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Get Ready -- Fall's Coming

Aaron Strasburg

New member
At least in the high country of north-central New Mexico, the trees are beginning to turn.

It's not a terribly exciting image, and I think a bunch of colors got lost in translation to an sRGB JPEG (at least on this monitor at work), but it will soon be time to head out into the woods for fall foliage:

247974861_fe9fb6ffd9_o.jpg


This is looking down into the Pecos River valley ENE of Santa Fe.
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Aaron,

You have sparked my interest but the link is broken!

Asher




and now repaired, thanks Aaron! :)
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I see there's a lot of possibilites including fall flower, right now in the foreground.


Why don't you keep us informed. A from the ground f11 28 mm shot to the yellow-orange flowers with the trees in the b.g. would be interesting.

I hope you could feed Tim Armes large uncorrected images via yousendit.com (one image at a time) as you progress in this project. You images would be perfect for optimization and retouch. You or Tim could select which one to post in the Retouch Forum if you would like to do that.

Noe for those who might want to visit, when is best and what locations would you suggest. Are there inexpensive Inn's in that area?

Here the number of devciduous trees is not overwhleming, but the evergreens do add an interesting color contrast.

Asher



Asher
 

Aaron Strasburg

New member
Foliage options

Asher Kelman said:
I see there's a lot of possibilites including fall flower, right now in the foreground.


Why don't you keep us informed. A from the ground f11 28 mm shot to the yellow-orange flowers with the trees in the b.g. would be interesting.

I was surprised to see as many flowers as I did. I don't think they'll be around too much longer, so I'll have to go prepared for some semi-macro shots as well as using them in the fg as you suggest. My wife was already mad at me for disappearing as I did. She's busy Saturday, so I can go on my own and not have to worry about boring her to tears.

I'm thinking I may head back up this weekend instead of going to the AHRMA races. Both occur only once per year, but I think I'll focus on landscape for now, especially since I have a workshop with Alain in December. Might as well develop some more bad habits before then....

We've had a couple of pretty cold nights already this week, down in the low 40s in town. If it hasn't frozen up in the Pecos already it has to be very close, and they're talking about snow over 9500' tonight. I suspect the trees will come along very quickly now.

I hope you could feed Tim Armes large uncorrected images via yousendit.com (one image at a time) as you progress in this project. You images would be perfect for optimization and retouch. You or Tim could select which one to post in the Retouch Forum if you would like to do that.

I'll see what I can come up with. That shot was taken with my recently acquired EF-S 10-22 and I'm really struggling to deal with everything being in the frame. I went on a short hike with just that lens and this is one of the better images, taken at 22mm. I've got to learn to see wide-angle.

Noe for those who might want to visit, when is best and what locations would you suggest. Are there inexpensive Inn's in that area?

There are a lot of aspen forests in northern NM. It's about a 2hr drive to this particular location from Albuquerque. An hour less if you stay in Santa Fe, which also puts you closer to Taos. ~1.5hrs southeast from Abq is a place called 4th of July Canyon that has lots of maples, rather unusual for NM. Being further south and not as high it's probably at least a few weeks out.

I would highly recommend the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad between Chama, NM and Antonito, CO. That goes through some gorgeous country with lots of aspens. Not a bad base camp, either, for finding fall color.

I suspect this weekend will be too early in the Pecos, but you can see that the aspens are beginning to turn in the very high country. With this cold snap I'm guessing they'll be really going next weekend.

Lots of places to stay in Abq, SF, Taos, plus some bed and breakfasts scattered around. You definitely have the full range of prices available.

The Weather Channel tracks foliage as well.

Here the number of devciduous trees is not overwhleming, but the evergreens do add an interesting color contrast.

As you get higher you get more aspens. Those are probably cottonwoods down in the river bottom. Higher up you'll find groves of nothing but aspens.
 

Aaron Strasburg

New member
Update from this past Sunday (Sept 24)

The aspens up high are beginning to turn. These are about 9200ft/2800m elevation near the Grass Mountain Summer Home area off FR223 (roughly 35d50'N, 105d37'W, unfortunately the Google Earth resolution here is very poor so you can't see much)

Lovely meadow, looking roughly NW:
67647887.jpg


One of the few aspens that's really started to turn:
67648000.jpg

Most are more green, perhaps starting to get yellow edges.

The maples, cottonwoods, and such down near the river are considerably further along (along NM63 above Monastery Lake):
67648609.jpg


It looks like the aspens will be going well by this coming weekend, I would guess peak around Santa Fe is probably a couple weeks away.

As much as I like the polarizer, with such a wide angle lens you get so much variation across the frame it looks rather odd. I probably over did it in the second image, too.
 

Mary Bull

New member
Shooting from the hip, with my gut instincts in full control:

All three images are perfect in my eyes.

I'm going to look a long time at each of them. As always, you invite me straight into the scene, Aaron.

Mary
 

Aaron Strasburg

New member
The Jemez this past Sunday

For a little variety the wife and I rode the motorcycles up to the Jemez Mtns this weekend. This means an hour or so NW from Abq instead of an hour or so NE from Abq to the Pecos. Not quite as high, more people.

