Sculptural

Posted on 18 June, 2010 by Eric

Another geological abstract shot from lower Antelope Canyon in Arizona:

If you’re planning a trip to Antelope Canyon and you’re taking a DSLR, you should give some thought in advance to just what lens(es) you should put on your camera body(ies). Fortunately, you’ve got a strong ally in this effort — namely, Flickr.

Before the trip, scan through Antelope Canyon shots that other people have posted to Flickr to find ones you particularly like. Then, when EXIF data is available for the shots, take note of the focal lengths used for the images — this will give you a very good idea of what you want to be taking along on your trip.

In my case, the images I liked best seemed to be taken with focal lengths around 20-30mm (35mm equiv.). So since I have Olympus four-thirds camera bodies (2x crop factor), I aimed for 10-20mm focal lengths in my lenses. So I had a 7-14mm lens on my E-3 body (primary camera) and 14-54mm lens on my E-520 body (backup). Whichever camera wasn’t being used at the time rested in a padded torso pack (ThinkTank Change Up) to protect it from accidental dings. Meanwhile, both camera bodies were outfitted with quick-release plates for my tripod so I could switch back and forth quickly.

Oh, and both camera bodies have lanyards — so whichever one was in use was tethered to my wrist at all times. Particularly important when there’s nothing soft for a camera to land on if you drop it.

Passageway

Posted on 11 June, 2010 by Eric

Another shot from lower Antelope Canyon:

And some more travel trips to go with it

Our visit to the canyon was on Memorial Day (a U.S. holiday held on the last Monday in May), and the trip through the canyon was dry as a bone. Some fellow travelers, though, told us they’ve gone through in winter and found spots chest deep in mud. So if you’re not traveling in summer months, make sure you have a change of clothing you’re willing to sacrifice to the hike — the pink mud permanently stains whatever you’re wearing.
It wasn’t terribly hot when we visited, but remember that you can’t exactly get out in the middle of the canyon to get that water bottle out of your car — take a bottle with you on your hike.
I’d been told before that a flashlight was a necessary thing to take on a trip through the canyon, but we never used ours. Maybe this is another winter (or early morning / late afternoon) thing?
Dust — there’s lots of it in the canyon. I’d recommend picking one lens for your camera(s) before you head in, then leaving it on. Swapping lenses in a dusty environment like this one is likely to get a lot of gunk into your camera. My solution: I have two camera bodies, I put complimentary lenses on the two of them and left them there.

I’ll talk more about photo gear in my next Antelope Canyon post…

Getting to Antelope Canyon

Posted on 6 June, 2010 by Eric

If you’re at all into outdoor photography, you’ve likely seen shots from Antelope Canyon in Arizona — even if you didn’t know it at the time. This is the first in the series of posts I’ll be writing about a little detour we took to the canyon on a recent trip to see relatives in Arizona.

Antelope Canyon is actually a series of “slot canyons” in the drainages leading to Lake Powell in northern Arizona. Should you decide you want to see it, you’ll first have to get comfortable with a lot of driving, then you’ll have to decide which of two sections you’d like to see. Upper Antelope Canyon is somewhat more photogenic — but it’s been “discovered,” and so (I’ve heard) can be swamped by people being shuffled through it by the tightly-scheduled truckload.

Since ours was a family trip, we opted for Lower Antelope Canyon, instead. Much less crowded, not at all hectic, you can wander through at nearly your own pace (up to an hour as part of a “group,” up to 4 hours if you spend a few dollars extra for a “photographer pass”), and still very beautiful. Oh, and if you go this route, make sure to swing by an ATM first. When we went it cost $28 per adult and $16 per child (12-18), and payment is by cash only. We opted for a group outing (vs. photo pass) since I doubted our 8 year old would really be interested in spending 4 hours underground.

Anyway, when it comes to getting there, the biggest nearby city is Flagstaff — so let’s just say for the sake of argument that it’s your jumping-off point. From there, you drive about 2 hours north to an intersection just south of Page, then turn east on Highway 98. Once you pass the turnoff for Lechee, the road you want is the first left onto a paved drive, then take another left on a dirt road down to the parking lot. If you make it to one of the power plant roads (can’t miss this, it’s HUGE), you’ve gone too far and need to turn around.

Antelope Canyon from Page

Once you pay your fees, your guide takes you out to the entrance to the lower canyon, which is basically a hole in the ground — hardly looks wide enough from a distance, but it’s straightforward if you’re not carrying too much extra weight (either bodily, or in the form of camera gear).

This gal spoke German (and I only know a few words of it), but I have to think at the time she was saying something along the lines of “you’ve GOT to be kidding me!”

