Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

Now that summer has passed and so many photographers are chomping at the bit to photograph Fall Color I thought I’d share a sight of summer I took in of Vernal Falls along the Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park this year. I can’t recall a time I’ve seen this waterfall flowing so heavily. It was a great day to bask in the sun and cool off in the iconic mist this trail is known for.

“Look abroad through Nature’s range, Nature’s mighty law is change.”
- Robert Burns

Yosemite Mist Trail Hikers - Yosemite National Park, California

Technorati Tags: California, Yosemite, Mist Trail, national park, stock photo, photography

Life is full of unexpected detours as I’m sure you know. Last week my 15 month old son was enjoying a fine vintage of a contagious virus that required a parents full attention to keep him from infecting other kids. I’ll give you one guess who won the lottery for that privilege. While we avoided having to wearing a hazardous material suits in public, we did get to go on some walks in our hilly neighborhood that allowed us to see some amazing views of San Francisco versus hanging out at the playground. It was a great reminder that every once in a while you need to take a detour.

Last month the detour I took was on the Road to the Sun in Glacier National Park. (Double win for repetition of detour and play on words son/sun). The Road to the Sun is an amazing engineering marvel. The two lane road is only open a few months of the year and it affords visitors amazing views of Montana’s rugged Rocky Mountains. There aren’t many turnouts, but I decided to seek one out versus get caught up rushing from point A to B. Taking the detour, even if just to a turnout, was the best move of the trip.  It really allowed me to savor the view not to mention the smell and feel of the brisk mountain air. If you’re not taking detours I’d recommend taking a few. They’re great for slowing down and getting in touch with the land and yourself.

Road to the Sun Views - Glacier National Park, Montana

On a side topic I should also note that I’m blown away by a spike in interest in my blog over the past few months. If you’ve recently subscribed to my blog I wanted to thank you. Feel free to comment and ask questions. I really enjoy interacting with fans here on my blog.

Technorati Tags: photography, landscape, nature, Glacier National Park, Road to the Sun, stock photo

The Alabama Hills in the Owens Valley is quite a sight to see. Beyond the massive peaks and rock formations of the eastern Sierras, including Mount Whitney photographed below, it is the exquisite light that makes this area a photographers paradise. Galen Rowell made the Owens Valley his home and when I learned this as a young man I was left scratching my head wondering why. I had always driven through this area when I was young thinking nothing special of the landscape. It was only later when my eye became more trained that I realized how special this area is. The light here is like few other places and the geography is one of a kind.

When ever I’m in the area I always stop over for the night to take in a sunrise. I’ll be doing that again this coming October on my way to Death Valley and based on my new workshop schedule I’ll be back in January and February of 2012. January will be a dedicated Alabama Hills trip and February will be a stop over on my way to Death Valley. If you have yet to see this stunning area definitely put it high on your list.

Technorati Tags: California, Alabama Hills, Mount Whitney, photography, stock photo, workshops

It’s been several months now and I’m really enjoying my time on Google+. One thing that has been making the experience all the more enjoyable is the use of the following extensions in the Chrome browser. The following extensions in some cases improve on the user interface, integrate my activity with other social media sites or just make accessing content easier.  The following extensions are definitely worth checking out and possibly reason enough to use Chrome even more than Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer.

+Photo Zoom – Allows you to mouse over an image thumbnail and zoom in and out with the motion of your mouse. Saves a click and speeds up browsing time.

Extended Share – Expands adds a “Share on” options under each Google+ entry to quickly share the post on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and many other sites.

Plus Minus – My favorite feature of this plugin is that it loads more posts automatically as you scroll down, but it does a lot more including designate which Circles show up in your Google+ Stream, mark individual or all posts as read, and more.

Replies and more – Adds a link under each post to “Reply to Author”. This is a huge timesaver even for a fast typist. I use this functionality all the time. The extension does a lot more so check out the extension page.

SGPlus – Is is well… awesome! This is the single best plugin of the bunch as it allows you to use Google+ as a hub to Facebook and Twitter activity. I don’t pull in my feeds from Facebook and Twitter even though I could, but I really like that I can post content in one place and have it appear on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. It’s a huge timesaver. There is tons of documentation on this plugin and they’ve made incredible improvements with it since it was first released.

If you have a favorite Chrome extension that makes your Google+ experience better share it in the comments.

Note yet on Google+ Here’s a Google+  Invite Link

Technorati Tags: Google+, Chrome, Extension, plugin

Few places are as dramatic in appearance at sunrise as Glacier National Park in Montana. When I visit Glacier National Park I never miss an opportunity to witness a sunrise (even if I’ve had to fight my inner voice).  One of the best locations to take in a sunrise in the park is at the Wild Goose Island lookout.

You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either. – Galen Rowell

To capture the full sunrise scene pictured below I created a panoramic from 3 images via a Canon 24mm tilt-shift lens. Even though my multi-image panoramic technique expanded the angle of view to capture more of the scene than a single frame could, its impossible to do this scene justice. Out of frame was a Bald Eagle circling about getting an even better view of the scene unfolding. In all of my years visiting Glacier I’ve never seen a Bald Eagle. It made an amazing sunrise all the more special.

Sunrise at Wild Goose Island - Glacier National Park, Montana

Photo Details:
(3) Three Photo Panoramic
Canon 5D Mark II, TS-E24mm f/3.5L II, 1/6 sec, f/14, ISO 100
Lenses via BorrowLenses.com who I recommend highly!

Technorati Tags: photography, Glacier National Park, Montana, sunrise, Wild Goose Island, scenic, landscape, travel, stock photo

Tough to believe that Summer has almost passed here in California. I’ve heard many photographers as of late mentioning they’re eagerly awaiting Fall to see the leaves turn color. I myself am quite content with Summer for now. For those suffering from extreme summer temperatures I hope this cool view of a snow covered Merced river in Yosemite National Park  acts as mental air conditioning. Make the most of the weekend as it’s one of the few remaining this Summer.

