Fun at Pt Reyes

My wife wanted to take her bother to Pt Reyes when he came in for the weekend before a conference he was attending.  Thus a quick trip out to the lighthouse and up the coast for oysters.  (Would normally stop by Drake Oysters but since they have been shut down, a trip up to Marshall instead.)

Out to the lighthouse just as they opened gave us a nice fog view of the ocean and area as seen in this picture.

But I was surprised to see the pelicans.  For some reason I like these birds and enjoy taking pictures of them.  Here at the lighthouse gave me a interesting view of them but I wish I had my other lens.



Anyway about the lighthouse itself, it still has the older light mechanism which was rotated via a large counter-weight.  Basically think of it like a large grandfather clock on its side.  These pictures I tried to capture some of the mechanism, poorly. :-)  I also like the large brass wheels that the light actually rotated on.  Notice the supports between the wheels, that is used to relieve the wheels of baring the weight of the housing, thus helping to preserve them.



Here is a picture of what the weather does to trees.  Many trees on the coast are shaped like this because of the consistent on shore wind.

Leaving the area, we had to stop and take a look at the sea lions.  Hey not much to photograph but there was two guys giving a little show.



Last, I had to stop by Earthquake Trail.  I've never been on that path even though we stop by the visitor center a couple of times per year.  Here is a place where the earth literally jumped.  During the 1906 SF earthquake, this area shifted 16 feet and it is at this fence where they preserved that bit of history.  Shown is Jennah, Qun and her brother trying to reach both ends of the fence.  The plaque at the site said the earth shifted the 16 feet in a matter of 1 to 2 seconds.  (They also have pictures of other fences being patched with long poles connecting the two fence halves.  There is also a picture taken in 1906 showing the fence and a barn in the background and the amazing thing is that barn is still standing.)

Just another backroad place in Northern California that most people do not realize exists.

DxO Optics Pro 10

I normally do not do reviews and this is not one, it is just an observation on one new feature that DxO Optics 10 provides.

I've just started looking at photo editors/workflow managers again since Apple is stopping Aperture.  I know that Aperture is supported through Yosemite but I have started noticing weird behavior in Aperture under Yosemite like taking a very long time to sync with its library.  So that just prompted me to move sooner.

So DxO Optics has this new feature called ClearView.  After reading about it, some people have really liked it and said it was spectacular, thus after coming back from Pt Reyes this last weekend and having the fog being its ever present self, I figured to give it a try against fog and not just haze.

This picture is the approach to the Pt Reyes lighthouse.  About 10AM in the morning with a good bit of fog.  The second picture is what ClearView did just with default settings.



This next picture was the walk from the lighthouse back to the parking area.  The fog has lifted some and again the first picture is the before shot.



So I have used it a couple of times now and really like it.  I'll say that I have seen people process shots without this feature and have probably done a better job, but with my skill level, I know that I'll be able to pull a few more picture to my liking.

NASA Open House 2014

Well the NASA Open House was fun; it was promising to be crowded but Moffett Field had enough space that one did not noticed the 120K people.  For the first open house since the 80's?, people where very excited and the 120K sold out in 3 days.  So when a friend of ours told us about the tickets, they where already gone.  But never fear NASA always has a way and they where giving out a very limited quantity of back-stage tickets to tour several of the facilities, thus I tried for them and was luck enough to get a pair.  Thus my daughter and I got tickets, (they limited it to 2).  I told Qun and she told another friend and they ended up gathering a few tickets and Qun was able to go also.

So here talks about the Open House and when they said expect traffic delays, they where not kidding.  It took other friends of ours about 2 to 3 hours to get to the exit in NASA (about 1 mile on Hwy 280) and other friends about 2 hours to get to public transportation then to NASA.  (Us, well I being paranoid about the traffic, I forced everyone to leave early and we ended up getting to NASA about 1/2 hour before the gates open, there was already a few thousand people.)

Anyway, our back stage pass was the Full scale wind tunnel in which they where modeling the wind tunnel itself.  Actually they where testing the proposed Google complex that is planned to be built near by and wanted to see how the buildings would affect the air pattern.  Interesting thinking about how much air the intake must require.  The first picture shows the wind tunnel and the building complex was on the other side of the walkway pictured.

Other interior (the fans that pull the air in) and exterior (air input) shots of the facility.

And it would not be NASA without a few robots.  The last guy would collect the ball from where ever it was thrown and pick it up and throw it back to the tender in the back corner of the arena.

These models where cool.  They where special titanium alloys because they where so thin and needed to withstand the heat generated from the supersonic wind tunnel.

Here are test sections cut out of the honey comb heat shield planned for Orion.

And a futuristic sky car concept that they are hoping to build in Israel.  It seems that Israel can cut through the red tape better than the US.

And last leaving.  Was planning on spending 3 or 4 hours but ended up leaving about 4:30.

Devil's Postpile

First I am going to give the Devil's Postpile website for all the information needed.

Ok, here is a section at the top of the postpile.  The posts themselves where created because the pool of basalt was able to cool uniformly and this section was ground smooth because of glaciers.

Once coming down from the top one can see stubs of piles that have been deformed.  These are past the main section of posts.

Now we get into the iconic pictures of the postpiles themselves.  In the foreground you will see broken posts, these are the ones that have fallen due to weathering or man.  And yes this area may not have been here since a construction company had bought the land and wanted to use the postpiles for fill for a dam.  (Also you will see on one of the plagues at the start of the postpile of guys pulling a post down.)

This is a closeup of some of the rubble.

Rocks that bend.  Or that where bent.

The next three are more of the iconic pictures.  Overall rather impressive in the formation and structure.

Mono Lake area night shots

I would love to get out more to do this and my errors prove it.  Here are two shots from Mono Lake of the Milky Way.  I would have loved to venture to the Tufa's area and got them into the picture but I forgot my jacket and more important a flashlight.  I ended up using my iPhone for a light and it only had 20% battery.  (Yes inexperience lead to unprepared.  I guess the worst part was those things where in my large camera bag, just not the travel one that I brought with me.)

Both of these are from the South Tufa parking area looking South, thus Mono Lake is at my back.

Here was a quick shot from the Mammoth Lake vista point.  I wanted to do some testing and here was close since we where staying in Mammoth Lake.  (Also I normally do not get spooked but this place was spooky.)

This last one is interesting and I did not really think it would come out very well since the night was young and I had just pulled off of Hwy 395 toward Convict Lake across from the Mammoth Lake/Yosemite airport.

We where heading back from Mono Lake and it was getting toward evening and I wanted to show my wife and daughter what I do for the night shots.  They have seen the pictures but I wanted them to see the sky also.

My daughters first reaction was 'this is cool' and her, her friend and my wife all watches as the Milky Way got brighter.  Thus I figured I should just grab my tripod and shot a couple of pictures to give them a reference to what my pictures show and what they have seen.

Well I had to crop foreground out since it was blown out because the airport beacon would blast the area every few seconds with light, remember the airport is at my back.  Anyway, when we go back, I'll have to take the road further to Convict Lake to get out of the light.

So this was a special picture and I think I even caught a couple of meteors in it.