The two faces of El Castillo

Posted on 17 February, 2014 by Eric

The “marquis” structure at the ancient Maya ruins of Chichén Itzá, El Castillo (a.k.a. the Pyramid of Kukulkan):

What most tourist brochure photos don’t show you, though, are its two faces. The pyramid’s north and west sides have been fully restored (so, look as close to “new” as we can get), while the south and east sides have just been consolidated and stabilized (and so, look rougher). In the shot above, north is to the right — the pyramid’s north face is what you’ll most often see on postcards and such.

The Queen’s Bath, revisited

Posted on 15 February, 2014 by Eric

Along with all the amazing ruins, the ancient Maya site of Palenque also offers some really nice waterfalls not too far from the site center. Dubbed the “Queen’s Bath,” it’s actually a series of waterfalls with terraces. It can be a really amazing thing to see and photograph.

But can it ever change its appearance with the seasons.

Our most recent trip to Palenque was timed to fall just after the end of the wet season, in early December. Enough water was flowing in the Otolum creek to give the Queen’s Bath some life:

Note that this is a 1/13 second exposure, so you can see that you can get some nice blurring of the water without a tripod (note that you can’t use a tripod in the ruins without a permit requiring paperwork in advance, etc.). At least, an exposure like this will work if your camera or lens offers image stabilization.

For comparison’s sake, here’s a shot taken from nearly the same spot two years earlier (but at the end of the dry season, in mid-May):

Wide zooms (for micro 4/3 cameras) compared

Posted on 23 January, 2014 by Eric

For a brief period of time, I owned three wide zooms that worked well on my Olympus E-M1 body — so I thought I should take the opportunity to compare their performance on a quick walk around a neighborhood park. Actually writing up this review took a bit of time, and was prompted by an excellent comparison of two of these lenses over on Small Camera Big Picture.

A warning to pixel peepers: what follows is a real-life experiential comparison.

The lenses, as you can see, were the Olympus 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 (4/3 system) lens on an MMF-3 adapter, the new Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 lens, and the Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm f/2.8 lens. The 12-60 I’ve had for years, the 12-35 was a “gap-filler” purchase (for use while waiting for the 12-40mm to ship), and the 12-40mm my planned go-to lens going forward.

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Drama over Seven Dolls

Posted on 17 January, 2014 by Eric

With a bit of help from some HDR software (NIK HDR Efex Pro), here’s a scene of building storm clouds behind the Temple of the Seven Dolls at the ancient Maya ruins of Dzibilchaltún:

As I mentioned in a previous post, you can’t climb the steps of this structure any more. Still, there’s plenty of cleared and accessible space available around it — so it’s not too tough to make a good photo of it. Here, one of the structures called “Adjoining Rooms” blocks your view of the fencing around the Temple’s base.

I made this photo from just west of Structure 12 (which is also now fenced off). On spring and autumn equinoxes, the Sun rises in the temple’s door, directly in line with the stela that frames the left side of this image. As you might imagine, that means those dates are quite crowded ones at this (normally sparsely visited) site.

Just between us two

Posted on 15 January, 2014 by Eric

We’re still in that fortunate window of time in which our daughter isn’t quite old enough to think of the Stock Show as “uncool,” so we made it downtown for the Mexican Rodeo (now officially the “20th Mexican Rodeo Extravaganza”). Unfortunately this means the show was longer-than-usual on extravaganza and shorter-than-usual on rodeo, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

With some fast glass, the Olympus OM-D E-M1 is proving itself to be quite the sports shooter. Here, with a Panasonic 35-100 f/2.8 zoom, I captured an interesting mix of expressions on the horse’s and caballero’s faces. It almost looks as though they’re in the middle of an argument — and given that this was part of the bucking bronc competition, I suppose you could say they were.

Temple of the Frescoes (revisited)

Posted on 7 January, 2014 by Eric

It’s the Temple of the Frescoes, in the ancient Maya ruins of Tulum, Mexico:

Compare it to a photo from my previous visit, and you can see there’s been an unfortunate addition during the past few years — bracing in a couple of the doorways over on the photo’s left. Apparently, the structure’s developing some structural issues — hopefully they can be addressed without too much change to the building.

Temple of the Seven Dolls

Posted on 31 December, 2013 by Eric

The star attraction at the ancient Maya ruins of Dzibilchaltún, Yucatán, Mexico:

The Temple of the Seven Dolls was named for some small clay figurines found in an offering under its floor. Sadly, a fence now keeps visitors from climbing its steps, much less looking inside the structure (likely due to vandalism seen at other well-visited sites).

All lit up

Posted on 24 December, 2013 by Eric

There’s a house in our corner of town whose owners go above and beyond when it comes to Christmas yard decorations. Â The tree is just the start of things:

But as I said, that’s just the start. You have to see the whole yard for the full effect:

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Frosty mirror

Posted on 22 December, 2013 by Eric

A few nights ago, we took advantage of a warmer night to check out the “Blossoms of Light” display at the Denver Botanic Gardens. They put on a nice show, as always, and it hasn’t been as warm since — so, fortunate timing.

I took this shot toward the north end of the gardens; with the lens closed down to f/22, a nice long exposure erased the slow parade of other viewers along the path…