Lost in the Wilderness

Another lonely day in California, but the weather was magnificent and my camera batteries were charged, so there was nothing standing between me and adventure. I had received some advice about what I should do today, but after doing some research this morning, and with some prompting from Richard, I decided to go see some big trees. If there's one thing they know how to do out here, it's big trees.


Some of the smaller big trees I saw. This photo was HDR-modified for your enjoyment. Do not adjust your monitor.

I speculated that Big Basin Redwoods State Park would provide a high-probability of seeing big trees, so at 10am I headed west, through the Santa Cruz mountains, towards my destiny. The twists and turns through the dense forest of the Santa Cruz mountains were most enjoyable, although I think 45mph is a bit fast for some of those turns.


Here is my car in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The car itself leaves much to be desired, but I'm starting to like the colour.


I headed out on the Sequoia trail towards Sempervirens Falls. "Sempervirens" means always green.


I learned that this was the first state park in California, formally created in 1902.


Here is a long-ish exposure of the falls. I actually had to brighten it a bit in post-processing. At the falls lookout, I only had to take pictures for two groups. I hate P&S cameras... they feel so clumsy.


After the falls I headed back towards the park headquarters via another trail. I came across this little guy (and many of his skittish friends) on a rocky clearing.


I simply loved the texture on the trees; I made this photo black & white to emphasize this quality.


In case you didn't believe me, here is a gang of redwoods. (HDR)


This was a funny tree that I've seen before but I don't know the name of. The bark appears to just peel off, leaving behind this smooth, flesh-coloured trunk.


And of course, the flower shot.

I'm an idiot, but that's okay

I went to San Francisco today. I packed up my awesome Slingshot camera bag (thanks Carolyn!) with all my gear: D70, 18-200 lens, macro lens, 50mm lens, tripod, circular polarizer, ND-grad filter, extra memory card, micro-fibre cloth, GPS, card reader, battery charger, water bottle, apple, granola bars. It was heavy, but I was all set for a day of shooting.

I got to San Fransisco around 11:30, and I parked at the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park. I was planning on spending much of the day there, and I was happy to finally get out of the car (see this post).

After about 15 minutes of walking about, taking pictures of random statues of Beethoven and Verdi, I found myself at the Japanese Tea Garden. I paid my $4 to enter and proceeded to photograph the serene surrounds when I noticed the battery symbol flashing on my camera. Uh oh. Well, it's a good thing I learned my lesson long ago and bought a spare battery, right?

Right.

Wrong. Thanks to new US Department of Transportation regulations, I couldn't pack my spare battery in my carry-on luggage. Of course I had forgotten this fact, so my battery remained safely packed away in my suitcase back in the hotel. Great.

I still had my battery charger in the car, but of course the other thing I forgot to pack was the car adapter. Even still, I had just paid $4 so I didn't want to leave. I had no choice but to grin and bear it.

As it happens, batteries have a remarkable ability to retain some residual charge - enough charge to focus and flip the shutter. I couldn't actually see the photos I was taken, so for the next 1.5 hours I was doing it "old school". And I really mean old school, because as in the days when they had to replace the photographic plates after each shot, I had to wait about a minute or so for the battery to recharge. In the digital age, this is very frustrating!

But, remarkably, I did manage to get some good shots. In fact, many turned out much sharper than they usually do, so perhaps I haven't been taking enough setup time for my shots. I've posted a few shots below; all but one are unprocessed because I don't have my image processing softare on this laptop. I will post final versions on flickr when I come home.


A Blue Jay that happened to hop up very close to me. If my battery had been charged I would have snapped 20-30 shots of this guy, but I only managed five in the few moments he was around. I'm really happy with how sharp this image came out. I also performed some HDR (or DRI) on this photo to lighten some of the shadows without blowing out the background.


I'm not sure what this is, but I liked the white against the red.


A shot of a tree with pagoda in the background.


A gorgeous Japanese maple, shot from below.


An iris.

I'm glad that a bunch of photos came out nicely, because the rest of the day was a bust. The battery totally gave out by the end of my stay in the garden, so no more pictures were going to happen until I got another battery. I walked around the park some more, and up Haight St. (supposedly quite famous? I saw lots of tattoo parlours and hippie shops... no camera stores though). I then went back to the car, hoping that my trust GPS would take me to a camera store. What luck, there were several camera stores to try! However, I forgot that the GPS takes pleasure in my failures. For the first camera store the GPS led me directly to a residential area where there was no sign of even a convenience store. The second location was much more promising but alas GPS tricked me again. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me. I wasn't about to be fooled a third time, so I decided I should just go back to the hotel.

