Pacific Northwest photos

[faxmachineanthem]

Hi all,
I took a family trip to the Pacific Northwest for the first two weeks of June. This was our first time out there. We flew into San Francisco and drove up to Seattle, seeing the Sonoma wine country, the redwoods, the Oregon coast, Portland, and Olympic National Park on the way.

It was a great trip except for a lot of rain on the Oregon Coast and the fact that my 16-85mm VR lens is now sitting near the bottom of Wahclella Falls in Oregon. But hey, on a two week trip something will always go wrong. And the beautiful sites more than made up for it.

My favorite spots were probably the Yachats/Newport area of the Oregon coast, where there's are great variety of landscapes and lighthouses to photograph with quaint towns to visit. And Olympic National Park must compete for the most variety of any national park. You can photograph sunrise from a snowy mountain peak, visit a temperate rain forest, and then take sunset photos of sea stacks in the Pacific all in one day. It would be a long day, but you could do it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photos.

http://picasaweb.google.com/wilkbm02/No ... directlink

Bryan

[Andy]

Wow. Too bad on the lens. Before my trip to VT in 2005, I decided for the first time ever, to insure my gear. I have a "personal articles floater" policy on my HO insurance (wouldn't work if I was a pro -- but fine for hobby use). I pay a little over $100/year to insure my camera, lenses, (have 300mm f2.8, 60mm micro, 70-300 zoom, 24-85 zoom and 19-35 zoom) tripod, head and flash. Covers all incidents, including drop, etc. I never thought I would drop one (and so far -- hope I don't jinx myself) haven't, but I was concerned about theft/mishandling during air flights (I'll generally carry my body and two zooms to get me by and then pack the other stuff in checked bag.

Don't know if you have the 18-200 VR, but if you are considering a replacement, once I put the 18-200 on, I rarely took it off the camera. I got spoiled (now I have a FF camera and the 18-200 has been replaced by 2 lenses again). They look like the might be around the same price.

I have the Pac NW on my "bucket list." Looks like you had some fun and some pretty nice photo ops: Lots of nice stuff -- my favorites:

I like the GG Bridge with the flowers in the foreground. Not the often-photographed, normal perspective we see.

The shots around Bandon are cool.

The little boat in Charleston Harbor almost looks like a toy, especially the way you have used DOF

Sol Duc Falls -- very cool!

Sunset starburst in Olympic NP

LOVE the Seattle Skyline with Mt. Hood in the BG!

Thanks for sharing this stuff....................

[autzig]

I lived in Oregon for four years a long time ago. Love that place. I love the photos you shared. The redwoods of Northern California are really special. I visited the same park you did when my kids were small.

After I moved to Minnesota, we would go back to Oregon on vacation. I planned one trip for June because I wanted to photograph Mt Hood when it still had lots of snow...stayed at Timberline Lodge at 6000 ft. There was still 10 ft of snow on the ground. You got a nice shot of the mountain. In may respects, you were fortunate as the mountain is hidden in clouds much of the time. June can really be iffy when it comes to weather. It is the end of the showery season when you can be assured of a rain shower almost every day. Lots of rainbows though. November through March is the rainy season which means that it is cloudy every day and drizzles all day long.

July through September are perfect except along the coast. Nice weather in the Willamette Valley often means an onshore flow and fog and cold at the beach. Most of the time the coast is cold and cloudy.

Heceta Head Lighthouse is one of my favorites and you got a nice shot. I tried to shoot Yaquinna Head Lighthouse but found it impossible to get a good shot. You must have seen it when you were in Newport. There is a very photogenic lighthouse at Cape Meres too.

I'm going to go out on a limb regarding the photo of the boat that Andy and Carol like so much. I like it too, but I think you applied a lens blur in Photoshop to get that nice bokeh. The reason I think that is because all of the boat is sharp as a tack. That means a small aperture. But with a small aperture the other boats would be sharp. With a large aperture, the entire boat wouldn't be sharp. If you didn't use Photoshop, how did you get that effect?

I've got my gear covered on my homeowners policy like Andy does. I lost my 1.4 multiplier in Colorado a couple of years ago and my policy covered it.

The Pacific Northwest is on Andy's bucket list and it belongs on everybody's list. Here's an idea. Let's have CT organize a SOV get together in Oregon. I'll take the group to the most scenic places the state has to offer, depending, of course, on the amount of time. It is a big place. You will not be disappointed.

[faxmachineanthem]

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

Andy,
You're right, I will have to look into those insurance options. That, and remind myself to make sure my camera bag is not 90%, but 100% zipped. The thing that kills me is the first time I drop a lens out of my bag, it has to be on a bridge above a waterfall. The thing bounced like a basketball into the water!

Carol,
After losing the 16-85mm, I used my trusty plastic 18-55mm kit lens. And you know what, on a tripod at f10, I'll be darned if I can see a difference. Handheld and at wider apertures the 16-85mm is definitely superior though. And if you're still interested, you can see some exif data in picasa by clicking on a picture and selecting the "more info" link to the right.

autzig, you are a sharp guy! You are correct that the shallow depth of field was created in post-processing. When I'm in my landscape mindset, I sometimes choose f10 or so without thinking. When I got back home, I realized that the boat would stand out better with shallow DOF. So I created a second layer, applied gaussian blur, and then using a mask painted through to the blurry layer for all the areas except the boat. It works well enough but I like the character of true lens blur better than the gaussian blur. The gaussian looks a little more hazy or something.

Yes, and my wife and I loved Oregon. If we were to relocate anywhere that would be #1 on the list. If it wasn't for the long rainy season, I think we'd have our bags packed already.

[ixl]

Some beautiful work here! And your little one is adorable.

Sorry about the lens.