Using a 3 stop ND.

Vertical compo on the same falls
Nikon D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55 mm at 20mm, f/22.0, 1/4s, monopod stabilization. Using a 3 stop ND.

The blog author at the falls. This image was taken by Oleg Prezhdo who joined me on this hike. I am using the monopod as a hiking stick here and I should have taken all the stuff (lenses and filters) out of my pant pockets since they look way too big nowadays.
Nikon D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55 mm at 18mm, f/4.5, 1/80s

Context, Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16 mm at 16mm, f/11.0, 0.6s, monopod stabilization.
The same waterfall as shown in the top image.

Wetness, Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16 mm at 14mm, f/8.0, 0.4s, monopod stabilization.

Staircase, Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16 mm at 13mm, f/11, 0.5s, monopod stabilization.

Turtle, Nikon D300, ISO 200, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, f/2.8, 1/20s

I found this beautiful little turtle, right next to one of these waterfalls. If you go to the large on black version, you'll see his little eye peering out at what must have been a gigantic front lens element from his perspective.

Winter seaside evening

2011-06-04T08:57:00.000-06:00

Diagonal
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 at 11 mm, ISO 200, f8.0, 1/250s

These are pictures taken when visiting the North Sea beach in Egmond aan Zee last winter. We were in the Netherlands on a bittersweet visit to see a family member diagnosed with a terminal disease. The night before we flew back, we decided to go to the beach as it is such a Dutch thing to do and our kids rarely see a real ocean beach. It was bitter cold and windy and there was snow on the ground but we had a great time finished off by a great cup of hot cocoa at a nice little coffee place right at the beach. Technically, these images would have been better if I had had my grad ND filters with me, but we were traveling light.
At this point, we were still thinking that we would likely never see our family member again so we felt rather melancholic, but by a miracle after we had already returned to the states, doctors discovered that the original diagnosis was not correct and it was operable and after a heavy but successful operation, he is currently cancer-free. Too many of our friends (three in recent months died of cancer) have not been that lucky recently so this was good news in a bad news time. Cancer is a nasty disease.

Disturbance
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 at 11 mm, ISO 200, f16, 1/160s

Nuclear furnace
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 at 11 mm, ISO 200, f16, 1/50s

ripples
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 at 11 mm, ISO 200, f16, 1/60s

Silver Birds
Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200 VR at 95 mm, ISO 200, f5.3, 1/400s

Yawn
Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200 VR at 170 mm, ISO 200, f5.6, 1/320s

A roof over one's head

2011-06-03T13:14:00.000-06:00

D300, ISO 200, 18-200 mm VR, 95 mm, f5.3, 1/25s

D300, ISO 200, 18-200mm VR, 82 mm, f/5.0, 1/30s

Both taken last winter in the town where I grew up and where my mother still lives.

Wet Spring Late Flowers

2011-06-02T10:25:00.000-06:00

From yesterday's bike ride. iPhone picture. I used the pro HDR iphone app.

Farm images

2011-05-28T10:45:00.000-06:00

D300, ISO 1600, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, f2.8, 1/3s handheld.
These are pictures of the farm where my sister and my father's wife board their horses in the Netherlands. When we were there last winter, we went out for a horseback ride in the bucolic Dutch landscape. Of course it started snowing like crazy while we were out there.

Old barn window boarded up with pastic
D300, Nikkor 18-200mm at 22mm, ISO 6400, f3.8, 1/15s

This is Kasper, a gorgeous and very large horse. He was waiting to go back into the stable. The yellow light is from one little really old light bulb to the left.
D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 12mm, ISO 1600, f2.8, 1/15s

Supplies
D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 1600, f2.8, 1/13s

Old car
D300, Nikkor 18-200mm at 44mm, ISO 800, f4.5, 1/6s

Winter in the polder

2011-05-27T15:13:00.000-06:00

Nostalgia
D300 at ISO 800, Nikkor 18-200 mm f3.5 at 95mm, f/5.3, 1/40s

Winter 2
D300 at ISO 1600, Tokina 11-16,mm f2.8 at 11.5mm, f/2.8, 1/20s

Photographers at Mesa Arch

2011-05-22T10:37:00.001-06:00

The Gaggle

Last November, I was in Canyonlands for a ride around White Rim. The first night I arrived there (Hallow's eve) I visited False Kiva, which is an awesome archeological site. After a very frosty night, I got up early enough to break down my tent (frost on it!) and drive over to Mesa Arch trailhead. This is an extremely popular site for photographers to go in the morning as it is a 10 minute hike to a very spectacular view. The rising sun lights the canyon wall below this arch and makes the bottom glow bright red. When I got to the trailhead, a truck pulls up next to me and it turns out to be my buddy Dave. He apparently arrived at the campground very late at night and slept in the back of his truck and heard me drive off, jumped up and followed me. Dave must have been very cold, but he is probably used to it as he is a colonel in the Air Force that spent quite a bit of time in various places around the world. I have had a gallery up on smugmug for a while that I will describe on my blog some time in the future. For now, here are some pictures of the gaggle of photographers that showed up. It can get much worse apparently.

