Portal - a quiet Mount Toll reflection

Mount Toll is an iconic peak in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Usually you see this peak from a completely different angle. In September I decided to hike up to try and see a glacial lake that is clear on the topo map above the well-known Blue Lake and made it over the moraine in time. I wrote about that hike before here and here and there is a gallery that has images from it here. Going through my library looking for some images to test print on some nice paper I got from Santa, I came across the below image that I had somehow ignored first time around but that really struck my eye.

Portal. Bigger and Prints. On facebook. On flickr.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 19 mm, f/22, 1/3s, ISO 100.

Some late fall color on the Eaglesmere Lake Trail

Quite a while ago (the 28th of September) I went on a nice fall color hike with the cmc photography section. There was fresh snow on the ground and the fall colors were peak this day so it was just glorious. We hiked along the Eaglesmere Laker trail mostly as there some great aspen groves along it. Highly recommended if you want to catch fall color next year.

Looking up. The color was just radiant with the crowns of the tree sunlit, but the ground not.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/10, 1/125s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and prints. On flickr. On Facebook.

Geometric. A slightly different perspective to the previous scene.

Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/11, 1/100s, handheld.
Bigger and prints.

The glow. The sunstar might be hard to see in this small image but it has a full 18 points! I also love the oranges in the leaves.

Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/16, 1/50s, ISO 100.
Bigger and Prints. On Facebook, On Flickr.

Eagles Nest peak framed by trees.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 55mm, f/16, 1/50s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and Prints. On flickr. On Facebook.

Orange moon.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 85mm, f/8.0, 1/40s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and Prints. On Facebook. On Flickr.

Radiance.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/16, 1/60s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and Prints. On Facebook. On flickr.

The Spring of Winter.

Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm, f/3.5-4.5 at 80mm, f/8.0, 1/25s, ISO 100, handheld.
Bigger and Prints. On Flickr. On Facebook.

I have some more nice images to share from this trip but for now 7 images will have to do ;-). I hope you enjoyed them. I certainly enjoyed taking them. Check out the Facebook and Flickr links to explore some more.

Panorama at Upper Blue Lake

Here is a panorama done at Upper Blue Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. The sunrise light was just hitting Mount Toll. I have a few more images from here to share. Those that want to look ahead can check out my Indian Peaks gallery on smugmug. Hopefully this can provide some sunshine in the rain and flood drenched Colorado.

Upper Blue Lake sunrise panorama. Buy a print. Photo on facebook. On flickr. on Google+.
Stitched panorama from 7 images. Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 20mm, f/22, 1/3s, ISO 100.

Sunrise reflection of Mount Toll in Upper Blue Lake

Continuing with the last post's thread, here is an image of Mount Toll in the Indian Peaks Wilderness being reflected in Upper Blue Lake. This morning's sunrise was amazingly brilliant and changed color from deep red to the yellow you see here in the course of a few minutes. It is always an amazing privilege to be able to go to these places and see Nature's impressive displays.

Sunrise hits Mount Toll in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Buy a print. On facebook. On flickr. On Google+.
Boring tech info: Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 20mm, f/22, 0.4s, ISO 100.

Here is the exact location for this image:
View Larger Map

Indian Peaks Sunrise

I spent this morning before sunrise hiking up to Upper Blue Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. This lake is A ways above the well-known Blue Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness and which is a popular hike from Brainard Lake. Not many people go to the upper lakes as it is quite a scramble up a steep moraine behind which the upper lake is hidden. I had an absolutely lovely morning at this lake watching the sun come up. Here is a first image from this where I am looking east towards the plains where the sun is just about to come up.

Sunrise at Upper Blue Lake. Buy a print. On Facebook. On flickr.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 20mm, f/22, 0.4s, ISO 100.

