Nicci Photography

Natural Bridges after the storm

I went back for more photos. The waves were huge this time. I was out on the cliffs and the sound of waves sometimes reached the level of a loud boom.

I still have to work on the filter. There’s a specific effect I’m looking to create and I am not there yet. However, I do now know how to use the filter, hooray! I purchased another one for my 28-200mm lens. I can’t wait to get it. Composing with a wide angle lens is a bear. The nice thing is that the Sigma wide-angle lens I have is so high quality that I can crop massively and the image holds up, but of course that’s not really how I want to compose, by cropping. So I’ll keep that set of tools in the kit and start learning the filter for my main lens.

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Have a great weekend!

 

Nicci Photography

Natural Bridges State Beach

I made it to this beach this week to try out my filter on the ocean. I did better but need to speed up the shutter more and make sure I don’t accidentally change the focal length to wide angle. A lot didn’t turn out,  but I did get the feature image with the filter and kind of like that. Of course it would have been better a bit faster, but it’s a start.

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I would have had more but I made a couple mistakes. I moved the focal length without realizing it and the filter doesn’t work with the wide angle. I shot a ton at 16mm and that triggered the vignetting. The other mistake was not trying some other shutter speeds. I needed a faster shutter. Next time I will do that.

I also forgot my tripod, but I recovered from that because I have a sturdy mini tripod and that was better anyway as I wanted to be as close to the ground as possible. So actually I learned to use the tiny tripod for my wide angle shots.

The feature shot is not wide angle or filter but shows the natural bridges, which I thought was important!  Those are pelicans up there on top of the rock.

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Here you can see those pelicans more clearly.

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The tide pools were amazing.

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I loved how healthy and green the anemones were.

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Are you gearing up for the new year? I am, with a new very different set of goals. I’m going to try writing straight fiction, not genre, (except when I’m taking a break, if I have time). That’s a big change for me, but I’m excited. My goal is to concentrate on short stories this year. I don’t have a number in mind as I have no idea how long they will take. I’m hoping for four, and submitting them all places.

I hope you have a nice remaining holiday if you are on break or just a nice weekend.

Nicci Photography

Learning to use my ND filter

As part of my Christmas present, my husband helped me learn to use my new ND filter (Zomei Ultra Slim Adjustable Variable Neutral Density ND2-400 Camera Lens Filter-82mm). It is tricky. We figured out there are 2 dots (which represent darkness in the filter) on the ring that don’t work and one that mostly doesn’t work. Knowing that made things a lot easier and we began to get systematic after that. We tried each of the dots at varying shutter speeds and took notes. I also know to put it on the lightest filter (so I can see) on auto focus then turn off auto focus and turn the filter to one of the dark places on the dial. It looks pretty black through the lens at that point but I can set the camera speed and then let it set the f-stop. I also discovered I don’t have to slow down the  shutter as much as I thought to get a nice blurring effect.

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When I go to a beach situation or waterfalls, which are why I bought this filter, I know to work through the settings to make sure I come home with something. I also won’t be trying it when it’s really windy! But every light situation is different, as is every subject. Oh…also figured out that the sun has to be behind me so as not to get sun spots and streaks. I’ll need to plan for the sun position when I go out to do this.

Oh one other detail that was kind of funny — I managed to smudge the filter. The second time we went out we couldn’t figure out why it was all smeary black on the right side then realized it was smudge on the lens. Whew.

I fooled around a bit with bokeh for this lemon but a wide angle lens isn’t really the right one for bokeh. I’m really using it for landscape. Nonetheless, I thought you might like a pretty lemon.

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Here’s one more showing the vacuum hose zooming around.

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I need to see if I can get out to the beach again this week. I’d like to try the tide pools early in the morning.

Have a great week!

Nicci Photography

San Gregorio State Beach

I managed to salvage a couple photographs from my unsuccessful attempt to use my new filter. I think one key is not to use filters when shooting into the sunset. I’m going to be learning how to use my new filter in the back yard before I try it in the field again.

These are the two without sun spots. I like the silvery quality of this one. Actually I worked this over in Lightroom and Photoshop so now it’s more gold.

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Here’s a little close-up of the fabulous rocks in this area and a little tidepool.

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I hope you have a nice weekend and holiday.

Nicci Photography, Uncategorized

Bean Hollow State Beach revisited

I went out to get you some new photos of this gorgeous state beach.

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The winds were really high. My  hair needs to be cut because it kept blowing in front of the lens, even the telephoto lens! Thanks to my hair, I was partly blind, and stepped into a bit of wet sand in one of the tide pools. I sank all the way up to my ankles. I’ll be cleaning out the car for a while and the sneakers need a wash.bean-hollow-december-2

I took my Christmas present out for a spin, the ND filter. It was pretty chaotic between not knowing what I was doing, and extremely high winds. I managed a few good shots, not necessarily with the filter.bean-hollow-december-3

The light! Oh, it was so pretty.

