Mike Lewis
Staff Member
I stated thinking I would not have 10 shots, and ended with some difficult decisions at cutting images off the list. I guess that is a good thing 
1. A February trip to the Saint George area of Utah was very fun, and seeing the Kolob Canyons portion of Zion National Park was certainly the photographic highlight of the trip. We arrived there late one day with the golden light and it was a very magical place, and all to ourselves that time of year.
2. I had intended to shoot an updated California Nebula astro image for a while, and eventually determined that it needed to be a mosaic to cover the entire object with my FOV. It was my first mosaic and lots of new things to figure out but it eventually came together in February and was processed and posted I think in March. It turned out that with the amount of data collected I got enough faint areas to pop out that it still didn't quite fit the frame. I made 2 palette mixes, but this version was my favorite.
3. A trip to 3 national parks in California that had been torpedoed by COVID in 2020 finally got off the ground in 2022. We went in May for high water flows in Yosemite and hopefully not too many crowds. Both of those objectives were met and we had great weather. It was hard to cull all the shots from the 3 parks down far enough to stay at 10 images. This one, from Yosemite is special as it has my wife 'posing' in the far distance as we scout an area for a shoot that I got up for the next morning. I really liked this result better as it turned out.
4. This other Yosemite shot from the Swinging Bridge the last morning of our visit there was also special, as the water and the light all came together. It was hard not to be distracted by the hubbub going on at the other end of the bridge when I took this shot - a wedding couple were doing some pre-wedding pictures on the bridge and the wedding ring got dropped into the river! Amazingly, they found it just as I was wrapping up this shot.
5. A trip through Kings Canyon National Park on that same trip was very fun, as that river was really flowing, and my favorite shot was a very fast shutter speed treatment shot of Grizzly Falls. I just loved how the short exposure turned the water into complicated patterns of droplets instead of flowing water.
6. The last 'keeper' shot from the California trip happened after we substituted a dash to and along a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway for our last scheduled full day of the California trip. I got this setting sun shot as we drove back to the hotel at the end of the day...
7. I have continued to dabble in wildlife shooting, going out with 2 local friends mostly. The combo of the R5 and and the RF100-500 lens, while not the absolute most expensive rig for wildlife, makes for an amazing handholdable setup that gives great AF performance and top level image quality in everything but very low light. I continue to me amazed at what it can do, as shown by this handheld capture of a little Barn Swallow in flight.
8. 2 local trips in CO and a trip to the east coast for fall color shooting made the selection process for this assignment challenging. In the end though, I picked 2 images for my fall shooting. This one is from a day drive with a photographer friend along a dirt road near the Peak to Peak highway in Colorado.
9. Lots of fun fall color also on our trip in October to North Carolina. We hit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when the weather was not optimal, but the next day the conditions along the Blue Ridge Parkway were excellent. In the end though I picked this deep forest image from a local hike near Asheville as the representative for a very fun and productive trip.
10. As many know I have had a frustrating year for astrophotography, as a decision to upgrade my astro camera and filters has produced a number of technical issues to deal with. That saga is still not over, but I was able to finally image a new object this November and I was very happy with this result on the Flaming Star Nebula.
A fun exercise and I look forward to spending times with all the other posts here as soon as possible!
ML
1. A February trip to the Saint George area of Utah was very fun, and seeing the Kolob Canyons portion of Zion National Park was certainly the photographic highlight of the trip. We arrived there late one day with the golden light and it was a very magical place, and all to ourselves that time of year.
2. I had intended to shoot an updated California Nebula astro image for a while, and eventually determined that it needed to be a mosaic to cover the entire object with my FOV. It was my first mosaic and lots of new things to figure out but it eventually came together in February and was processed and posted I think in March. It turned out that with the amount of data collected I got enough faint areas to pop out that it still didn't quite fit the frame. I made 2 palette mixes, but this version was my favorite.
3. A trip to 3 national parks in California that had been torpedoed by COVID in 2020 finally got off the ground in 2022. We went in May for high water flows in Yosemite and hopefully not too many crowds. Both of those objectives were met and we had great weather. It was hard to cull all the shots from the 3 parks down far enough to stay at 10 images. This one, from Yosemite is special as it has my wife 'posing' in the far distance as we scout an area for a shoot that I got up for the next morning. I really liked this result better as it turned out.
4. This other Yosemite shot from the Swinging Bridge the last morning of our visit there was also special, as the water and the light all came together. It was hard not to be distracted by the hubbub going on at the other end of the bridge when I took this shot - a wedding couple were doing some pre-wedding pictures on the bridge and the wedding ring got dropped into the river! Amazingly, they found it just as I was wrapping up this shot.
5. A trip through Kings Canyon National Park on that same trip was very fun, as that river was really flowing, and my favorite shot was a very fast shutter speed treatment shot of Grizzly Falls. I just loved how the short exposure turned the water into complicated patterns of droplets instead of flowing water.
6. The last 'keeper' shot from the California trip happened after we substituted a dash to and along a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway for our last scheduled full day of the California trip. I got this setting sun shot as we drove back to the hotel at the end of the day...
7. I have continued to dabble in wildlife shooting, going out with 2 local friends mostly. The combo of the R5 and and the RF100-500 lens, while not the absolute most expensive rig for wildlife, makes for an amazing handholdable setup that gives great AF performance and top level image quality in everything but very low light. I continue to me amazed at what it can do, as shown by this handheld capture of a little Barn Swallow in flight.
8. 2 local trips in CO and a trip to the east coast for fall color shooting made the selection process for this assignment challenging. In the end though, I picked 2 images for my fall shooting. This one is from a day drive with a photographer friend along a dirt road near the Peak to Peak highway in Colorado.
9. Lots of fun fall color also on our trip in October to North Carolina. We hit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when the weather was not optimal, but the next day the conditions along the Blue Ridge Parkway were excellent. In the end though I picked this deep forest image from a local hike near Asheville as the representative for a very fun and productive trip.
10. As many know I have had a frustrating year for astrophotography, as a decision to upgrade my astro camera and filters has produced a number of technical issues to deal with. That saga is still not over, but I was able to finally image a new object this November and I was very happy with this result on the Flaming Star Nebula.
A fun exercise and I look forward to spending times with all the other posts here as soon as possible!
ML