Indian Peaks morning

Last weekend, I went on a short sunrise hike with friends from the cmc Dan and Jon at the Arapahoe Pass Trail in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. We waited for sunrise at a very steep waterfall that had quite a few flowers around it. Unfortunately there was so much wind there that all the flowers were getting blurred in all our pictures, so I have 100 images with blurs where the flowers are supposed to be. Most of the high resolution stitches I tried to do at sunrise didn't work for that same reason either. Also, the clouds prevented the sun from rising at its scheduled time and it didn't show for 20 minutes after sunrise. I did come away with some images I like though that I'll post over time. Here are a few to start. As always, click on the images for a bigger version.

Arapahoe Pass Trail Sunrise. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On Google+.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/22, 1/6s, ISO 100.

I was standing in the waterfall to take this image. Luckily my boots are still fairly waterproof. Below is the same waterfall looking up. I also have an interesting image of about the same viewpoint taken on the way back down in different light that I will post later.

From hither. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On Google+.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/22, 1/8s, ISO 100.

There were enormous amounts of flowers along the trail. Here is a cluster of Columbines that I really liked.

Stack. Buy a print. At flickr. On facebook.
Nikon D600, Nikon 70-200mm f/4 at 140mm, f/4, 1/80s, ISO 400.

Spectators. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On Google+.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/22, 1/10s, ISO 100.

I have a lot more to share from this very pleasant morning. In the mean time, I'll share with you this map with the geomapped locations of all the pictures I took that morning on it. I love this feature in Lightroom. I generate gpx tracks using my phone. Import the tracks into Lightroom and just autotag the entire series of images in one click. Couldn't be simpler.

Boulder Brook in rain

I went back to Boulder Brook, this time in summer to see if it is nice with some flowers around it. Indeed it is, however, it was raining hard when I was there. I also needed to shoot a series of images for the presentation I did for the CMC photoclub about moving water where I change the shutter speed and show the effect on moving water, so despite incessant rain and mosquitoes, I made the series and here is one shot from Boulder Brook. I have been to this magical place many times before and it is always fantastic. This time is no exception. Unfortunately I dropped my Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 lens' cap and it got carried of by the stream. I haven't located a replacement yet.

Wetness in the forest. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On Google+.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 17 mm, ISO 400, f/16, 1/5s.

Warm gorge

Two weeks ago, I went for a little sunset hike up Lake Haiyah and ended up in a blizzard up at the lake. There is a cellphone shot of this on Facebook. Going back down I shot some pics along the trail. At times there was a little golden hour color visible but I did not think much of the images until today when I loaded them in Lightroom and Aperture. There turn out to be some interesting images in there that I did not realize I had. Here is one of Longs with a hat of clouds basking in warm light.

The gorge. Buy a print. On facebook. On Google+. On flickr.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 72 mm, f/11, 1/80s, ISO 100, on tripod.

Great Horns

On a bike ride yesterday I found a nest of Great Horned Owls in the cliffs of Matthew's Winter's park. Went back today to take some pictures of them. Quite amazing animals.

Trio. Buy a print. On facebook. On flickr. On Google+.
Nikon D600, Nikkor 70-200 mm f/4 at f/4.0, 1/400s, ISO 100. Fairly tight crop.

Embedded Panoramas.

Finally there appears to be a way to embed 360 degree panoramas on web pages. I found the method detailed here. The premise of the article is over the top but if this works at least I'll have a platform independent way of embedding panoramas. There are some java based tools out there, but java is a security nightmare and there is a quicktime plugin method but this doesn't work on iPhones and Android. This might work everywhere although you have to apparently host the image on Google Plus which has the weird problem of lowering the resolution automatically. Perhaps it will work fine hosted somewhere else

This Panorama was taken on the tip of White Crack in Canyonlands National Park.

Two churches

The town of Cargèse has a greek orthodox church as well as a catholic church right next to each other. Apparently the town was settled by greek settlers and has a rather interesting history. I took this picture walking back from the conference I was attending to the town.

Two churches. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 42mm, f/5.6, 1/13s, Auto ISO at 2500.