Ok, so I was fooled a third time too. I thought I'd try another store supposedly in Palo Alto on University Ave. University Ave sounded promising. Not surprisingly, the Ritz Camera store was not there (I'm beginning to suspect that it's not a real camera chain at all); however, I did find a Wolf Camera store that the GPS didn't know about. Take that little machine! But, it turns out that Wolf Camera sucks. They didn't have my battery. They didn't have the lens I was interested in either (but he could order it... well, so can anyone with an internet connection). Every time I visit the US I gain appreciation for Henry's back home.

Enough complaining. My time in Golden Gate Park was refreshing and memorable. I'm glad I went. I wish I had been able to take some photographs of the Golden Gate Bridge, particularly at sunset, but I suspect I will return one day. Not tomorrow though, as I am through with big cities. Tomorrow is a hiking and relaxation day. And my battery is charging as we speak.

In 0.3 miles keep right...

How many meters is that?!?!



And "keep right" is different than "turn right".



I hate GPS.

A week in the village of Saint Joseph

In case you didn't know it, I'm not at home (but Carolyn is, so don't steal my stuff!). I'm in the land of freedom and firearms for two weeks (although I'm hoping it'll just be one). Specifically, I'm in a place they call San Jose. I can't say I've seen much of it, but it looks like most other American cities I've visited. I am enjoying the warmish weather though (about 15-20 degrees centigrade - yay metric system!); I'm wearing a jacket, but I could take it off, if I wanted to.

I won't bore you with all the details.







But I will bore you with some.

I flew out on Sunday at 10am to Vancouver. The Rocky Mountains are awesome. Beautiful. I saw them only from the airport, but they are truly awe-inspiring. My layover was less than two hours, of which an hour was spent sitting in US Customs awaiting my fate. While my experience wasn't nearly as bad as it's been in the past, but every time I talk to a US Customs official I ask myself why did I agree to go on a business trip to the US.

"What is the purpose of your trip?"
"I'm doing software integration. I'll be installing our software and testing it to make sure it works".
"So... you'll be... testing this... software?"
"Uhm, yeah"
"Oh"

He obviously didn't get straight-A's at jack-ass boot camp, but I'll give him a B for effort. The woman who escorted me to the "nervous room" was, dare I say, almost amicable. The third guy let me through after "checking something out" in the back room (i.e. pee break) and giving me the ol' "you're lucky we let you through this time" spiel. Anyway, I didn't cry, so I think it went well.

The flights were both uneventful. I was bothered that they didn't serve food on the flight to Vancouver. That's five hours! Those jerks. When I fly to Germany it's only slightly longer and I get free wine!

My car, alas, is no Musty, but it did come with GPS which I've mentioned before is a gift and a curse. I've only had to loop around a couple of times.

So here I am in San Jose. I haven't taken a single photo yet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. Really, it doesn't matter because I forgot to pack my card reader. Although that does give me an excuse to go to Fry's...

CSI: Waterloo

The Crime Scene:


The Victim:


The Evidence:






The Cover-up:


The Culprits???

One man's misfortune...

... is another man's fortune. As sad as I am for Richard having to get his camera serviced by Nikon, it did afford me the opportunity to borrow his 50mm lens and flash. I didn't utilize them as much as I should have, but I did play around a bit. Here are some of the results. Not that great when I view them on the monitor, but if you shrink them to 3x3cm they look fine. :)


This shot is taken with the 50mm lens. Cats - when they aren't sleeping - are very tricky subjects, because the refuse to sit still long enough to properly focus (let alone trying to set up the perfect composition). This was the best of a series of photos of Jack looking away.


Another shot with the 50mm. Jack got bored very quickly.


Actually just shot with my regular lens, but I had to throw it in. Jack is loving the chin rub.


This is a macro shot, aided with Richard's SB-600 flash. It's amazing what a difference the flash makes for macro photography. You can crank up the shutter speed to get a sharp image (I was too lazy to set up the tripod), and still have a small aperture to a decent depth-of-field. It is much less frustrating.

Alas, Richard's camera has been fixed and is likely in his hands right now, so I must say goodbye to the equipment that he generously lent to me. Goodbye 50mm lens. Goodbye wireless flash. I'll miss you.

Joke for the day

My friend Alex sent this to me yesterday.

A Czech man felt his eyesight was growing steadily worse, and felt it was time to go see an optometrist.

The doctor started with some simple testing, and showed him a standard eye chart with letters of diminishing size: CRKBNWXSKZY...

"Can you read this?" the doctor asked.

"Read it?" the Czech answered. "Doc, I know him!"