Tag: Cellulosefilter

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Dandi Sunset Silhouette

Dandi Sunset Silhouette
Dandi Sunset Silhouette

Dandi Sunset Silhouette

A Dandilion Sun filter. I use “Cellulose” filters where ever possible to moderate the glare from that ball of fire up there. Sometimes what ever is handy… in this case :). I find you are where you are with only the gear you are carrying at the time. Noted is a spring bloom of the invasive plant in the backcountry. I find isolated patches here and there anyway. Fortunately, just about every part of the plant is edible and another food source.

Photographic Musings:

I have a very limited amount of time to shoot sunsets. Depending on the sky, I choose what camera/lens combination I’m going to grab to “work” the scene unfolding in front of my eyes. A Veiled Sky Sunset is an indication ahead of time to set up a “Close / Far perspective image. I only had a 400mm lens for a “macro”. Closest focus for this lens is about 4 feet away. I’ve certainly taken this shot before and will again. It’s a right of passage for the “Close / Far” perspective students to get this one. 

Figuring it out is not rocket science but you do need to be in manual mode. I’ve heard from some that manual mode is scary and difficult. Wouldn’t know as I’ve never operated any of my current crop of cameras on any other mode. I don’t have a clue how to work them on automatic….

I would way prefer a 90mm (ish) macro lens though. The long macros work well for close ups of dragonflies on the wing … Most telephotos will take macroshots, the question is how far away do you need to be…. 😜📸

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Dandi Sunset Silhouette

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Cellulose Filters the Sunset

Cellulose Filters the Sunset
Cellulose Filters the Sunset

Cellulose Filters the Sunset

I am generally soured on using glass filters in front of my cameras while shooting into the sun. I WAY prefer to use “cellulose” filters to reduce the glare from the furnace above. Here I’m letting this cellulose frame moderate the amounts of light coming into the camera. Any photo is a balancing act inside the camera of just three settings. This is not going to happen in any camera in manual mode. To work this kind of image, it would be necessary to learn to use that camera on Manual Mode finally. I am happy to keep talking about HOW I take my photos for you guys to follow along.

I find that pointing cameras into the sun gives me several different color casts from burnt Umber to Crimson (like this one). What I was hunting for here was the Edge Reflections from the grass around the suns periphery. The hightlight are awesome to me in this very intense camera environment. Working outside the envelope is always my goal unless there is something really cool in the envelope. .😜

Disclaimer. I only use Mirrorless cameras where I look at what I point my camera at through VIDEO. A standard DSLR camera I will never use or buy again. There is a BIG difference between the two technologies. A very good Pandemic feel good present for any photo bug out there is a new mirrorless body to fit their old lenses. They are easier to learn on no question over a DSLR camera. I buy camera backs as disposables but lenses last for generations. Looking at the sun directly through a standard DSLR camera can and likely will blind you. If it doesn’t do that, it could burn a hole in your cameras digital chip. If your camera isn’t rated for this, don’t do it. Be safe out there. Pointing at the sun with a telephoto is OUTSIDE the safe envelope for most cameras.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).

Title: Cellulose Filters the Sunset

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Burning Bush Ridge

Burning Bush Ridge
Burning Bush Ridge

Burning Bush Ridge (Cellulose Filter/Tree and all that)

As I’m walking along a parallel ridge waiting for little areas of zen to pop up, I sometimes am satiated. A vision is not an actual manifestation but something that occurs in the mind. An apparition is a physical manifestation of the spiritual object. I’m not sure that the difference is important in the scheme of things eh?

This scene would have given Moses second thought and pause. No human eye could have peered into this lone pine tree filtered glare. You would be blinded very quickly if you tried so don’t.

Lone Tree:

Only a few of it’s pine cones have yielded children. Little pines have started up along this ridge to start the forest back again in 100 years. Most of this country is open due to a big forest fire back in the 1930’s that burned till the snows came. There are treasures here.

Geology Under the tree.

I’ve left this spot untouched paleontologically intentionally. There are copious chunky dinosaurian fossil remains in the rocks in and around this particular tree. It’s on my ground so I own them. The fossils I’m seeing don’t demand my attention as I have a more more efficient/better bone bed to work elsewhere. That tree shelters this bone site.

This site has donated a croc tooth along with some Triceratops teeth off the surface. Teeth and large chunky bone are way different sized/density. Fossil precursors are sorted by cross sectional density. Rivers sort debris like gold pans based on current velocity. I know for a fact there is a tail vertebra about the size of your palm under a rock up there. In my world, I’m not excited by it. As they ran across them. I believe fossil sites had Native American Visitors not and then. Finding huge bird like bones on the surface would have messed with them.

I left it there as a matter of respect for the site. There are many of that particular vertebra in the ranch collection. It’s not scientifically valuable and I can show it the rare visitor that makes it up there as an untouched site letting them find it on their own as a matter of their education. There have been a few. This is near one of our rifle courses so there is relatively easy access to the site. Maybe a dozen folks have been there besides me.

