Monterey Bay Aquarium

April 25, 2009

On the last day of our vacation earlier this week we headed down to Cannery Row in Monterey Bay. Cannery Row is a very interesting place full of shops, restaurants and of course the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We got to the aquarium when it first opened and since it was a Monday we figured it wouldn’t be so busy. Well it happened to be “locals get in free” day so the place was actually packed. We have visited this aquarium before back in 2006 for our one year anniversary but back then we only had a little Canon point-and-shoot so we didn’t get any fantastic photos. This time I took the Mark II while Bryan used the XTi. I was debating which lens I would use for this occasion. I couldn’t really decide if I wanted the 24-105 F4L which would give me macro and zoom capabilities but would not allow me to really open up the aperture or the 50mm F1.8 which didn’t allow me to zoom or do macro but allowed for a more open aperture. Ultimately I chose to use both, I just put one lens on my camera and the other on Bryan’s and constantly switched off. I used the 24-105 F4L for mostly wide angle shots such as stuff we took outdoors or huge tanks. When the light was really low I just bumped up the ISO, I shot a lot at ISO 4000-5000 but there were moments when I as shooting up to 25,000 ISO. I tried to use the 50mm 1.8 the most in really low light situations however, there were times where it was too dark for the camera to figure out what I was trying to focus on so it wouldn’t take the photo. In that case I just switched my camera to video mode and took a movie. I love the Mark II.

While we were at the aquarium we got to see the new exhibit titled “The Secret Lives of Seahorses”. This was by far my favorite part of the aquarium since I love sea horses. They are just so cute with their little fishy horse faces and curly tails. Another one of my favorite things we saw was the sea otters. We didn’t get to see them the last time we went to this aquarium and they are definitely fun to watch. I also liked seeing the Octopus in the Ocean’s Edge section which is a darker area of the aquarium. I want to take a quick moment and talk about about people who photograph the tanks inside the aquarium. There are usually specific places, the octopus tank being one of them, where it says not to use flash photography. I choose to abide by the rule of never using flash on any indoor tank, I don’t appreciate a flash bulb flashing in my face and I assume fish don’t like this either. This is why I take advantage of high ISO’s and fast lenses when going to the aquarium. Flash photography at an aquarium doesn’t make that much sense either, if you use your flash to take a picture of a fish in a tank chances are your flash is going to bounce off the tank and cause a huge blown out area in your picture. So please don’t flash the fish. Okay rant over.

We made it through the aquarium pretty quickly and walked back down Cannery Row where we took a few photos of ourselves overlooking the ocean. You’ll notice off to the left of the picture of us is a restaurant called The Fish Hopper, we decided to eat there before our very long drive home. On our way back to our car Bryan found a candy store where he stocked up on salt water taffy and got some chocolate covered gummy bears. He was like a kid in a….well you know.

For more of our photos from the Monterey Bay Aquarium check out our GALLERY.

Monterey Bay

Sea Otter

Jellyfish Tank

Sea Horse

Bryan and Jamie

Left: Jamie Right: Outer Bay

Left: Kelp Forest Right: Ocean's Edge

Jellyfish

Sea Horse

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Photographics: Infrared

April 23, 2009

One of the more interesting assignments we were given this semester was to turn in an infrared assignment. This could be be done in one of three ways; shoot a roll of infrared film, shoot infrared digitally with various filters or create a infrared image in Photoshop. We opted not to shoot a roll of infrared film for a couple of reasons. One reason is that Bryan’s Canon A2E will not shoot infrared (more on that later). My old Pentax camera did have the ability to shoot infrared film however if you know anything about IR film you know that it is very sensitive. You have to load the film in the camera in complete darkness. Doing anything in complete darkness is not a skill I have, except for loading film onto a spool for development. I also played around in GIMP trying to create a IR image out of a regular color image, while the results were passable they just weren’t infraredy enough. I know infraredy is not a word neither was ginormous a few years ago. We chose to do the assignment digitally however our Mark II doesn’t have the ability to shoot infrared. The majority of Canon SLR’s can not because of a low pass filter that Canon installs in their camera’s to get sharper images. Canon Film SLR camera use an infrared light to see the notches in the film so it would fog infrared film. During the class lecture on infrared Lanoue mentioned that the Canon G9 had the capability to shoot in IR. This was great since my coworker happened to have a G9 that he let us borrow. We had to by an infrared filter for it but that was much less than if we would have had to buy the G9.

Since infrared works best on foliage we decided to go to Chino Hills State Park. The wildflowers have just started to bloom like crazy over there so it was perfect. When taking an IR shot the camera must be on a tripod because of the long shutter speeds needed to capture the image. Most of our images were at F8 with a shutter speed between 1-4 seconds. If you take IR images digitally the look red when you see them in your cameras preview. You have to take the files into a photo editing program (we used GIMP) and desaturated it. Plus you usually have to mess with the contrast a little bit to get the image just right. The other thing we had to correct for is the noise level in the photos. We found that the G9 doesn’t have great long shutter speed noise performance even at ISO 80-100 which is what we took these shots in. Below are the images Bryan and I shot for our assignment.

