Photos from Yosemite... and a lesson learned..lol

rngprerunner

My sister and I took my mom up to Yosemite National Park for brunch at the Ahwahnee Hotel for mothers day. So of course I took the camera's.

Let me know what you think!








(damn tree got in the way)

Canon 300D EF-S 18-55 Av
Man I can't wait to pick up a new lens...

Now the lesson..

So I learned that if you stand to close to a waterfall to get the shot..


(this is a rare photo of myself.. by the way.. lol)

you may end up with..



Yup, I was the only person dumb enough to get this close to Yosemite Falls with a camera. The Fall's were flowing really fast (this is the best time of the year for viewing it) and I wanted the shot from the bridge and rocks. The lens/camera got wet but not to bad, mostly on the lens cause it was facing it exposed. I got the shot, but when I pulled the camera out to get a shot of El Capitan I noticed the lens foged up.

Luckily it defrosted in about a half hour.

I treat my equipment well, but am still hard on my electronics.

So yea, glad I learned this with the EFS-18-55 and not a more expensive lens!

Harryb

Nice shots. The water in the waterfall shots seem to be a bit blown. I'm going to move this thread to Field & Street where landscape shots should go.

rngprerunner

Harryb wrote:

Nice shots. The water in teh waterfall shots seem to be a bit blown. I'm going to move this thread to Field & Street where landscap shotsshould go.

Thanks for moving it, I just noticed...

Yea, white water at noon shooting from the shadows.. it is a little blown. Any tips to avoid that next time? If I underexposed it anymore the trees would have been too dark.. any help would be great!

Thanks!

Andy

rngprerunner wrote:

Any tips to avoid

Shoot Raw and you can easily get those falls in line, and the trees, too

Thanks for sharing - ahhhh Memories of last year!

Pezpix

A bit of unsharpening mask at Amount 30% / Radius (between) 15-60 pixels / Threshold 1 will cut down on that UV haze like gangbusters Just be sure not to overdo it and I think you will like the clarity you gain. Great pix by the way!

Also, not to be the fatherly lens geek, but son, PROTECT that lens with a UV filter and save yourself the trouble of introducing moisture to your front element :

rngprerunner

Andy wrote:

Shoot Raw and you can easily get those falls in line, and the trees, too

Thanks for sharing - ahhhh Memories of last year!

Thanks Andy!

Anybody have tips on how to do this? I did shoot these in RAW and played with them a bit, and know my way around PS.. but I'm still learning a lot of these post processing tricks..

Thanks Pezpix, I'll try those setting out tomorrow. I did play with USM a little this time for the first time, so I didn't want to over do it.

And yea, filters are on my list of things to buy, along with a couple lens' and a new tripod.. but being laid off unexpectedly has halted that for now..

rngprerunner

Pezpix wrote:

A bit of unsharpening mask at Amount 30% / Radius (between) 15-60 pixels / Threshold 1 will cut down on that UV haze like gangbusters Just be sure not to overdo it and I think you will like the clarity you gain. Great pix by the way!

I just tryed this on one of the photos, and WOW! Thanks for the tip I worked very well.

Pezpix

rngprerunner wrote:

I just tryed this on one of the photos, and WOW! Thanks for the tip I worked very well.

Thought you'd like that tip.
Just be sure not to blow out highlights too much as it is very tempting to get the clarity level up to crystal clear. Be sure to post your results so we can see the difference. And again, great content rngprerunner!

Nimai

Maybe try a series of bracketed exposures and combine them using High Dynamic Range techniques?
I've never tried this, but I've been wanting to- some resutls are very interesting!
Lots of info, and good set of links here.