Posts in Category: mountain
6/16/2011: The Bowl, Acadia National Park
We got a late start on our first hike in Acadia National Park this last visit, and by the time I got to The Bowl, a little pond on the trail from Gorham Mountain to Champlain, the light was rapidly going. I am not as fast on the trail, up over Gorham, down into the divide between, and up behind the Beehive to The Bowl, as I once was. Clouds had rolled in and rain was predicted by night-fall. Still, The Bowl never fails to satisfy. The subtle light, while it posed real exposure problems…a matter of somehow maintaining detail in both sky and landscape…gave a wonderful texture to the water.
For the image above I used all the help the camera provides: Active D-Lighting to extend the dynamic range when taking the image, and then in-camera post-processing using D-Lighting after the fact to bring up greens of the foliage even more. I finished it in Lightroom with some Fill Light and Blackpoint adjustment.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160.
And I had to try a panorama. This is four 23mm frames stitched in PhotoMerge in PhotoShop Elements 9, and processed for Clarity, Sharpness, and lighting in Lightroom. It is about 270° so the right most shot was behind my right shoulder when I took the left most shot. It looks better at larger sizes. Click the image to open it to the width of your monitor.
1/17/2011: Mountains for Carol
My wife Carol asked for pics of mountains from my trip to Vegas…but the views from Vegas are not so much…so this is truly a snapshot, with the iPhone 4, out the window of the airplane. But it is mountains…and it is for Carol. 😉
I am not even sure what mountains these are…somewhere about 45 minutes short of Vegas. You can see the stripes of my shirt reflected in the window. Color is always problematic out the window of a plane, as the mulitple layers of Plexiglas do strange things. This is B&W conversion using the high-contrast blue filter effect.
iPhone 4.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity, and converted to B&W.
12/20/2010: Cranes and mountains
I find myself without a mammal for Monday, so it will have to be “mountains for Monday”…and we will throw in the Cranes for free! One of the wonders of Bosque del Apache is that the thousands of Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese are set against the backdrop of desert mountains on all sides. When the shadows get long in the afternoon, and the sun low to light the underside of the birds, it can be breath-taking. Photos do not do it justice. Still…
Canon SX20IS, 560mm equivalent, f5.7 @ 1/800th @ ISO 400. Sports mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
10/21/2010: Cadillac cloud event
Our most recent trip to Acadia was not Cadillac Summit weather. We had mostly rain and mist and fog, and then fog and mist and rain. It was beautiful, of course, and we enjoyed it as much as any trip so far. But it really looked like we would finally make an Acadia visit without a drive up the winding road to the summit of Cadillac.
The last day there, after hiking in the heavy fog around Jordan Pond, and a pop-over lunch at the Jordan Pond House where our daughter who works there got to wait on us (lucky her) and we got fully fed, we started for home and suddenly, just before the Cadillac turn-off, drove right out of the fog and into sun. Looking up we could see the summit, standing out clear against a blue sky. Who could resist?
As we drove up though, it became obvious that we were racing the front. The fog was literally boiling up the south flank of the mountain on a strong wind ahead of the mass of fog and cloud that closed the whole south east horizon like a wall, and already hid the mountains behind us. The first wisps were crossing the summit as I got out of the car. It was the strangest thing. A clot of cloud would tear of the front of the cloud mass, which itself was moving so fast you see it come, and race on ahead of the mass across the summit like a living thing…boiling and rolliing, twisting into a thousand shapes as the irregular mass of the summit and its complicated air-currents caught it and tossed it every which way as it passed. The wind was so strong I could barely stand to take a picture. I tried to catch several of the cloud things (cloud beings) as they passed, but this (above) is the best I could do.
I finally turned, just ahead of the on coming mass of cloud, for the car…grabbing this shot as I passed. In less than 30 seconds I was in cloud where I stood.
I am sure it is not all that uncommon an occurrence on Cadillac summit…but it was the first time I had experienced it. My only regret is that I totally forgot to shoot some video of it!
Canon SX20 IS. Post processing in Lightroom.