Did we get the shot?

My buddy Dave and my homemade panohead.

Leaning

2011-05-22T10:23:00.000-06:00

A light tower at the Apex park trailhead framed against a threatening sky

Apex park

2011-05-21T09:12:00.000-06:00

Apex open space is one of my favorite places to ride my bike because it is right around the corner from where I work. A typical ride there takes 45 minutes to 1:15 if I ride every trail in there. So great for a lunch ride. I usually carry my phone and take some pictures.

These are from two days ago when it was raining incessantly, but I still was crazy enough to go out.

Pano from 4 vertical pictures. My boss called me on the phone right here so good opportunity to take a few pictures.

Lone tree

Light and dark

The next day (so yesterday) I went there again and took these on the enchanted forest trail

Cathedral

Snake

I have an older image also in black and white looking at this same bowed tree from the other direction.

I have photographed many times in this park. This year the flowers are late and there are no Arnicas yet. There are quite a few Larkspur, mouse ears, and white violets out. The Arnicas are my favorite in this park though.

It's not about the camera - photoshoot with just an iphone and some reflectors

2011-05-20T09:28:00.001-06:00

These folks did a followup on a the f-stoppers iphone photoshoot. It's a session with just an iPhone and a few reflectors. Some great pictures coming out of there, proving again that the photographer matters most.

Macs finally getting targetted

2011-05-16T20:33:00.002-06:00

I came across this hilarious rather crude, but mac targeted fake antivirus ad today trying to make me think I was infected. Looked like a redirect done by an ad on a major commercial website (salon.com in this case). These people are worse even than bicycle thieves. I am not linking to it and you should not try typing over the address to the website.

Edit: hilarious take on the hubbub by the Macalope.

Amazing sunrise on Sprague Lake

2011-05-14T10:53:00.000-06:00

The following images are from a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park back in January. I was planning to hike up to one of the high mountain lakes from Bear Lake trailhead, but when I got to the trailhead early before sunrise it was blowing snow really hard up there and was dastardly cold. Not conditions in which you want to hike for a few hours and not get anything worthwhile. I waited for an hour or so drinking my coffee and eating some sandwiches to see whether the weather would let up. But it didn't and I decided to go back down. The clouds that the snow was dumping out were really only hanging on the peaks around the basin and going down I noticed that it was relatively clear around Sprague lake. Sprague Lake is a popular very short trail that you can hike around with kids and be back before the whining starts. In winter it offers nice views of the basin. I hiked up the lake and found a great position and some interesting structures in the snow and the sunrise was spectacular. These images are taken away from the basin that kept being shrouded in clouds.

Symmetry. Buy a print. Also on flickr.
Assembled from 9 images (3 rows of 3) at 50mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/20s

The wave. Horizontal crop of the above image. Buy a print.

Blobs. Buy a print.
Assembled from 9 images (3 rows of 3) at 50mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/20s

Red dawn. A little later the colors changed. Buy a print.
Assembled from 10 images (2 rows of 5) at 50mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/20s.

It was incredibly cold standing there in the blowing wind over the ice but undoubtedly better than up higher.

Scientific principles for everybody's toolkit

2011-05-12T08:53:00.000-06:00

I ran across this very nice article where quite a few prominent scientists and geeks were asked which scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit. Richard Dawkins (a hero of mine) for example highlights the double blind experiment, which indeed is extraordinarily important in weeding out charlatans and hidden and subjective bias. The latter is something very insidious that the experimenter is often not even consciously aware of. It is well worth a read in its entirety.

The Dawkins contribution also reminded me of a fantastic talk at one of the TED conferences by James Randi. It is absolutely superb and I urge everybody to watch it.

Lake sunrise accidental timelapse

2011-05-11T09:02:00.000-06:00

left top: ISO 100, 18-55mm at 18mm, f/11, 10s, right top: 1/6s
left middle: f/13, 1/30s, right middle: 1/4s
left bottom: 1/13s, right bottom: f/11, 1/80s

Accidental timelapse of Blue lake during one sunrise. the Color changes from purple to bright yellow. A cloud on the horizon came by in the middle of the sequence lowering the shutter speed for two shots contrary to what you would expect. Didn't hurt the color though. There is a bigger version on flickr too.

