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Pink Valley View Yosemite National Park California I've been following David Shield's photos for a while on Flickr and over the past year or so we've built up a Flickr friendship. David lives in the area and we tend to be in similar places at the same time but never in the *same exact spot* at the same time. I let David know that we'd be in Yosemite this last weekend and he replied that he would be too -- at Valley View for sunset! Valley View was about the last place we wanted to shoot since it's shot over and over and over again (and I already have several photos from Valley View) so we thought we might meet up with him afterwards. Willie, Will and I scouted all over Yosemite Valley for the perfect autumn sunset location. Unfortunately mother nature was working against us and the leaves hadn't turned color yet or where they had, it was pretty ugly spot other than 1 pretty tree. We finally decided to just go to Valley View and meet David. We arrived to Valley View pretty late and had to rush to find a spot. I setup at the typical spot but I really liked that the low river exposed rocks and shrubs that I had never seen before! As the sun set the granite began to glow pink -- which was actually pretty awesome! Towards the end of the show David finally strolled over and asked if we were us and sure enough, we met David Shields! Super nice guy and I'm glad I finally got to meet him. Hopefully we can meet up again for some future shooting. If you haven't seen his photos, stroll on over to his stream! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 17mm, f/13, 0.5 sec, ISO 200 B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer, Hitech Soft ND Grad's Color Cast removed using recommendation from D Breezy
Golden Hour Bokeh Yosemite National Park California After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow. I've already posted one shot but I thought I'd post this other perspective of the same little flower guy. I thought there was some nice shape to this plant other than just the dew (which I posted previously). I also loved the bokeh in this shot Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/6.3, 1/25 sec, ISO 400, Tripod
Spikey Thingy Plant Yosemite National Park California After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow. While walking around I found this neat little spiky flower thing that had some frost/dew on it (which you can barely tell) and I thought it had some great shape. This photo's kinda boring, kinda simple but also kinda interesting and neat. Not much to say about it but thought i'd share! Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec, ISO 400
Perfect Falls Lower Bridealveil Falls Yosemite National Park, CA For anyone who's followed my photos for a while this photo may be familiar. I took a very very similar shot about 2-3 years ago. 2 years ago I discovered (as did many others) that when the falls are barely trickling you can walk into the rocks and towards the granite rock face behind Bridalveil. When you get closer all of a sudden this gorgeous little waterfall opens up (I'll call it Lower Bridalveil Falls). I originally took this on a Nikon D40x, handheld, since i had decided to leave my camera/tripod in the car (oops!). I've been wanting to take a better (high quality) photo ever since. Willie, Will, and I only had about 40 minutes before we wanted to hit the road so we ran super fast to the start of the little river where I knew this waterfall would be. We had to slow down when we got to the rocks because they were REALLY slippery and it was fairly complicated making our way through the maze of rocks over to Lower Bridalveil. We got there, setup our tripods as best we could, clicked away, and then raced back. Unfortunately Willie slipped at one point and bumped his shin a bit. He could still walk but it was uncomfortable. I'm not sure I like my new photo better but it was taken with a better camera, with better glass, and with a tripod, so yea. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 27mm, f/10, 0.4 sec, ISO 200, Tripod B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer. Can't remember if I used ND Grad's
A couple years back I was in Yosemite when there wasn't much water and I was able to walk all the way into Bridalveil Falls, almost to the rock face behind the falls. Along the way I found an amazing little mini-falls that turned into one of my favorite photos. While preparing for this Yosemite trip I noticed that Yosemite falls still had water, although only a trickle. I figured that we might be able to get pretty close to Lower Yosemite Falls and it might also make for an interesting photo. Early Sunday morning we woke up and drove over to the lower falls. The water was just a trickle and we could walk along the rocks to get closer to Lower Yosemite Falls. Embarrassingly, along the rock-skipping journey I heard a giant "Rrrrrrriiiiiiiipppp" and looked down to see that my pants had split along my thigh! Luckily they held together long enough to take my photos and get back to my campsite to change. Anyways, I digress…. We were able to get surprisingly close to the rock face that hides behind Yosemite Falls and along the way I kept noticing that where Lower Yosemite Falls hits the rock and creates another falls was this gorgeous scene, which you see above. The further back I walked the better the scene got. The sun started to creep up the granite rock face so I through on the polarizer to block some of the glare off the rocks and used my ND grad's to darken the area that was starting to see the sun. Although I really liked this photo in color (see extra photo in the comments), I thought that a sepia version might make this more unique. I liked that it gave this an almost old time feel to the falls -- like an antique photo! In other news, my newly ordered (but slightly used) D700 arrives soon! I'm excited! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S 42mm, f/16, 0.6 sec, ISO 160, Feisol Tripod B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer, Hitech 0.9 ND Soft, and 0.6 ND Soft.
California Falls Too, Ya Know Yosemite National Park California Willie, Will, and I specifically spent last weekend in Yosemite so that we could capture the fall colors. Unfortunately on Saturday there wasn't much color and while there was a bit more on Sunday, we didn't really find any photogenic spots to photograph. It seemed like all the colorful trees were next to boring ugly spots and not next to anything pretty, like the Merced River. We arrived around 2pm and spent the next 3.5 hours trying to find a spot for sunset. While exploring I walked down to the Merced River where I had seen a couple yellow trees. Although the trees were on the wrong side of the river for sunset, there were numerous leaves that had fallen and made for pretty photos. Note that the leaves fell on this log on their own. I did not place anything or alter the scene in any way. I also did not increase the saturation in this photo. About the only thing I did was reduce some of the noise from taking it at ISO 640 on my D300s. Lazily I left my camera bag in the car and only had my 17-35mm lens on. It would have been better if I had the 24-70 or my 105mm macro but oh well. This came out great anyways. I had to use LiveView to get low and get close enough to this leaf! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 35mm, f/2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO 640, Handheld
Morning Dew Yosemite National Park California For some reason when Willie, Will, and I were at Yosemite this weekend it got *FREEZING* at night. When I say cold, I'm only talking about 41° but to us wimpy Californian's that was cold. We woke up early Sunday morning to try to catch the golden hour with a big tree and Half Dome in the shot. I thought the tree looked ugly and brown and decided to give up on the photo and instead grabbed my macro lens (Willie and Will both got really nice shots, which I'm partially sad I missed but also glad I have something different from Willie for once!). The morning dew was still sticking to the little cobwebs that the spiders had woven over night and it made for some really neat photos. I had a fun time trying to get up really close and get the right angle/composition that I wanted. Luckily it wasn't too windy and I was able to get some shots that were in focus. I also should mention that I use a 3rd party battery grip on my D300s, which for the most part I love, however, it drives me nuts when using it to shoot macro. The battery grip doesn't connect to the camera all that sturdy and the lens slips a couple millimeters when I let go of the lens to take the photo (since the camera bends in between the grip and the camera). I end up having to compose a bit higher than I want and let the camera settle back down to where I want. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/5.6, ¼ sec, ISO 500, Tripod
One of my jobs at work is to run the Summer Intern Committee that puts on a program for the 70 or so interns this summer. Amongst the many events that we planned, we decided to take 25 interns to Yosemite for the weekend! We did not have work on Friday and we piled into cars and drove the 3.5 hours over to Yosemite. Once everyone arrived we grabbed lunch in Curry Village and then hiked up Vernal Falls. Due to the massive amount of water and the number of deaths on this trail (including 3 this week!) several of us didn't want to take the Mist Trail back down. Instead we took a trail that lead up for about 0.75 miles, met up with the John Muir trail and then headed back down to the base of the Valley. On the connector trail was this *gorgeous* view-point that I never knew existed! I love how this point has a high vantage -- you can see the entire falls and get a sense of the scale of how much water and how big this waterfall is! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 20mm, f/11, 1/320 sec, ISO 250, Handheld
Butter Hetch Hetchy Resevoir Yosemite National Park, CA Every year I head to Yosemite National Park for my birthday. Last year was a fluke year and it was miserably cold and snowed on us. The weather for our trip this year looked only mildly better but turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. It was warm (perfect hiking weather, not too hot but not cold), sunny, and just wonderful. On Sunday we slept in a little bit, packed up the campsite, and ventured over to Hetch Hetchy, an 8 mile long man-made reservoir that feeds San Francisco and the Bay Area with clean drinking water. In the early 1900's the O'Shaughnessy Dam was built that turned the gorgeous Hetch Hetchy Valley into a reservoir. Today you can hike along numerous trails on the edges of the reservoir. We started the 5 mile round trip hike to Wapama Falls and found this butterfly enjoying a wonderful purple flower. I only had my 17-35mm f/2.8 lens with me and didn't think I could get a decent shot before the butterfly flew away but she decided to stay and hang out for several minutes while I clicked about 60 shots and got nice and close (note that this was shot at 35mm!!!). If only I had my 105mm macro this could have been even awesomer of a shot! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 35mm, f/3.5, 1/1250 sec, ISO 320, Handheld B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer
Golden Hour Bokeh
Yosemite National Park
California

