Its monarch time again on the west coast. This is the beginning of the monarch migration. Now, on the west coast, the monarchs are starting to collect by the thousands in weather protected groves from Mexico all the way up to the San Francisco area.
I stopped by a local monarch grove (Pismo state park) about a week ago and the count was at 7600. A good start and enough to think about going there to get that perfect Monarch Butterfly picture.
They have docents there as well as a trailer where you can buy lots of things you don’t need. Additionally they have a short class on monarchs a couple times a day.
If you’re in the area it’s definitely worth a stop (plan 1hr or more if you have a camera with you).
Here’s a map to the Pismo location
http://hutsonphotography.com/map/butterflys.jsp
The monarchs are my version of the fall colors (since the closest good fall colors are a more than 6 hours away). I always enjoy going to both the Pismo site and the Goleta site (also on the map) and always come back with at least one decent shot.
Just an interesting side note I saw an article at Science Daily (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061120060308.htm) that seems to indicate that the reduction of monarch populations at the migration sites is possibly due to reduced food sources. They did studies and areas where they restored forests there was an increase in monarchs at the migration sites.
Now there’s a huge subject, and actually I don’t want to talk about colors in general just one particular point, or actually one particular color, black. I took a black and white photography class a few years ago. In the class the teacher said that Ansel Adams always felt it was important to have a pure black and pure white in every print. During the class I never tried to get a pure black in my prints. I didn’t think it was important. Since then I’ve grown in my understanding of photography. Now I understand the importance of pure blacks in a print. When you set a black point in photoshop using curves it can take care of a lot of problems. The first thing I notice when setting a black point is it takes care of a lot of color cast issues. The second thing with setting a black point it increases contrast. With increased contrast details become more defined and haze in the print clears up (prints pop). Setting a black point to black is the fastest way to improve a print.
To set black using curves in photoshop is fairly easy. In the navigator window change to info. Then bring up the layers window and create a new curve layer (layers another time). The new layer button is the half black and half white circle at the bottom of the layer dialog. Choose curves from the menu that pops up. From the window that pops up click on the eyedropper with the black dropper section. Finally move the curser around areas of the image that is or should be black (watching the info box for numbers that are in the teens or less if possible). When you’ve found a black area click on it. The results should be immediate. Give it a try.
-Philip
I’ve owned a 20d now for 18months and have been fighting dust on the sensor for 16 of those months. At first I was able to use a visible dust brush that a friend of mine owns but recently I’ve been traveling so much I can’t always find the time to go over and use it, besides I’m sure he’s getting tired of me only showing up when I need to clean my sensor. So after a recent fight with an artist brush and sensor swabs I finally broke down and ordered a whole kit from copperhillimages.com.
What finally drove me over the edge was an hour long battle with a brush and sensor swabs. I sat down one evening to try and clean the sensor before a much anticipated weekend drive with my wife. I got out my can of air and my brush and sensor swabs and got to work. I first cleaned it with the sensor swabs and then used the brush with the air. After a test shot I saw smears across the whole image. I took another sensor swab out and cleaned it again. I got the brush and tried again. Then looking at it at an angle I saw where I had used the brush I was leaving smears, some how, I had gotten some gunk on the brush. After disposing of the brush properly (thrown correctly a brush can leave a dent) and tried again with the sensor swab. I was now getting very low on the swabs and very frustrated. I used the last sensor swab and found that all I was doing was pushing around the dust.
The next day I started looking at some options. I couldn’t stomach the idea of spending almost $100 for the visible dust brush so I looked for other options. I was close to ordering the lens pen for sensors but couldn’t find any source of customer recommendations. The only information/recommendations I found were from the company or had all the hallmarks of a company shill. So I decided to pass on the lens pen. It’s a great idea and if it’s as good as the company says, it will be the perfect travel (backpacking, carryon etc) sensor cleaning tool. I saw a number of other things from new companies but again no real usage stories or reviews by anyone. I finally decided to look at copper hill. Copper hill used to only have a pbase image gallery for ordering their cleaning tool, but now they actually have website and a paypal shopping cart. I ordered their whole cleaning kit (brush, wet cleaning, and lens cleaning kit).