Access to this section of the canyon has improved dramatically since the addition of metal ladders bolted into the stone here and there. Mind you, some years back a group of people died here in a flash flood — it was raining far upstream, the local guides told them to get out, but the tourists’ stubbornness and the (then-used) rope ladders out combined to thwart their escape.

Anyway, if you’re reasonably good shape, you’ll have no problem getting down into the canyon (or out again). And make sure you pay attention to what the guides tell you to do.

Once you’re into the canyon, things get easier — more elbow room, although there are still some tight spots here and there. One thing you’ll need to contend with, though, is a wide range of lighting — something like a 10 stop difference between light and shadow. I’d recommend you do some multi-exposure HDR work if you want to wind up with a good shot — otherwise, you’ll have to content yourself with some really low contrast shots. This advice is particularly relevant if you get any sky in your image, like this one:

This, BTW, is an HDR image (3 shots 1 stop apart, with a bit of noise cleanup afterward). More to come…

The local and the visitors

Posted on 3 June, 2010 by Eric

A recent trip to Arizona left me and the little one with some time on our hands — so we spent it at the Phoenix Zoo. While I was there, this little scene lined up for me, so I just had to capture it:

Night along the trail

Posted on 30 April, 2010 by Eric

So let’s say you take a trip to Hawaii and manage to hike out to where the lava meets the sea. Pretty spectacular, particularly at night:

But of course, you hiked there in the dark (likely) over near-black lava (certainly), and now you need to get back to your car, in the dark. Makes for a pretty tough scene unless you brought a flashlight. Luckily, though, most folks remember this little item of equipment (although you’d be surprised how many show up unprepared)

Once you’re back at the trailhead, you can take a long-exposure shot of the folks behind you on the trail:

If you’re having trouble visualizing what’s going on, here’s a VERY STRETCHED shorter exposure shot from the same spot:

Note that all the ground below the horizon is solidified lava flows, the sky is only visible here because I took this on a cloudy night. I’m still amazed at how much detail is visible in this frame…

All we need now is the president…

Posted on 24 April, 2010 by Eric

A few days ago, we got back from a quick family vacation to the Washington D.C. area — in part driven by the lucky acquisition of tickets to this spring’s White House garden tour. Those words probably make the thing sound more exclusive than it is in reality — it’s more like the world’s longest conga line, just you and a few thousand of your closest new friends shuffling through the White House grounds between ropes.

Still, it’s as close as most of us will ever get to the place (particularly with a camera!)…

This shot came from right in front of the White House, looking across the rose garden (just tulips in bloom…) toward the steps outside of the Oval Office. I think leaving the building out of focus and mostly out of frame gives the shot a sort of expectant look, as though a big event is about to take place. Of course, the President was out of town at the time, so only some miscellaneous staffers appeared when we were there.

Racing

Posted on 27 March, 2010 by Eric

This is my first decent attempt at a shot using a lot of motion blur

On our trip to the Canadian Maritimes last summer, one stop was at New Brunswick’s Hopewell Rocks. The setup is pretty handy — there’s a big parking lot, a nice visitor center, and a trail down to the shoreline. But let’s say the weather’s wet and cold (as it was for us), and some members of your party don’t want to walk all the way back to the car (ditto).

Well, they have a shuttle service (costs a few dollars) that will take you back and forth in a little train of cars. But as luck had it, the shuttle wasn’t running too frequently when we visited — so we hitched a ride on the back of a ranger’s vehicle. Sort of a cross between an ATV and a golf cart, it got up to maybe 25 miles/hour on the dirt service road. We were hanging on for dear life, my 7 year old was laughing hysterically the whole way, and I got this shot looking back down the road.

Fun!

Taking it back

Posted on 9 March, 2010 by Eric

Nature reclaiming what once was hers at the now-shuttered George Inlet cannery (near Ketchikan, Alaska):

The cannery was closed in 1957, but parts are still open for tours (fun if you like learning how things used to be done). It’ll be interesting to see how much of the cannery the current owners will leave to naturally decay…

The scarp

Posted on 6 March, 2010 by Eric

I grabbed this scene along the west coast of Newfoundland, in Gross Morne National Park:

Amazing place — during the ice ages, this was nearly all under water. All, except for what are now mountains. Once the ice melted, the land “rebounded,” and what once were fjords became deep valleys (while the nearby seabed became a coastal plain that people live on and tourists drive on).

Not your ordinary tide pool

Posted on 18 February, 2010 by Eric

In a post over on the old blog, I talked a bit about (and shared some video from) the green sand beach near South Point, on the big island of Hawaii. If you find yourself “in the neighborhood” but can’t (or don’t want to) hike to the beach, you do have alternatives.

This isn’t “the” green sand beach, this is a little tide pool about a mile away — but it’s managed to collect some of its neighbor’s sand just the same. It only covers about 200 square feet (so 20″ish” square meters), but it’s considerably closer to the trailhead.