Vacation Recap: Day 2

Fast Food

August 11, 2008: 70mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO100

I promised a cow, so there's your cow. I took this picture out the window of the bus to Hearst Castle. This was a variation on the panning technique used for capturing a moving subject, since the subject was stationary and I was moving. I think it turned out great, if I do say so myself (which I guess I just did).

Tower

August 11, 2008: 50mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO100

Hearst Castle was another great stop on the trip. One of its towers is shown above in my favorite picture of the Hearst Castle tour. I tend to like shots with the sun used as a back light. Especially in the case of black and white images like the one above, you end up with a halo around the subject that immediately draws the eye where you want it to go. Scenes like this have a lot of dynamic range (the difference between the lightest and darkest parts of the image), so they can be tricky to shoot with digital. One area where digital cameras have yet to catch up to film is dynamic range. Luckily, shooting in RAW allows for a fair amount of control over the exposure in post-processing. Proper exposure while shooting is still important, though, because if the highlights are blown or the shadows are too dark, then they are gone forever. Sorry about the technical detour. If none of those words (RAW, dynamic range, exposure, digital) mean anything to you, then check back later because I'm sure I'll write about RAW versus JPEG eventually (since every other photoblogger has). I wish I could have taken a film picture of this same scene for comparison, but I didn't have my film camera and it was a tour, so I had to move along. Whew! That was a lot of words. How about another picture?

Child Labor

August 11, 2008: 70mm, f/8, 1/125 sec, ISO100

You probably find this to be either funny or disturbing. I find it to be a nice mixture of both. Mostly funny. Let's say 50% funny, 40% strange, and 10% disturbing. Why do naked babies have to be the ones to hold the roof up? I've seen gargoyles do this job, and I'm sure they are very good at it. What made the sculptor decide that naked babies should have to do this kind of work? Hilarious.

Bored

August 11, 2008: 300mm, f/8, 1/500 sec, ISO200

Last, but certainly not least, elephant seals! I would not have expected that such a weird looking creature could seem so human. Their faces and body language are very expressive. Watching them was extremely entertaining.

The Amazing Battling Elephant Seals

August 11, 2008: 160mm, f/8, 1/400 sec, ISO200

Above is my favorite elephant seal picture. The elephant seals would all lay out on the beach and cover themselves with sand (shown below). Even though there was tons of open space on the beach, whenever a new seal would come in from the ocean, it would want one of the spots that was already taken. This would lead to a vicious shouting match as seen above, followed by both of them plopping back to the ground to continue napping. Man, I love animals. So like us...

Covering Up With Dust

August 11, 2008: 300mm, f/8, 1/320 sec, ISO200

Whoa, this water is COLD!

August 11, 2008: 300mm, f/8, 1/320 sec, ISO100

Again, more pictures from California can be seen in this flickr set.

Day 3 and 4 preview: Monterey Bay aquarium, glow-in-the-dark golf, and fishing

Vacation Recap: Day 1

Two Pelicans

August 10, 2008: 300mm, f/8, 1/640 sec, ISO100

I'm back from vacation and as expected, I have far too many pictures to go through. I've gotten through some of them so far, so I'll share a couple from early on in the trip. On the first day, my family and I drove from LA to San Simeon, CA along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). This highway is widely regarded as one of the best drives in the country and I can't say that I disagree. We stopped at several beaches along the way to take pictures and enjoy the nice cool weather. Towards the end of a Tucson summer, a week and a half of 60 degree weather was appreciated.

Bird, Watching

August 10, 2008: 300mm, f/8, 1/160 sec, ISO100

The first beach we stopped at was Ventura Beach, which was the first beach we came to while on the drive. The beach was relatively empty except for the seagulls, which were a new sight for a desert guy like me (I've seen seagulls before, but not since I started my interest in photography). The seagulls were basically flying poop machines, covering everything in a blanket of white. Kind of like snow, only more disgusting. I'm pretty sure that 90% of the pictures I took on this trip have seagull doo visible somewhere in the picture. I'm sorry for this, but I promise that the poo is not the focal point of any of the pictures.

Head in the Sand

August 10, 2008: 300mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec, ISO100

Another bird that shared the beach with the seagulls was the sandpiper. These birds are very entertaining to watch. As the water recedes from the shore, they run to stick their beaks in the sand in search of food until a couple of seconds later when another wave comes in. Then, they run as fast as their little feet will take them away from the wave. When that wave recedes, they repeat the process all over again. It looks exhausting... and hilarious.

Morro Rock

August 10, 2008: 18mm, f/8, 1/1250 sec, ISO200

We knew ahead of time that we wanted to stop at Morro Bay and it was well worth it. This is the location of Morro Rock, which is a giant rock poking out of the middle of nowhere.