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When I came home to process I was surprised to see a hexagonal flare in a lot of the photos. Googled it, apparently it’s the aperture which can show up when there’s an intense source of light. That has never happened to me before, and it happened on both lenses. I am not showing any of those. I was able to crop them out of the next two images.

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In terms of composition, this isn’t much but it is one of my favorites. I added a little vignette which I think helped the composition a lot, but it’s still just waves. But I love those waves!

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Again, the sunlight was so soft on these rocks.bean-hollow-december-8

This was my other favorite: bean-hollow-december-9

A last one with that sunset light starting to add pink to the water.bean-hollow-december-10

I’ll have a few more from Bean Hollow and from San Gregorio State Beach on Monday. The wind kept away all the campfires, so the air was clear. We had a few clouds from the last storm. I love winter photography so far.

Have a nice weekend.

Nicci Photography, Uncategorized

New photos

Hello. I have been sporadic in posting, unable to get out to shoot and a tad uninspired by what I have in the archives, but tonight I went out at sunset to take a few shots.

I went by this tree earlier in the day and thought I have to get back and shoot that at sunset. I planned to take it the other way but there was no great place to stand, and it’s in the middle of the road. There was a nice pull-out area to park facing the other direction, plus the sky was actually prettier in that direction.

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Why did I suddenly and finally get motivated to get out and shoot? I did some thinking and realized I want to go to very scenic places where people go on photography tours. I don’t want to do a tour, I want to do it myself. We have a ton of stuff to shoot in Northern California. I’m really lucky to live here, and it’s time I started taking advantage of it. But I have to plan for it. It won’t just happen, I noticed.

I looked up a beach that a photographer takes people to, and he suggested bringing ND filters. I’ve been wanting one so I can blur moving water, that’s it. Nothing fancy. So I asked for an inexpensive one for my wide angle lens for not much money for Christmas. My husband also did the research, which is a big part of the gift. I looked at the ones Leanne Cole talks brilliantly about. Those look amazing. I am not ready for those, though. I want to keep things simple and not invest in more equipment for a while. I need to get out and use my excellent wide angle lens (several birthday and Christmas presents worth there). I want to put the emphasis on taking photos now. I have enough stuff.

So the other part of my Christmas present is that my husband will go with me to a couple beach outings and…drum roll…to Yosemite in the winter! (We’re going to stay in a hotel outside the park, not camp.)

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The advantage of going on our own is that we can wait for the ideal conditions because we aren’t booked in advance.

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On my way home from my photography adventure tonight, I had to stop and take a picture of the moon.

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Have a great week!

 

Nicci Photography

Grand Tetons

Here are some images I played around with from Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. These are ones I passed over in earlier posts, but which caught my eye as I was looking through the collection again. Instead of full-on shots, they are just little peeks of one of the great mountains. In some ways I most enjoyed the peeks as I was hiking or walking, being surprised repeatedly that these massive monuments of nature are standing sentry over the landscape at all times.

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Have a great week.

Nicci Photography, Uncategorized, Writing Life

Moving toward the new year

After a bit of a hiatus, I am back writing again with new goals. And I managed to take a photo today. Our neighbor’s redwood is a frequent subject. I love it.

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In addition to writing, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do next with photography, and I think I know what that is. I want to start taking trips to parks in California and the western region, state and national. I think this will be great during the winter. We are starting to get snow in the mountains, which is wonderful. I also want to find one place nearby that I like and work on taking just the right shot there by going there often.

The thing that I seem to shoot a lot is the Campbell water tower. Maybe I’ll figure out something new with the tower. I’d like to get it with people walking there. I think the really tall ones would look nice with someone walking near the base. I’ll have to get my husband to go with me.

I’m interested in getting a tree-lined lane. I have seen some amazing photos of tree-lined lanes especially after rain. I have to find one though!

With writing I’m working on two new books. One is my main goal, a romantic suspense, but I let myself work on the other one, a romance science fiction, when I’m in the mood. This is a really different way to work for me but so far it’s working really well. I don’t seem to have any trouble switching between them. I get ideas for each of them and then I jot them down. Or if I feel like hanging out with one set of characters, I work on writing in that book. We’ll see if I can keep it up. I don’t have a time goal for the s.f. so that should help.

After a long limbo/lull, it’s nice to be excited about writing and photography again.

I hope you are having a nice season so far. I’d love to hear from you, so please say hello!

Nicci Photography

Clouds make beautiful sunsets

We are working on the front of the house so that’s where I am when sunset (which happens so early these days!). Well I can never resist dropping what I’m doing and getting the camera when the colors come out.

We picked our first persimmon yesterday. This is a new tree. It was finally ripe. I can’t wait to try it this morning cut up in cereal.

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And a pretty tree, have to have one of those.

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Have a great weekend.