Category: Photography

Coal Creek Falls Hike in the Winter

Post author By Erik
Post date 2009/01/05
4 Comments on Coal Creek Falls Hike in the Winter

Over the weekend I hiked up to Coal Creek Falls in the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park. Its a nice little hike with this great looking waterfall & stream in the center of the trail. Look below for some more pictures. I’ll definitely be coming back with the Camera in the coming weeks.

Total distance traveled was about 4 miles. Most of the hike is a super highway but it can get pretty muddy in some areas… Lots of people on the trail.

I originally found out about this trail through the Washington Trails Association, which is a cool website that lists all the great hiking trails throughout Washington state. Here is their article about Coal Creek Falls, and here is an article about other great winter trails that I plan on hiking in the coming weeks.

From Seattle, take I-90 east. At exit 13, go right onto Lakemont Boulevard SE and drive 3 miles. Just before a long bend in the road, go left into the parking area.

All photos taken with the iPhone

Tags coal creek falls, cougar mountain regional wildland park, hiking, hiking trails, iPhone, Photography, Seattle, Travel, Washington, WATER, waterfall, winter

Photography Spiffy

U.S. AQUA PURE DRINKING WATER

Post author By Erik
Post date 2008/09/24
35 Comments on U.S. AQUA PURE DRINKING WATER

I found this U.S. AQUA water can in an antique shop in Poulsbo, Washington. On the side it talks about how it’s “IMPERVIOUS TO NUCLEAR FALLOUT” and cheap insurance. This convinced me that I had to buy it.

Then it sat on my desk for a month and a half. Besides providing life sustaining water in case of political destabilization due to the Nuclear Armageddon that we all know is coming in the near future, it also makes an awesome paper weight.

I haven’t been able to find anything about U.S. Aqua or it’s fallout impervious canned water on the internets, (other than some long dead eBay links that won’t even show the seller or the specific auction even) so this is my original content contribution. Heres the complete text from the side of the can. Below that you’ll find a gallery with a bunch more images of said water can.

U.S.
AQUA

PURE DRINKING WATER

CONTENTS 12 FLUID OZ.

This can contains water pumper from our own well and immediately processed under scientific methods resulting in a highly pure drinking water. Under ordinary storage conditions, this water will keep for years.
IMPERVIOUS TO NUCLEAR FALLOUT. But, in case of fallout, wipe can and can opener before opening can.
This water is processed under provisions in permit issued to Teasdale Packing Company by California State Board of Health and meets the requirements as set forth in the U.S. Public Service Drinking Water Standards.
Recommended for convenience in emergency uses. It is cheap insurance to have a supply on hand.

PACKED BY
TEASDALE PACKING CO.
SAN JOSE,
CALIF.

C32

U.S. AQUA PURE DRINKING WATER FRONT TILTED

U.S. AQUA PURE DRINKING WATER TRADEMARK SIDE

U.S. AQUA PURE DRINKING WATER TOP ANGLED

U.S. AQUA PURE DRINKING WATER FRONT ANGLED

Tags emergency, FALLOUT, Luminescent, NUCLEAR, nuclear fallout, Spiffy, Wallpaper, WATER, Water Can

Life Photography

Greetings from the Olympic National Forest

Post author By Erik
Post date 2008/07/25
No Comments on Greetings from the Olympic National Forest

Greetings from the Olympic National Forest.
We’re waiting in line for the Bainbridge ferry. Home soon hopefully.

This iPhone wordpress app has crashed on me 5+ times already. Wonder if it’s wordpress or OSX?
More stuff to come about later

Tags Forest, Travel, Washington

Photography

Looking at the Sky

Hardware Photography Software Tech

ISO 50 Is A Lie

I just took delivery of an EOS-1Ds Mark III and wanted ask a question about ISO to ensure I’m optimizing the quality of images from this fantastic camera. I’ve been doing studio work with my EOS-1D Mark II and II N on the extended ISO 50. Is there any quality compromise when using this lower ISO? I was using it thinking I would be getting better quality with the lower ISO, but I read something to the effect that it actually increases noise and that extending the range is only a method of light- not quality-management. Am I better off shooting at ISO 100?

The standard ISO range for the EOS-1Ds Mark III camera is 100 to 1600. Optional settings for ISO 50 and ISO 3200 are enabled via menu command, and are indicated on the camera’s LCD data panel as “L” for Low and “H” for High, respectively. Part of the reason behind this is that these settings are not truly ISO 50 or ISO 3200. Instead, in the case of “L,” you’re looking at ISO 100 processed by the camera to achieve an effective rating of ISO 50. Similarly, “H” means that the camera is processing an ISO 1600 image to achieve an effective rating of ISO 3200. “L” images have about the same level of noise as ISO 100 images, but they have less “headroom” in their tone curves to recover overexposed highlights than do ISO 100 images captured with the 1Ds Mark III. This is typically not a problem with evenly lit scenes, but it may become an issue with scenes that have a lot of dynamic range to them, such as sunsets, backlit flash photos, etc.

ISO 50 can be helpful when you are trying to achieve a creative effect, such as a wide aperture to blur the background behind the main subject, for instance in portraiture. It can also be helpful when you are using studio strobes and you don’t want to stop down the lens excessively, or in outdoor situations when you want a longer shutter speed to blur subject movement like the water in a waterfall. But if none of these situations apply, you are better off to use ISO settings in the 100 to 200 range in terms of overall image quality and maximum dynamic range.

© Chuck Westfall

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0804/tech-tips.html

Words do not express how much this annoys me…

Tags iso 50, Photography