The Bird

My brother found this guy while we were out wandering the desert.  He looked a bit parched.   

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/2000 Sec - f/4 - ISO 100 - 93 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/320 Sec - f/11 - ISO 100 - 92 mm

He made a good antenna topper, right up to about 20 mph.

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/250 Sec - f/16 - ISO 100 - 105 mm

Devil's Playground - B&W

Not much to say other than I really like how this one turned out.

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/1600 Sec - f/4 - ISO 100 - 24 mm

A Little Painting

Had the opportunity to do a little painting the other night. Always a good time!

 

Canon EOS 5D Mark III - EF14mm f/2.8L II USM

1120.00 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

Canon EOS 5D Mark III - EF14mm f/2.8L II USM

118.00 Sec - f/5.6 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24mm f/1.4L II USM

400.00 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 24 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24mm f/1.4L II USM

102.00 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 24 mm

Morning Light

A couple of images from the other morning at the Lucin Sun Tunnels

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24mm f/1.4L II USM

1/2500 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 24 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24mm f/1.4L II USM

1/500 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 24 mm

Devil's Playground

This weekend, my brother, a couple of buddies, and I headed out to the desert for the night to do some light painting and to shoot some stars.  Our intent was to end up at Devil's Playground.  We failed.  I'm not one to place blame, but the good folks that provided the directions on the BLM website need to work on their skills a bit.  Since we weren't able to find this place Friday evening, we headed over to the Lucin Sun Tunnels, one of my favorite places to paint and shoot the night sky.  I'll post those images later.

After spending the night at the tunnels, we decided to try one more time to find Devil's Playground on our way home.  We found it.  What an amazing place!  I will definitely be back, the shooting opportunities are fantastic.

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/1000 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 105 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/1600 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 105 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/400 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 100 - 24 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/320 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 100 - 24 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/160 Sec - f/9 - ISO 100 - 24 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/60 Sec - f/16 - ISO 100 - 24 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/250 Sec - f/9 - ISO 100 - 24 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/100 Sec - f/16 - ISO 100 - 24 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/50 Sec - f/16 - ISO 100 - 24 mm

Cedar Breaks

While driving home from Vegas a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a gamble and head up Cedar Canyon and through Cedar Breaks. The risk with this detour is that the road at the top of the canyon that heads north through the park is closed during the winter and I wasn't sure if it would be open yet. Turns out it wasn't so I ended up coming back down the canyon and heading on my way. However, I did stop to grab this shot on the way up the canyon. I love the snow on the red rocks. Good stuff. 

Canon EOS-1D X - EF17-40mm f/4L USM

1/200 Sec - f/11 - ISO 160 - 40 mm

Valley Of Fire

Valley Of Fire is one of my favorite places to shoot.  It doesn't matter what time of day you visit, there are amazing images to be made everywhere.  On a recent trip to Vegas for work, one of my reps and I went in a day early so that we could spend a bit of time shooting.  I shot these images while Drew and I were checking out some new places to do light painting.  

Canon PowerShot S120 - 5.2-26.0 mm

1/2000 Sec - f/2.8 - ISO 80 - 5.2 mm

Canon PowerShot S120 - 5.2-26.0 mm

1/1600 Sec - f/2.8 - ISO 80 - 5.2 mm

Canon PowerShot S120 - 5.2-26.0 mm

1/400 Sec - f/2.8 - ISO 80 - 5.2 mm

Canon PowerShot S120 - 5.2-26.0 mm

1/250 Sec - f/2.8 - ISO 80 - 5.2 mm

Canon PowerShot S120 - 5.2-26.0 mm

1/1250 Sec - f/2.8 - ISO 80 - 5.2 mm

Canon PowerShot S120 - 5.2-26.0 mm

1/2000 Sec - f/2 - ISO 80 - 5.2 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/160 Sec - f/8 - ISO 100 - 70 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/80 Sec - f/8 - ISO 100 - 24 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM

1/250 Sec - f/8 - ISO 100 - 28 mm

Canon EOS-1D X - EF17-40mm f/4L USM

1/13 Sec - f/22 - ISO 400 - 19 mm

Painting In The Desert

Wouldn't be right to visit Valley Of Fire without doing some light painting.  And, if you are going to do it once, you might as well do it twice.  While working in Vegas a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to do just that.  One of my team members met me a day early and we camped out and spent the night doing some painting and shooting some stars (images to come).  These cabins worked out to be a great backdrop for painting.