The cottonwoods along the Jemez River below Jemez Springs are nearing peak:
67978542.jpg


This is further north, looking across the Valle Grande in the Valles Caldera National Preserve:
67978540.jpg


...and a bit more detail of the plug with a small batch of nicely turned aspens visible on the south face:
67978538.jpg


Beautiful day, beautiful ride. Being on the bikes I only took the G2. Either it's behaving funny or it's just not as good as I remembered. The dangers of pixel peeping a several year old P&S (even though it's a moderately high-end P&S) comparing it to a 20D with decent glass. These pics, shot in RAW, seemed to require a lot of sharpening, contrast, and saturation tweaking. Others seemed to have seriously blown highlights that almost look like chromatic aberration in places where I wouldn't have expected it.

I guess I'm getting spoiled and am going to have to put up with toting the big gun around continuously.

Update: after a little research I think I have a partial answer--don't use too small an aperature. The diffraction limit for the G2 is around f/4.5, and you really don't need a small aperature with the tiny sensor and its huge DOF. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Aaron,

I see the colors getting better as the winter approaches. But only where there are deciduous trees. Otherwise the evergreens don't tell us about the fall! An earlier picture, picture (Aspens Sept 24th) is interesting with that metal hut. Do you have a bunch more of that scene? Perhaps join a pano challenge?

There is the challenge too of lens distortion.

Asher
 
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Rob.Martin

New member
Fall?? Ohhhhh Autumn . . . . .

Have some feelings for us in places where the weather is hot and sticky, or very hot and sticky or really very hot and sticky, and it rains a lot, unless it's just hot and sticky.

The seasons here are impossible to differentiate in the folliage.......

Still, there are other benefit, like only needing warm clothes when it's 25 celcius.. hehe

Cheers

Rob
 

Ray West

New member
Last year, in my neck of the UK woods, I was looking forward to some autumnal picture taking. We had one night of early frost. The next day, virtually all the leaves on the ground - two inch layer of very green ash leaves, very little autumn colour at all last year.
 

Aaron Strasburg

New member
Asher, once I figured out that you were referring to the Pecos pics I understood your question. There are many pics in that area, including an AEB sequence of that tin-roofed shed. The rest of the shed is actually old, weathered wood, with some interesting patterns. Unfortunately its on private property and I didn't want to jump the fence for some detail shots. I'll see what I have that might be of interest to others, but I know I didn't deliberately shoot anything for stitching.

No sympathy for those in tropical climes. We all have our crosses to bear....

This is definitely the nicest time of the year in Abq. Spring is nice but often very, very windy. Summer is hot though dry, and if you're a pale, white guy like me you should invest in a company that makes sunscreen. Winter is often quite nice, but too cool for long rides without looking like the Michelin man. Fall it is, then. Moderate temps, cool at night, snow in the highest elevations, foliage changing, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

It also means harvest time, so next week I head back to Nebraska for a week or so for my annual dose of "real" work.
 

Aaron Strasburg

New member
I added a few more images to the Pecos gallery for Asher. 0797 is part of an AEB sequence that I may play around with, someday. Maybe. It's a little bland but has a huge dynamic range making it another candidate for playing with HDR.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So Aaron,

What do you in Nebraska at harvest time?

Your pictures are excellent and have a lot of potential for some interesting prints that might surprise you.

I love that Pecos Gallery. It is different from my subjects and one can spend a lot of time with other people's images. Several of your images intrigued me.

Asher
 

Mary Bull

New member
Aaron, I have bookmarked your galleries page.

I very much enjoy your entire range of pictures, and the Pecos gallery has such an enjoyable contrast between the buildings and the wide landscape.

One of my favorites in the Pecos gallery is image number 806.

Such great sky colors above the highlighted roof and dark side of the building. I love the sky's gently shading blue from left to right, tender to darker blue.

And that white cloud above the building, with its shadowed underbelly, is almost like a great bird in flight.

Mary
 

Diane Fields

New member
I saw a bit of color along the Maine coast/Mt. Desert Island (and Acadia Nat'l Park) the 2 weeks prior to this and know that they were seeing over 25% color north of Bangor. Coming down through coastal NH, New York, Conn., Mass, Pa and W, Va and Virginia we saw very little color--could have changed drastically since last Monday though. Here in western North Carolina in the foothills, there is almost none in the trees though the Fall wildflowers are in bloom. I understand that in higher elevations it is becoming very colorful and I'm hoping for a day this week to get up there. I miss Fall's peak almost every year because I'm shooting for Int'l Furniture Market :<(

Diane
 

Mary Bull

New member
Ah, too bad that work has to come before pleasure!

Here in Middle Tennessee, all remains dressed in lush green. Might as well still be in summer--a particularly nice summer, so far as rainfall amounts are concerned.

I think it will be the end of October before we have a significant amount of colorful tree leaves in Nashville.

However, the holly berries are ripening here. Almost a pure red, now.

Mary
 
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