The whole point of the sunrise pics is to see the sun rise over the water. Just the water. Nothing else. In that respect, today’s trip was a complete and total failure. Stupid rocks sticking up out of the ocean directly due East of where I was standing.
I took a bunch of sunrise pics at Hampton Beach this morning. Not my best, but not disgusting either. Here are my attempts at long exposures. Anything from one to 30 seconds.
These used my newer lens, the AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
We have a winner!
We have another winner!
At some point I switched lenses to my AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED, which I usually consider to be much better, but today… I think the wider lens did a better job.
Stupid huge boat couldn’t keep still for 10 measly seconds.
After a very hectic afternoon at work, where one member of my staff put in an A list performance, we headed to Portsmouth, NH for a nice night out.
I’m really hoping to get up to the White Mountains for some waterfall visits. With all the snow this winter, the rivers should be rocking like mad right now.
What is it about New Hampshire?
Whenever I get my haircut at an establishment that is based in New Hampshire, I end up looking like I was given a trim by a new hire on the first day at work who is equipped only with a hedge trimmer.
Furthermore, why do I then continue to forget about the New Hampshire haircut connection and go back?
It’s like she only had one eye. Either that or she had two eyes and one was set 50% further into her head than the other. I look… lopsided.
We went leaf peeping today. I didn’t take many pictures, but I did grab some views of the top of Mt Washington.
Here are the pics from the second waterfall we visited on our mountain get away. Why take my word for it when you can let the site itself give you the info…
It says it’s a 600 foot walk. It was. They didn’t tell us it was vertical. It was almost all stairs. It was so worth it though. The river alone was worth it.
This is not what we came to see.
I want to go back with my tripod and take long exposures all day long.
This is a bad shot, but you get the idea. This place is awesome.
Again, this is not the main attraction.
This is the waterfall itself as seen from the top. I totally need a wide angle lens for stuff like this. I also need to be able to hover so I can actually look down on the scene instead of just leaning over with the camera strap still around my neck.
We were at the base of the falls here but I need a wide angle lens. I couldn’t get the whole thing into the shot. Not even close.
This is a little more like it.
And there you have it. The highlights from our stop at the Glen Ellis Falls. I would go back there in a heartbeat. Preferably with a wide angle lens and my tripod. This place was fantastic.
This is so cool. I have an actual backlog of pics to post here! Time to get caught up a little bit.
These are from our trip to the mountains a couple of weeks ago and will focus on the coolness that is Jackson Falls.
This was where we stayed. We got there a little too early to check in so we decided to just drive around the block. Little did we know that the waterfall we were hoping to check out while in town was on the same street!
It wasn’t a sheer drop (we checked out one of those the next day) but more like a steep slope with lots of small drops. We parked in two places along the road.
I love the mountains where the rivers look gold… apart from the spots that are white because they are violently getting hurled off of a small cliff.
I thought about using the downed tree limb to make a raft to skirt the rapids, but then I remembered we had an SUV in the parking lot, so I could use that for my traveling needs instead.
We drove a little further upstream and the view improved greatly.
I had the polarizing filter on to cut out the reflections on the water.
That bridge needed a sidewalk so you could view the river from above.
The best views for us were upstream, but I have since read that if we’d gone further downstream they might have been even better.
I never messed with the shutter speed. I didn’t go for long exposures because I didn’t want to bother using the tripod (next time though) and I didn’t go for shorter exposures to try and get the falling water sharper. I just stuck with the auto setting because it was more fun being a tourist than a wannabe photographer.
I was leaning my elbows on one of the big rocks. Can you see it on the bottom of the image?
The polarizer cuts down on reflections, but it doesn’t help with shadows. Noted.
So there you have it. The first of two waterfall posts from our get away weekend. I’m not sure when the second post will happen, but it should be soon.
I got a polarizing filter for Christmas this year. I hadn’t even screwed it onto the lens before this week. Why? I don’t know, don’t pick on me. Sheesh.
Anyway I did a few tests while in the mountains. I’d turn it until the sky looked washed out, take a pic, then turn it until the sky was as dark as it could get, take a pic. And so on. Here are a few results.
This one…
…compared to this one.
And another test, this one…
…compared to this one.
I also did a test of how it handles reflections on water. I turned it so that I could see as much sunlight reflecting off the water as possible, took a pic, turned it so there was as little reflection as possible, took a pic.
This one…
…compared to this one.
Did I do it right? As with all things photography, I haven’t a clue. I’m just pushing buttons and turning dials and seeing what happens. Should I do anything different when using the polarizing filter?
Let me know.
Inside the Red Head's Head 