The rocks there are of course Hell Creek/Lance formation. A 700 foot thickness of terrestrial river sands/gravels/siltstones/mudstones etc. All riverine based fossils, fish, turtles, crocs, amphibians, freshwater stingrays, dinosaurs, mammals, snakes, avian dinosaurs, This region has some of the best uppermost Cretaceous rocks exposed in the world. Our ranch has rock containing dinosaurian remains from the end of the dinosaurs reign. Then a meteor came crashing into Yucatan Mexico and changed everything.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/ Montana borderlands.

Title: Burning Bush Ridge

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Sunset Through Frosty Pines

Sunset Through Frosty Pines
Sunset Through Frosty Pines

Sunset Through Frosty Pines

This is a capture initiated by the -2 degree evening, the icy air and the lighting. The later of which was JUST settling down over the ridge with less than a minute left in the day.

Photographic Musings:

Topographically, I’m working just over the lip of that higher ridge. Opportunities like this after photographing that sun coming up over a ridge 1 mile out are important parts of the timeline. I move quickly to transition to working a closer ridge several hundred yards out as the sun climbs. A sunset for me is a period of moving from place to place to take advantage of the terrain. It is very important to know WHERE to and WHEN to move to the next shot. Extending your time working the “Golden Hour” is the result. You only have so much time to “Work the Light”.

Shadow line:

I work “Parallel” ridges because I’m very mobile to look for interesting leading lines and angles into the light. Here I saw this long line of smaller pines covered in ice from freezing fog the night before. (the night I’m typing this the same weather is occurring and I’ll be up on the ridges for sure ). There was an 1/8th inch of ice on everything that was exposed to the wind. So a vibrant landscape with an interesting weather event… (a hero as every photo needs a hero). But working that shadow line is the game.

The glare from the sun is quite a hard thing to deal with. I am literally looking into the sun with this camera with a white ground reflecting light plus the ice. The trees are my cellulose filter in front of my lens. Regardless, I had to turn my camera to HIGH F-stop, LOW ISO and your shutter speed is used to balance the equation. If you don’t want a sun star, go f-11 mid range. You adjust either with a neutral density filter in front of your lens (I hate them), or higher shutter speeds. Many consumer cameras don’t have 1/8000th shutter like the higher end models do to compensate . So faster shutter speed to reduce light into the camera may not be as much of an option depending on your equipment. Be careful pointing your camera into the sun.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana

Title: Sunset Through Frosty Pines

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Sunset Cellulose Lens Filter

Sunset Cellulose Lens Filter
Sunset Cellulose Lens Filter

Sunset Cellulose Lens Filter

Christmas Colors anyone?? 👀❤️

I am generally soured on using glass filters in front of my cameras while shooting into the sun. I WAY prefer to use “cellulose” filters to reduce the glare from the furnace above. Here I’m letting this stand of grass moderate the amounts of light coming into the camera. Any photo is a balancing act inside the camera of just three settings. A good New Years Resolution for many would be to learn to use that camera on Manual Mode finally. I am happy to keep talking about HOW I take my photos for you guys to follow along.

I find that pointing cameras into the sun gives me several different color casts from burnt Umber to Crimson (like this one). What I was hunting for here was the Edge Reflectinos from the grass around the suns periphery. The seeds look like little christmas lights to me in this very intense camera environment. Working outside the envelope is always my goal unless there is something really cool in the envelope. Of course today (Christmas) is the one day where opening an envelope might really be a good thing.😜

Disclaimer. I only use Mirrorless cameras where I look at what I point my camera at through VIDEO. A standard DSLR camera I will never use or buy again. There is a BIG difference between the two technologies. A very good Christmas present for any photo bug out there is a new mirrorless body to fit their old lenses. They are easier to learn no question. You buy camera backs as disposables but lenses last for generations. Looking at the sun directly through a standard DSLR camera can and likely will blind you. If it doesn’t do that, it could burn a hole in your cameras digital chip. If your camera isn’t rated for this, don’t do it. Be safe out there. Pointing at the sun with a telephoto is OUTSIDE the safe envelope for most cameras.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).

Title: Sunset Cellulose Lens Filter

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Sunslit Twilight With a Cellulose Filter

Sunslit Twilight With a Cellulose Filter
Sunslit Sunrise With a Cellulose Filter

I certainly used a “cellulose” filter on this Sun-slit Twilight. Yup that tree is all cellulose and it filtered the light that made it through to my photon capture box. Hundreds of miles of atmosphere for light to travel through to make it into this twilight image before the sunrises above the horizon and illuminate the cloud deck. This is a night sky technically. The sun has not risen here and won’t for about 9 minutes in this timeline. It’s still 3 sun diameters below the horizon or so. Dead calm, 2 second exposure, f22, ISO 200.

This image is all about the use of negative space. 36×24.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.