Touring San Francisco (and a new lens)

Having taken delivery of a wide angle lens and a telephoto lens a month ago, I have just completed my lens collection with the new canon 17-55 2.8 IS EFS lens.

This photo is an early shot with the new lens, taken from the far side of the Golden Gate bridge.

Our first trip to Yosemite - day 2

More photos from our Yosemite trip, this time from our second day (of 2). The first photo is from our hotel room at Yosemite View Lodge, which is right on the Merced River (which flows down from Yosemite valley). As you can probably tell from the photograph, the river roars right past the bedroom window! Thankfully the walls are very soundproof.

The second photo is a shot of the Merced River downstream of Yosemite Valley. This demonstrates the enormous power this river has at this time of year.


Finally a signature shot of Yosemite... Half-Dome from Yosemite Valley. I don't think that photographs really do this landmark justice... It just towers over the valley.

More photos in our photo gallery.

Our first trip to Yosemite - day 1

Now that we have our fuel-efficient Prius, we decided to start going on a couple of trips. May-June is the best time to visit Yosemite as the waterfalls and rivers are flowing at their greatest from the snow-melt in the mountains.

We've both been fans of waterfalls and flowing water for quite some time, so we took plenty of pictures (well over 600 in the weekend). These 4 pictures represent just a few moments from our first day.

I used this opportunity to expand my lens collection with the Canon 75-300 IS and Canon 10-22 EFS lenses... all the photos here were taken with those lenses.

The first photograph is a long exposure shot taken with the 75-300 from Cascade Creek on the way in to Yosemite Valley.


The second shot was another long exposure shot taken from Valley view in Yosemite Valley itself. You can see Bridal Veil Falls across the river.

The third shot is a short exposure close up of Bridal Veil Falls. As you approach the falls at this time of year, the mist beneath the falls turns into a heavy downpour, covering the path with a river of water.

Finally a close-up shot of Half-Dome from near Mirror Lake, with the moon slowly rising above the cliff face.



More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewmitchell1975/YosemiteMay2006

Spring is here

Well, Spring has finally arrived in the Bay area after a wet winter (apparently they all are rather wet around here). It was actually good to get some time with rain with the last couple of years in Australia being so dry. I'm not sure I'm quite ready for 8 months of virtually no rainfall, but I believe this is what we are to expect.

We are definitely looking forward to warmer weather after 2 successive winters (we moved to USA in the middle of the Australian Spring).

The photographs shown here were taken at the end of April as we toured the hills to the west of Silicon Valley toward the Pacific. It was a cool, misty-foggy day and felt like it had been raining nonstop for months... Which I guess in the hills to some extent is true. Down in Silicon Valley itself at the same time it was a hot day with blazing sunshine... An amazing contrast for just a few km away.