I also created a funny timelapse of all my shots that morning in that direction. Since I moved around quite a bit, I had to align all the shots using hugin (an open source panorama creation tool) and to heavily crop to avoid the image jumping around too much. The video is available in HD on vimeo.

Sunrise timelapse at Blue Lake from Jao van de Lagemaat on Vimeo.

Denver area bike ring broken up

2011-04-30T11:06:00.001-06:00

My friend Teresa warned me about this. Apparently News 4 is reporting that a massive bike theft ring was broken up. Good riddance. They were caught at a routine traffic stop. Who knows perhaps my bike is one of them!

Update: I called and there is no Titus amongst the bikes. They did say that there were bikes that had been stolen months ago, so if your bike was stolen recently in this area, give them a call: 303-805-6110

More fall in Steamboat

2011-04-29T19:17:00.000-06:00

In your face!

A barn near Mad Creek. Three images handheld 18-55mm at 18mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 200

Aspen Sky

Three handheld images 18-55mm at 18mm, f/11, 1/200s ISO 200.

Inside of the barn

Five handheld images, 18-55mm at 18mm, f/5.6, 1/13s, ISO 200

Flaming

One shot, 18-55mm at 42 mm, f/8.0, 1/400s, ISO 200

Yellow sunrise at Blue Lake

2011-04-29T15:39:00.002-06:00

Stitched from 9 handheld images. 18-55mm at 18mm, f 8.0 1/80s ISO 100.
Buy a print of this image at smugmug.

This is a redo of an image I shot in 2008 at sunrise along the shores of Blue Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Truly an awe inspiring place. I could never get the yellow right in this image, which was just blindingly saturated in real life. On a whim I redid this using the v3 camera landscape profile for Lightroom and this is pretty much what I got. Stitched from 9 images. Added a slight amount of vibrance and clarity and there is a grad filter brightening the rocks and water as well as some curves work to add some contrast. Amazingly, the sRGB version you see here loses quite a bit of saturation from what I see on my wide gamut monitor. I'll put it on smugmug at some time too (the image is several 100 MB so this is only a low-res jpeg)

Chemical-free ... chemistry kit?

2011-04-29T13:42:00.000-06:00

I am speechless at the stupidity. Apparently this thing is real. The dumbing down of education in the name of "safety" is just terrible. Love the title of the blog this came from. Very appropriate. Found this linked on slashdot.

Limits to ISO

2011-04-27T15:24:00.000-06:00

I came across an interesting post on the limits to ISO sensitivity in digital sensors (linked from the online photographer). The assumptions are a sensor with 100% quantum efficiency that is purely limited by photon shot noise (not a bad assumption) and a full-frame sensor with 12 MP resolution. Basically to get similar noise characteristics as a D3s at ISO 6400, it would have ISO 96,000. That's an astonishing conclusion and would be a really fun camera to play with. Read the whole post for the fairly straightforward calculations that went into it. Current sensors are nowhere near 100% quantum efficiency however, in large part due to the Bayer array layout which throws away a lot of light as well as the high reflectivity of the sensor surface. Both can in principle be solved and there are already concepts out there that do so.

Ag-gag laws

2011-04-27T12:49:00.000-06:00

I find it deeply disturbing. It is being made illegal (and already is in parts) in some states of the United States to tell people how their food is being "produced." This is going to the point of attaching prison time to filming inside slaughterhouses exposing terrible conditions for the animals and workers. Horrible! I wrote about this before but just wanted to reiterate after reading the above linked blog entry. Mark Bittman also recently wrote another, longer blog entry recently about this.

The sound of falling snow

2011-04-25T16:44:00.000-06:00

On my bikeride yesterday, I got caught in a snow shower. I ended up quite soaked to the bone by the time I came down and also enormously muddy. I did shoot a little video though as I thought the sound of the falling snow was really neat. All handheld on my phone so often shaky for obvious reasons. I turned on the shake reduction and rolling shutter correction in iMovie but that doesn't help that much unfortunately. I didn't take out the phone towards later where it was really dumping on me as I didn't want to damage it. I know it doesn't compare even remotely to timelapses of the milky way on the Teide volcano, but I thought it was neat anyway. The piano music (Chopin) was added later ;-)

It's playable in HD (there are buttons when you play it full screen) and also available in the gallery in HD.

Fall color in Steamboat Springs

2011-04-23T12:28:00.001-06:00

I've got lots of shots still from last year's fall season. These are some shots from the Spring Creek trail in Steamboat Springs.

Radiance. Single shot, Nikon 18-55 mm at 22 mm, ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/320s

Triangles. Three shot handheld vertical panorama, Nikon 18-55 mm at 18mm, ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/320s.

