February 5, 2010 – Fort San Cristobal
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day on February 5, 2010
Fort San Cristobal, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Friday, February 5, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=463
Whoa, wait, what happened to Thursday? Dang. I had the perfect crappy picture too! Oh well. Maybe next week. Instead, today, I’ll share with you this one, which I really like, but the rest of you… not so much. (judging by all of the votes in Rate Dave’s Pictures anyway.)
This is Fort San Cristobal, in old town San Juan, Puerto Rico. It’s been around since like 300 BC or the 1500’s or something like that. It’s way older than just about anything I come across each day. (Not surprising considering I live in a city that’s a grand total of 100-some years old.) The thing I like so much about this shot is the color. All the swirly multicolored designs that have just slowly appeared in the several-hundred-year-old-concrete-or-whatever-it-is. That’s what really fascinated me when I was there. I don’t know what color all of the intimidating walls and such were to start out with, but now they’re… beautiful. When I was taking this picture, I was trying to contrast the super old stuff in the foreground, with the modern city of San Juan in the background, peeking out through that little archway. It turns out that the little archway is way too small to make out any detail really, but I ended up loving the picture anyway just because of that delicious texture on the walls. (And I like how the blue sky mixes in too, it’s just a steaming pile of color casserole.)
Vorrei dire “avere un grande fine settimana”, ma ho il vago sospetto che nessuno sia in realtà la lettura di questo. Invece, io dico: “Mi piace il formaggio giallo!”
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, 18-55 mm kit lens. 1/200s, f/5.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 21mm
February 3, 2010 – Lake Dillon
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Picture of the Day on February 3, 2010
Lake Dillon
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1128
So I wrote this joke to start off today’s post with. I got halfway through typing it, but it was sooo bad that I just couldn’t do it. I had to clear it out and start from scratch. I’m actually embarrassed that I was almost willing to put it out there. Wow.
This is Lake Dillon. It’s in Summit County, Colorado. It’s a man-made reservoir dealie, that sits between Silverthorne and Frisco and Breckenridge and Keystone. (The latter two being ski resorts.) If you follow the valley off the top left of the frame, you’ll be heading toward Breck. Meh, I’m running out of things to say today. There it is, enjoy!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm lens. 1/250s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 11mm.
February 2, 2010 – Dandelion
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on February 2, 2010
Dandelion
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1071
So yesterday I had basically the whole week planned out, I had two very specific images picked out that I was going to use as crappy pictures today and Thursday. And a couple decent choices for tomorrow and Friday. I thought they were totally foolproof, that they were such obvious choices that there was no way I’d forget. Yeah, I gotta learn to write this stuff down. I definitely don’t remember what I was going to choose, but this definitely wasn’t it. But it’s bad (I mean good) enough. It’ll do, is what I’m saying.
This is a dandelion. I like it because it’s got nice sharp detail, but other than that it’s not really that interesting of a picture. There’s not really a distinct subject (well, I mean, there’s the dandelion…), and it doesn’t really tell a story. It’s like “Hey, I’m a dandelion. So F you”, which isn’t really a very inspiring thing to say. But it’s nice and sharp. So it’s Tuesday.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/500s, f/5.6, ISO 200. Focal length: 300mm.
February 1, 2010 – Salal Bush
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Macro, Picture of the Day, Washington State on February 1, 2010
Salal Bush
Monday, February 1, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=983
Hey everyone, welcome back! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. Mine was not too bad. I spent a surprisingly large amount of time out in the snow (skiing one day, snowshoeing the next), hoping to get a decent number of potd-worthy shots. Sadly, I wasn’t as successful as I was hoping. I got a couple that have potential, we’ll see how they turn out when I look at them on the big screen.
In the meantime, here’s a picture of a salal bush from this fall. I actually had no idea what a salal bush was, but it had these little berries that were EVERYWHERE, so I asked somebody what they were, and that’s what they said. This shot (obviously) doesn’t have any berries in it, but it’s from the same bush. Mostly it’s only here because I was playing around with my macro kit (that little set of magnifying glass type things that you put on your lens like a filter), and it was handy. But as you can see, they really do work as advertised, and they can be a lot of fun to play around with. I’d post a link here to Amazon like usual, but I’ve done that a lot of times before and nobody’s every bought one. I’m feeling a bit lazy today, so I’m going to leave out that little detail.
I’ve decided that Tuesday and Thursday this week I’m going to toss up some crappy pictures just to get them out of the way, so don’t get your hopes up too much for those. I’ll try to put up something reasonably interesting on Wednesday, and I’ve got a nice one picked out for Friday. I don’t really know why I feel like Friday is the day to post nice ones, but I’ve kind of settled on that. So whatever. See you tomorrow!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-300 mm lens with Hoya macro kit. 1/400s, f/5.6, ISO 200. Focal length: 30mm.
