ZapperZ's Great Outdoors Photo Contest

[Astronuc]

Some great pictures here

http://adopt.nature.org/acre/africa/
http://adopt.nature.org/acre/australia/
http://adopt.nature.org/us/
http://adopt.nature.org/plantabillion/brazil/
http://adopt.nature.org/acre/costa-rica/

 

[Astronuc]

Father and Son Document Perilous Journey Across the Himalayas
http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2010/12/perilous-journey-across-the-himalayas.html

 

[turbo]

Get your skis and 'boards tuned up. Sugarloaf is already getting a decent amount of natural snow.

Some people got more excitement than they had hoped at Sugarloaf today. 5 chairs came detached from a lift cable and dumped people about 30 feet into the snow below. Luckily, the snow was fresh and the staff had not groomed the snow under the lift, so there were no fatalities.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/28/maine-ski-lift-accident_n_801944.html

 

[Gokul43201]

No better way to experience the great outdoors than to actually soak yourself in it for a few days. Just spent some time in the mountains in SW California doing just that.

Waking up at 8500 ft (day 2), and breaking trail through deep powder.

I saw this interesting formation in the snow along the way. I have never seen something like it before, and can only make poor guesses about how it formed.

More views and experiences:

 

[turbo]

Beautiful pix, but Brrrr! Just the thought of winter-camping with long snowy hikes makes my arthritic knees ache!

 

[Andre]

Yes excellent, been over 20 years when I did things like that. Actually the last outdoors snow adventure was in Resolute Canada February 1989. It was called arctic survival training.

Anyway, for trying to get a clearer pic, I did some post processing on that whirled white web.

 

[drizzle]

Lol, I thought these were two horses.

Nice pics Gokul, I'm thinking of doing a desert hiking trip.

 

[Gokul43201]

Thanks turbo, drizzle, and Andre (for the postprocessing). I still can't quite come up with a good explanation for the thing.

Drizzle, I haven't done much hiking in desert conditions, but I know it can be quite dangerous if one doesn't know what they're doing. Please be careful.

 

[Astronuc]

Really cool picture of 3 volcanos

http://environment.nationalgeograph...no01-mount-semeru-indonesia_22328_600x450.jpg

from

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/photos/volcano-general/

and

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/photos/lightning-cloud-ground

 

[Andy Resnick]

I took this two nights ago, when the ice started falling. I like the combination of familiarity and alien- they could be footprints on the moon instead of my backyard.

[PLAIN]http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/6122/dsc4270.jpg

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I'd missed this, it's nice Andy. The snow looks a warmer colour than it usually does.

 

[Borek]

I wonder if it is not an incorrect white balance.

 

[Andre]

Yes, probably at night with the exterior light on, without flash. Can be corrected easily nowadays. In old days with films you'd had to put up a 80B something correction filter or your shot would be worth nothing.

Anyway, this was entered in a challenge for a album cover (square) with a scenic tranquil landscape, preferable a pastoral scene.

Is this pastoral?

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I wonder if it is not an incorrect white balance.

I like the result here, familiar and alien. It would not look as interesting to me otherwise.

 

[Borek]

I have pictures that look interesting because of incorrect white balance. I like them which doesn't stop me from seeing what is wrong.

 

[lisab]

That's very nice, Andre, very peaceful. Yes I'd say it's a beautiful pastoral scene.

 

[Evo]

Yes, probably at night with the exterior light on, without flash. Can be corrected easily nowadays. In old days with films you'd had to put up a 80B something correction filter or your shot would be worth nothing.

Anyway, this was entered in a challenge for a album cover (square) with a scenic tranquil landscape, preferable a pastoral scene.

Is this pastoral?

Awesome Andre.

 

[Andre]

Thanks Evo and Lisa,

I made that picture walking back to Montcru after a photo shoot with my niece, who wanted a modelling portofolio. I made these earlier then, which have also been entered in photo contests:

and:

I cannot begin to describe the feeling of immense joy to be privilegded to witness such a scenery. It's only dampened by being alone, no friends around to share. But luckily there is the camera to capture it.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I have pictures that look interesting because of incorrect white balance. I like them which doesn't stop me from seeing what is wrong.