I have lots and lots more from that same bike ride. This is just a taste.

self-steering bike

2011-04-23T10:07:00.000-06:00

I was just discussing the Science article on this with my biking buddy and fellow science geek Craig yesterday and today I came across an interesting podcast from NPR's Science Friday on it:

Interesting because it challenges the common believe I was taught in physics class about how a bike stays upright.

The throne

2011-04-17T22:13:00.002-06:00

Emerald Lake

2011-04-12T13:39:00.001-06:00

Composite of 15 images (see below for the why of this strange number). ISO 100, 18-55 mm at 35 mm, f/14, 1/60s. Click for bigger. Buy a print. Also on flickr.

Last Sunday, I snowshoe'ed up to Emerald Lake in RMNP. My plan was to catch evening light at lake Haiyaha. When I drove in I had a long discussion with the ranger at the entrance station about how the park was not closed. He said that he would have preferred a shutdown because it would make people realize more what was going on in DC. It was nice and sunny at the entrance still. I made my way to the Bear Lake parking lot where there were maybe three cars. The only times I have seen it more quiet were before 4 am. The reason why it was so quiet of course was the fact that it was blowing snow and cold there. Anyway, made my way up to Dream Lake where the windtunnel was in full force. Blazed a track up the side of the hill to get to Haiyaha but after a while decided to turn around as it was just too crazy (I ended up on a very exposed edge with gale winds that were almost blowing me over) and being by myself I didn't want to risk it. So I decided to go up to Lake Emerald.

View Larger Map

Of course there the wind was howling too, but I found a relatively quiet spot where I took a composite pointing in the direction of where I knew Hallett peak was supposed to be. A small break in the clouds provided some color and I generated the above image. Unfortunately halfway through the tripod shifted in the snow and I had to reset. As it was blowing and freezing cold - too cold for my thin gloves I use while shooting - I paid far less attention to composition than I would have liked. Nevertheless I like what came out above. This image will print wall-sized easily. An image you should compare this too is one I shot from almost the same spot years ago:

In the snowy shot above I am standing more or less in front of the trees on the right hand side.

Some other pictures I did with my iPhone. I didn't use it much as you need to touch your screen with your bare fingers to take a picture.

Outerworldy glow. Somewhere slightly above Nymph lake.

Red, White, and green. The red really struck my eye coming by this. This is between Dream and Emerald lake.

Didn't make it. There are lots of beautiful gnarly trees around Emerald lake as can be seen in this older image.

Sign of spring

2011-04-09T09:13:00.000-06:00

Spotted this Pasque flower on a bike ride (another test ride) a few days ago.

These are quite pretty flowers that only bloom for a short while in spring around Easter as their name suggests.

On the same bikeride, I also took this pano of an area that burned a few years ago. It's close to the upper parking lot (I rode from below of course, I don't take shortcuts) in the Mount Falcon open space park. Mount Falcon is popular amongst Mountain Bikers because it is a good long uphill slog that is not very technical giving a good afterwork workout and has some good singletrack in the back on Parmalee Gulch.

Beaver brook - Rocky Mountain National Park

2011-04-08T13:51:00.002-06:00

I was reminded this morning of the fact that I have a long list of posts still to write and push out about images I created last year in Rocky Mountain National Park. The radio was talking about how the park might get shutdown with the impending gub'mint (or however you spell this in redneck drawl) shutdown. I deeply love this park and every time I go there I come back with new images. One of the images I am going to show below has long graced the side panel on this blog, but apart from being used to show how waterfalls can be stitched months ago, I have not actually told people about this place. These images were taken on a rainy late afternoon in the glacier gorge area of RMNP. I showed some images from this day earlier and haven't shown any images yet from another waterfall I visited in between. The current post is about a place called Boulder Brook. This is a fairly unknown, hidden gem that is reached by walking a mile or so from the Storm Pass trailhead. It is a tiny brook that snakes its way down through a dense aspen forest. In fall therefore, it is littered with golden aspen leaves as can be seen in the image below:

Combined from 9 images at ISO 200, f/13, 2.0s. 15-55 mm at 45 mm. Buy a print. The same image is also on flickr.

Some more variations on this are here and here.

I was in this place basically at sunset and it was raining softly so I did not need any filters to slow down the water. In the full image (also visible in the tight crop here), what is really striking are the red rootas of the moss that hang into the water. The color of these is quite stunning and contrasts well with the green of the moss and the yellow of the leaves.

I made some other images at different places two. This is one I like that I call divergence.

Combined from 9 images at ISO 200, f/16, 2.0s. 15-55 mm at 34 mm. Buy a print.

A different view of the same rock is here.