After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow.

I've already posted one shot but I thought I'd post this other perspective of the same little flower guy. I thought there was some nice shape to this plant other than just the dew (which I posted previously). I also loved the bokeh in this shot

Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro:
105mm, f/6.3, 1/25 sec, ISO 400, Tripod
Golden Hour Bokeh Yosemite National Park California After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow. I've already posted one shot but I thought I'd post this other perspective of the same little flower guy. I thought there was some nice shape to this plant other than just the dew (which I posted previously). I also loved the bokeh in this shot Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/6.3, 1/25 sec, ISO 400, Tripod" href="javascript:openLB(1566205023,'',XLarge,'',1024,680);">Golden Hour Bokeh Yosemite National Park California After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow. I've already posted one shot but I thought I'd post this other perspective of the same little flower guy. I thought there was some nice shape to this plant other than just the dew (which I posted previously). I also loved the bokeh in this shot Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/6.3, 1/25 sec, ISO 400, Tripod
Golden Hour Bokeh
Yosemite National Park
California

After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow.

I've already posted one shot but I thought I'd post this other perspective of the same little flower guy. I thought there was some nice shape to this plant other than just the dew (which I posted previously). I also loved the bokeh in this shot

Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro:
105mm, f/6.3, 1/25 sec, ISO 400, Tripod
See photo in original gallery.
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