Bender

A pipe in Cargèse, Corsica, FR. I really liked the color here with a simple complementary pair in the orange and blue.

Bend. Buy a print. On flickr. On Google+. On facebook.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 52mm, f/8.0, 1/30s, ISO 220

The End of the Day

A gorgeous sunset on the rocky shores of Corsica, France.

The End of Day. Buy a print. Flickr. Facebook. Google+.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/11, 1.6s, ISO 100

I took this picture by perching the camera on some rocks as I did not have a tripod with me on this trip. I did have to crop out a little bit of out-of-focus rocks on the left, but the waves came out nicely dreamy anyway. I have lots of other nice sea pictures from Corsica that I will share in the near future.

Dead Horse Point sunrise

Last February I went on a little trip to photograph the Moab area with some old and new friends. I've posted some pictures from a sunset in Arches already as well as Colorado National Monument. Interestingly, both those sets of images were taken when I had not yet met up with the group. Here I will post a set of pictures from after I met up with them, but rather ironically from me on my own again. This morning, I went out on my own as the others had thought that it would only be ugly and cloudy at our planned location - Dead Horse Point. However, I got out at 4 am to look at the sky and actually saw stars and so decided to go anyway and had a glorious morning.

Some links to start: Gallery and prints on smugmug. Gallery on flickr. On Facebook. On Google+.

Dead Horse Point Sunrise. Buy a print.
High resolution composite from 9 images. Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 45 mm, f/22, 0.4s, ISO 100.
This high resolution composite has over 100MP of resolution and will print wall sized with impeccable detail. I aimed it to have the curve in the tree trunk mirror the bend in the river as well as potash road which you can see just below the river.

Thelma and Louise. Buy a print.
Nikon D600, Nikkon 70-200 mm f/4.0 at 70mm, f/5.6, 1/80s, ISO 100.
A detail showing the island in the sky region in Canyonlands National Park. The title is a reference to the fact that the movie had Thelma and Louise drive into the "Grand Canyon" in this spot.

Dead Horse Point Sunrise Panorama. Buy a print. You definitely should see this larger as the blog format is not very wide.
Stitched from 7 images. Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16 mm, f/16, 1/10s, ISO 100.

Swoop. Buy a print.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16 mm, f/16, 1/6s, ISO 100.
A horizontal framing of the top image on this post.

Cradled. Buy a print.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 24 mm, f/16, 1/6s, ISO 100.
There are many nice compositions to be found along the rim as you can see.

Red Dawn. Buy a print. Another image you really should see large.
Stitched from 9 images. Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16 mm, f/16, 1/20s, ISO 100.
This is a little later in the morning and taken from the very edge point of DHP. The tree on the far right of the image is the same tree as on the first image above. Standing on this tip you feel really exposed as just over the edge is a looooong way down.

Icy Reflection

This is an image from Emerald Lake that I captured on a hike up to Emerald Lake for sunrise on December 30th of last year. I have posted on this trip before on this blog and I have many images from this that you can already see in my Emerald Lake gallery mixed in with older images. I spent a long time out on the ice this day capturing many images of the ice and reflections on it. I will post more from this extraordinarily beautiful place but for now here is an image created by stitching 9 images from my D600. This image will print wall sized with amazing detail. Click on the image for a larger view.

Emerald Ice Dragon. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On G+.
High resolution composite from 9 images from a Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/16, 1/60s, ISO 100.

Green River overlook

On my Arches/Canyonlands/Moab trip this February, I visited False Kiva by myself on the last day (more on that later). After the hike there and back I found myself driving back down around lunchtime and decided to have something to eat at the Green River Overlook, which is itself close to the Willow Flats campground. I couldn't resist taking pictures as the light was quite nice for midday because of the milky clouds and the snow all around. Here is a quick handheld shot panorama focusing on the river basin and Turks head.

