Saturday, February 28, 2009

Elephant Seal & Star Trails

Hi all, here's a very quick post because I'm in Death Valley with very limited internet access.

There are two approaches I usually take in photography: 1) cowboy style "yeehaw, there's something cool to photograph" and 2) planned images. The two below photos are the result of planning.

Photo 1) After about a week photographing elephant seals, I came up with the idea for this photo. The hardest part was finding a location where I could get down low with the seals, and of course doing it safely (the bull seals weight thousands of pounds)! EOS 1DsIII; 24-70/2.8 lens; Singh-Ray warming polarizer and 3 stop hard-edge ND grad; 580 EXII flash


Photo 2: I scouted this location to shoot star trails in the Jumbo Rocks campground in Joshua Tree National Park a couple of nights ago. During the day I planned the composition and figured out the focusing distance. When I went back to make the shot at night, it was easy to set up the gear and trip the shutter before going back to my van for a glass of wine! [As a side note, Jumbo Rocks is one of the best campgrounds I've ever been to.]
EOS 1DsIII; 24-70/2.8 lens; 1 hour exposure at f/5; foreground rocks subtly light-painted with a dim flashlight; Canon multi-function remote shutter release

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:16 AM

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  2. Anonymous12:17 AM

    I love that you take wine on the road...that's awesome!

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  3. Anonymous10:27 AM

    Good trails. I've thought about that remote, amazing how expensive Canon can make a stopwatch/clock!

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  4. Beauty and the beast!

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  5. Really nice Ethan, got to love it when a plan comes together!

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  6. Great shot of the elephant seal.

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