Have Camera Will Travel Photographic Features

More Trains

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 06:31:46 -0600

Georgetown Loop - Engine 12 crossing Devil's Gate

Photographing Denver at Night

Wed, 19 May 2010 16:55:02 -0600

The flow of the river

Maui - With All Its Contradictions

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 07:19:29 -0600

I'll begin this report by stating that I visited the Hawaiian Island of Maui as a tourist, so my observations and photographs will most definitely be skewed by this singular and limited viewpoint. I wish I had more time on the island. There is simply too much to see and experience in one week.

With a few reservations in mind, I can say that I found Maui to be a most interesting and enjoyable travel experience, but not entirely satisfying.

As with most travels I make, my motives are normally centered around relaxation, culture and photography. Maui was a very relaxing trip and the photographs are there for the taking in abundance. The true attraction of Maui is the Island itself.

The most photographically limiting obstacle I faced on the Island was the weather. It was raining for the first three days I was there. Not constant rain, but fairly constant cloud cover and photographically speaking, heavy clouds don't make for dramatic light. The weather on Maui is variable by location. We found the South Shore to have the most consistent combination of sun and light puffy clouds, with the North Shore more prone to rain. The volcano peaks were almost always obscured by clouds and there are points in the central highlands that can receive over 300 inches of rain per year.

Culturally speaking, Maui leaves much to be desired when comparing to the other trips to tropical areas of the world I've made. American pure and simple, Maui offers a cultural experience that can be found in virtually any high end American tourist destination. It reminded me of traveling to Vail, Colorado. Hawaii has always played with the vision of Polynesian culture, but in all honesty, the Polynesian culture has been relegated to the side show of travel brochures and doesn't really exist.

A beautiful island with a distinct division between residents and tourists and a never ending projection of money and wealth, Maui is expensive and not by just a little bit. Hotels charge extra fees for almost everything except toilet paper. Restaurants offer a fairly good variety of menus at about twice the cost of what you'll pay on the mainland for something similar. A typical lunch for four people can easily exceed $125 US. Even fast food is double what you'd normally expect to pay on the mainland. If you are considering moving there as a full or part time resident, buying a simple 2 bedroom condo can run well over 1 million dollars US.

Enough of the delving off into the culture and expense. Once you are there, you'll be immediately struck by the pure beauty of the place and with a few trips to different parts of the island, you'll soon discover what makes this one of the most attractive travel destinations in the world. To enjoy Maui at its finest you'll need to get in tune with the Island and the raw beauty of nature as it exists on this tiny rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

As for camera equipment. I traveled simple and as light as possible. The goal was to get everything into one carry on bag plus a tripod in my checked baggage. My camera body was a Canon EOS 50D. I brought 3 lenses, a 16-35L, 24-105L, 70-200L, a 580EX flash, and a 1.4x teleconverter. For the most part, this was a good kit, but I discovered the 70-200L with a teleconverter was a bit insufficient for good telephoto results, especially with long shots of whales and surfers. If I were doing it again, I'd bring a 100-400L or other similar focal length telephoto zoom. Though there were whales to see this late in the year (mid-April), most were at a distance greater than 200 yards. That extra reach would have really come in handy, even at the cost of the added weight.

Traveling around the island is simple enough, but you'll find that most of the island is not accessible by car. Traffic can be heavy as the main roads all seem to get you to the center of the island and there are no alternate routes. We rented a GMC 4wd SUV for our visit. The roads are in good condition and well maintained but narrow. The most common vehicles seemed to be Ford Mustangs and Jeep Wranglers. The Mustangs seemed to be the tourist rental of choice and most were moving about with the tops down and the occupants hair blowing in the warm breeze.

Below I've selected a few photographs from my April 2010 trip. I'm trying to keep it brief and interesting. I've too many photos to display here, but you'll get the idea of what the island is like from these.

Enjoy.

Candids in Black & White

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:45:08 -0700

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:43:36 -0700

Founded in 1939, Bosque del Apach National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico is one of the premier wildlife photography locations in the United States. Bosque del Apache is located approximately 90 miles south of Albuquerque and about 20 miles south of the town of Socorro, New Mexico, just minutes from Interstate 25. The annual Sand Hill Crane migration in early December attracts photographers from around the world.

From December 3rd - 6th, 2009, myself a group of Denver area photographers made the 500 plus mile journey from Denver to Socorro. Here are a few of my favorite photographs from that trip.