Snow Covered Trees Along the Merced River - Yosemite National Park, California

View more Yosemite National Park Photos

Technorati Tags: photography, Yosemite, National Park, California, winter, season, stock photo

JPEGmini is a company that has a unique approach to optimizing your JPEG format images in an effort to help you save storage space. I took a quick look at their offering and shared my thoughts on it with Sarah Perez in a recent TechCrunch article New Startup JPEGmini Reduces Photos’ Size, Not Their Quality. I thought I would share a little more about my take on the service in the event it’s something you feel is worthy of trying or using.

Test1 – Web sized image (800 px x 500 px)
Test2 – Full size image (5616 px x 3744 px)

What is JPEGmini?

• JPEGmini is NOT a new file format.
• JPEGmini is a re-compression engine with a twist:
  

  JPEGmini works by analyzing the input image using a unique quality detector which imitates the human visual system, and based on this analysis applying the maximum amount of compression which will not cause visible artifacts. For further details, see the technology section

• JPEGmini is an online service… for now

Does It Work?
The quick answer is yes and no. JPEGmini excels at compressing larger images versus smaller images. Compression gains are also made most significantly on “first-generation photos created by digital cameras”. In other words if you’ve edited a photo already in photo editing software you may not see huge file size reduction namely because the file has already undergone some level of compression.

I was a skeptic when I learned about this site. I ran a quick test to compare the following:

I tested two images of different types.

• An image with not a lot of detail and similar tones. Such images have a lot of similar data that is easily compressed resulting in higher compression savings.
• An image with a lot of detail and varied tones. Such images do not have a lot of similar data to compress resulting in less compression savings.

I also tested two different files sizes for each image:

• Web sized image (800 px x 500 px)
• Full size image (5616 px x 3744 px)

The results were notable with file size saving from 67% to 87%. But I also ran each image through Photoshop’s “Save for Web & Devices” at 60% quality to attain savings from 71% to 85%. Bottom line Photoshop reduces file size for web sized images better in this simplified test by 4-7%. On the other hand larger images attained greater file size reduction with JPEGmini over Photoshop by  4-7%.
Note: Photoshop is not optimized for compressing very large images with their “Save for Web & Devices” function and JPEGmini states they perform better with larger images.

Full Test Details

Pros, Cons & Thoughts
The pros clearly are that you can reduce the size of your large image files with the JPEGmini. In scale this could help you save money by reducing your demand for new hard drives. You can compress images without buying expensive software like Photoshop. All metadata is preserved.  Image quality suffered very little when comparing the original image and the JPEGmini version of the image at 100%. In fact most people would not notice a difference. That being said I did not run print comparisons of each file before and after JPEGmini compression.

On the other hand the service is only available online requiring you to upload images, wait for the compression engine to process your files (can range from minutes to hours) and then spend the time to download them. It’s also important to note that the service only works with JPEGs. The significance of this is that you’re compressing your image files multiple times and each compression ultimately results in loss of data. Compress an image repeatedly and you can impact image quality. For more on this refer to my previous article (pre-blog) guest written by Oskar Breuning JPEG Compression: Data Loss & Image Impact. Lastly the biggest concern I have surrounds the JPEGmini Terms of Service (TOS) namely the following User Submission section:

You hereby grant ICVT and our designees a worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicenseable (through multiple tiers), assignable, royalty-free, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable right to use, host, store, index, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works of, and display and perform your Content on the web and on mobile devices, solely in connection with our provision of the Service

Uploading an image places the image on their server. While files are only kept for roughly 1 week, images can be used by JPEGmini’s parent company to market their service. Personally the broad nature of this section makes me too uncomfortable to use the service beyond testing. Of specific concern is the right claimed to sublicense images that they deem irrevocable. Not very photographer friendly in my eyes. Note: Dror Gill the CTO of the company has stated that photos are not used for promotion without confirmation from the owner in a comment on the TechCrunch article.

My hope is two fold for JPEGmini…

1. Clarify Modify the ToS to be more photographer friendly and less JPEGmini-centric
2. License their technology so it can be utilized in established programs and mobile applications or launch their own desktop & mobile applications.

Technorati Tags: photography, technology, JPEGmini, Photoshop, compression, JPEG

Glacier National Park suffers from no shortage of iconic vistas and formations. Hidden Lake lookout, above Logan Pass, is a place you can lose yourself taking in the iconic vistas and mountain peaks. Even the locals (Mountain Goats, Marmots and Bighorn Sheep) seem to stop to enjoy the views from time to time. They also seem to enjoy watching visiting photographers as I found out. The Mountain Goats (photos to come) might just surprise you by being right behind you and Marmots aren’t too shy about inspecting your gear. In fact on a previous trip to Glacier National Park a Marmot tried to take off with my tripod. Now that I think about it perhaps the locals here are closet photographers when no one is around

Special thanks to BorrowLenses.com as both of these photos were made using their Zeiss Distagon T* 3.5/18mm ZE and Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lenses.

Hidden Lake - Glacier National Park, Montana

Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata) - Glacier National Park, Montana

Photo Details:
(Top) Canon 5D Mark II, Zeiss Distagon T* 3.5/18mm ZE, 1/125 sec, f/10, ISO 100
(Bottom) Canon 5D Mark II, EF300mm f/2.8L IS USM, 1/320 sec, f/5, ISO 400
Lenses via BorrowLenses.com who I recommend highly!

Technorati Tags: photography, national park, Glacier National Park, Montana, landscape, wildlife, Hidden Lake, Logan Pass