Month: December 2014

These colorful striped leaves growing in a sidewalk planter box in front of a historic building on Commercial Street in Auburn caught my eye this afternoon. When I saw this cluster of new leaves emerging with the background of the other colorful leaves, I knew I had my shot.

Nikon D800; Focal Length 70mm; ISO 100; f/3.2; 1/250s

My recent trip to Europe so preoccupied me that I completely forgot that it is now Dungeness crab season along the north coast of California. My favorite seafood of any kind is Dungeness crab and I am never happier than when I have an entire crab to myself. With all of the hoopla about the impending catastrophic storm that has yet (as I write) to strike other than to drop steady and welcome amounts of rain in drought parched California, I made a quick stop at the supermarket late this morning to pick up something I needed. As I strode past the fish market, the huge pile of crabs caught my eye. What better food to have during a storm than fresh caught Dungeness crab. If the power does go out as they are predicting, no cooking is involved. And, with the bad weather, these are likely the last crabs we’ll have for a few days as the crab fisherman usually avoid the stormy weather. I veered over to the pile of crabs, selected a lovely 1 and 3/4 pound specimen and left the store a happy camper. This lovely crab will be my first crab indulgence of the season.

I haven’t visited my daily challenge group in many weeks and when I checked the list of available challenges today, one was “balanced.” All ten claws, five on each side, make up a balanced crab. I’ll balance out the meal with a loaf of sourdough French bread, maybe a squeeze of lemon, and a bottle of something red and delicious. A balanced meal, indeed!

D800 with 24-70mm lens; Focal Length 60mm; ISO 100; f/18; 6 second exposure. I used natural window light but decided to “balance” out the light using a little LED flashlight to even up the side away from the window.

The long-absent Pineapple Express is returning to Northern California tonight. In the Sacramento region, we have high wind warnings of up to 60mph and we are on flood watch because of the potential of 6 inches of rain falling in the area in a very short time. The combination of high wind and copious amounts of rain is expected to bring the most violent storm we’ve had in the region since 2008 when the winds toppled the eucalyptus tree in my front yard. The so-called Pineapple Express is a non-technical term used by weather people here when describing a wet and windy storm originating in the Pacific near Hawaii. Since our drought deprived reservoirs are very low, catastrophic flooding is not expected.

Because I’m still practicing with my little Sony camera, and because I now know how to change all manual exposure settings quickly, I decided to try closeup photography with it today, focusing on a pineapple I had. It seemed an appropriate subject given the weather forecast. I set the camera on a tripod and took these shots, still using manual exposure settings. The camera allows closeup focusing within 2 inches when the lens is at its wide angle setting. I filled the frame with the pineapple. I continue to be impressed with the camera. Except for slight cropping of the first and third shots, I made only relatively minor adjustments. I think it renders color well and close detail seems outstanding.

I cropped the first shot in a square format. Focal Length 10.4mm; ISO 100; f/9; .6s; WB, cloudy

I wanted to see how the camera handled shallow depth of field. I think it did an excellent job with only a very small part of the image in focus.

Focal Length 10.4mm; ISO 100; f/1.8; 1/60s, WB cloudy

After peeling and slicing the pineapple, I wanted to try deep depth of field in a closeup. I cropped the shot in a square format. Focal Length 10.4mm; ISO 100; f/11; 1/8s; WB cloudy

Two days before I left for my trip to Europe in November, I decided I needed a backup camera to take with me. I knew I didn’t want to take my other DSLR because it was too heavy and bulky so, when I stopped at Costco to pick up a few last minute odds and ends for the trip, I glanced at their compact camera selection to see if there was something there that I could use. What caught my eye was the Sony CyberShot DSC-RX100 II digital camera. It has a sharp Carl Zeiss lens; it allows full manual exposure operation; and it allows shooting in RAW. These three things sold me on the camera but, as a Costco package, it came with a precisely fitted leather (or at least leather looking) case and a 32Gig SD card. Perfect I thought. Into my shopping cart it went. Too busy packing after I bought it, I intended to read up on the camera’s operation on the long flight to Barcelona. The manual is very brief and offered little insight into the camera’s operation. I did skim it on the flight but, because of the manual’s brevity, I figured I could wing it. After all, I have two relatively complicated DSLR cameras that I am pretty good at operating; I shoot mostly in manual exposure mode; and I shoot RAW. How hard could this “point and shoot” be?

Close to impossible, as it turned out. On the trip, as I grumbled about my inability to figure out how to take photos with this camera, Charleen laughed and tried to assuage my concerns by telling me it was too easy for me. Well, NOT! After making error after error, unintentionally setting functions I didn’t want, and taking terrible, unfocused photos when in any setting other than full automatic, I gave up. When I got home, I reread the manual and still found no help. After a couple more days of complete frustration, I did some on-line research and found that I was not alone in my frustration. The complexity of the camera and the wide range of features has stymied quite a few of its owners. I discovered a “how to” book for this camera and downloaded a Kindle version. It is 455 pages and although it will take me a while to plow through it, it has an index and I can finally figure out to work this camera.

Today, I am starting to master the basics. Bobo was my practice subject. I learned how to set shutter speed, f/stop, and ISO in manual mode. It seems to handle high ISO well. I also learned that the lens has a 35mm equivalent focal length range of 28 to 100mm (actual is 10.4 to 37.1mm) and only offers its f/1.8 aperture at 28mm; at 100mm the maximum aperture is f/4.9. I have much to learn but I have confidence now that I have a reference guide.

Bobo was trying to take a nap when I took this shot. She seems less intimidated by this small camera than by my huge Nikon D800 with its protruding lenses and she stayed relaxed, standing on one foot, and nodded in and out of sleep while I photographed her.

