David's Images of the Day Photoblog
We stayed several days at Hosteria El Pilar near El Chaltén in Argentina. I start with an image of a bee hovering near a pink lupine. While reviewing other images from the day, I found several of Mount Fitz Roy at dawn and dusk. There were no clouds in the morning, but at sunset a very unique and colorful cloud developed while we were eating dinner. Desert had to wait until the show was over.
After being up all night for some night sky images, it looked like there could be some color at dawn. I took the chance and drove to the bridge over the Delaware river between Lambertville, NJ and New Hope, PA. The first image is a panorama of 5 images taken with the Nikon 1 V1 and 10 mm f/2.8 lens using Kolor AutoPano Giga Pro. The next two images are HDR composites using Nik HDR Efex Pro from images taken with a Nikon D3x and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens. Bottom line, the Nikon 1 V1 may be good, but I am not giving up my Nikon D3x anytime soon.
Four years ago I attended a photography workshop on the Big Island of Hawaii led by Thom Hogan . We spent Thanksgiving day in and around Volcanoes National Park. Later in the afternoon we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at the Volcano House Hotel with other guests at the Lodge and some local residents.
The day started shooting sunrise over the Kilauea crater. In order to record the wide range of light, I took seven images with different exposure times. These were then processed using Photomatix (a HDR program). While traveling to the next photography location, Thom and Tony spotted a Nene (the Hawaiian state bird, also known as the Hawaiian Goose). The Nene is probably distantly related to Canada geese, however the Nene do not migrate. I guess that once they found Hawaii, they decided to stay 🙂 . The Nene almost went extinct and is now protected by the state. It can also be found on some of the other Hawaiian islands. Finally, Thom helped with a composition including a fern.
Mistakes in Photography. This is what happens when you don’t reset a cameras settings when done for the day. I often leave a camera in my car for quick grab images. It is set to program mode, auto ISO, auto white-balance so I do not have to think about settings. Once I get an image I can go back and fine tune the settings for a better image based on conditions. I forgot to reset the camera to the default settings when I took this image. Oh well — lesson learned AGAIN! The camera was set for a 30 second exposure from some night sky images the night before. When I took the image, I couldn’t understand why the shutter didn’t close. Then remembered that the camera was probably still set up mirror-up/shutter delay mode. There was a car coming up behind me, so I set the camera down — and then the shutter closed. What you see is what should have been an interesting pre-dawn sky + all of the internal car instrument lights and center console GPS.
I stayed at the Historic Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg. This was my last day in Florida, and I took a series of images of the dawn colors over Tampa Bay from my balcony. The Vinoy Hotel is a great place to stay and I want to return.