597.00 Sec - f/5.6 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

465 Sec - f/5.6 - ISO 640 - 14 mm

340 Sec - f/5.6 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

Later in the week, we managed to get a few more of my team members out to the desert with us for some more painting.  Drew and I had found this spot on our first excursion and it turned out to be a pretty decent spot.

48 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

216 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

242.00 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

259.00 Sec - f/6.3 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

248.00 Sec - f/4 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

361.00 Sec - f/5.6 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

239 Sec - f/2.8 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

426 Sec - f/4 - ISO 400 - 14 mm

Valley Of Fire Sunrise

I captured this the other morning in Valley Of Fire State Park.  This is a 9 image panorama, merged in Photoshop CC.
I dare you to click on the images to view them a little larger.

So, color or black and white?

To Clean or Not To Clean?

Gear is meant to be used.  Using your gear gets it dirty.  That's just the way it is.  Getting your gear cleaned occasionally is a good idea.

My Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS lens is probably my most used lens.  It travels with me almost everywhere.  It's light, has a great focal range, and produces sharp, clean images.  Like I said, it's one of my most used lenses.

Like I said before, using your gear gets it dirty.  Dirty gear needs to be cleaned.  This lens was long overdue for a good cleaning.  Long overdue.  This fact was brought to my attention the other day when I took this shot.

Before I explain further, let me tell you a little bit about this image.  This was shot the other morning in Valley of Fire State Park, just outside of Las Vegas, NV.  It was a fantastic morning and the warm sunrise light plays off of the red rocks beautifully.  One of the things I love about shooting a good sunrise is the starbursts that you can capture.  These happen when a point of light (the sun in this case) peeks over a hard edge (the rock in this case).  The points of the starburst are exaggerated when you use a small aperture with your lens.  For this shot, I was using f/22.  It worked beautifully, I got the results I was looking for.

Now, back to the original point of this post.  The down-side to shooting at f/22, is that every bit of dirt on your gear will show up in your image.  Don't believe me?  Check out what I had to do to this image in Lightroom.

 Use your gear.  Clean your gear.  It's that simple.

Stars with a point and shoot camera

This week, I spent some time Las Vegas this week for work, and had the opportunity to spend a bit of time out in Valley Of Fire State Park.  While there, I set up the Canon PowerShot S120 to capture some stars.  The first night we were out there was 1 night after the new moon, so it was good and dark.

Most of these images were shot using the star trails scene mode in the PowerShot S120.  This mode lets you set the camera to run from 10 to 90 minutes.  You can also stop it at any time during the capture.  These first 4 were done using various lengths of captures.

30 Sec - f/1.8 - ISO 400 - 5.2 mm

A little light painting.

30 Sec - f/1.8 - ISO 400 - 5.2 mm

Must have been a rabbit that jumped in front of that plane to make him swerve like that.

30 Sec - f/1.8 - ISO 400 - 5.2 mm

30 Sec - f/1.8 - ISO 400 - 5.2 mm

This was the view when I woke up.  That's Venus, the bright one.

This one was captured using the Night Scene mode.

30 Sec - f/4 - ISO 160 - 5.2 mm

This is a 90 minute stack, processed in camera with the PowerShot S120.

30 Sec - f/1.8 - ISO 400 - 5.2 mm

This last image was captured with the PowerShot G16.  It is a 2 hour stack of images, done in camera.

30 Sec - f/1.8 - ISO 800 - 6.1 mm