Focal Length 37.1mm (35mm equivalent would be 100mm) ISO 3200, f/4.9, 1/50s

We arrived in Lyon for the second time mid afternoon on Tuesday, November 25. We boarded the AmaDagio in Lyon the previous Thursday after flooding in southern France forced a modification of our river cruise. The water was too high for the AmaDagio to pass under some of the bridges on the Rhȏne River. So, instead of starting in Arles and cruising up the Rhȏne River to Lyon, we boarded in Lyon and cruised down river. However, because we were slated to visit the Beaujolais region and experience the release of the 2014 Nouveau Beaujolais wines in the region near Lyon, the AmaDagio brought us back to Lyon in time for our previously scheduled tour and tasting in a winery featuring Nouveau Beaujolais wine, the first wine of the harvest, only 30 days old…quite delicious, I might add. But my photos today don’t involve wine. Rather they focus on panoramas.

Until this morning, I’d never created a panorama shot although I’ve taken many shots intended for that purpose over the past couple of years. Now that Photoshop makes it so easy to merge a group of shots into one, I plan to do it more often. A Scott Kelby training video I watched a couple of years ago introduced me to the concept and, using Scott’s hint (at the start take a photo of one finger to indicate the starting point, then take your group of shots for the pano, then take a shot of 2 fingers to indicate the end) I hope I will be able to locate the shots I intended to use as panos. Whether I’ll be able to do that, however, is anybody’s guess.

These three panos represent three different views of Lyon. I took a group of shots to create the first pano by leaning out of the so-called French Balcony in our room on the AmaDagio. A French balcony is a sliding glass door with bars across to keep guests from stepping out and dropping into the water below.

I took the shots for the second panorama from atop a high hill overlooking Lyon toward the Rhȏne River. The AmaDagio is down there somewhere but I’m not sure where.

I took the shots for the nighttime panorama from the top deck of the AmaDagio. I used my new Manfrotto travel tripod and, true to form, I failed to practice with it before the trip. As a result, and fumbling in the the dark on deck, I was not successful in capturing the kind of shots I sought. I discovered that the travel ball head does not have a pano setting, at least in the dark I was unable to find it, so I had to move the tripod for each shot. I gave up before I got too frustrated. I ended up with only a few in focus shots to use in this panorama making it a bit less panoramic than the others.

I am just starting to review the 7000 plus photos I took on my trip to Spain and France. I loved the windows and took lots of photos of windows including this one, somewhere in Tournon, France.

The Placer County mandarins are here. They started appearing just before I left for Europe and I had a taste then but today when I was in Rocklin getting my espresso beans from Vaneli’s, I stopped at the Xmas tree lot on Pacific St. where they sell 5 pound bags of sweet, juicy, delicious Satsuma mandarins grown in Penryn. I came home with two bags, enough Vitamin C to eradicate my cold. After devouring several, I decided to make them my photo of the day but just a pile of mandarins didn’t seem to do them justice. I elevated them a bit by placing a few in a wine glass. Of course, setting them on Bobo’s window seat to photograph them was too much for the curious bird. Down she came to investigate.

Both the male and the female hummers greeted me this morning. I saw them at the feeders and grabbed my camera. Of course they retreated to the dead branches of the photinea shrub, quite aware that I was standing in the doorway with my 80-400mm lens prepared to capture them on the wing at the feeders. That never happened so these are shots of a male and female Anna’s hummingbird perched high up in the shrubs. The skies cleared briefly when I took the shot of the female so there is a bit more color in the sky but the overcast kept any color from showing in the male’s gorget.

Wow. We needed rain. We got rain——torrents of rain. As I write this, 5PM Wednesday, the National Weather Service is issuing a local flash flood warning via the Emergency Alert System.

I awoke this morning with the cold my recent traveling companions suffered in Paris. I cancelled several scheduled appointments but by mid afternoon I was feeling a bit better with the help of some DayQuil and some “sign to prove you’re not Walter White” Sudafed, so I did venture out to see my accountant to take care of a long-delayed tax matter. On the way home, the skies opened up, lightening flashed and thunder crashed around me, and the roads, gutters already filled with fallen leaves, quickly flooded. I took quite a few detours to avoid the flooded streets on the way home. The skies cleared suddenly and briefly in the west to produce a rainbow. I pulled over and took a photograph through the rain spattered car window. The rainbow was still brilliant when I arrived home, and with no possible detours at the last turn, I had to drive through the flooded connector street to get to my house. I took the second shot in my backyard.

It is, thankfully, raining here today and it seemed to me to be a “soup” day. I had almost all the ingredients on hand to make split pea soup, one of my favorites, so when I went to pick up Bobo at her Vet where she boarded while I was away, I picked up the few ingredients I needed, including a baguette. As obsessed as I was over French baguettes which I devoured with great gusto everywhere I found them in France, I neglected to get any closeup photographs of an authentic French baguette. The “handcrafted” Nob Hill baguette from my local Bel Air supermarket has to stand in today for a French one. To add a bit of authenticity, as a background, I used my 35 year old “Paris-Bistro” apron, a wedding shower gift from my friend Melinda, which purports to be “désigné en France pour les gourmands sérieux”—designed in France for serious gourmets. I’m not a serious gourmet but I do love this apron.

And, as an aside, regarding the great gusto with which I devoured the baguettes, all of the delicious meals in Spain and France, and the copious amounts of wine during my two weeks in food and wine heaven, I gained only 4.4 pounds. I walked 64.4 miles (144,620 steps recorded thanks to my Fitbit); 7 of the days were aboard ship or on sightseeing excursions where our steps were limited to an average of less than 3 miles a day. While in Barcelona and Paris, we averaged walking more than 6 miles a day.