January 29, 2010 – Baby Ostrich
Posted by Dave in Animals, Picture of the Day on January 29, 2010
Baby Ostrich
Friday, January 29, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=414
Awww, look at that, a baby ostrich. Sorry for the late post! Enjoy your weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/100s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length, 300mm.
January 26, 2010 – Aspens
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Picture of the Day on January 26, 2010
Aspens in the Fall
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=654
I know, I know, I promised that I’d write something meaty today. Well.. have you considered vegetarianism? I ran out of time and content both today, so you’ll just have to keep waiting for another soliloquy. To make matters worse, I’m going to be on jury duty the next couple days, so unless I feel like tossing something up later on when I get home (umm, yeah, unlikely), this is all you’ll get until at least Friday. At least I’m setting you up properly for disappointment instead of springing it on you and leaving you sitting there wondering if something happened to me. Because I know you’d do that too, you’re always looking out for my back. That’s why we get along so well. I’m glad we’re friends. C’mere, gimme a big hug. Awwwwww.
These are some aspen trees, in Colorado. This has always been one of my personal favorites, I think because of all the little details in there. I love shots with a lot of little details, which also helps explain why it bothers me so much when pictures are just a little bit out of focus. And THAT helps explain why it’s not uncommon for me to over-sharpen a lot of my pictures. I tend to err way on the side of too much sharpening, which a lot of times makes a crappy result. But that’s okay, it’s something I’m working on. One of these days, when I actually sit down to learn how to use photoshop, I’ve promised myself that I’ll cut back on the sharpening a whole bunch, and instead spend all of my time playing around with levels and curves. I mean, that’s what all you photoshoppers do, right? Hmm, if I only knew…
One of these days I’m thinking about having a week dedicated to pics from you, my dear readers. I haven’t decided when, and I haven’t decided what a good theme would be, and I haven’t even decided yet if it’s a good idea. When I see super-cool-awesome pictures from other people, I sometimes feel bad, like “oh man, I could NEVER take a picture like that. I might as well just give up”, so I’m afraid doing so would send me into a tailspin that would take my whole weekend to recover from. So maybe I’ll make it a rule that you’re only allowed to submit crappy pictures. Yeah, actually, I kind of like that. It’ll be a “send me your best crappy picture” kind of thing. I can’t wait! Anybody have any thoughts on that? Possible themes? Let me know – either comment here, on my Facebook page, or just email me at dave (at) davefry (dot) net. We’ll see how this goes.
See you guys on (maybe) Friday!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/250s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 50mm.
January 25, 2010 – Grass
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Picture of the Day on January 25, 2010
Grass
Monday, January 25, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1091
Another weekend, come and gone. Would have been nice if I had gotten out of bed to enjoy it. Oh well, too late for that now. Today’s picture takes us back to this fall, when I was up in Whistler for the weekend. The weather wasn’t what I’d call ideal, but of course complaining about it doesn’t help anyone. It still turned into a great weekend, because how could any weekend away from home not be great? This picture was a bit funny, because I just happened to turn around when I was walking the other way, and I thought it looked kind of cool. I didn’t actually think it would turn out though, or even if it did I figured it’d just be a throwaway. Heck, even on the camera screen I was kind of meh about it. But I liked it on the big screen. I mean, it’s not like my favorite picture ever or anything, but it’s good enough to look at. I think the contrast in the sky saves it.
That’s all the time I have for today, I’ll try to make tomorrow’s post more substantive, it’s been a while since I’ve really written anything meaty.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm lens. 1/400s, f/16.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 40mm.
January 22, 2010- Anemone
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on January 22, 2010
Some kind of flower
Friday, January 22, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1076
Hey look, it’s Friday again. So, I’m not really a flower person. And by that I mean, I love flowers, I think they’re really pretty, and I love taking pictures of them, but I really know nothing about them. Like, unless it’s a rose or a daisy, I have no idea. (And when in doubt, I usually just call it a daisy anyway.) So, I apologize for having no clue what we’re looking at here. But I thought it was really pretty. Pretty enough for a Friday.
And yes, I posted this before 8am. That’s weird. But I’m busy all day, so I tossed it up here now to get it out of the way. See you all on Monday.
UPDATE: One of my Facebook friends told me that this is an anemone. So there you go.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/400s, f/10.0, ISO 800. Focal length: 300mm.