At this point it got really dark and it became almost impossible to know what I was doing, but I got some more nice images of a fairly wide waterfall very up close. This one I call nano-Niagara

Combined from 12 images at ISO 200, f/11, 3.0s. 15-55 mm at 50 mm. Buy a print.

I am basically almost touching the sticks here. A different framing is here.

After these shots I hiked back out and close to the trailhead I came accross another opportunity that I very quickly took. This is one shot at 30 seconds with a 3 stop grad ND filter to darken the sky. It was basically pitch dark and I needed 30 seconds at f5.6 and ISO 200. I am not making prints available of this at the moment as I don't think it has enough quality because the wind was blowing the camera around, but I still want to share it. It would be good enough for smallish prints of 8x10 and under.

I like the dreamy quality of the clouds and the color it seems to have picked up from somewhere.

Science and beauty

2011-04-07T22:41:00.000-06:00

Saw this xkcd comic linked somewhere. So true.

White Sands Yucca

2011-04-06T09:50:00.000-06:00

One of the nice things about raw capture is that you can always go back later and redo your images using more modern processing tools. We have a very large print of an image I took on a family vacation to the South at White Sands National Monument hanging on our wall. It is a gorgeous image of a yucca in the white dunes in my not so humble opinion but color wise I always thought it was duller than we experienced the moment which was quite magical with gorgeous warm sunset light playing over the dunes and ripples in the sand. This turned the shadow areas on the white sand a gorgeous blue. Neither comes out very good in the print. So I dug up the harddrive that these older images are stored on and fired up Lightroom which has the references in its database to these older images. Typed in White Sands in the search box and poof there the images were. They were of course done in the old process in Lightroom and I was using the Adobe Standard profile. Users of Lightroom may know that this usually leads to dull color. Switching to the new process extracted significantly more detail, turning on automatic CA correction also helped, but mostly the image was helped by selecting the landscape profile for the camera. I also upped the exposure compensation a little, making the image more high key as appropriate. Exported the three photographs to 16-bit ppRGB tiff and stitched them in hugin. Below is the result as uploaded to flickr

The same yucca image (cropped differently) in the older treatment is here. The same cropping in the older treatment is on smugmug here, which is the print we have on our wall. I'll probably replace the smugmug image sometime soon with the new higher quality image. Even though it was a few years ago, this image feels much more like the experience we had trolling on the dunes that evening.

Canyonlands tree

2011-04-02T16:25:00.001-06:00

I just uploaded an image to flickr to remind myself I need to process and upload my images from last November in this amazing place.

This image was from a dayhike I did together with one of my friends (the rest was drinking cocktails at the campsite - Mimosas at sunrise!) from the White Crack campsite all the way down along an old jeep road that goes down into the white crack. The trail is almost impossible to see in many places and almost nobody ever goes there as it is not marked on maps. At the end of it is the site of an abandoned mining camp. Apparently there are two spring beds still standing there but we didn't get that far as we lost too much time waiting for our friends to decide to go. They turned around halfway down the first downhill when they realized they were already too buzzed. They missed an amazing hike.

Bike testing update(s)

2011-04-02T15:37:00.002-06:00

I testrode two more bikes this week. The Niner Jet 9 and the Pivot Mach 429. Both bikes are way out of my price range but I still wanted to know what the fuss was about. Both these bikes are very competent and very fun rides. Both bikes use 29" wheels. Neither showed the constant rock/waterbar hitting problem that I noticed in the Tallboy, which makes me think it is indeed a geometry issue on the Tallboy. What follows are two sets of impressions.

1. The Jet 9 (pictured above) is a fabulous bike. It is fast, nimble and furious. I rode it up Chimney and in Apex/Enchanted forest. It feels like a very big bike (which it is) but remains very light surprisingly. I motered this thing up everything I threw at it. Even going up the sharktooth, which I haven't been able to do in years. I really liked this bike even though I will not soon be able to afford it. Still was fun riding it.

2. Pivot Mach 429 (pictured above). My favorite of the two. I got this on Friday, which means that because bikeshops are closed on Saturday, I can ride it until Sunday noon. I rode Chimney on Friday and this morning White Ranch on the Longhorn/Shorthorn/Longhorn/Belcher Hill singletrack/Mustang route. Even though the shop gave me pretty bad SPD pedals on this one and it was in a not superb state (one set screw is missing which is terribly annoying and the lever on the front brake is a tad dinky). I reached 40 km/h (25 mph for those used to archaic units) going down Chimney, which if you know the trail is almost death defying. But this thing made me feel quite secure. Riding it in White Ranch was a little different but very enjoyable still. Going down Mustang, which is a fest of deep drops, waterbars, rocky sections and such was fun. White ranch is a very nice park to go riding as long as you avoid going the route that is in the guidebooks. Most people ride it up Belcher Hill trail from the bottom, which is an extremely boring and crappy fireroad for the largest part. At the top it turns into great single track though. I ride this in winter often as it dries out quickly after snow storms. You want to get of the Belcher hill trail as quick as you can (which is the whippletree trail) when the weather and trail conditions are good however. An added bonus is that you will see almost nobody on the trail, while the Belcher hill trail is a highway of bikers and hikers.

