Spitfires and Some Luck

Image: 5D Mk II, 300mm at f 8, 1/400 sec

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Image: 5D Mk II, 300mm at f 7.1, 1/320 sec

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Image: 5D Mk II, 300mm at f 7.1, 1/320 sec

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Image: 5D Mk II, 300mm at f 8, 1/400 sec

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Image: 5D Mk II, 300mm at f 6.3, 1/640 sec

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Some times just blind, dumb luck helps out. I knew the moon was where it was, I just never thought I'd be able to incorporate it in to a shot. Shooting high speed and panning across the sky with a big lens never bodes well for getting a shot that incorporates the moon, not only did I get it once, but four times, on this shoot. The Flying Heritage Collection, fly day in Mukilteo happens every summer and is put on by Paul Allen's group for about 8 weeks, ending Sept 24th this year with B-25 day. FHC is usually joined by the Historic Flight Foundation, which in this case supplied the Supermarine Spitfire Mk. IXe with FHC's: Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-3 and Supermarine Spitfire Mk Vc.

The first image is a crop of the fourth image, with the Mk V Spitfire removed.

Ross

Images In Light

Barns And Wheat Fields

Image: Canon S95

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Image: 5D Mk II, 8-15 f 4 L, 15mm at f11 for 1/15 sec

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Image: 5D Mk II, 24-70 f 2.8 L, 24mm at f5 for 30 sec

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Image: 5D Mk II, 24-70 f 2.8 L, 27mm at f8 for 30 sec

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This was a fun shoot and one I've been wanting to try, some old barns, abandoned years ago and falling apart, out in the middle of a wheat field. My original thought was to shoot the barns and the wheat fields, but it turned in to a night shoot when not much came out of the evening light. The wide shot was done with Canons new 8-15 f4 L Fish eye lens, (borrowed) a fun lens, but maybe a bit narrow use.

The big dipper shows up in the darker image, view larger to see it. The B and W image was done by highlighting the barn with a flashlight during the exposure (painting with light), both where hard to obtain focus, but the results are quite interesting.

Ross

Images In Light

The Rocky Mountains

Image:Red Rock Canyon, 5D Mk II, 24-70 f 2.8 L, 70mm at f11, 3 sec

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Image:Moraine Lake, 5D Mk II, 16-35 f 2.8 L, 28mm at f16, 1/20 sec

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Image:Moraine Lake, 5D Mk II, 16-35 f 2.8 L, 29mm at f11, 1/25 sec

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Image:Lake Louise Sunrise, 5D Mk II, 24-70 f 2.8 L, 31mm at f11, 1/2.5 sec

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Image:Endless Ridge, 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L, 200mm at f11, 1/100 sec

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Banff, Jasper, Waterton and Glacier, amongst other National Parks make up the Northern Rocky mountains, or the the southern if you ask people in the Yukon Territories. One of the most beautiful places in North America and a great place to get away and do some unwinding. Me being the photographer that I am, of course couldn't help but get up for a few sunrises. Sunrise appears to be the better time to shoot up there at least for this time of year.

Lake Louise is of course a mandatory visit at sunrise and so far of the two I have seen I have not been disappointed. A lot of people don't realize of course that when they see this image, the photographer is standing about 20 yards from a luxury hotel and after the shoot is rewarded with a double tall latte at the Fairmont Hotel.

Ten minuets up the road from Lake Louise is Moraine Lake, my favorite place to shoot in Banff, it easily rivals Lake Louise in Beauty and the color of the water is even more fantastical. Here it is best to shoot later in the morning, due to the way the light hits the lake and the surrounding peaks, even with no clouds great images can be made here.

Again the early riser is rewarded with a double tall latte with in minuets of the shoot at the Moraine Lake lodge.

The Endless Chain Ridge in southern Jasper is a very impressive mountain range, looking north before heading up to the Columbia Ice Field.

More soon..........

Ross

Images In Light

Mukilteo Light

5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L, f11, 2 sec

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5D Mk II, 24-70 f2.8 L, f11, 1/3 sec

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The moon, sunset and the lighthouse, came together for some interesting images, I was able to get the sunset reflection in the lower windows while the moon was over head and I waited for the light to turn on and took the lower image about one second in to its cycle, so as not to over power the shot with the lighthouses "light"

The upper shot I used a zoom to isolate the light and the moon and processed it in Lightroom for the dark and forboding look.

Ross

Images In Light

Longer Shutter Speeds

Image: 5D MkII, 24-105 f4 IS L, f11 at 1.6 sec
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Set up on a tripod you can change the mood of water by giving it a slight misty feel or a feeling of motion, the eye doesn't see stop action, unless you blink really fast, so allowing the water to move while shooting gives the image a more realistic feel. Rather than shooting a fast shutter speed, I chose a slower one, in this case 1.6 seconds, I like the mood of images like this.
No filters used, single shot.

Ross
Images in Light

Mobile Friendly Blog

Image: 5D Mk II, 300mm at f11, 1/160 sec

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At last, my blog is now mobile friendly, a little different format but looks fairly decent on an iphone.

Ross

Images in Light

The North Cascades

Image: Kangaroo Ridge, 5D Mk II, 70-200 f 4 IS L, 106mm, ISO 100 at f 11, 1/500 sec.
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Image: Liberty Bell, 5D Mk II, 70-200 f 4 IS L, 200mm, ISO 100 at f 16, 1/15 sec.

