Eastern Sierra: Bristlecone Forest

CatOne

Oldest living trees in the world... some up to 4000 years old. Okay, not all the ones I shot were still alive, but they were pretty

Andy

CatOne wrote:

CatOne

Andy wrote:

That one was at f/2.8.

Er, not

The thing is, I REALLY need to clean my sensor, so that shot at f/22 had me using the "spot and patch" tool on about 25 areas! One of the things that *is* outstanding about Aperture though is that you can lift and stamp the same fixes to good groups of photos. Believe me, I used that functionality a ton over the past 2 days and it's a Godsend.

Now, off to buy a sensor cleaning brush... Arctic Butterfly I think, especially before I go to Antarctica in 4 months... given that black spots will show up VERY well on white snow :-)

Seefutlung

wow ... Bristlecones ... ^5 ... not only the oldest tree ... but the oldest living organism on earth. Nice job ... so what was the trip like? How tough/easy to get up to the pines? The sky looks a bit odd ... usually the sky will graduate to dark horizontally across the frame ... you have splotches of darkening (looks like maybe burning in) ... and also the new DPP has a similar tool for batch dust correcting. Kinda hard to pick a fav ... but the last two are very interesting ... snow is a nice touch.

Gary

DavidTO

Cool!

Place I want to go before I die: McMurdon Dry Valleys of Antarctica. :cry

CatOne

Seefutlung wrote:

wow ... Bristlecones ... ^5 ... not only the oldest tree ... but the oldest living organism on earth. Nice job ... so what was the trip like? How tough/easy to get up to the pines? The sky looks a bit odd ... usually the sky will graduate to dark horizontally across the frame ... you have splotches of darkening (looks like maybe burning in) ... and also the new DPP has a similar tool for batch dust correcting. Kinda hard to pick a fav ... but the last two are very interesting ... snow is a nice touch.

Gary

The color tints are because I used a polarizer on my 17/40 lens. Many of those shots were at 17 mm with the 1.3 multiplier so that's what... 21mm? So the polarizer will definitely show up... though a little shadows/highlights actually corrects a lot of it.

It's very easy to get to the pines... it's about 25 miles from Lone Pine, on some very windy roads (gains 6000 feet -- honest -- in that 25 miles... up from the 4000' of the basin around Bishop). We just did the 1 mile Discovery Loop which is an easy walk. The longer 4 mile Methusela trail has some older trees, but due to the snowstorm about 10 days ago, it was iced over. Given the wife is ~4 months pregnant with twins (!) she didn't want to slip and fall... and it was very icy. I almost fell on my ass and I'm generally pretty stable on that stuff.

There's also a continuing dirt road ~10 miles past the first lot to the Patriarch grove... During the summer you can take a passenger car but the road had some mud spots so they said 4WD only... and our Escape is the 2WD model, so we skipped it (plus, Paola wasn't so fond of the dirt excursions in "her" car ).

David, it has to be like 4 hours for you to get there... get your butt up there. I'd say you have a couple weeks until you'll get a storm that will close it for the season ;-)

saurora

These are so cool! I particularly like the last one with the snow, but they are all interesting. I would love to see a b/w conversion on one, but the coloring in the trees is so neat and backed up against the blue sky, I imagine color is the way to go!!!

Seefutlung

It will be a long day trip ... but I think I'll head go.

Gary

Nikolai

Awesome!
Great shoots!

BTW, how come you're not coming to Glacier???

CatOne

Nikolai wrote:

Great shoots!

BTW, how come you're not coming to Glacier???

Forgot to check.

Oh, plus next year I have:

* 3 week trip to Antarctica
* Twins being born in March/April
* Likely 7-10 day trip with family and twins to Lake Louise (er, or maybe Marc's secret lake near there ;-)

So I need someone to gift me a couple million so I can just goof off full time, and then I'm there.

I'm so jealous though... I've been trying to get to glacier for about 3 years now.

Nikolai

Wow,

CatOne wrote:

Forgot to check.

Oh, plus next year I have:

* 3 week trip to Antarctica
* Twins being born in March/April
* Likely 7-10 day trip with family and twins to Lake Louise (er, or maybe Marc's secret lake near there ;-)

So I need someone to gift me a couple million so I can just goof off full time, and then I'm there.

I'm so jealous though... I've been trying to get to glacier for about 3 years now.

You'll get yourself a busy time ahead.

Now, the question to test if you're a real paparazzi:
In delivery room in March/April, you gonna shoot wide angle or mid-tele?

CatOne

Nikolai wrote:

In delivery room in March/April, you gonna shoot wide angle or mid-tele?

lol. probably long telephoto, from the other room

DavidS

Great shots.

moylesm

Great shots CatOne -- excellent detail on the trees, and I love the composition on a lot of them. Not sure the intentionally (I assume) crooked horizon works on some of them...I'd personally prefer to see them in their natural orientation...but that's just a personal preference. COmposition, color, exposure, everything looks spot on. Great stuff!

CatOne

moylesm wrote:

Great shots CatOne -- excellent detail on the trees, and I love the composition on a lot of them. Not sure the intentionally (I assume) crooked horizon works on some of them...I'd personally prefer to see them in their natural orientation...but that's just a personal preference. COmposition, color, exposure, everything looks spot on. Great stuff!

Thanks!

In many of them, the foreground was on a significant hill so they weren't level. The real "gauge" of level would be the mountains in the background. So in looking at that, the picture where I have framed the background mountains in the tree looks like... it could use a bit of leveling... but it doesn't bug me enough to tweak ;-)

audi

Beautiful work! These trees are amazing - my photographic paradise!

JenGrace

Awesome texture in the closer shots.