7/24/2010
Hill above Ukiah CA
Crossing the mountains from Mendocino CA to Ukiah somewhere on route 283, I rolled down the window in the backseat and shot the rolling landscape. The roadside grasses are just blurred from the motion. I was on a quick swing through California for work, not in charge of the schedule, and I had to seize every picture op. 
This was my first trip to CA in full summer and the mountains took on a whole new look!
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Cropped in Lightroom for composition. Some Recovery for the sky, Fill Light and Blackpoint barely right, added Clarity and Vibrance, Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Zeiss Trip CA 2010.
5/19/2010
Early Light: Highpoint
During the chase of Team Zeiss for the World Series of Birding we made stops in some of the most beautiful country in New Jersey, and, though I was focused on documenting the Team’s efforts for the day, I was not totally insensitive to the beauty…and since I was not actually competing, I could turn my camera away from the team for a quick landscape, or even a flower shot, or two.
This is somewhere in the Highpoint/Stokes area in the far north-west of the state. The sun was just glancing across the landscape from the horizon. It does not get better than this.
It was a very demanding exposure problem. I tipped the camera up to meter more of the sky and locked exposure. That left the foreground too dark, but I was able to recover the detail in Lightroom. This image will repay viewing as large as you monitor will take it.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/200th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky. Heavy Fill Light for the foreground. Blackpoint well right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
4/11/2010
Sky Hy, Topsam ME
Happy Sunday!
And for Sunday, an image from this weekend’s Men’s Retreat at Sky Hy Conference Center in Topsham Maine. Formerly a ski lodge with a tow-rope slope, Sky Hy is situated in a range of what are, by any standard that includes the Rockies, medium high hills about 20 miles inland from the ocean. This shot was from the third floor balcony. The hill drops away to Bradley Pond, here seen under another amazing Maine spring sky. As you see, the maples in the valley are not leafed out yet, but a close look will show the red tinge of the flowers. Just before this shot was taken we saw a Golden Eagle soaring over the pond. 🙂
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Recovery for the sky in Lighroom. Added Clarity and just a smidge of Vibrance. Blackpoint to the right. Sharpen Landscape preset. Cropped from the top for composition.
From the very small Sky Hy collection.
1/26/2010
More Reno Mountains
Another view of the mountains above Reno from the 8th floor of the Atlantis. Zoomed in for framing.
Sony DSC H50 at about 150mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/160th @ ISO100. Programmed auto.
Added Clarity and Vibrance in Lightroom. Blackpoint right. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped from the bottom for composition.
From the Reno gallery on weiw.lightshedder.com.
1/25/2010
Reno Mountains
My suspicion is that Reno does not look this dramatic all the time. The snow on the mountains undoubtedly adds a dimension to the folded hills and mountains behind the cityscape. This is the view from an 8th floor window at the Atlantis Casino. Reno is impossible to photograph…or at lest the dramatic vistas with mountains, are impossible to photograph from street level since there are no unobstructed views…and, unlike Vegas which is continuous (and calculated) eyecandy, the architecture in Reno is, I am sorry, ugly. Oh, there are probably sticking buildings there somewhere, but certainly nothing I could reach on foot or see from the Atlantis. So…window shots.
Sanyo VPC CG10 at 38mm equivalent. F4.7 @ 1/450th @ ISO 50. Programmed auto. (The CG10 is an HD video camera with a 10 mega pixel CMOS senor, and can be set for 16/9 stills like this one at 7.5 mega pixels.)
Added Clarity and Vibrance in Lightroom. Blackpoint right. Sharpen landscapes preset. Some Recovery for the clouds and a touch of Fill Light for the shadows. Cropped from the bottom to improve composition and eliminate distracting clutter.
From Reno.
1/22/2010
Treasure Island Under Snowy Mountains
Another shot from an interesting dawn in Vegas.
Sony DSC H50 at 120mm equivalent. F3.5 @ 1/13th @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky and snow. Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen Landscape preset.
From Las Vegas 2010