Lenticular Sunset in Seattle

coscorrosa

Peeked outside the window at work today, noticed a lenticular cloud near Mt. Rainier about an hour before sunset, and rushed over to Kerry Park to take some pictures. The last time there was a lenticular cloud at sunset visible from Seattle it was brilliant, but I didn't have my camera with me. I was hoping for a repeat performance, and while this sunset wasn't as good as that one, it was definitely worth taking pictures of.

#1:



#2:



#3 Gratuitous B&W version:



Update: Here are some others (new photos or reprocessed versions of the above), I think this new set is better actually.

#1.5:



#2.5:



#3.5:



Those were all taken with a 100-400 lens around 300-350mm.

Tangent: Optical quality is pretty poor on this lens compared to the 16-35 or 24-105, and it's glaringly obvious at 400mm when shooting landscapes. I think I might be better off with a 2.0x on a 70-200 (and wouldn't you know it - I don't own either pieces of equipment!). 100-400 is still useful for wildlife though.

For some perspective, here's a few wider (100mm) shots.

#4:



#5:

Abiciriderback

Another nice series Ron. Love when those Lenticulars build. BTW back at the stomping grounds again tonight (Ruby) and one heck of a light show for about 10 minutes.

Ray Still

Tsmith

Very interesting clouds that have always amazed me. Love the first one.

Dwayne Oakes

Awesome Ron ! I like photo 3 the best for the contrast, Photo 1 and 2
seem a tad hazy.

Take care,

Dwayne Oakes

ront

All are really nice Ron. I really like #4 with the city in the shot also!!

Ron

CWSkopec

I really like #3, Ron. On my monitor here at work, the image quality looks a lot better than the color ones... plus the black and white effect on the sky gives it an abstract painted look.

Nice work on a beautiful sunset!

hschlessphoto

love these...the b/w especially! great composition with the mountain. do these happen often in seattle?

kdog

Awesome shots, Ron. That's a super interesting phenomenon to have recorded.

It's interesting that you feel that the 100-400 optical quality is "poor", especially in the 300 to 350 range. I bet you a beer that a 70-200 with a 2x extender won't get you anywhere close to the 100-400. Equally confusing is your comment that the 100-400 is better for wildlife. To me, the feather and fur detail in wildlife is more demanding for optical quality than is landscape. You sure you're not just fighting atmospheric distortion when you're shooting that long?

Cheers,
-joel

coscorrosa

kdog wrote:

Awesome shots, Ron. That's a super interesting phenomenon to have recorded.

It's interesting that you feel that the 100-400 optical quality is "poor", especially in the 300 to 350 range. I bet you a beer that a 70-200 with a 2x extender won't get you anywhere close to the 100-400. Equally confusing is your comment that the 100-400 is better for wildlife. To me, the feather and fur detail in wildlife is more demanding for optical quality than is landscape. You sure you're not just fighting atmospheric distortion when you're shooting that long?

Cheers,
-joel

Sorry to confuse you Joel, I'm just going on personal observation here

The quality seriously deteriorates at smaller apertures and long exposures (f/8 and smaller and 1/100 and faster it's acceptable, not great, but acceptable). It could just be my copy. Trust me, I'm the guy who has dirt on his GND filter for three months and doesn't notice but I can notice right away when I'm shooting landscapes with this lens. Yes, atmospheric distortion is an issue at 300mm+, but I can tell the difference at 100mm too between this lens and the 24-105.

As for whether wildlife lenses are "more demanding" than landscape lenses I don't agree with that (I don't think they're less demanding, they have a different set of requirements altogether, I don't normally care what a wildlife lens looks like at f/13 for example, and I don't normally care what my wide angle lens looks like at f/2.8 nor do I care if it even has autofocus let alone if the autofocus works).

Anyway, if you want my 100-400, I'll sell it to you for a reasonable price

coscorrosa

Thanks for the comments everyone! The B&W might be the best, but it's not very sharp, I'll try and dig around for a better photo since I rushed through these.

Compositions were limited as I couldn't zoom out much without getting buildings in the way. The haze definitely played a factor too.

Lenticular clouds are pretty common on Rainier, but they do look better when you're not 100 miles away

kdog

coscorrosa wrote:

Anyway, if you want my 100-400, I'll sell it to you for a reasonable price

No thanks. But it would be very interesting to compare mine against yours if we ever get the chance.

Cheers,
-joel

coscorrosa

kdog wrote:

No thanks. But it would be very interesting to compare mine against yours if we ever get the chance.

Cheers,
-joel

Sounds like a plan. I've always thought I had a bad copy of this lens, so who knows...

Awais Yaqub

Lovely set. Your city is beautiful

annnna8888

Lenticular sunsets are something special. And despite my predilection for colors, I really like the B&W version.

Ana

kdog

coscorrosa wrote:

Sounds like a plan. I've always thought I had a bad copy of this lens, so who knows...

