Waterville Valley Yesterday for some nice Skiing

Monday I was able to get in my first day of skiing this season.  Things hand looked pretty good around Thanksgiving (about seven weeks ago) with some decent early snow.  But there has been no snow down here in southern New England since then, while northern ski areas were able to finally get some the last couple of weeks. For one reason or another I got a delayed start this season.  My goal for the season is 15 days, with the "minimal accepted" number being 10. Fingers crossed.

I bought my day pass at Waterville Valley ($29 midweek for seniors if bought online, at least one day prior) and packed the car the night before.  It is about an hour and 50 minute drive for me… just long enough to listen to two podcasts and sip on an insulated mug of black coffee.

There seemed to be plenty of people on the mountain and in the lodge, although I did not need to wait in line at the lifts.  I see my photos are also pretty void of skiers.

For gear I had the little Panasonic GM-5 with the tiny collapsable 12-32mm (24-64 equiv.) zoom.  I kept it in the outside chest pocket of my ski jacket for easy access. 

High temperature was about 24 degrees Fahrenheit and there was very little wind.  The battery registered as full when I got home, so I don’t think the temperature had much of an effect on the battery. And the camera worked fine. It must have picked up some body heat from me (I had 2-3 layers under my shell parka, depending on what you count as a layer) but the outside pocket allowed it to stay cool enough so that when I took it out to use, there was no fog on the lens.  Indoors, I just kept it in my pocket (except for two of the images below, both taken in the upper hut featured in the first image.)

"Come Back Soon"

Captured this afternoon

After working indoors most of the morning, I decided after lunch it would be a good time to work out in the yard.  At this time of year it is best to avoid mosquitos (the pests seem to be carrying more diseases these days), and mid-day is usually a time when the mosquitos are sleeping (I made that up) somewhere in the woods. 

I sat down on the front steps to tie on my sneaks and looked up to see a gloriously rich blue sky and interesting streaks of clouds.  Of course, I had to see if I could capture anywhere near the correct color with my camera.  I grabbed the Olympus with 14-54 lens and took several exposures of this scene.  This one was the best IMO.





Southern Maine Coast

Laurie and I were up in Maine yesterday to visit family.  The weather was wonderful.  The air was dry and the temperature was about 70F.  After our morning visit we decided to take a little excursion, driving the coastal route from Kittery Point to Ogunquit.

These are all mid-day photos.  Usually that is supposed to be a "bad" thing because the light is harsh and the shadows deep.  But I love the colors I was able to get.

The lighthouse seen in two of the shots is Nubble Light.  It is also called Cape Neddick Light.

The camera/lens combination was the Olympus E-M5 and 14-54II zoom lens.  These four images were cropped to a 2:1 aspect ration while processing the RAW images in Lightroom 4.

 

 





Images from coastal Maine (part 2): Blue sky with puffy clouds

In my prior post I mentioned the advantages of image-taking during the golden hours.  On the other hand, this is rather limiting when you are traveling. 

All of the images below were taken mid-day.  I took them mid-day because that is the time I was there!

I love blue sky and puffy clouds and the sky is often its blueist mid-day and when the sun is at your back.  But you need to watch your exposure.  The white clouds are easy to overexpose, and they will look like featureless white blobs.

A strategy for dealing with this is to use a bit of "exposure compensation" (perhaps minus 2/3rd of one stop) to retain the detail in the clouds. Even the simplist cameras will often have this feature, often referred to as EV compensation.  Usually you will have a button or a menu item that is written as "+/-". Adding "+" numbers will result in a brighter exposure. Adding "-" numbers will reduce the light and make the overall picture darker or less exposed.

By adding -2/3 EV compensation the clouds will look better, but the shadows in the foreground will get darker.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  But if you want to fix it, a bit of "fill light" in processing software like Adobe Lightroom can often help.

I'm not sure I was entirely sucessful in these shots, but I don't think the clouds are noticeably "blown out".

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The next three images were taken at Colonial Pemaquid State Historical Site, and the site of Fort William Henry that was originally built in 1692

Pemaquid Lighthouse

Whitehead Light Station

Birch Point Beach State Park.  Beaches up there are never crowded... it seems; though this was taken on Thursday, June 30th, just before the long 4th of July weekend.

Near Owls Heads Lighthouse

Public Beach south of the center of Camden

Belfast waterfront

Bridge over Penobscott Narrows, Bucksport

From the town landing in Blue Hills

Everyone likes blue sky and puffy clouds

I loved the view of the clouds from this bridge, so I eagerly parked the car and walked back to the middle of the bridge.  This is a good example of why I (almost) always keep a camera with me, and is why even the most serious photographer should (IMO) own a decent pocket camera. The camera I used for these images is the 7 ounce Canon S90.

These shots were taken in the P-mode with about 1-stop of negative EV compensation.   This reduced the exposure so that the blue sky would maintain its deep color.  All were shot in RAW and converted to jpegs in Lightroom.