This is the altitude and speed profile as recorded by my phone's gps:

As an aside, when I was picking up this bike it struck me that for the price of one of these bikes (~5k$) one can do demo programs at the local bikeshops for several years before you spend as much. This shop for example, gives you 6 day "rentals" for $150 and in a year you would need to sign up for about 10 of those demoprograms to get most of the riding in (I am excluding a large part of winter). So $1500 a year and therefore about 3 1/2 years of riding before you hit the price of a new bike. Extraordinary. Of course neither of these bikes is in my price range anyway. What strikes me still is that the difference in riding experience wrt to my old bike (which got stolen) and my even older bike that I broke the frame on is not very large. Those were far less valuable bikes that I both built from the frame myself.

Beautiful new typeface from Monotype

2011-04-01T09:35:00.002-06:00

I am a type nerd and reading today that Monotype, a revered type house, is coming out with an updated, pro version of the Comic Sans font - Comic Sans Pro made me happy. Comic Sans of course is a unique microsoft typeface design that graces many "Don't touch my lunch" signs all over the world. It's importance to the world of typeface design can not be overestimated.

(Graphic Business Wire)

Dynamic views

2011-03-31T12:55:00.000-06:00

I just read that blogger (the site that I use for blogging) now offers dynamic views of all blogs that are public. This works on this blog therefore. The views are interesting but it often doesn't seem to pickup the images very well in the snapshot icons. I like the sidebar view but you can choose several different layouts from the top popup. I wonder if these views will be customizable because the blog suddenly loses all context.

Tallboy ride on smokey Chimney Gulch

2011-03-27T10:00:00.000-06:00

Sorry for all the bike related posts. I have had very little time to go through my photographs (work is really busy) and my backlog is long.

Ever since my self built bike was stolen recently, I have been pining for a ridin'. And I need to get back in the saddle as they say. So I decided to a demo program at a local bike shop. In this case I selected Golden Bike Shop mostly because they carry brands I carry and because they treated me well when my Ellsworth frame broke last year. Even though it was far out of warranty they offered me quite a bit off a new Ellsworth frame. Of course for those who know the bike world, you know that the cheapest Ellsworth offers is over $2k. That is how I ended up with a Titus frame which I found online at JensonUSA for a very fair price. Of course that's all in the past now and I need to move on. So I need to find me a new bike. I have been debating myself whether I will build myself another bike from the frame, but for some reason I don't really feel like it right now. So I probably will buy a complete bike and upgrade the components over time when they go out. The latter is pretty quick for me as I do ride my bikes quite hard. Doing a demo program is a good deal here as the bike shops will credit you for the entire cost of the demo when you buy a bike from them. The demo programs are pretty comparable in general. The Golden bike shop's deal is pretty nice. For $150 (which will get refunded if you buy from them) you get to ride six different bikes on 6 different days. So basically 6 rentals for fairly little or nothing in the end.

Today I decided to go high end just to get that out of the way. I rode the Santa Cruz Tallboy in the higher end build. This is a twentyniner full suspension frame that they built up with quite high end components. The twentynine signifies that it uses 29" wheels instead of the standard 26" for mountain bikes. The bike runs $4700 or so as it is a carbon fiber frame. That is many times over what I would ever spend on a bike, so this exercise was purely academic. This is a fun bike that powers over more than what you can on a bike with 26" wheels. Since there is a wildfire near Golden that is making it very smoky here I decided to head a little further north for my test ride and got to the White Ranch trailhead, only to discover that they were using the parkinglot to fly the firefighting helicopters from. Looked pretty cool (sorry forgot to take pictures), but it meant I couldn't ride the trail there. So I decided to head South. When I came by Chimney Gulch I noticed that the wind had shifted more North and that that was surprisingly smoke free now, so I decided to ride it. This is a really nice, fairly technical ride with some good climbing on rocky parts and a lot of hairpins and a fast, fun downhill. The bike handled well but the suspension needed some tuning which I did later that night so that the next morning early I could do another test ride. The trail as captured by my phone's GPS chip is below displayed in Google Earth.

