RETAINING VALUE

Lenticular cloud, Owens Valley, California, 2009

The long and dark evenings during winter are the best time to tidy up or reorganize the photo library. While doing this I stumble sometimes over an older picture that may have some potential to be shown to the public. In the fall of 2009, during a trip through the Sierra Nevada in California with some German friends, we explored the Owens Valley and its surroundings. A lenticular cloud was hanging all day long above the area. It was just a matter of finding the right angle of view for integrating it into the landscape.

At this time I was shooting already two years with my first DSLR camera, the beloved Nikon D200. Looking at these old images almost 14 years later makes me aware ones more that I just had started to scratch the surface of photography. Only a couple months earlier I had added the gorgeous Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2/35 ZF to the camera bag. During this trip I used this lens with its manual focus a lot. The sharpness and rendering of this piece of glass was so much better than what I had owned ever before. I still use it today. Cameras will come and go and become technically obsolete very quickly. A real good lens retains its value much longer.

Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2/35 ZF, GITZO tripod GT2931 Basalt, KIRK BH-3 ball head   @ 1/20 s, f/22, ISO 100

2017 RETROSPECT / 3

Mono Lake, Eastern Sierra, California

March held many good photo opportunities for me, especially with migrating birds, but the highlight was a visit at Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra in California. The tufa formations around the lake are a fascinating subject and with the snow covered mountains in the background you can’t go wrong, even if circumstances allowed me to be there for only a very short time around the noon hour.

STITCHING A PANO TOGETHER

Click for larger image! --------

We had a dull, dreary, and rainy day and as a result no new pixels made it onto the memory card today. Not a big deal and it was a perfect time to browse through older images and clean up the photo library this evening.

During my recent visit at Mono Lake on the east side of the Sierra Nevada I made a few attempts to shoot some panorama images. As mentioned in an earlier post, it was extremely windy that day and so I shot handhold the whole time. I remember my first attempts to make a digital panorama, about 8 - 9 years ago, were a nightmare in post process. Thanks to the amazing software capabilities of Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop (I used Lightroom for this photo) it is really a breeze to stitch several photos together for a panorama these days.

So why even doing it? On a website, like this blog, a panorama looks most of the time tiny, depending how big your computer screen or mobile device is. It is the printing that makes all the difference. This picture was made from four photos. The content needs to overlap a little but at the end it led to an image with over 12,000 pixels on the long side. This allows to make a print 40 inch wide (~ 1 meter) or even larger without any loss of detail.

MONO LAKE

Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4 ------    

My goal last weekend was to come back with some decent photos from Mono Lake, California with its tufa columns and formations. Due to the three hours drive from Reno, Nevada I knew I wouldn’t be there in the early morning hours. I also didn’t want to risk to get trapped in fresh snow that was expected for the following night and so I left the lake in the early afternoon. With just a small time window around midday my expectations were not very high regarding the light. However, a very windy but clear day made for good colors and little haze in the air. The geology of the lake basin is fascinating and if you like to learn about the basics, here is the link that gives you some insight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake

 

BACK IN THE EASTERN SIERRA

It is hard to believe that it was already more than six years ago that we have been in the Eastern Sierra, and in particular at Mono Lake. We only had little time then and I wanted to go back to this beautiful area again. As mentioned in my last post, I spent parts of last week in Reno, Nevada for a business commitment. Staying there over the weekend allowed me to visit the Eastern Sierra again. I knew from other websites that they got a lot of snow in the Sierra Nevada this winter and despite the strong sun in March, most mountains were still covered in snow all the way down to the valleys.

Before I post some photos of the lake, that was formed at least 760,000 years ago, I like to show you an image from the mountains southwest of the Mono Lake area. Mono Lake is just east of Yosemite National Park and America’s most famous landscape photographer Ansel Adams has made many of his iconic photos in the Eastern Sierra.

I took of course my tripod with me during this trip but I haven’t used it the whole weekend. Extremely strong winds made handholding the camera the better choice. This image was created with the trusted combo of the Nikon D750 and the Nikkor 16-35, f/4 lens at 32 mm, 1/400 s, f/16, and ISO 100.