Curiosity

August 10, 2008: 26mm, f/8, 1/125 sec, ISO100

There were quite a few people enjoying the beach at the base of Morro Rock, including the little girl shown above with her puppy being greeted by a friendly larger dog. This is one of my favorite photos that I took of the entire trip. It was featured in the Epic Edits photodump for 8/31/08. The larger dog almost knocked me down twice by wrapping its leash around my legs, but I survived, and more importantly, my camera survived.

Diving for Food

August 10, 2008: 300mm, f/8, 1/2500 sec, ISO400

At a beach near Morro Bay, we caught a group of pelicans looking for food. They would fly around in circles above the water until they spotted something and then dive into the water to scoop up their prey. This was an amusing sight and I was lucky enought to grab the photo shown above just as the pelican's head hit the water.

Colorless Sunset

August 10, 2008: 18mm, f/5.6, 1/40 sec, ISO400

We spent the night in San Simeon, which is home to a beautiful beach that was almost deserted when we got there around 7 pm.

Purple Beach

August 10, 2008: 70mm, f/5.6, 1/13 sec, ISO400

This last photo was taken near sunset on the beach in San Simeon with the white balance set to "auto." I think that the warm colors that resulted are very pretty and give the shot an interesting mood.

There are many more photos from the trip in my California Flickr set.

Day 2 preview: Hearst Castle, cows, and elephant seals

Film Results

The first kind of film that I bought was Ilford HP5 ISO400 black and white film. I used the Minolta 50mm f/1.4 lens for the entire roll. All of these pictures were taken around the University of Arizona campus, where I currently attend as a graduate student. Since I was using ISO400 film and shooting at mid-morning in Tucson, I wasn't able to use the fun larger aperture settings of that lens, which I think work well with black and white pictures.

Smoking

August 3, 2008: No EXIF info, this is film!

The photo above was in a shady area, so I was able to open up the aperture and get a smaller depth of field which I think adds atmosphere to this shot. There are four buildings in this area that surround a shared parking lot. They all have this sign on them, which would leave a small square in the center of the parking lot where smoking is allowed if this rule was strictly enforced. Based on enforcement, parking violations are apparently a much larger danger to society than second hand smoke.

Kaibab

August 3, 2008

Kaibab is the name of the men's wing of the dorm I lived in freshman year as an undergrad. If you think it looks like a prison on the outside, you should see the inside.

Old Main

August 3, 2008

This is a picture of Old Main, the oldest building on campus. When the school was founded, this was the only building on campus. Now, you can take your GRE here.

Evil Twin

August 3, 2008

This was one of my favorite pictures of the roll. Using black and white film made me focus on seeking out pictures with interesting lines and texture. It's a lot of fun taking pictures with constraints on the number of pictures that I can take and on the type of pictures that I can take. Once I choose a film and put it in the camera, I'm stuck with the properties of that film for the next 24 or 36 pictures that I take. This can obviously be viewed as an argument for or against digital photography, but I just see it as a difference. There are very passionate people that argue for or against digital photography, but to me it's all just photography. Any method that can produce a great final product is a valid method.

Administration

August 3, 2008

I think digital photography has caught up with film and possibly surpassed it in several objective quality measures, but subjectively it's just a matter of taste. Personally, I like both. Film is more expensive (per picture) and less convenient, so I won't use it all the time. However, it's nice to have another tool for making pretty pictures.

There are more pictures from this roll here. I'm on vacation for the next couple weeks, so no posts until I get back. I'm sure I'll come back with lots of pictures, though.

Film

Yes, I know, I'm going backwards. I bought three digital cameras before buying a film camera. By the time I started getting interested in photography, digital cameras had already become ubiquitous. For me, the cost and inconvenience of film steered me directly into the loving arms of a 3 megapixel point and shoot. This camera kept me happy and I later upgraded to a newer point and shoot that took better pictures. More importantly, however, the newer point and shoot gave me access to manual controls. I was finally able to learn a little more about the technical aspects of photography and how they impact the artistic aspects. Of course the more I learned, the more I started salivating towards a DSLR and that's where my obsession began. I bought a DSLR which gave me full access to every control imaginable. Now if a photo doesn't turn out, it is entirely my fault. Ever since this purchase I've been learning as much as I can about all parts of photography with a great tool to apply my knowledge with. The one area I was not learning anything about, however, is film.

So, I bought a film camera. In order to minimize the financial burden of expanding my hobby, I bought the oldest camera that would accept the same lenses that my DSLR uses. That camera looks like this:

Look at all those buttons! I was one year old when this camera debuted. It was the first commercially successful autofocus SLR camera, according to camerapedia.org. Although successful, this camera started a lot of trends that rub some photographers the wrong way. First, plastic construction in order to lower price and weight. Second, the switch (pun intended) from knobs to buttons. After using the camera for a couple days, I can see the downside to using buttons instead of knobs. With a knob, you can see immediately what state a particular setting is in, but with buttons, you must push the button to make the status show up on the screen. Also, you have to push two buttons at once to change anything, so it's hardly ergonomic.

