Illumination Rock

Looking back towards White River Canyon.

Ian climbing up the Old Chute.

Ian along the Summit Ridge.

Ian approaching the Summit!

And the following shot is one Ian snapped of me climbing.

Silcox Hut and the top of the Mile, Timberline Ski Area Mount Hood, Oregon

I went up on Mount Hood last night to test out my skinny skis with the ski crampons and get a night pano from my high point. I didn’t need the ski crampons until above the top Palmer lift house. I went up about 3000 feet above the Timberline parking lot to set up to rig. This trip I did have a new item, I rented a 50mm f/1.2 L from Pro Photo Supply….is that a sweet lens! As indicated in the photos above a below. Having such a wide aperture is needed for solid night photography. The settings for these two shots were 25 seconds, ISO 800 and naturally f/1.2.

Mount Hood…standard view from Silcox Hut.

Once I got up to a spot just below Crater Rock….I thought it would be interesting to capture a pano with Illumination Rock, Portland and the upper mountain. I’m actually glad I didn’t go much higher due to the need to ski back down at night….with all the ice crust wind sculpted terrain it made the ski down a bit slower than I’d like not to mention tiring since by the time I started skiing down I had been awake for almost 24 hrs.

To capture the pano, I dropped the in camera exposure down to 13 seconds and upped the GigaPan to 25 seconds to allow the buffer time to transfer the RAW data. This setting was figured out by on the spot trial and error. Since I’ve never done a night pano with stars before in the cool breeze of the mountain environment. Everything, except my toes functioned perfectly in the cold. The GigaPan battery still had 60% life after taking the 27 minute pano. I apologize if there are any grammatical errors. I only slept two hours after getting home.

Here is the JPG version of the pano:

Mount Hood 55 image panoramic

For the larger version: http://gigapan.com/gigapans/128957

Here’s the new edit:

My first ever legitimate bird photo.

I’ll post more from todays excursion to nowhere far….WSU Vancouver.

Just for fun I used the Eddie Bauer LED work lights for highlights.

We’ll see how the images turned out later.

My prayers go out to any who were impacted by the bombs in Boston. It’s sad to think an event that represents human endurance could become a target for this kind of human failure.

A High Dynamic Range Panoramic: Portland Oregon shot on 4/11/2013

All the frames fired away unimpeded for the 30 min pan.   Each frame was a 5 image bracket and since this was a newer thing for me I went with a wider lens, 28mm on the crop of a 40D.   

This shot was just another test run of functionality for the Columbia Icefield Gigapixel Project.    Which will be able to start due to a generous delivery from xRez Studios, a 400mm lens.

Uploading images from a Night HDR Pano…. We’ll see how turns out tomorrow or the next day.

A Mastermind behind Cascade Gravity Labs.

That shoot was an excellent day out. Despite the velcro quality of snow at the base of Hoodoo. I poached a few good lines around shooting the race that day. I do admit it was one of the worst weather days I’ve gone out to capture shots. Aside from some raining days in the Columbia River Gorge this one is high on the list of weather conditions that tested my gear. The snow that was falling was no where near dry and cold….it was just barely cold enough to be considered snow. I may as well have been shooting half the day standing in the mist at the bridge below Wakeena Falls. Holding my lens towards the ground and shielding most of the camera from the elements with my jacket in between race heats was necessary. I kept my lens cloth handy to wipe water off most the camera before tucking it back under my jacket.

It was kind of funny though, I did a run prior to the race to get a feel for the course, but the course wasn’t entirely set. I had 5 or 6 spots in mind for shooting the race. The second spot at the rollers worked out well as seen in the photo above. The first spot was kind of good for two shots and that was it as seen below.

Race starting area

Then, my whole idea changed as I worked my way down the course every 2-3 heats for a good variety.

This shot just kind of appeared as I was watching for riders at the rollers. It was a bit difficult to hear the starting gates at this spot. So a good view was necessary. The view of the course became a photo

At the next location I realized I definitely had no view of the riders and certainly couldn’t hear anything from the start. So I looked around and found a knoll with view.

Looking up the course from my knoll during a calm moment in weather.

At first I was going to be at the knoll along the left of the image between the red and blue gates…but at that spot I wouldn’t be able to know when the riders would be approaching.

The view down from the knoll

Then I moved down and to the right of this image and got a lot of good shots.

One of the many panning style shots. This spot was good also for the view of the course and the guy across the way controlling ski traffic on the cross path of the race course. So, I knew exactly when each heat started down the course.

I moved a few more feet down hill and got a few more good shots.

Cascade Gravity Labs rider. Tony…overall second place winner.

After a few more shots here as with the previous locations except the rollers and the first one. I didn’t really know how I was going to shoot the next section of the course. But I found a cool spot where I had a good view of the drop in over the top of some vegetation and rocks in the image foreground. The shots from this spot work well seen below.

Airs on ski bikes are a big deal….it’s not easy to land. The rider can easily flip over their bars. Both these riders successfully aired this and landed it.

Then, not knowing what was going on, I left this spot a few minutes too early. I got a photo at the finish line instead of another series from this spot.

A slow finish due to the velcro snow.

Cascade Gravity Labs and some.

Thanks to Cascade Gravity Labs for having me come out for this unique event.