The Denver Zoo

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:04:51 -0600

Bad Photography

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:18:24 -0600

Vintage Trains of Colorado

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:06:57 -0600

One reason I enjoy living in Colorado so much is the abundance of interesting things to see and do. Amongst them, the superb collection of functioning vintage railroads. If you are planning to visit Colorado in the future, you may want to make a visit to one or more of these railroads.

Georgetown Loop Narrow Gauge Railroad: Georgetown, Colorado. About 40 miles West of Denver, a fantastic and inexpensive day. You can ride the train and visit the Lebanon Silver Mine. You'll find more information at this link.

http://www.georgetownlooprr.com/

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad: Durango, Colorado or Silverton, Colorado. An outstanding scenic route on one of the best maintained vintage railroads in the country. During the summer months they run three roundtrip trains each day from Durango to Silverton. Silverton, Co is an entire experience to itself. Located in the San Juan Mountains at an altitude of over 9,300 feet, you'll find a complete history book in the form of an old Colorado mining town, complete with dirt roads and more than enough breathtaking scenery. You'll find more information at this link.

http://www.durangotrain.com/

Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad: Chama, New Mexico or Antonito, Colorado. In my estimation, the finest fully operational vintage Narrow Gauge railroad in the United States. Daily trips between Chama, New Mexico and Antonito, Colorado offer a beautiful 60 mile ride through the rugged mountains of Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. You'll see a lot of still standing railroad buildings and structures, along with a number of fully functional and historical railroad equipment. The Chama rail-yard is easily accessible and the most complete vintage yards with much of its equipment dating back to the 1880's. A must see. You can find more information at this link.

http://www.cumbrestoltec.com/content/

The Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad: Cripple Creek, Colorado. Located just a few miles West of Colorado Springs, it's a perfect day trip for the family. You can find more information at this link.

http://www.cripplecreekrailroad.com/

If you are interested in visiting any of these places and would like some information on getting good photographs, drop me a line. I know the routes and some great places & techniques for photographing the trains.

Here are a few photographs from my collection of the major vintage railroads of Colorado.

Cameras used were the Canon EOS 5D, EOS 50D and EOS 1DsMKII.

If you'd like to purchase any of my Vintage Railroad Photographs, click here.

Georgetown Loop

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:31:25 -0600

Photo by Larry Stearns

Readers Feedback

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:05:49 -0600

Paul Timpa writes...

"Great note on the Depth of Field comparison between the crop bodies and full frame bodies.

Everything you wrote was 100% accurate. I would say that Joey's point is a valid one, and is really what the "debate" is about. In practical use (say for a portrait of someone's face from forehead to chin) a photographer using a full-frame body with 105mm prime lens would step much closer to the subject than someone with a crop body and the same lens. This change in distance affects the depth of field, as you stated (making it shallower). So for any given framing, an identical lens/aperture combo on a crop body vs. full-frame body will in fact result in less depth of field for the full-frame body. If we were to watch two wedding photographers trying to get the same exact shots ("framing"), the one with the full frame body would always be closer to the happy couple, and the resulting shots would have less depth of field."

Best regards,

Paul

Dear Paul,

"As a pun, it is all a matter of perspective isn't it?

When working, I seldom worry about the field of view of one body vs another, as I use the lens that will generate the depth of field I want for the perspective I have chosen. I think sometimes people try to complicate things too much."

Thanks for the mail Paul.

***

John Write writes (no pun intended)...

"I still have not found a consistent set of steps for sharpening the raw images from the 50D. This is in contrast to the 20D, which seemed very consistent in what I considered the best steps.

Do you have a starting point you use in photoshop for sharpening the images?"

thanks,

John

Dear John (no pun intended),

"My starting point is what I call a capture sharpen and I do it in Lightroom at the time of import. I set a radius of .7, sharpen to 50 on the slider and a detail of 20. From there on out, I do all sharpening on an as needed and image by image basis. I would not recommend taking a blanket approach to sharpening your images. Some lenses are sharper than others, some images don't require as much sharpening. My standard practice is to not sharpen images beyond minor touch up from import sharpening until I make a print and then I adjust my sharpening to the print size I'm making based on the file I'm working with.

Contrary to popular digital post processing culture, I don't like my images to look over sharpened when printed. I sharpen only to the point that fine detail is visible where I want it to be visible and not beyond. I rely on my lenses to be the primary source of sharpness in the image. With post processing sharpening, I believe less is more. Your mileage may vary."