January 21, 2010 – Mt. Shuksan
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on January 21, 2010
Mt. Shuksan and Picture Lake
Thursday, January 21, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=619
Today brings us back to Mt. Shuksan, and the Heather Meadows Recreation Area in northwestern Washington state. This was taken from the usual viewpoint, but it’s a bit of a different setup than you usually see. It’s of course hard to argue with the usual shot, because if you can time it right when the lake is mirror-smooth, it’s such a classic image. But I still like this setup too. I’m actually a bit disappointed in the quality of this image though. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to try to use a small aperture and keep the mountain totally in focus, or if I should open it wide and really focus on the tree. So instead I went to this annoying in-between state, where it looks like it’s supposed to be in focus, but it’s just not quite there. And then I over sharpened it a bit to compensate. Sigh. Oh well, good enough for a Thursday. And, actually, at the time I probably THOUGHT I was getting it perfectly in focus. This was back when I was still using my Rebel XT, which had a tiny little screen, so it probably looked razor sharp at the time, just not on the big screen. That’s one of the big reasons I upgraded this summer to the T1i, to get the nice big high-res screen. It definitely doesn’t *eliminate* moments like that, but it definitely does make them less frequent. (That’s not meant as a dig on the XT though, it was still a fantastic camera, and I was really happy with it for the entire 3 years that I used it.)
Okay, see you all tomorrow…
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/200s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length: 70mm.
January 20, 2010 – Whitefish Mountain Resort
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on January 20, 2010
Whitefish Mountain Resort
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1279
As promised, here’s a shot from Montana this weekend. I’ve only barely started going through them, so this is just the first one that I snagged that seemed post-worthy. (Actually, that’s not even true, it’s the third one, and the first two are more awesome, but I want to save them for later. This one was just barely far enough above the bar that I felt it would be perfect for a Wednesday.)
As a quick refresher, this is from Whitefish Mountain Resort, formerly known as Big Mountain, which is just outside the town of Whitefish, Montana. You get there via Amtrak, or you can fly into Kalispell which isn’t too far away. This was up near the top of the mounain, and those chairs are part of I believe Chair 5, which wasn’t running while we were there. (According to several locals, that chair very rarely runs, as it serves only terrain that’s already served by other chairs, so it’s only needed on super crowded days, which there are very few of in Montana, certainly not while we were there.)
Those ice-encrusted trees are pretty common at the top of the hill. They’re called snow ghosts, and I’ve only ever seen them in Montana, Idaho, and interior BC (which really are all basically the same place). That’s absolutely not a claim that they don’t exist anywhere else, that’s just the only places I’ve seen them. They make for fantastic pictures, because even when it hasn’t snowed in awhile you can still make a picture look like it’s a powder day. I played around with them a bunch this weekend, you’ll certainly see them again.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens. 1/400s, f/11.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 44mm.
January 19, 2010 – Green Bottle Fly
Posted by Dave in Macro, Picture of the Day on January 19, 2010
Green Bottle Fly
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1040
Alrighty, I finished up with that whole travelling to Montana thing. Now, back to real life. My original plan was to use something from that trip here, but honestly, I haven’t had a chance to even BEGIN going through them yet, so instead today I’ll fulfill one of last week’s requests. (If you want to request anything, either leave it in the comments or contact me directly – dave (at) davefry (dot) net. I’ll see if I’ve got anything that works.)
This is a green bottle fly (or at least that’s what my (really) brief research on google suggested), seen through a reverse-mounted 18-55 mm kit lens. I talked about this already at length in this post, so if you’re at all interested in this kind of stuff, please do yourself a favor and read that entry too. But, long story short, you buy a little adapter for your lens, and then the magic happens. Wooo!
I’ll try to at least do something resembling a first pass on the Montana pics tonight, at least as far as finding one worthy of posting here. We’ll see how that goes.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, reverse-mounted 18-55mm kit lens. 1/320s, ISO 200.
January 13, 2010 – Shi Shi Beach Trail
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State on January 13, 2010
Shi Shi Beach Trail
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=989
God, another Shi Shi Beach picture. Seriously, right? Whatever. This one was specifically requested, although maybe not in so many words. (Somebody told me how much they like it, and expressed surprise that I hadn’t posted it here yet, so that’s as good as a request in my book.)
I think I’ve covered this ground several times already, but the trail (pronounced shy-shy, not shee-shee, by the way), is mostly located on the Makah reservation, at the far northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. It’s not until the very end of the trail, when you actually get spit out onto the beach itself, that it leaves reservation land and enters Olympic National Park. It’s pretty remote out there, it takes a good 4 or 5 hours to get out there from Seattle. Distance-wise it’s not very far (only 118 miles as the crow files, 155 miles by road), but the last couple of hours is on *very* windy roads along the coast, so it’s tough to get above 25 mph on that whole stretch. The drive itself is fine, it’s not ugly, but it won’t blow your mind either, but once you get off on the roads onto a trail like this, it’s *fantastic*, especially once you’re actually on the Pacific coast. (the road goes along the northern coast of the peninsula, not along the actual “ocean”.) Anyway, I’m rambling. Look at the pretty picture. Ooooh, aaaaah.
This is going to be the last post until next Tuesday, because as I mentioned yesterday, I’m minutes away from getting on a train to Montana! Wooooo! So, be sure to enjoy your time not spent skiing in Whitefish while I’m away!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 10-22mm lens. 1/400s, f/4.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 11mm.