Photo by Jamie

Photo by Bryan

Photo by Jamie

Photo by Bryan

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Picture of the Week 4-22-2009

April 22, 2009

This week’s photo is a shot that Bryan took at the Sea Otter Classic. The photo shows a Downhill competitor in mid-air speeding down the hill. I really like that Bryan caught the exact moment where the cyclist jumped. Also I love the leading lines, he did a great job on the composition. This is one of thousands of photos we took at the Sea Otter Classic so check back soon to see our gallery of photos of the entire event.

Photo Info: Taken with the 5D Mark II with 70-200mm F4L lens. ISO 400, F8 at 1/2000 of a second.

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Sea Otter Classic: Day Four

April 20, 2009

We decided to make our final day at the Sea Otter Classic the most eventful. The weather in Monterey was just as warm and sunny as the day before. Maybe even warmer; our car thermometer read 91 degrees. Once again it was a perfect day to photograph, the sky was blue and cloudless. After having breakfast at the media center we hopped on the shuttle to the bottom of the Downhill course. While Bryan positioned himself about halfway up the course, I stood near the finish line. Luckily the course creators put a few jumps at the end so I got some nice photos of that. As with many of these dangerous mountain bike sports, there were a few people who fell. But these athletes are pretty tough so they all got right up. After the Downhill our fantastic shuttle driver Jen picked us up and brought us back to the media center. Jen and all the shuttles were a very appreciated service for us media folks. I can’t imagine walking to many of these courses.

We filled up on a huge taco lunch at the media center and then headed to the Cross Country course. We got to photograph the start of the men’s race and then we got on another shuttle to a see the women race. The coolest part of this shuttle ride is we actually got to drive on the famous corkscrew at Laguna Seca. It was awesome! Bryan then took another shuttle up to Skyline Road where another section of the course was while I went back to the start/finish line. We photographed there for the next hour and a half and called it a day.

One of the many great things about this trip is that we decided to stay an extra day. In an actual hotel room! With a bed and a shower! We used our extra day to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium so I will have even more photos to share!

For more of our Sea Otter Classic coverage check out Bryan’s race report at Amateur Endurance. You can also see more photos from Day 4 in the GALLERY.

Downhill photo by Bryan

Me and the Sea Otter

Downhill photo by Jamie

Downhill crash photo by Jamie

Cross Country photo by Bryan

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Sea Otter Classic: Day Three

April 19, 2009

Upon waking up on the third day of the Sea Otter Classic I would say the two things I miss the most are a good nights sleep and showering. At least we have a campsite that has porta-potties and a hose, there are sites here that have neither of those things. It was really foggy yesterday morning but it soon burned away to a beautiful blue, cloudless sky. It also got unusually warm. From what I’ve heard is that it does not normally get into the 80’s in Monterey this time of year. This is probably why they chose to start the recreational bike tours at 9:30am because they figured that’s when it would warm up. Bryan had previously convinced me to sign up with him for the 10 mile recreational bike ride. I’m not sure why I agreed as I can’t even walk straight without falling over. I ended up chickening out at the last minute which allowed Bryan to instead go on the 20 mile tour. I waited at the expo until he got back and took a few photos of the women’s Circuit Race and some other random stuff. After four hours I was beginning to worry as Bryan has never done a mountain bike ride quite so long and in such warm weather. He returned, exhausted as expected but in good spirits. He had run out of water during the ride but luckily there were a few aid stations along the way which provided much needed nourishment. However, the last aid station ran out of water by the time he got there though so all he got was an orange. We decided to go back to camp after his ride so we didn’t really cover any events. The expo was insanely crowded so it was a lot harder to move around freely like we did on the previous days. That was another reason why we decided to head back early. We decided to sleep in the car last and although it was a lot warmer it still wasn’t as comfortable as a real bed.

Check out Bryan’s race coverage at Amateur Endurance. You can also see more photos of Day 3 in the GALLERY.

Men's Circuit Race going down the corkscrew

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Bryan starting the 20 mile recreational tour

Women's Circuit race

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Sea Otter Classic: Day Two

April 17, 2009

We started out our day at the Sea Otter Classic with breakfast at the media center and some blogging. After looking over the event schedule for the day we decided to walk over to the Dual Slalom course. The course is set up on a hill above the expo and looks like lots of fun to ride. While I stayed down towards the finish line of the course, Bryan walked all the way up the hill to where the real action was taking place. Dual Slalom participants ride on technical courses complete with sweeping turns, hills and jumps. Two riders race down the hill as fast as they can in hopes to qualify for the finals. These riders go super fast down this course which is pretty dangerous, we saw quite a few wipe outs but nothing serious.

The next event we went to was the Super D which took place outside of the race track at the Laguna Seca Recreation Area. I was a bit distracted by how beautiful the scenery was. Seriously just look at the photo below…gorgeous. Anyway back to the Super D, this is an event that is like downhill racing but with more pedaling. As we were walking up the course many bikers were flying by us to the finish. It’s hard to believe how fast these people were going, it looked like a lot of fun. It was yet another great day of photographing and spectating. Although I have to say that I am seriously thinking of sleeping in the car tonight. Sleeping in the great outdoors (i.e. the asphalt campsite at Laguna Seca) is not as great as I thought it would be.

As always continue to check Amateur Endurance for Bryan’s race coverage. You can also see more photos from Day 2 in the GALLERY.