Fall color in Boston

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

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?

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

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

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.