The height profile is here (in red):

As you see a nice slightly over 1 hour ride and nicely very close to my workplace. TO test whether tuning the suspension makes a difference, I rode Apex park with the same bike the next morning, including the excellent Enchanted forest trail. The track is displayed below:

The altitude profile is in blue two images above. This is a shorter trail that can be done in under an hour.

Observations about the bike:
When you tune the suspension, it handles really well. This is a general issue with suspension bikes. If you don't get the suspension tuned for your weight and style, you really cannot judge the bike from demoing it. It handled about as good as my old Titus even though the Tallboy is a far more expensive bike. I can indeed ride some more things that on my old bike were not always ridable simply because of the bigger wheels. The geometry was also very good. I rode down several very tight turns with waterbars that I normally have a hard time making. The bike's weight is very surprising. About the same as my old Titus that only had 26" wheels. Carbon fiber really helps there. Hydraulic brakes are great. They do indeed stop you in your tracks. I didn't like how the levers were setup. After the downhill my fingers were cramping due to the large distance to the levers and the brakes being set so aggressive. Probably an easy fix. Now for the negative points. The bottom bracket shell and consequently the pedals are very low on the frame and you almost sit up straight on this thing. The low pedals make it very easy to constantly hit rocks and waterbars with the pedals, which I found disconcerting with such a big bike. On the 26" bikes I have ridden I rarely hit the same rocks and bars. We'll see if this is a general thing with 29" wheeled bikes. I can imagine that being so because the rear wheel might be pushed back in the frame geometry in order for the rider to not be too high up. Perhaps a large frame would be better for me for this reason. I usually straddle the border between medium and large on these frames.

Here is the bike on the enchanted forest trail. I liked the (for me) patriotic color.

As an aside I saw the Indian Gulch fire quite clearly from the windy saddle on the CHimney Gulch trail. This is a point where the trail crosses the road up lookout mountain and lots of people were watching the firefighting efforts. Here is a quick iPhone panorama of the fire and the smoke (bigger in the link).

Sauron moon

2011-03-25T22:16:00.001-06:00

This burnt tree (looks like a ponderosa pine) in White Ranch open space reminded me of the tower in the Lord of the Rings movies where the eye of Sauron was perched between two spires. So I framed the moon between them to be perched like the eye of Sauron.

This was assembled from nine images at 55 mm, f/22, 1/15s, ISO 100. Buy a print.

Close to this burnt out hunk, I found some nicely structured dead trees. These were the same as I put on flickr a while ago when I photographed them using my iPhone on a bike ride (the reason I returned here with full photo gear).

Lava

Single shot, 70mm, f/16, 1/5s, ISO 100. Buy a print.

Glow

9 images at 150mm, f/16, 1.3s, ISO 100. Buy a print.

Eyes

single image at 150mm, f/16, 1.3s, ISO 100. Buy a print.

Chunky

9 images at 70mm, f/16, 1/5s, ISO 100. Buy a print.

There is a set of images on smugmug here where you can order large prints. If you're into the social networking thing, check out the set at flickr.

My bike got stolen

2011-03-19T09:13:00.002-06:00

This morning I walk outside and notice something is wrong. Some asshole stole my bike from the roof of my car. Forcing open the lock and cutting several ties I use to secure the bike. This is a bike I recently built from parts to replace my previous (also selfbuilt) one that I broke the frame of. This one has a grey Titus bicycles frame with a Marzocchi fork and a Fox Float rear shock. This is what it looks like (larger in the link).

Or here in the snow.

Amazingly, the thieves were incompetent enough to leave the shears they used

Here you can see how they forced open the lock probably by rocking the bike which also bent the rail.

Amazingly, these thieves were so incompetent they actually broke the front fork. You can see one of the pieces of metal here:

This will make the bike unsellable without some major repair (a new fork basically).

The Arvada police department in the person of officer Pena (a mountain biker too apparently) actually came really quickly and took the shears to examine it for prints so perhaps something will come of it.

As a Dutchman of course I have had my bike stolen before, but never one that I was so attached to and that I built myself. This last week I rode it every single day. I'll miss it. These nasty thieves deserve nothing but the worst.

Edit: this is the serial number

DFX0802732

"Food" industry run amok

2011-03-18T09:42:00.001-06:00

And it is apparently buying itself legislation that prohibits anybody from taking a photograph of a "farm". Many states in the US already have absolutely crazy laws that prevent simple free speech that criticise the food industry (the so-called veggie laws) but now they also want to prevent anybody from taking simple pictures of farms even from public roads. Clearly they want to prevent the public from finding out about the abusive practices that some say occur in these highly industrialized places. If you have Netflix, I recommend you stream Food Inc to your TV/computer/iPad/iPhone to learn a little more but that is not as graphic as the video linked to in the New York Times article above. The book that the movie is based on "the Omnivore's dilemma" is better but takes a little longer to read. An instructive rant on the farm photography Stalinist laws is at silber studios.tv. Clearly this is not about the small farms that they make it sound like in the laws but about protecting the grind-them-up-alive operations that "produce" so much of today's "food". Of course the laws are written so that it applies to any food producing entity, not just the factory feedlot operations.

