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This winter’s weather has not presented many opportunities for wintry photography. I did manage to get to a frozen section of Wherspann Lake here in Omaha and do some leaf and ice abstracts. While leaf in ice photographs are fairly common, each is still beautiful in it’s own unique way.
Technical Details:
Canon 50D, 50 CM lens, f/11, 1/100 sec.
Chalco Hills Recreation Area, Nebraska
For years I have visited DeSoto, my family often in tow. My eldest daughter, Riley loved to run the halls of the visitor center and look at the artifacts of the old Bertrand steamboat that had met its end in the mud and muck of what became DeSoto lake. I would occasionally visit by myself, finding a quiet solitude on the Cottonwood trail or on the shore of the lake.
The flooding of the Missouri this past spring, summer and into the fall affected lives, changed landscapes, and even modified the course of the river. Nuclear power plants stayed shut down, roads and highways were under water and destroyed, houses and farms were devastated. DeSoto was among the areas that was hit hard. The lake rose several feet and aerial photographs showed a large body of water covering the land that once existed in the former oxbow of the Missouri River.
The water has now receded. A week ago I returned to photograph it once again with a friend, Jayson Alder. Today I am presenting some images from that trip. I invite you to also check out Jayson’s blog to see what he captured as we hiked along the Cottonwood trail. I would also like to thank him for letting me use his 100 2.8 Macro lens. I really don’t need any help in wanting more equipment, but I must say the lens performed well. From the short time I used it, I do recommend taking a look at getting one if you are interested in doing some macro. Right now I use a 50 CM lens which works well, but you have to be close to your subject and it autofocuses ssssllllloooooowwww. Of course, it is one of only two lenses that remain from Canons original EF lineup from the 80s! The faster focus and longer distance of the 100 2.8 Macro was nice!
Since the winter hasn’t really come yet, I feel the need to go back to my Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado photographs I captured in May just to get something wintry. Yes, May for a winter feel photo and 50s for January in Nebraska. Different for sure.
Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 24mm f/3.5L TS-E Lens, f/11, 1/3 sec., 2-stop Singh-Ray Soft Grad
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
In January and February I reported that I had acquired a new lens – the Canon 24 TS-E II f/3.5L. I made a complete report regarding the capabilities of this lens in my post Photo Friday: Winter Prairie Sunset. On my May trip to Colorado I was very excited to try out the capabilities of the lens. I’ve mentioned using the tilt feature on some images from Colorado, but in today’s post I utilized both the Tilt (for DOF) and the Shift (for stitching). To capture this scenic winter landscape, I knew I had to place the lens horizontal as a panoramic created by using a vertical shift might be distorted by the moving water as panoramic stitching often has issues with movement. Horizontally, the water and movement would be in one frame and the sky in another. I started with the lens centered on my image – that is the mountains were placed exactly center on my composition. I then tilted the plane of the lens until everything was in focus. It was at this point that I placed my filters and shifted the lens down. I captured the first image and then shifted the lens up, careful to make sure there was some overlap in the image and then capturing the second image.
Back in Photoshop I merged the two into one big 36 megapixel image. This makes an astounding large print due to the ability to tilt, the sharpness of the lens, and the added megapixels. While I would love every image to be like this one, the right conditions definitely presented themselves for this capture. I must say, this is one of my favorites of the trip, not just for the beautiful scene that nature gave me, but also for everything falling into place technically. Really, I recommend this lens to anyone wanting to capture grand landscapes, but it takes time and patience to understand all the nuances of the lens.
One added bonus – people are sometimes looking for a horizontal or vertical representation of a scene for a particular use. This image has the benefit of being a 24 megapixel vertical (2:3 ratio) photograph
or a 20.5 megapixel (2:3 ratio) horizontal.
Not bad for offering choices!
Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 24 TS-E II f/3.5L, f/14, .5 s, 3-stop ND-Soft Grad, 2 images stitched
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
As I mentioned last week, this post is an image of the area near Dream Lake after a night of heavy snowfall received in mid-May in Rocky Mountain National Park. This location is not far from the previous image, maybe normally a 10 minute walk, but in the deep snow, it took about a half hour. While I did make it all the way to the lake itself, it was nearly completely covered in snow and the conditions prevented me from setting up my tripod. By walking back a little bit, I found this enclave which allowed me to grab some images of the fierce weather conditions and the peaks of Hallet and Flattop as they appear, slightly obscured from the blowing snow.
Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 40mm, f/9, 1/320 sec.
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 24mm T/SE, f/8, 1/25, 3-stop Grad ND Singh-Ray Filter
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
After a fairly heavy snowfall the day before, I decided to climb up to Dream Lake to capture the recent snowfall with the sunrise. This was one of the hardest hikes under 1 mile (One way) that I have ever undertaken. The snow was deep, I had no snowshoes, and the wind and snow blew fiercely. To boot, I had to cross Nymph Lake and the snow was up to my waist. Needless to say, the snow combined with the weight of my gear caused my progress to be slower than I had originally calculated so I did not make it to Dream Lake before the sun grazed the mountain tops. I was, however, in a position to have a spectacular view of Long’s Peak. I did make it to Dream Lake eventually, which I will present next Friday.
Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 @ 34mm, f/8, 1/320
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
On the hike down, I stopped to capture this view of Long’s Peak still obscured by the blowing snow and clouds. It was a serene morning filled with quiet solitude, although I did see one snowshoer ascending a different route as I was descending.