Even though I would like to use an older, more manual camera, I couldn't resist buying a piece of modern history for just $24. Older cameras have become collectible (and therefore, expensive), so I'll have to wait before I expand my collection. After I get some film pictures scanned in, I'll post the results. I'm not hoping for any miracles with my first roll.

By the way, my inspiration for getting interested in film photography came partially from Brian Auer, who has a great photoblog that is often funny and always informative. One article I liked in particular was 10 Things I Hate About Film. It was a joke article about things that Brian actually loves about film and the loyal internet angermongers came out of the woodwork and took immediate offense without actually reading the article. The comments below the article provide some very entertaining reading.

That's all for now, but stay tuned for some film pictures that hopefully aren't terrible.

Foghiking

Onward!

July 27, 2008: 18mm, f/11, 1/60 sec, ISO100

I hiked on Mt. Lemmon this weekend and I was aiming for Butterfly Trail. However, this has been a wet summer and there is a lot of new growth, so the trail was very difficult (um, impossible?) to follow. This seems to be a problem with a lot of the trails on Mt. Lemmon, so if anyone has a suggestion for a good Mt. Lemmon trail that's easy to follow, let me know. Anyway, I ended up just following a small creek to the top of a hill where I came upon a dirt road that I knew was supposed to intersect with Butterfly Trail. I followed the road until I got back to the trail and then ended up following the trail right back to the same road and losing the trail again. I followed the road back to Catalina highway and walked two miles of paved road back to my car. The hike was still somewhat enjoyable, however, since the mountain was covered in clouds, giving the hike some good atmosphere (literally, I guess). The picture below was taken where the trail might have been. It shows how well the forest is recovering from a recent fire that hit the area.

Lost

July 27, 2008: 18mm, f/11, 1/20 sec, ISO100

I also took a picture from Windy Vista, which is a parking pullout on the drive up the mountain. It shows some of the clouds blowing by. This is also the location where I took the picture used for the title at the top of the page. The drive up Mt. Lemmon is a lot of fun because there is a lot of variety in a small span. As you rise in elevation, the plantlife and rock formations change every 1000 feet or so. During the first part of the drive there are saguaro cacti everywhere you look, but then a little up the road they are nowhere to be seen. Maybe in a future post I'll document the drive to the top.

Windy Vista

July 27, 2008: 18mm, f/11, 1/160 sec, ISO100

Magic Carpet Golf

July 25, 2008: 50mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO100

Magic Carpet Golf is a closed down mini-golf course that holds a special place in a many a Tucsonan's heart. I played there once, as an undergrad, and I must say I was underwhelmed. The sculptures look like a globby, paper-mâché mess similar to what I made in elementary school, only bigger. Still, the course had a certain homemade charm to it that's lacking from the glossy national mini-golf chains. I smile every time I drive by this place and I'll be sad when it gets turned into a parking lot, but I think there is a lesson to be had for owners of mini-golf or other entertainment establishments. If you collect money from your customers, then you should probably spend a little of it on maintenance. If Magic Carpet Golf had maintained their courses better, then maybe they'd still be in business and I could have taken these pictures from inside the grounds instead of from the parking lot outside the spiky fence with "no trespassing" signs all over it. And for that privilege, I would have gladly paid an entrance fee. You can see the entire set of pictures here.

Address

July 25, 2008: 50mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec, ISO100

Sphinx

July 25, 2008: 50mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec, ISO100

Golf Monkey

July 25, 2008: 50mm, f/8, 1/80 sec, ISO100

Exit Only

July 25, 2008: 50mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, ISO100

Lizards

Greater Earless Lizard (Cophosaurus texanus)

July 12, 2008: 300mm, f/8, 1/320 sec, ISO200

I saw this lizard on a the Douglas Springs trail on the East side of Tucson. It was mating season for the flying ants, so I had to duck through swarms of them. The shocking thing is that they mate in mid-air. Sorry, no pictures of that, but I did get a picture of this colorful lizard on a rock. I really liked how this picture turned out because the colors of the lizard contrast so well with the brown desert surroundings. There are a lot of different species of lizards around here, but this was the first time I had seen one like this. As a bonus, check out this other lizard I saw on the same hike:

Regal Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma solare)

July 12, 2008: 250mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO200

This guy was only about 3 inches long, but I don't think I'd want to mess with him. The fun thing about hiking is that I consistently find new animals that I haven't seen before. Yes, in Tucson most of them are lizards, but who doesn't like lizards?