A Surprise Journey Through The Range Of Light - The Eastern Sierra Nevadas - Part 3: Mono Lake

August 12, 2014 in Journeys

Day 3 of this unplanned impromptu journey into the Eastern Sierras thing was a tough choice. While I was happy with what I got in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows yesterday, now that I knew the lay of the land a bit better, it couldn’t hurt to head back again, which I would have been absolutely HAPPY to do. However, I was also dangerously close to Mono Lake, California, another one on the bucket list, so I had to decide whether to turn this into 2 days of Tuolumne or 1 day of each, Tuolumne and Mono Lake, both of which, in my opinion, would have been WIN! I know, I know, tough decisions…

A Surprise Journey Through The Range Of Light – Part 2 – Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park

August 06, 2014 in Journeys

This is just one of those places. You hear about it, you see pictures of it, you read about it, and if you’re a nature-lover or photographer, or better yet, both, you’d be hot damned if you that’s the one you didn’t get to cross off your bucket-list.

Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.

The mystique around this place runs high. It’s been called a ‘photographers paradise,’ as well as one of ‘the most difficult places to photograph.’ The thing about it is, it’s closed off most of the year.

A Surprise Journey Through The Range Of Light - Part 1 - Mammoth Lakes

July 30, 2014 in Journeys

So this is what was supposed to happen. My landlord’s friend has a condo up in Mammoth. He wanted new pictures of it in order to prepare rental listings for the coming winter season. It hasn’t been rented in several months, so I figured this would be a good week to go. I got the green light from him, from the landlord, and off I went, driving along the Eastern Sierras of California…the ‘Range of Light.’ A relatively painless drive to spend a few days in a part of California I’ve never been to, take some pictures, get some writing and some work done in the solitude of the Sierra Nevadas for a few days, and then head back home. Well, let’s just say, that got derailed in a big way, spontaneously turning this into much more of an adventure than I expected.

I Spy With Eye-Fi Lots Of Things That Are NOW IN FOCUS!

July 22, 2013 in Journeys

Spoiler Alert: Super fan boy mode is about to be engaged. Reader discretion is advised.

Eye-Fi Mobi.

In a word: frickin' brilliant!

Ok, that was two words. Well, one real word and one, eh…you get the point.

It was a common frustration for DSLR shooters such as myself that the only means of checking for focus and composition is on the LCD screen on the back of the camera, at least until you get home and look at them on your computer and then want to shoot your computer in the face because that critical point was actually in soft focus!

Sure, that's a huge step up from no screens at all and having to wait to get the prints back from a lab hours, or even days, after, but still, this is 2013, and we're demanding madness, so Eye-Fi has delivered, well, madness (optimized for mobile of course).

So I was recently sent to photograph some rental cabins on property in the National Forest bordering Yosemite, and I've been reading and hearing so much about this bugger that I figured it was finally time to make an upgrade to my camera bag that I can afford. Their new Mobi card was right within that budget. 50 smackeroos.

Verdict?

Best thing ever. Well, that and tacos.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the basics of what it is and what it does, the Eye-Fi is an SD memory card for you camera. The magic in it rests in what else it contains - wi-fi, effectively turning it into an adhoc wifi network between your camera and your mobile device, be it a smartphone or a tablet.

Why? Well, when you snap a photo, it automatically send the jpg version to your mobile device. GONE are the days of the 2 inch LCD monitor and RUE THE DAYS of excitedly uploading your recent batch of photos only to realize the BOOM one wasn't in focus. Now, you can immediately, no matter where you are, use your mobile device as the viewer screen for your shot as soon as you take it. Not only that, but if you feel so inclined, you can now immediately Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/smoke signal your DSLR images from your device as if you shot them on your phone...

For my process, I set the Nikon D7000's LCD screen to show just the histogram, and then used my iPhone as the viewer screen to check for critical focus and composition. It took me 5 minutes to set up in a taqueria parking lot, and now it never leaves slot 2 in my camera. While the Mobi is designed for mobile use, if you'd like a version where the RAW images can be sent directly to your computer as well, they have the ProX2 version that covers that base!!

The one thing that took me a minute to figure out was that I shoot in RAW in order to post-process later in Lightroom and/or Photoshop, so wasn't sure how that would work, but a quick Google search gave me the 'duh!' answer to shoot RAW+JPG. Then it beams the jpgs to your device, and you have your RAWs for later. The Nikon D7000 conveniently has two slots, so I set it to shoot RAW to slot 1, and JPG to slot 2, and that was that.

And the slideshow below is a selection of what happened.

For the full blog posts on my escapades in the Sierras (less fan-boy, more gushy), start here with part 1:

Far Meadow - A Photo Trip? (Part 1)

Ok then.

Now go and get your Eye-Fi card by clicking here.

And for more of my madness: Instagram: @wasimofnazareth Twitter: @wasimofnazareth Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

Far Meadow - Yup. A Photo Trip. (Part 2)

July 16, 2013 in Journeys

And tonight…I write by candlelight…

So yeah, the power on the trailer went out so I'm left with a few candles and just enough charge to offload today's photos and jot down today's haps, so, again, I'll try to keep it as short and sweet as I can and hopefully let some of the images do the talking…

I must say, waking up to a symphony of birds singing, mist evaporating, and the soft golden sunlight beaming through decades old redwoods, bouncing poetically across wildflowers outside your window…does. not. suck.

Far Meadow Yosemite - A photo trip? (Part 1)

July 09, 2013 in Journeys

The stillness is a tad unnerving at first…but then the fact that there is absolutely no noise coming from anything other than the keyboard and an occasional distant howl, the source of which I've yet to determine, begins to quickly become soothing. Once your brain gets past the fact that you've decided, on your own will, to drive through the central valley during one of the most scorching heat waves we've seen in these parts (I watched my car thermometer climb from 103 and end up at 109 before finally beginning to gain elevation after passing through Oakhurst and winding my way up to the Far Meadow on tires that should have been changed 5000 miles ago), and you catch sight of the foothills of the High Sierras, and you start heading in their direction…everything begins to fall into place.