Bristle Cone Pines

Here is one place that I really wanted to get to.  It was a bit of a drive.  The staff here where fantastic, not only did they answer all our questions, they even humored us when we asked some silly ones.

One thing that is interesting about these trees is that if they where not growing where they are, in such a harsh environment, they would not have lived as long as they do.  It seems the harsh environment also contributes to their age by limiting or eliminating pests, fires and other destructive forces on the trees.  The trees have adapted to the lack of water, alkali soil, high winds that sand blasts the trees with ice crystals and sand, which is why they loose their bark and looks to be the main reason they die.

This first picture is of a young Bristle cone and was in the parking area.  Age was probably several hundred years old.

This is the first plaque on the short loop from the visitor center.  I think it sums up the whole experience pretty well.  You realize that the tree in front of this plaque had died in 1676 at the age of 3200 years.  Meaning this tree died 100 years before the US was born.

I took this picture of the tree rings from of the above mentioned tree.  The second picture is zoomed into the center area to show how dense the rings are.

The following are pictures of different trees.  The cloud started to make a bit of a showing, thus providing some contrast for the sky.  The one thing that should be noted is the white/tan/brown smooth areas are dead parts of the tree.  Some of these trees look to be completely dead but you could find a strip of bark running from a root up to a little tuff of green, thus that tree is alive.  From talking with the rangers and reading about the tree, that tuff of green is as fertile and vibrant as any young tree is.  Meaning that the cone produced have the same chance of growing a new tree and young cones.  (These trees do not suffer from aging, their cells do not deteriorate like most other living organisms.)

Rainbow Falls, Devil's Postpile

Rainbow Falls.  This is what you see when you first hike to it.  This is vista point one.

Just before the vista point you have a better chance of catching the rainbow.

There is also a set of steps and path that takes you down to the base of the falls.  Realize that one is starting at 7000+' elevation to begin with and you have to climb back up the steps when done.

I can not help but wonder how much the drought is having an effect on the falls.  I am guessing that getting this close is easier than it used to be in the past.  I know that during the spring you could not do this because of the increased runoff from snow.  Anyway, people where actually swimming in the pool in front of the falls.

Devil's Postpile Meadows

Here are a few shots of the different meadow areas in Postpile.  The Devil's Postpile is above Mammoth Lakes which is near Mono Lake in East Central California near the Nevada boarder.  I believe this would be called alpine area since it is 7000' or more.

This first picture was the first meadow area seen from the trail after getting off the shuttle bus at the ranger station.  This is the trail head to the Devil's Postpile.

This is on the way to Ash Camp.  Again on the trail to Devil's Postpile.  I believe that the above picture and the following 3 pictures are really of the same meadow but from different vantage points.  The trail itself was only 1.5 miles.

This is the upstream view leading to the meadow above.  These pictures where taken from a small bridge that went over the stream.

This would be mid way between the second picture and the first.  I stopped on the way back to the ranger station to get this picture, thus its ordering.

This is the stream that leads up to Rainbow Falls.

Mono Lake

Ok, I am really bad at processing my pictures.  Anyway, trying to get them out, this is from our Mono Lake trip last week.  I have not been to the other side of the Sierra mountains especially the central range.  This is an area that I wanted to get to and now that I have, I will be going back.  If you are into nature, this area gives a lot of vistas which few see.  (I think many stop at Yosemite but do not go beyond.)

Pictures of Tufas.  The formation from Mono Lake.  Realize that these for under water and these are completely on dry land.  The lake itself is really low compared to its level from the 20's but really low compared to its ancient levels.

This is the famous Tufa everyone pictures.  We did not get to the North side.  It would have been interesting since they have some Tufa's but not as many as the South side.

A Wilson's Phalarope that I caught in the act of catching a fly.  Well I'm pretty sure.  There where a lot of Alkali Flies about and Brine Shrimp.

Noise Test

I just finished taking pictures at a friends wedding and started to do what processing I know how to.  (I am bad at learning this part of the process.)  But one important thing that I noticed is since I was using auto ISO, which did help to get most of the shots in focus and without motion blur, I did end up shooting more shots at the max auto ISO setting of 6400.  This was not that bad but I did see much more noise and I would like to correct that.

With that being said, a friend of mine swears by Lightroom 5 at this point, we both started with Aperture 3.  I on the other hand have not migrated but I have collected a few other programs.  I found a promotional and was able to get the full version of Corel Aftershot Pro for free.  I figure why not and it has Perfectly Clear and Noise Ninja built into it.  I also picked up the Nik suite along the way to help out Aperture.  And finally I got DxO and am wanting to migrate to it since it also has a lot of lens and perspective corrections.  (So yes I guess I am trying everything else except Lightroom.)

So that is my setup.  From the desire to edit the wedding pictures, I figured I better do a simple comparison.  I say simple since I still do not know how to use any of these programs to their full potential thus I wanted to see what they could do on their own.  In that, I took a macro shot of a cactus flower that I had and just did noise reduction on the same RAW file and here are the results.

I only upload medium jpegs and hopefully that will be enough.  When I say default, this is basically enabling aka turning on that tool and allowing the default settings to do their stuff.  It is also interesting that the exports from Aperture did not transfer my Exif information.  Also the Aperture has a little dust repair work, but not exposure.

Coral (Perfectly Clear and Noise Ninja)

DxO (Prime default)

Aperture (Default)

NIK (Dfine default)

My conclusion: I like the DxO best.  But I really, really like the work-flow of Aperture.  I just wish Apple would update the tech in it.  (It has been nice though not having to buy multiple versions and getting pretty good update all along.)

Monterey Bay Aquarium Tentacles

The Monterey Bay Aquarium just opened a new exhibit called tentacles.  They did a very good job and I got some pictures from it.  The problem that I am having is that I am exceeding the low light capacity of my camera.  (You really do not want to use flash around these light sensitive and marvelous creatures.)  (I also need a new camera.)

Many of the creatures in these exhibits are small but interesting.  Some even just attached themselves to the glass.  The banded one was a little bigger than my hand, while the other two where about the size of my thumb.


This guy was just hanging out on the window.  He was one of the large one at the show.

The really strange one was this 'pancake' octopus.  I was so mesmerized by it that I forgot to read about it.  I also got a video of it.  One of the few times it do that.

Here just happens to be another video of a smaller octopus who was hanging out on the wall.  You can hear that I was thinking that my dropping onto my knee to get the picture may have startled him because he changed color.  But I am not sure, I was talking to my daughter while filming.

And the star of the show, as if octopus are not enough was the Nautilus.  This thing was just weird.  He was just hanging right there and then started to move.  They have about 6 to 8 in the exhibit and well, you just want to take one home.

Monterey Bay April 2014

Well we got back from another short trip to Monterey, yes it is nice being this close to that area.  Also I would love to move there.

Anyway, while the kids played on the beach and before we went to the aquarium to see the new exhibit, I caught these two feeding very close in.  This was a mom and a young one.



I especially like the look of the teeth in the cropped image.

Also the youngster kept popping up and looking around for mom.  They where always coming up first and waiting at the surface.

Here was a nice shot where I caught them both diving.  Reminiscence of whale watching.

Even the seagulls where getting into the action when the otters threw out their leftovers.