Thanks again John

***

Steve Lin writes...

"Having been a photographer since the mid-80s and an engineer by education, I'd like to think I'm both a photographer and a techno-geek. I still remember doing experiments with lenses in high-school physics. I'll admit that it does bother me a little when I see statements that, in my scientific opinion, are incorrect. Back in the film days, didn't you ever wonder where the depth of field marks on the lenses came from? From those equations with "circles of confusion...

Anyway, I suspected you had this discussion with many before me. I figured it was worth a shot to see if I could bring something new to the table. .. I know all about the futility of trying to win an argument over the Internet, so I don't take things personally...

...By my aging but not so old, yet, eyes, the DOF in the 30D appears to extend from about the 19.5 in. mark to the 20.5 in. mark. On the 5D, the DOF appears to extend from the 19 in. mark to the 20.5 in. mark. That's a difference of about 1.5x which roughly matches the difference in sensor sizes. FWIW, you might want to check out this article on the effect of sensor size on DOF. I found it highly accessible and logically coherent..."

http://photo.net/learn/optics/dofdigital/

Thanks for your time. I appreciated our short discourse.

Steven

Dear Steve,

"...A crystal can be viewed from many angles. My emphasis is on teaching people how to make photographs, not on how to understand optical mathematics. If you start a conversation like this around most successful and high-end photographers, they'll throw a brick at you and tell you to shut up, or at the very least look at you like you're a complete moron. There's a dividing line out here. People who take pictures for a living and people who don't. Most of my colleagues who take pictures for a living ignore this crap because they don't want to be associated with the gear-heads and they have little patience for the gear head discussions in their presence. Some of us are gear heads too though, like myself, but we've learned to keep it in the closet. Being a gear head first doesn't win you any friends in the photography business.

Extinction point, the point where there is no longer a change in discernible detail. It's relative of course, magnification will change the extinction point, as will reduction.

But, to illustrate that there is no functional difference between the bodies when all else is constant, here are 4 crops, with the 30D image as the base shot and the 5d image as an overlay. This is a sequence with the 5d brought out on a second layer in increments of 0% opacity, 33% opacity, 66% opacity and finally 100% opacity. To my eye, the depth of field does not change as you sequence through the overlays, only the resolution of the cropped 5d image which produces a slightly less detailed image due to the lower pixel count (which I compensated for by transforming it to the same effective size as the 30D shot, but that's another issue all together).

Funny you mention the dof indicator on lenses, as if you test this yourself using such a lens, you'll find the dof indicator stays at the same position between the bodies. The reason for this, is nothing with the lens has changed. Circle of confusion is controlled by the design and build quality of the lens. The pixel density of the sensor will have an effect on detail rendered (due to a few different factors), none of which have a control over DOF to any meaningful degree.

Canon EF lenses are all designed with the same circle of confusion factor for a 35mm format (though they may vary from copy to copy due to construction variations), I can't nor do I even want to remember the value they use, I'm sure it's somewhere in their technical documentation on their web site. I don't know if the EF-S lenses are designed with a different value or not, but I don't use those lenses, so I've never really compared their characteristics. My guess is there may very well be a slight difference due to the lens designs and distance to the sensor...

...The functional depth of field will stay the same if the lens doesn't change and the distance to subject stays the same and the aperture doesn't change. Where you factor in the different circle of confusion (and this is the real circle of confusion IMO) is when you adjust the field of view to accommodate the difference between the crop and full frame sensor by repositioning. The dof calculation applies to a situation where you are changing the distance to subject to achieve the same FOV. In that case, dof is different, no doubt about it.

In the field, I don't change position to accommodate a different body because I've already selected my POV. I change lenses to obtain a different FOV and use the same dof calculation process for that lens regardless of the body because no matter what body I'm using a 105mm lens is going to give me a fairly specific DOF at a certain distance to the subject with a specific aperture. Besides, changing position may scare the moose off or make it charge, or change the composition or light.

I preach photography over mathematics to my students. It teaches them to think about the photo and not about the engineering. Not always the easiest thing to do I might add. When a student goes off into gear-head mode, I politely shut them down. We're learning the art, not the science and most gear-head amateurs understand the science long before they grasp the art. If they want to get involved with designing lens setups, I'll point them to the local university."

