Posts in Category: San Diego
3/14/2010
Ornamentals over the Pacific
Happy Sunday
This shot is appropriate to the day. It is a rainy Sunday in Maine and this was taken on a rainy Sunday in San Diego exactly a week ago. An I am not letting the rain dampen my spirits today either!
An ornamental hedge that surrounds the Visitor Center at Cabrillo National Monument. I sat the camera more or less on top of the hedge, using the flip out LCD and Super Macro, and shot across the top to frame this cluster of blossoms against the stormy Pacific sky. I would have used Exposure Lock and Program Shift for better depth, at 1/250 I had plenty of room for a slower shutter speed and smaller aperture, but it was raining and I did not want to risk the camera out from under cover for more than the time it took to grab this shot.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent and Super Macro. F2.8 @ 1/250th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto.
A bit of Recovery for the sky in Lightroom. Fill Light for the foreground. Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and some Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped from the bottom to eliminate out of focus foliage and for composition.
From San Diego 2010.
3/13/2010
Tide Pools Area: Cabrillo National Monument
Cabrillo National Monument sits at the point of Point Loma, overlooking San Diego Harbor on one side, and the Pacific on the other. There is a lighthouse there, and little pocket park, with some of the best views of the coast you are likely to see. You have to drive through a section of the Naval Base and the National Cemetery to get there, so access is limited to 9 to 5 (when the military gates are open these days) but it is always worth a visit, in any season and any weather.
The day I had available dawned, as promised, with rain, and I debated going at all. I did get out, and had about 3 hours there, shooting from under my umbrella and in brief intervals in the drizzle, before a steady driving rain drove me off the point and back to the hotel.
This is the Tide Pool area, which is reached by a well paved and graded road that serves both the modern lighthouse and a water treatment plant. They have been working here in the last year, making improvements on the short trail system, and I enjoyed exploring further from the parking lot than I have ventured in the past.
The challenge in this weather is, of course, to capture the authentic drama of the rainy coast, cliffs and ocean. The contrast and exposure (EV) range is surprisingly broad on such a day, dull as we might think it, as the lighter sky tends to dominate the dark, rain soaked, landscape. More on that in a Point & Shoot Landscape post (coming soon).
I took a couple of different shots of this view before I got the balanced rocks where they needed to go. This image required some creative work in Lightroom…or maybe I should say, a bit more work than my usual 1 minute adjustments.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80. Landscape Program. (For more on Landscape Program see the P&S piece mentioned above.)
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky, Fill Light for the foreground. Blackpoint right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Reduced Brightness overall. Reduced Contrast. Graduated Filter effect pulled down diagonally from the top right corner across the top half of the image to reduce exposure even more for the bright area of clouds. Sharpen landscape preset.
From San Diego 2010.
3/12/2010
Pepper Tree
Last year when I was in San Diego I asked what this flowering tree was, and was told it was a Pepper Tree. Research since has shed some doubt on that id. It is a large tree, maple size at full growth, and the flowers come out before the leaves. This is a shot of one of the flower clusters, which form at the ends of branches. This cluster is about 4-5 inches in diameter. I could only get this close due to the 560mm equivalent lens on the Canon.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm eqivalent. F5.7 @ 1/60th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto.
Blackpoint just barely right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and a touch of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped slightly for composition.
Here are a few more images. If anyone can positively identify the tree, I would appreciate the info.
3/11/2010
Bird of Paradise against the Boats
An alternative view of the Bird of Paradise bloom, this time framed against boats in the marina, taken at a longer focal length from further back to isolate the bloom and turn the boats into interesting bokeh. Late afternoon light on the plant brought out the orange of the petals in particular.
Canon SX20IS at 250mm equivalent. F5 at 1/250th @ ISO 80. Programmed auto.
Added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance in Lightroom. Blackpoint slightly right. Sharpen landscape preset.
From San Diego 2010.
And here is an image taken from the same spot, using a wider lens setting (95mm equivalent @ f4). As you can see, the boats become more sharply focused and battle a bit with the blooms in the foreground, but I still see it as an interesting shot, and as a contrast to the longer/closer shot above. Processing similar to above.
3/9/2010
Flower with Bokeh
Playing with the super macro on th Canon SX20IS. The bush itself and the clouds and bit of blue sky make for an interesting background.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm and Super Macro. F3.5 @ 1/250 @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
A touch of Recovery in Lightroom for the petals. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint slightly right. Sharpen landscape preset.
From San Diego 2010.