There have been a lot of bad copies of that lens. The one used in the Luminous-Landscape test was obviously bad.

Just curious, but have you tried calibrating it using the micro-focus functions on your camera bodies? My 100-400 has been calibrated by Canon and that made a big difference. Although, my camera body (my old 20D) was calibrated at the same time, so I'm not positive my 100-400 was actually adjusted. It does however work beautifully on my 40D.

It's possible your standards are simply higher than mine as well.

Here's a link to a panorama I made with it at 100mm. It's a pretty big crop, so you can see details. http://www.jacara.com/cpg144/albums/az_landscape/lake_mead_pano_big.jpg

-joel

Tharhawk

I saw these yesterday from my office in Enumclaw, but just the withering ends, as it was very near dark. I thought, wow, what a day to be up on the mountain. But, like you, it was just good to catch a view of her. Well, even better for you, since you got to share it with everyone here. Thanks.

richtersl

The three closeups are spectacular. We don't see these types of clouds on the east coast -- at least I never have.

grimace

coscorrosa wrote:

Sounds like a plan. I've always thought I had a bad copy of this lens, so who knows...

Awesome series Ron!! Everytime I've been to Seattle the mountain is never in sight.

I have a 100-400 and shoot with it religiously. I've even shot with Joel's version and feel we both have great copies. Hopefully Joel's link from his previous post can give you some help.

coscorrosa

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Lovely set. Your city is beautiful

Thanks Awais! I agree about Seattle, I'm lucky that I can take an hour break from work and still be able to get some good landscapes.

coscorrosa

annnna8888 wrote:

Lenticular sunsets are something special. And despite my predilection for colors, I really like the B&W version.

Ana

Thanks, I'm usually in favor of color instead of black and white (at least at peak color times). I added some variations to the original colors that look better (to me anyway). The black and white does show the various shades of the clouds better though.

coscorrosa

kdog wrote:

There have been a lot of bad copies of that lens. The one used in the Luminous-Landscape test was obviously bad.

Just curious, but have you tried calibrating it using the micro-focus functions on your camera bodies? My 100-400 has been calibrated by Canon and that made a big difference. Although, my camera body (my old 20D) was calibrated at the same time, so I'm not positive my 100-400 was actually adjusted. It does however work beautifully on my 40D.

It's possible your standards are simply higher than mine as well.

Here's a link to a panorama I made with it at 100mm. It's a pretty big crop, so you can see details. http://www.jacara.com/cpg144/albums/az_landscape/lake_mead_pano_big.jpg

-joel

AFAIK, the micro focus thing only affects auto-focus right? These were manually focused (using live view even). I haven't done any adjustments to the lens. It's pretty old though (3 years) compared to the rest of my lenses.

Your pano definitely looks better than what I would get with my lens. It's very possible I have a bad copy. I don't think my standards are that high actually, I'm really the opposite of those dorks who spend all day looking at lens charts and debating minute differences between lenses rather than actually taking any meaningful photos. So it has to be rather drastic for me to notice a difference. Remember, I'm the guy with the dirty GND filters

As a reference example, this is a standard shot I get with my 16-35, I haven't had any landscape match the quality of this shot with my 100-400 and this is normal for the 16-35. Apologize for the large size, looks best on a 24" or bigger monitor Obviously you get more DOF on a wider lens, but still...




I have wildlife photos with the 100-400 that are decent, but my standards for wildlife are probably lower than for landscapes because I don't shoot wildlife that often.

coscorrosa

Tharhawk wrote:

I saw these yesterday from my office in Enumclaw, but just the withering ends, as it was very near dark. I thought, wow, what a day to be up on the mountain. But, like you, it was just good to catch a view of her. Well, even better for you, since you got to share it with everyone here. Thanks.

I'm envious of your location (well, the commute would suck for me, but the proximity to the mountain would be great, being able to get to Naches, Sunrise, Mowich in an hour...).

coscorrosa

richtersl wrote:

The three closeups are spectacular. We don't see these types of clouds on the east coast -- at least I never have.

Thanks! These guys show up at Rainier quite often actually (seems more common in summer, but I've only been paying attention for about a year so I can't say that with any authority). The 14,000 foot elevation of Rainier contributes to their formation, Rainier always seems to attract a rogue cloud or two even on an otherwise clear day.

Here's a cloud from sunrise taken last year:

coscorrosa

grimace wrote:

Awesome series Ron!! Everytime I've been to Seattle the mountain is never in sight.

I have a 100-400 and shoot with it religiously. I've even shot with Joel's version and feel we both have great copies. Hopefully Joel's link from his previous post can give you some help.

Well if we ever happen to run into each other taking photos, and you notice afterward when you get home that your 100-400 doesn't seem to be as good as it used to, and mine seems a lot better, and that the serial number on your lens changes mysteriously... that's a pure coincidence

Dan-O

Love #3, the conversion and clarity is really nice. Good work overall too!

Darren Troy C

3.5 is FANTASTIC!