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A couple from this past week end from Washington Pass, Hwy 20 opened 2 weeks ago and its one of the most scenic drives in the state, affording views at every corner from Lake Diablo to Winthrop on the far side.

Washington Pass

Washington Pass is the jewel of the drive with Liberty Bell and Kangaroo Ridge, surrounding you at the top.

Ross

Images In Light

Back yard photography

Image 5D Mk II, f5.6 at 300mm, ISO 400, 1/160 sec.
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Image 5D Mk II, f5.6 at 300mm, ISO 400, 1/1000 sec.
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Image 5D Mk II, f5.6 at 300mm, ISO 400, 1/1000 sec.
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Some times opportunities are right under our nose, or in this case, just a few steps out the back door.

Ross

Images In Light

Clouds

Image: 5D Mk II, 70-200f/4 IS L, f/11 at 1.5 sec

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Clouds are a difficult thing to expose, normally the image includes other objects at the far end of the dynamic range, like a hill, lake or mountain, playing havoc with most cameras exposure systems.

Live view exposure can really help tame the overall range of light to help bring out the details in the cloud, with out over or under exposing other parts of the scene.

This scene played out in just a few seconds as the last light of the day highlighted this low hanging cloud above the sprouting wheat fields of the Palouse.

Ross Images In Light

Eastern Washington

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From Steptoe Butte

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Eastern Washington wheat field

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The Palouse

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The Eastern side of Washington state is a completely different environment from the West, mostly flat and arid, hot and dry. Where its been irrigated it changes over the course of the summer, from Wheat fields to Turnips, Potatoes and Asparagus, slowly the landscape changes.

The area known as the Palouse in the southeast corner of the state, where Washington meets Oregon and Idaho is widely regarded as a great place for photographers to shoot, not a lot of tourism so your free to pull over anywhere and pull out a tripod and plant it next to a farmers field. Now is a great time to capture the contrasting fields of freshly planted produce and just turned and seeded fields of a different crop.

Also a refreshing change from the rain of Seattle, which has been abnormally bad this year.

Ross

Images In Light

Contrast and Black and White

Image: 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L - North Cascade range just before Leavenworth
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Image: 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L - North Cascade range just before Leavenworth
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High contrast images are the ones that make for good black and white prints, especially if you can get an even exposure across the frame.

Rock, snow, blue sky and clouds, all with sun on them in the late afternoon worked well to turn these two images to black and white and thanks to the wonders of image stabilization, I was able to shoot these hand held through the sun roof of my buddy's SUV, while driving down Hwy 2 in early March. Images processed in Lightroom 3 and CS5.

Ross

Images In Light

747-8 Intercontinental

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So this is what I work on for my day job, the last 5 years have been spent working towards getting this Baby off the ground, which happened on Sunday. The 747-8 Intercontinental is almost an all new 747, with a fuselage extension, an all new super critical wing and new fuel efficient Gen X engines, new materials and a fully computerized design. So I can't help but blog about this aircraft, all images where taken with the 5D Mk II and 70-200 f4 IS L lens.

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Most of my time was spent here on the wing, with the remainder on the fuselage and wing to body fairing. Next year this aircraft will be flying people to the far corners of the globe.

A lot of people have been asking about the cone that hangs from the tail, see this.


Ross Images in Light

Parting Shots, 747-8I and T-33 chase plane

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Spooling Up

Winter at Mt Rainier NP

Image: 5D Mk II, 300 f4 IS at f4, 1/2500 sec, iso 100

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Well I bumped in to my old friend at Mt Rainier NP a couple weeks ago, hes not scared of people so I assume he has been fed in the park by tourists, I think he's the same one I've seen a few times, each time he's a different color, above his transition to Red Fox is almost complete, even though there is still a huge amount of snow in the park, below is the black and silver phase in Jan of 2009.

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Of course Mt Rainier was there in all her glory, this time she appeared to me in Black and White, a short snow shoe up the trail from the Paradise parking lot.

Image: 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L, f11 at 1/640 sec, iso 100
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I hope to be blogging a bit more in the coming weeks, its been a pretty busy and rainy winter, I have not had much chance to get out and about, I was snow shoeing just the other side of the Hwy 2 Pass this last weekend and got some good light its amazing that it can be so cloudy here and I can drive just 2 hours and its a sunny winter wonderland.

Ross

In a new light

Image: from 2010, 5D Mk II, 16-35 f 2.8 IS L, 25 mm at f 11, 1.6 sec, -.7 ev.

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Image: from 2009, 5D Mk II, 16-35 f 2.8 IS L, 16 mm at f 11, 3 sec, -.7 ev.

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The Pergola at the Seattle Center, a great place to shoot, new much brighter lighting was installed over the last year some time, making for better contrast at this iconic Seattle location.

Strange though, I don't see a lot of people shoot here, the center has lots of options, but I seem to be drawn here, its great at sunset but dusk is the best time to shoot here, light from the setting sun lingers while the Pergola is light up by its own lighting.

This time I wanted to incorporate the space needle and not shoot as wide as the last time, I didn't get the clouds but the new lighting helped out with the contrast.

Ross Murphy Images In Light

More Fall at Rainier

Image: 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L, f11, LV, 3 stop GND filter
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Image: 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L, f11, LV, 3 stop GND filter
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Image: 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L, f6.3, LV
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Better light prevailed on this trip to the mountain, the fall colors are fantastic. Every trip to Mt Rainier, the mood is different, the light never the same, that's one of its best features.

Ross Murphy Images In Light