Mount Diablo, May 29, 2011, Part 1 (perhaps)

[David]

A couple weeks ago I went up to the top of nearby Mt. Diablo (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=mt.+diablo&aq=&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=55.586984,114.169922&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Mt+Diablo&t=h&z=15) and hiked around a trail up there. Mostly this was a photo expedition, and amazingly all the spring flowers were just starting to bloom because of the odd spring we've had. I also wanted to grab a few panoramic shots to stitch together. But, most importantly, I wanted to test my dad's old Vivitar 135mm, a lens I've almost never used. Here are some results, starting with some panoramas.


This is the "thumb" atop Mt. Diablo. People with no regard for their own life climb it. This is from three photos taken with my 28mm Vivitar. This is the 28mm I tested against a JC Penney 28 and decided the JCP is rubbish. Fortunately, this trip, I left the 28mm's polarizing lens at home. What a dang mess that made of my photo stitching last time.


I took this with my 135. In the foreground, old power. In the back, new power. I liked that in one shot I could see an oil refinery and a windmill farm. This was about f8 or f11. I didn't take many shots with the 135 stopped fully down. Still, at a median aperture, the DoF is pretty nice. This is one shot, not stitched.


For fun, I decided to do a photo stitch of North Peak with my 135mm. I tried this before with my Soligor 90mm and the results were atrocious. So I was not expecting too much. Combined with this being 18 photos and my computer taking about eight hours to stitch them all together, I had expected to wake up in the morning to a photographic blasphemy. I'm not in any way disappointed in this result.


This and the next photo were taken in succession. Interestingly, the red background was the actual color. The "realistic" coloration came from post-processing tone balancing.

These macro shots reveal this lens' weakness: the bokeh is about as interesting as overcooked spaghetti with no sauce.




But then the 135 goes and takes some shots like these thistles. I failed to capture the light exactly, which made the webs in the thistles glow like noctilucent clouds against a deepening night sky.


And this shot which captures the pine cone and the needles hanging over it like a used-up woman with long bangs.


Lastly, my friend Andrea, who provided a detailed guided tour of all the plant species on the mountain. Designed for portrait photography, this lens does an exceptional job catching variances and complexity within skin tones. The shadows don't catch it too harshly and the overall color balance across the photo and spectrum exhibit fairly lifelike realism and accuracy.

I'm about halfway through editing the photos from this trip. The album, thus far, is here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102333270936007447976/MtDiablo52911?authkey=Gv1sRgCJzgu4vjkKyOZA

If any gems arise from the remaining batch of photos, I'll share them, too.

David