This could just be a semantic, and not a big deal, as I have no problem with the query about correct white balance and respect your views as to causes of effect. But, however a, IMO, successful result was achieved: that it was achieved renders it a method by which a successful outcome (IMO) occurred. So if it was the result of incorrect white balance, then that was a successful method in this instance. I agree that images may look more interesting because less conventional means were used, like photos taken into the light (more conventional now, anyway), or blurred, low-fi, say, red scaled or cross-processed, etc. Here, a more conventional method could have left a banal result.


To elaborate, my view was that it had a familiar, cheery, welcoming glow becoming eerily unfamiliar with a sinister, discoloured shadow
(http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue9/emblemearthlyvanities.htm ).


I really like this photo, in the Guardian’s top 40 natural photos, which, regardless of method, has a similar feel for me, and nicely, the subject matter has a reputation for the inception of a creative inspiration about creation.

© Frans Lanting
Tortoises at Dawn, Galapagos Islands, 1984

"The Galapagos Islands provide a window on time. In a geological sense, the islands are young, yet they appear ancient. The largest animals native to this famed archipelago are giant tortoises, which can live for more than a century. These are the creatures that provided Charles Darwin with the flash of imagination that led to his theory of evolution. Today their populations are reduced on most islands. But inside the Alcedo volcano on Isabela Island I experienced a world where giant tortoises still roamed in ancient abundance. One misty morning When the tortoises were asleep in a pond, I was able to create an image that evokes the era when reptiles dominated life on land."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/apr/22/40-greatest-nature-photographs-earth-day

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ilcptop40/4493164319/in/set-72157623774840478/

I enjoy images where an end can justify the means, whether that means is more conventional, deliberately less conventional or serendipitous accident, and agree images can be more interesting because of different methods.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I'd missed this, it's nice Andy. The snow looks a warmer colour than it usually does.

Yes, probably at night with the exterior light on, without flash.

I wonder if it is not an incorrect white balance.

I plead color-blindness! :)

Let's see... yes, it was our outdoor "security" light (halogen) lighting the snow, no flash. I usually have my camera set to auto-white balance, but I've had ongoing problems getting colors to render accurately- I tried photographing a color printer calibration sheet and adjusting the settings to make the displayed image look like the printed page, but I quickly got lost into a self-referential loop.

The camera has two color encoding settings (AdobeRGB and sRGB), and the Adobe setting gives me something closer than the other. But neither gives me accurate reproductions across the spectrum.

In the end, I decided to just go with it- you all have to live in my world. :)

 

[Borek]

In the end, I decided to just go with it- you all have to live in my world. :)

More like "your world as presented by our monitors".

I have a dual monitor setup, each one shows something different.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Last night was the first cloudless night since the snow started falling in November- I had been patiently waiting to take this photo:

[PLAIN]http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/2385/dsc42850.jpg

Which looks like this in my head:

[PLAIN]http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/2231/dsc4285.jpg

It's a 24mm lens, f/11, and a 4 second exposure. There's some problems- the camera wasn't perfectly straight and level for one, and I didn't get the streetlights centered properly. But, in my defense, it was about 5 F, 10pm, and I had to sit- the camera is about 18" off the ground. Wearing dark clothing, sitting in the street, taking photos of houses in the middle of the night is generally frowned upon by the gendarmes.

The image also let me explore some of the lens characteristics- here's one of the snow sparkles in the extreme lower left corner, blown up to 600%:

[PLAIN]http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/3323/dsc42852.jpg

I think that's coma, but otherwise it's well corrected. The streetlights have a nice diffraction pattern from the aperture:

[PLAIN]http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/1830/dsc42853.jpg

and also show little aberration (as well they should, since they are near the center). But again, there's some weird color stuff I can't figure out- this is a tight crop from the dead center of the frame, showing a tree:

[PLAIN]http://img547.imageshack.us/img547/381/dsc42854.jpg

There's no reason for it to be so red. Even I can tell it's red.

And of course, what's the point of being out on a clear night if you don't take some photos of stars! For some reason, my photos of stars (and this is also true for film) always appear much more colorful than in real life. Imagine my surprise when I found out this lens focuses past infinity- I ran the lens out all the way (since I can't see the stars in the viewfinder) and got this (with the lens open to f/1.8, 5-second exposure):

[PLAIN]http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/5917/dsc4291ub.jpg

Again, in real life all the stars look white to me. After correcting the focus- focusing on a distant streetlight- I got this:

[PLAIN]http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/7586/dsc42921.jpg

which is a section of this:

[PLAIN]http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4372/dsc4292.jpg

For the star images, I had to do a lot of post-processing to pull the stars out of the background- you can see some residual sky in the lower corner. Again, it's red...