Canyon Country. Buy a print. On flickr. On facebook. On Google+.
Stitched from 8 images. Nikon D600, Nikkor 70-200 mm f/4 at 70mm, f/8.0, 1/400s, ISO 100.

You can very clearly see the White Rim road down there which I biked several times. It looks very different down there. I also never noticed the remains of a landing strip (click on the image for a bigger view which clearly shows it) on the finger of the white rim that points towards Turks head. It's not marked on the topo maps, so I am curious what its function was. There was some Uranium mining in this area decades ago. Here is a zoomed in image of the landing strip. Click for 1:1. People on retina screens already get the 1:1 served in line.

On the right bottom you can see the white rim road snaking along and it crosses the end of the landing strip. Probably the strip is invisible from the road.

An Arches Windows Sunset

A few weeks ago, I spent a few days in the Moab area with some photographer friends photographing in Arches, Canyonlands and other associated areas. The day I arrived here driving from Fruita (see here for some pictures from Colorado National Monument) and spending a few hours trying to fix my bike's frame at Moab cyclery (they carried the part (a derailleur dropout for my Santa Cruz bike) that I tore apart in the Fruita mud and were very helpful in fixing the problem), I decided to hit Arches for sunset as I hadn't been able to hook up with anybody yet. The area had just seen some snow a few days ago I think and sunset was great. Below are a few of my favorite pictures from that evening.

This is North Window Arch as seen from the "window well".

Balance. Buy a print.
Nikon D600. Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 100. Handheld.

North window from a different angle

I see you! Buy a print.
Nikon D600. Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 28mm, f/8.0, 1/60s, ISO 100. Handheld.

The shadow cast by Turret Arch on the South Window really looks like a mountain lion head here.

Mountain Lion. Buy a print.
Nikon D600. Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/8.0, 1/10s, ISO 100. Tripod.

I found this awesome puddle on the far end of Turret Arch that nicely reflected the turret's eye. The water was frozen over in a very thin and very reflective sheet of ice and its shape appears to mirror the Turret. The camera is probably not more than 6 inches from the water (the puddle was tiny) so I had to stop this all the way down.

Seeing Double. Buy a print.
Nikon D600. Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 17mm, f/22, 1s, ISO 100. Tripod.

This is another image from Turret arch seen from the back. The sun had just gone below the horizon but is still glowing warm. You can see the La Sal mountains to the right and a hint of North Window through the arch. I like the leading line leading up to the arch.

Happiness is a warm turret. Buy a print.
Nikon D600. Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 17mm, f/16, 0.6s, ISO 100. Tripod.

I captured this long view looking towards the La Sal mountains. There was some nice pink in the sky and the snow-capped mountains looked nicely blue. A nice color harmony that begged exploitation.

Jaws. Buy a print.
Nikon D600. Nikon 70-200mm f/4 at 135mm, f/5.6, 1/10s, ISO 100. Tripod.

Walking back up to the North window, I thought I was more or less done and would head back to town to meet up with my friends, but I was struck by the sunset behind the Turret. So I took out the gear again and shot this image looking west.

Glow. Buy a print.
Nikon D600. Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 32mm, f/5.6, 1/30s, ISO 100. Handheld.

I'll let this speak for itself.

Moon Cradle. Buy a print.
Nikon D600. Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/5.6, 1/13s, ISO 400. Handheld.

Last but not least, Also check out the galleries on the social sites:
Gallery on smugmug. Gallery on flickr. Gallery on Facebook. Gallery on Google+.

Let the light be right

In browsing through my images from last week's Moab trip I came across a set of images that are almost exactly 1 day apart but are framed almost identically. One taken several hours into the day in relatively harsh daylight and the other shortly after sunrise in soft light. Both were taken looking out from Dead Horse Point towards Canyonlands National Park. In the first, we visited it with the group to scout it out. The next day, I was the only one to rise in time and drive over to catch the sunrise. It had looked like it would snow that morning and be cloudy all around so everybody had more or less decided to stay in. However, I could see stars when around 4 am I stepped outside the hotel, so I set off by myself and had an awesome morning.