I don't know about you but I think something is deeply wrong when you could get thrown into jail for taking a cell phone picture of a farm next to a road. Note also how diametrically opposed this is to the well known right of photographers to photograph what can be seen from the public road excepting maybe a few national security related places such as certain DOE and DOD installations.

Timelapse of earthquake data

2011-03-18T09:15:00.000-06:00

Jeffrey Friedl, well known for his work on Lightroom plugins and who lives in Japan, created a quite revealing timelapse animation of data from accelerometers present everywhere in Japan of a whole week of data of the big quake and many aftershocks. Aftershocks is a bad word for this as many were quite large in their own right. Check it out on his blog.

Devastating

2011-03-13T14:10:00.001-06:00

My heart goes out to the people in Japan. The devastation caused by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami is just terrible.
The big picture
The frame
Denver Post

Update: This interactive before/after satellite photo comparison on the New York Times' website is gut wrenching. Reminiscent of similar images from Indonesia when a tsunami struck there.

Humor

2011-03-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

Funny video with a punchline that hinges on camera scene modes that I saw linked on a blog I follow. So I am doing the perpetuating thing.

Enjoy.

False Kiva

2011-03-03T21:57:00.002-07:00

False Kiva is an extraordinary and more or less secret place in Canyonlands National Park. It is nestled in the side of a mesa rim in a just absoluteley amazing setting overlooking the White Rim and Green River. I visited this place last October on Hallow's eve. The next day, I was going to do white rim by bike with a group of friends, so I decided to camp in the one campground in the park the night before and do an evening shoot at False Kiva. The interesting thing about this archeological site is that its location is kept more or less secret by the park service. There are no signs and no designated trail. You can find GPS coordinates on the web, but those are basically useless as they are accurate but are simply lead you to the rim of the island in the sky right above the mesa, but no way of knowing or seeing what's below it, if you don't want to plummet to your death. So ignore the GPS coordinates. There are a few photography books that have instructions but the best way to figure out how to get there is to talk to a photographer that has been there. The hike is short and not very technical but there are some exposed spots. You start at a ditch that is not at all where the GPS coordinates would have you go, after a while, you hit the rim and swing around and go down a rocky path to somewhere below the Kiva and cross over on a bench that looks precarious and then climb up again, all the way not seeing where you are going. You just don't see the kiva from anywhere on the trail. Then you go over a hump and suddenly the Kiva lies before you overseeing a breath taking view. It's smaller than you would expect from some of the famous images taken of it.

Buy a print of this image.
Assembled from 2 sets of 15 images at 35 mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/50s and 1/10 assembled in hugin and stitched in hugin. Exposure blended using enfuse. This image will print wallsize with exquisite detail.

I shot some other viewpoints too of which I liked this vertical view:

Buy a print.
Assembled from 2 exposure sets of 9 images at 35mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/10s and 1/80s.

A tighter horizontal framing is here:

Buy a print.
Assembled from 2 exposure sets of 12 shots each at 35 mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1/6s and 1/40s.

At the site is a little log book and a some explanation of what the archeologists think the site was used for. It certainly has some of the features of a kiva (the depression in the middle for the smoke blocker and such) but is quite different from other real kivas in the southwest. Regardless of what it meant to the people that lived here, this is a very worthwhile site to visit and it was quite an experience to be there all alone on Halloween. The contrast with the throng of photographers at Mesa Arch the next morning couldn't be greater. I will certainly go back to False Kiva and try different light conditions. This would be interesting in winter with a sun setting more in the frame and perhaps some snow on the rock formations. The sunset was great but I left a little before to make sure I could see my trail back. In my images below you can see that it is golden hour light though and the glow is lovely. A few more clouds would have been great but hey I am not going to complain. This was an absolutely fantastic experience in itself. I headed back to the campground where I met a few of the friends with whom I would hit the rim the next day that had been able to find the site I put my tent up in which was easy as the campground was virtually deserted. They had already prepared some excellent tortellinis and it was a good but very cold night with frost on the tent in the morning. I headed out to take pictures of Mesa Arch the next morning before hopping on the bike. I'll post about both those trips soon as I got some excellent images out of it that have been chomping at the bit on my hard drive.

See more pictures of False Kiva here.