The night I got the package from copperhill I spent a few minutes and used just the brush to see how it would work. It was great. I didn’t get everything off the sensor but I got most of it. The next night I had a chance I used the liquid cleaning method and the dry brush and I was able to get a clean sensor!!!
If you’re fighting with dust on your dslr sensor go to coppperhillimages.com and order at least their dry brush and wet cleaning kit. It will save you hours of misery.
Just wanted to put a quick note up about what’s going on with the website. I’m changing the album section tos database backed albums. The change makes it possible to add a shopping cart that uses paypal for the final payment. I’ve just about completed the shopping cart and should have it online within a week.
-Philip
Finally my two weeks of travel are over I head home tomorrow. Yeah!!
I love to travel but when I travel without my wife, Lillian, it’s never quite the same. Without Lillian I’m always thinking this would be a great place for us to visit or she would love this spot. And when it comes to photography we feed off of each other. She sees things all the time that I don’t even notice. I always get better and more interesting pictures when we travel together. Of course when we photograph together it can be long days. Some places we go she’ll spend a long time trying to get the shot she wants, and some places we go I’m the one trying to get that right shot.
Traveling with loved ones wasn’t the only thing I wanted to write about tonight. I wanted to share a little of my experience here in Alabama. While here I visited a number of smaller state parks and nature preserves. I’m always surprised at how much one can find when one visits the smaller less traveled places. The big name places like Yosemite or Grand Canyon are beautiful but when you spend a little time looking you can find a lot of hidden jewels. One place I went to in New Hampshire a few years ago was park that catered to the weekend picnicker. The trails there were some of the best ones (photographically speaking) I found. So the parks I visited De Soto State park lots of waterfalls. Monte Sano State park and Nature preserve. I did lots of water work (kind a novelty for me since most rivers in my area go dry during the summer). In all the parks I went to there was flowers and butterflies.
I should have new albums up some time next week.
-Philip
Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 8:17 pm
I’m in Alabama right now on travel for the job that pays the bills. When I was done for the day I went out to a local state park, Monte Sano State Park. During the work day I had asked about Monte Sano and the reactions of those I asked seemed to be one of ‘oh yeah I guess you could go there’. But it ended up being fairly nice.
Monte Sano has a number of trails and enough woods to hide the noise and sights of the city just over the hill. There are plenty of trails so I expect to be exploring this park for a few days. There are a number of plants in bloom. The first trail I explored was an old railroad bed. It crossed a few small trickles of streams that will offer some interesting water shots if I can get there again.
Like so many places I’ve been, when you live next to something you become jaded to the beauty it can offer. It takes a fresh eye to see the beauty. Of course one can learn to ‘see’ and look past the familiar to find the mystery and surprise of discovery. That is a lesson I still am trying to learn.
Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 10:12 pm
I was reading the the most recent Outdoor Photographer and saw something that happens all the time on photography review sites that usually ends in a flame war. I was reading the article by William Neill about the definition of Landscape Photography and about defining and refining your vision through your portfolio. In the article he says (he is talking about the picture at the beginning of the article) “The foreground is purposefully not included so that the sense of depth isn’t too obvious. Any foreground would give the image a more literal ‘here’s where I stood’ effect.” In another article towards the beginning of the magazine Bob Krist says “.. a landscape photograph without a recognizably sized element- a human, an animal, a vehicle or even a tree- will lack a sense of scale.” It just seemed so interesting to me to have two articles seeming to have contradictory information. My first reaction was that when I give advice on places such as FredMiranda.com I give one piece of advice and someone else will say something completely different. The two pieces of advice are completely contradictory but because the people are giving advice from or to people at different levels of experience they are both appropriate. The advice similar to what William Neill is for some one with a lot more experience than the ones that Bob Krist is speaking to. Bob is speaking to the photographer who is still learning to look around and to plan their composition and should stick to the standard rules of composition. William Neill is speaking to the photographer whom composition is now automatic and now they need to look for new angles and are learning to know when to break the rules. So the point of this, not all advice is appropriate to the person receiving it (isn’t that obvious). Along the same line a few years ago I saw this flame war between two photographers on the best way to include a fence. The argument went on and on and in the end I think both were right. One of the photographers was speaking from the point of view of one still at the point where they should follow the rules of composition and the other was at the point where they could break the rules. When reading or giving advice don’t take it personally.