On the left, the daylight image. On the right, the sunrise image softened even more by the presence of clouds. The moral of this story of course is that getting up early pays...

I'll blog about the Dead Horse Point sunrise sometime later. In the mean time, here is a link to the above sunrise image in it's full glory.

Colorado National Monument

Before heading to Moab last week, I stopped in Fruita to do a little mountain bike riding in the road 18 area and to capture a sunrise at Colorado National Monument. A little hidden gem in the National Park System. Here are a few shots I shot on that occasion.

Gallery on smugmug. set of images on flickr. Set on facebook.


Monument star. Buy a print. Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/14, 1/40s, ISO 100
This is close to the end of Otto's trail looking towards Independence Monument. I had never realized it is a fin instead of a pinnacle (see last image below). The sunstar is caused by diffraction of the small diaphragm opening (i.e. high f-stop) that I used.


Clinging. Buy a print.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/11, 1/20s, ISO 100

Compare this to a nearby horizontal composition:


Hot and Cold. Buy a print.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/16, 1/6s, ISO 100

I love the contrast of warm and cold tones here. The color was overwhelmingly brilliant and real life.


Perspective/Monument light. Buy a print.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 28mm, f/11, 1/20s, ISO 100

This shows the Independence Monument rock from the other side. It looks much more like a pinnacle from here.

The awesome new Nikon 70-200 mm f/4 VR

Warning: To those interested mostly in my pictures, please ignore this nerdy gear related post.
After quite a bit of analysis and renting lenses (I like lensrentals.com I settled on the new Nikon 70-200mm f/4 VR lens as a good compromise between weight and image quality. It came in the mail a few days ago and I tested it out the first chance I got two days ago. I knew it was good but I am still astounded at the enormous detail you can get out of this when used correctly. Here is a sample image:

Snowy Canyon. Bigger and prints.
Nikon D600, Nikkor 70-200 mm f/4.0 at 70mm, f/5.6, 1/50s (handheld), ISO 100.

Of course this a web image so you won't really see how sharp this really is, so here is the central portion of the image with the top of the little S in the road showing.

I did not optimize this image for retina displays, nor display sharpen it. The only real adjustment in Lightroom is a +1EV exposure adjustment ( I forgot to overexpose for the white snow). So on retina it will not look as good as it does on normal screens. Just look at that detail. On most computer screens (usually around 100 ppi), you are looking at the equivalent of a 60"x40" (1.5 x 1 m) print.

Here is another example:

Powdered sugar. Bigger and prints.
Nikon D600, Nikkor 70-200 mm f/4.0 at 120mm, f/8.0, 1/30s (handheld), ISO 100.

That is handheld at 1/30s at 120 mm! Now check out the 1:1

Pretty amazing if you ask me.

Desert sunrise

This is an older image that I have not worked up until now. The image was taken at sunrise near Airport Tower along the White Rim road in Canyonlands National Park. This was early November and so the flowers you see are actually not very much alive but they do provide a nice counterweight to the sunlight Airport Tower. Nights are quite cold out in the desert around this time of year and I remember frost on my tent in the morning (which was pitched right behind where this picture was taken). Hopefully I will be out photographing in the Moab area again next week with some friends. I'll be hunting for more unconventional (and less unconventional ones ;-) ) desert images again. As always, click the image for bigger versions.


Airport Sunrise. Buy a Print. On flickr, On facebook, on Google+.
Composite of 9 images from Nikon D300, Nikon 18-55mm at 35mm, f/16, 1/6s, ISO 200.

Up and Down - Standley Lake Reflection

One of the first 1000 images I took with my new D600. I am now at 6600 or so shutter events and had to clean the sensor for the second time.

Up and down. Buy a print. Flickr. Facebook. Google+.
Nikon D600. Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/11, 0.6s, ISO 100.