CA-70, Pulga, CA

Near Chester, California

First attempt using a Canon EOS 7D.

For being such a small camera, the Panasonic TZ5 does a pretty decent of job shooting bracketed images. Bracketing is where you shoot three differently exposed shots and then use software like Photoshop CS4 or Photomatix Pro to blend them together to produce a high-dynamic range (HDR) photograph. Over the past year, I’ve been experimenting with bracketing, HDR, and various software to produce some fairly stunning results. Out of all those, these are my greatest hits.

Austin Creek Fire Road

This shot was taken near Guerneville, CA at the Austin Creek State Recreational Area which is adjacent to Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve. Taking pictures under a forest canopy is tricky. And, to be honest, most of the shots I’ve attempted in these conditions normally don’t amount to anything. Doing HDR and applying some “highlight” adjustments create a stunning result about 10% of the time. I was lucky here because this turned out the best out of anything I’ve shot in the ubiquitous redwood parks surrounding the Bay Area.

San Francisco Park Presidio

The Presidio is another area where it’s difficult to take decent photographs due to the sun shining down through gaps in the canopy. It’s similar to the redwood parks in that images tend to be overexposed in parts and underexposed in others due to beams of sunshine sparsely illuminating the groves of trees. This image turned out quite well, but there’s some rippling at the bottom you can see at high-resolutions due to the fact I was sans tripod on this walk.

Foggy Golden Gate Bridge

The following HDR I took from the Marin Headlands. It was a bit of a chore finding a place to sit the camera on the mini-tripod. My normal procedure is to set a two second timer and leave the camera resting on a fence post before shooting an HDR up there. Small movements in the exposure can wreak havoc with Photomatix Pro. On this one, I feel like I turned the saturation up a bit too high, but people seem to like it.

Here is a link to all of my other HDR images.

Who knew that press conferences could be so entertaining? Maybe I should give Fox News another chance.

How do you feel right now?
I feel like, right now, my haircut is pretty perfect, but altogether I want to redirect back towards haircuts of the ’70s.

The days, the weeks, the months have passed
Another year is done
So, it’s time for me to say
Happy Birthday, Son.
I wish you health, I wish you wealth
I wish you carefree living
And, as well as Happy Birthday
Have a great Thanksgiving!

Well, I went over to Nuggethaus today because he was having a free empower adapter give-a-way over there at 3:30PM. Apparently, I was late by a few minutes because the place was locked up tight like a squirrel when I got there. I later found out that Nugget was home, but locked away in his vaulted server room provisioning a new OC-192c line and training his cat to walk with little mops on his feet to clean the floor. As I left, I saw a partially completed crossword puzzle on the lawn that I picked up and cross the top it read, “What kind of idiot made this puzzle?”. I thought briefly about what kind of mindset someone would have to be upset by a puzzle. Nugget insists that the crossword was done by his neighbor, Hambone something-or-other. I’m not sure that Hambone really exists.

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