Thanks for the feedback Steve. It's always a pleasure to hear different viewpoints.

Denver Fire Department

Tue, 05 May 2009 08:32:26 -0600

Photograph by Gary Gray

Belize

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:57:23 -0600

Kauai - Hawaii

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:21:06 -0600

Only one stream running today.

North Denver Photographers Studio

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:57:30 -0600

Red Feather Lakes

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 10:44:09 -0700

Colorado's Unknown Paradise

by Gary Gray

North of Denver, south of Laramie, along the border between Wyoming and Colorado, where the pavement ends and the dirt begins. Red Feather Lakes, the land that time forgot.

Red Feather Lakes, Colorado is a small village, about 40 miles west of Fort Collins and about 40 miles south of Laramie, Wyoming. Nestled in the Rocky Mountains at about 8500 feet altitude, it is a hunting and fishing village that has a charm all to itself. I spend my summer months living in this small town. Mostly to get away from the trappings of big city life and to get in touch with the nature and beauty Colorado & Wyoming have to offer.

Over the years I have taken about 5,000 photographs in and around this part of the country. While bigger names in photography work the more common parts of the Rocky Mountains, I find this to be a secluded and unknown treasure, and a perfect place to practice my craft of Landscape Photography. Many of my best selling fine art photographic prints are scenes from here.

I'd like to give you a photographic tour of my summer home.

Main street in the center of town. An unassuming place, the road is still dirt and you won't find a Walmarts or McDonalds nearby.

The Red Feathers Trading post is one of only two places nearby where one can buy groceries. They also make a great milkshake.

The Panhandle Creek hardware store has most of the tools and supplies the locals need to keep their modest homes maintained. It is also a local gathering place for gossip. Something no small town should be without.

During the summer, the tourists come to get away from the crowds. With a number of lodges on the town's lake-fronts, Red Feather Lakes offers people a tranquil place to get away from it all. A little fishing, mountain hiking and beautiful scenery are just waiting.

Two young ladies relax in the morning sun at Lake Ramona during the annual July fourth fishing derby.

Another young angler with pole in hand.

The July 4th fireworks are funded totally by donations from the town locals and visitors. Each year seems to get better and watching this pyrotechnic display from the shores of Lake Hiawatha is a special thrill.

In the heart of "Cowboy" country. Horseback riding is a way of life here. The trails are endless.

Each lake has it's own unique and tranquil setting.

A young buck strolls the shore of Lake Apache.

Red Feather Lakes sports several public and private lakes for fishing and camping.

Wild deer are abundant in the area and pay little attention to the people.

The lakes are full of Rainbow, Brown and Cutthroat Trout. I spend many an hour relaxing on the shore, waiting for my fishing pole to wiggle as I watch hawks and eagles fly overhead.

West of the village you will find the Medicine Bow Mountains. As the early morning sun rises above the long sprawling hills, the colors are mesmerizing. I often drive up Deadman road into the mountains, where wildlife is abundant and often waiting in the road for you.

In the spring, herds of wild elk roam the mountains near Red Feather Lakes. There is rarely a day goes by that one can't find a wildlife photographic opportunity, such as this young buck grazing in a high mountain meadow.

The area is also a sanctuary for wild moose.

Deadman road continues westward into the Laramie River Valley. To the west lies the Laramie mountain range, to the north the Snowy Mountain Range of Wyoming. Herds of Antelope roam the valley below

Looking north into Wyoming. This is the road to Laramie.

A peaceful sunset on Parvin Lake.

The night stars reflect on Lake Nikomas. Night photography is fantastic here. With no city lights for miles, the skys literally reveal the wonders of the universe.

Summers come and go quickly in this part of the country.

Autumn color begins in late September and by the end of October, winter has established its grip.

Though winters can be brutal, even in January one can find their way into the more remote lakes and areas.

The frozen Creedmore Lake, 11 miles north of Red Feather Lakes glistens with the long winter shadows across the ice.

The Village as viewed from Lake Ramona at sundown. If you listen, you can almost hear the fish jumping from across the lake.

So there you have it. My little piece of heaven, nestled in the Rocky Mountains, where the pavement turns to dirt at the end of the road to nowhere. Come visit us sometime.

Autumn in the San Juan Mountains

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:46:37 -0600

Costa Rica

Thu, 10 May 2007 07:55:21 -0600

A sample of tropical plant life in Costa Rica.