Nikon D300 with Nikkor 12-24 DX at 12mm
Exposure: 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 at F16
Comensation: -1 2/3EV, -2/3EV, 1/3EV
ISO: 250
Post processing: Photomatix, CS5, LR

Water level on Mono Lake is keep rising and some part of the shore where you could walk last year are now under water. This shot was taken in June and it’s HDR of 3 shots.

Nikon D300 with Nikkor 12-24 DX at 12mm
Exposure: 1/500, 1/250, 1/125 at F10
Comensation: -1/3EV, 2/3EV, 1 2/3EV
ISO: 320
Post processing: Photomatix, CS5, LR

This year Tahoe didn’t get as much snow by the end of January like last year. This is first sunset from our yearly pilgrimage to pay tributes to ski gods. The evening was amazing and photo really doesn’t do justice the beauty we experienced.

Nikon D300 with Nikkor 55 DX
Exposure: 1/2, 1/10, 1/20 at F9
Comensation: 1V, 0EV, -1EV
ISO: 320
Post processing: Photomatix, CS5, LR

Another shot from the trip over Thanksgiving mentioned in previous post. I love wondering around the valley looking at clouds revealing unusual depth in surrounding cliffs. Long lenses, tripod, warm clothes, and thermos with hot tea what else do you need The valley was almost empty comparing to other weekends and iffy weather with bad road conditions made it that more empty.

Nikon D300 with Nikkor 55-200 DX at 92mm
Exposure: 1/20, 1/10, 1/2 at F14
Comensation: -1/3EV, 2/3EV, 1 2/3EV
ISO: 320
Post processing: Photomatix, CS5, LR

Another shot from trip to Yosemite over Thanksgiving. In evening clouds poured into valley creating beautiful scenes on surronding cliffs. Pick an open spot, setup your tripod, and then watch story unfold all around.

Random tip: When shooting outside in cold weather, keep your camera in the trank away from heater vents and inside the camera bug to prevent condensations. Do not pull camera out of the bug especially near heater. Also consider lowering temperature inside the car to avoid temperature shock when jumping in and out.

Over Thanksgiving which coincided with break in one of the first winter storms we went to Yosemite. Something to be said about watching weather and rushing to the mountains at the first break. Weather was cold and crisp with beatiful snow on pine needles which will be gone next day. Roads were pretty bad, I counted few cars which have lost control and got thrown to the snow banks, nothing serious but I bet people were pretty shaken. And then there was a tour bus that got stuck on the tunnel view parking lot. However park was mostly empty, even usual photohog’s spots were sparsely occupied.

Also, I have finally put new design up it’s long overdue. Not done yet either, more tweaks and polish to be done…

Nothing beats hearing the yapping of a coyote at 6 am. Saturday morning was clear and warm we hiked to Clouds Rest reaching summit around 10:30 am, we were alone up there enjoying solitude, clear skies and amazing vistas. All of that has quickly changed however. As we started our descent more people were arriving to the summit and clouds moved in threating with immenent rain. It sprinkled lightly till afternoon allowing us to get back to camp and then skies open up with rain and hail. We decided to cut the trip one day short and hike out now instead of hiking out the next morning. We packed under light rain and reached the car by 5pm, kids were worn out completely.

One the way back we made obligatory stop by Olmstead point hoping for some sun, but clouds we were blanketing the area making it clear that fall has moved in Yosemite.

There is another shot made by someone else almost exactly from the same place but in different conditions.

Among many new features is build-in Flickr publish service, it’s plain and simple but works great with one huge exception – more on that below. Still I switched to use it instead Jeffrey’s Flickr export plugin which by the way was too rewritten as more sophisticated “Publishing service”.

The problem both services suffer is they way, way eager to republish photos which aren’t really changed. Simply viewing photo in Developer module, touching metadata or even showing as part of slideshow (in some case) marks it for republishing.

I was researchinge this issue and found solution, albeit an engineering one for build-in service (that is what I’m using now). Note that this is for MacOSX and requires basic knowledge of the Terminal:

• Quit LR3 and backup your catalog
• Open Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app, then type following commands (without ‘>’):
• >sqlite3 <path to your catalog’s .lrcat file>
• >select * from AgRemotePhoto where photoNeedsUpdating=1;

this will show all photos marked for republishing, including their remote URL on respective host server.

To clear specific photo(s):

• >UPDATE AgRemotePhoto
• …>set photoNeedsUpdating=0 where url=”<url from the list above>”;
• >.exit

To clear all photos marked for republish:

• >UPDATE AgRemotePhoto
• >set photoNeedsUpdating=0;
• >.exit

Open LR3 and if all was done right the photo(s) will be moved back to “Published” category where they belong. Note, those commands ignore new photos scheduled for publishing (ones that were never published before).