 

[Dembadon]

[...] Wearing dark clothing, sitting in the street, taking photos of houses in the middle of the night is generally frowned upon by the gendarmes.

[...]

 

[Andy Resnick]

Amazingly, last night was clear again, and this time I used my 85mm f/1.4 to take some photos of Orion- this is the full-frame image:

[PLAIN]http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2084/orion22.jpg Here's a close-up of M42- the orion nebula:

[PLAIN]http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/6237/orion21.jpg

Not bad! I reckon the lens acts like a 3" refracting telescope. I took these at f/1.4, 1.6" exposure, ISO 200. At some point I'll probably get some charts to figure out the resolution of the lens/camera.

Considering the amount of light pollution in my area, I'm very pleased with this photo. Getting a sharp image was tough- my tripod technique needs work (!).

 

[Andy Resnick]

Totally bummed out- I didn't bring my camera home this weekend, and we got a once-a-year ice storm that coated everything in a layer of clear ice: the trees looked like puffs of smoke. Then the sky cleared overnight, so this morning at sunrise all the trees looked like glittering glass sculptures.

I can't get to work today because of the presidential visit- all the streets are blocked off.

 

[Andre]

Oh dear me, Andy, that's awful. Don't you have a walk around pocket camera somewhere?

 

[Andy Resnick]

Oh dear me, Andy, that's awful. Don't you have a walk around pocket camera somewhere?

I do, but additional circumstances occurred that moved "wander around taking photos" down the priority list. At least, that's how I'm consoling myself.

 

[Andy Resnick]

As any student knows, sometimes enough complaining actually gets you something. Miracle of miracles, yesterday afternoon the only section of town still having clear skies and ice trees happened to be right where I needed to be- I did my best to get a few shots, but my lack of ability is clearly showing: there images don't have anywhere near the luminous quality of the real thing. Even so, I wanted to share them:

[PLAIN]http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/7890/dsc4358b.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/1564/dsc4360c.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/5309/dsc4352j.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2513/dsc4363s.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/2981/dsc4368.jpg

 

[Andre]

Great shots anyway Andy; but I can imagine that you wanted more of it.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Thanks, Andre. I'll work on photographing glass objects- I want to be able to pull out the depth and clarity.

 

[Borek]

Wow. I can feel your pain, such subjects are beautiful but very difficult to catch.

 

[turbo]

It is almost impossible to photograph some effects that are visually stunning. One sunny sub-zero morning when I was a kid, a friend and I snowshoed into Moxie Gorge. The previous rain and the mist from Moxie Falls had coated the trees with ice, and the sun had the whole gorge glinting in all the colors of the rainbow. I didn't have a camera, nor could I have afforded film or processing then, anyway. Still, I doubt that any camera could have captured that effect like human eyes could. That's OK - at least we got to see it in person.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Some additional ideas: here are two images of shoveled snow, where I changed the 'gamma' of the image. The idea is that human vision is very nonlinear in intensity, while CCDs are linear detectors. In fact, television broadcast signals use a gamma of 2.5 or 2.8 (gamma = 1 is a linear object-image relationship).

Here's the raw image auto white balance, autoexpose, etc. etc.:

[PLAIN]http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/9313/dsc4401z.jpg

Very low contrast, but the image is *not* overexposed- this is important. Now, all I do is adjust gamma to 2.8:

[PLAIN]http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/4465/dsc44011.jpg

Major difference! In fact, the adjusted image looks a lot more like what my eye saw (in terms of contrast). Although for some reason, again the color balance is not quite right- here, the snow looks very blue.

So I'm back to color rendering problem again- under halogen lights, snow looks red. Under daylight (overcast daylight), snow looks blue. And under fluorescent lighting (streetlights), the snow looks very green.

I may have to take some 'calibration' images of something like Spectralon with different sources, and set up custom white-balance settings- I have no problem with images not appearing true-to-eyesight, but there are times when I *want* the image to be as neutral as possible.

 

[Borek]

I think things are even more difficult, as our eyes are not only non linear, what we see is also heavily processed by our brains - and we see dark ares brightened out and bright areas darkened out, to get as many details as possible at the same time. That's another reason why it is so hard to take good picture when there are high contrasts in the field of view.

 

[Borek]

I am green with envy. I think I will call Marzena to take a picture for the contest.