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Erich's family vacation
erich6
Registered Users Posts: 1,638 Major grins
Hi everyone!
It's been a while since I've posted (you may or may not have noticed). I've spent the last two weeks on vacation with my family. We got in the car and drove a grand total of 3,348 miles for a whopping 60+ hours in the car. :huh It was worthwhile though. We saw grand locations from Big Sur to Mount Saint Helens and Crater Lake. We drove from Orange County, CA all the way up Pacific Coast Highway to northern Oregon, cut over to Portland and headed up to Seattle where we spent a couple of days with our extended family. We then drove down through the Columbia River Gorge and down the East Side of the Cascade Mountains through Gold Country in Northern California.
As you can imagine, I took LOTS of pictures. I figured I post some of them here since most were landscapes/cityscapes but maybe there's a better forum. Here are some shots from Days 1 and 2....
Day 1: As you know, traveling with kids you need to plan on a lot of stops along the way (not to mention the wife...:wink ). On our way to San Luis Obispo (SLO), we stopped at Refugio State Beach north of Santa Barbara. The boys just had to start throwing rocks at the first body of water they saw. Here's a shot of them having a go at it:
Later, we stopped at Pismo Beach. Nice area. Very quaint with a nice beach park. However, we started getting glimpses of the gloom that plagues the central coast during this time of summer. We would be in the fog all the way up to Eureka except for minor glimpes of the sun here and there. Here's a view of the beach from the pier.
The gloom never stops surfing though...
You can see more shots from Day 1 at http://hbphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/748913/1/33019607.
Day 2: We departed SLO to head to Santa Cruz. My wife and I were looking forward to some great sights along the drive through Big Sur. The boys just couldn't wait to get to ride rollercoasters at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. We first stopped at Morro Bay. I took this shot from the harbor.
Along the way (just north of Morro Bay) we saw a bunch of elephant seals. I couldn't believe how loud these things could be. You can hear them for miles.
And here are some sights from the coast drive...
Well...I have to get going for now but I will post more shots as I get them processed. If you want to see more shots from Day 2 you can check out http://hbphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/749061
Thanks for looking!
Erich
It's been a while since I've posted (you may or may not have noticed). I've spent the last two weeks on vacation with my family. We got in the car and drove a grand total of 3,348 miles for a whopping 60+ hours in the car. :huh It was worthwhile though. We saw grand locations from Big Sur to Mount Saint Helens and Crater Lake. We drove from Orange County, CA all the way up Pacific Coast Highway to northern Oregon, cut over to Portland and headed up to Seattle where we spent a couple of days with our extended family. We then drove down through the Columbia River Gorge and down the East Side of the Cascade Mountains through Gold Country in Northern California.
As you can imagine, I took LOTS of pictures. I figured I post some of them here since most were landscapes/cityscapes but maybe there's a better forum. Here are some shots from Days 1 and 2....
Day 1: As you know, traveling with kids you need to plan on a lot of stops along the way (not to mention the wife...:wink ). On our way to San Luis Obispo (SLO), we stopped at Refugio State Beach north of Santa Barbara. The boys just had to start throwing rocks at the first body of water they saw. Here's a shot of them having a go at it:
Later, we stopped at Pismo Beach. Nice area. Very quaint with a nice beach park. However, we started getting glimpses of the gloom that plagues the central coast during this time of summer. We would be in the fog all the way up to Eureka except for minor glimpes of the sun here and there. Here's a view of the beach from the pier.
The gloom never stops surfing though...
You can see more shots from Day 1 at http://hbphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/748913/1/33019607.
Day 2: We departed SLO to head to Santa Cruz. My wife and I were looking forward to some great sights along the drive through Big Sur. The boys just couldn't wait to get to ride rollercoasters at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. We first stopped at Morro Bay. I took this shot from the harbor.
Along the way (just north of Morro Bay) we saw a bunch of elephant seals. I couldn't believe how loud these things could be. You can hear them for miles.
And here are some sights from the coast drive...
Well...I have to get going for now but I will post more shots as I get them processed. If you want to see more shots from Day 2 you can check out http://hbphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/749061
Thanks for looking!
Erich
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OK. We finished out Day 2 at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Great place to take the kids for some fun. Lots of rides and games and it's right on the beach!
Here's a couple of views from the ferris wheel.
Thanks for looking!
Erich
Founder
Silver Cloud Publishing
fssupport.smugmug.com
Here are some shots from Day 3. Passed through San Francisco and of course had to go and check out the Golden Gate Bridge. Here's a popular vantage point...the fog was quite thick that day. This was not too far past noon.
And a shot of the harbor from the bridge....
We managed to find some sun and had a picnic at the Point Reyes Park.
And here's a portrait of my younger son. He was quite happy perched up on the rocks.
Cheers,
Erich
Hi Erich,
Great pictures, looks like a very beautiful part of the world that I would love to see as well. I really like the 2nd picture of "sights from the coast drive" - the one with the fence post in the foreground and the beach/cliffs in the body of the picture. Of course the Golden Gate bridge photo is spectacular and will look really stellar blown up on your wall. By the way, what camera/lenses are you shooting with?
Thanks for sharing
Kevin K.
I shot all of these with a Canon Digital Rebel SLR. I used my new Canon 17-40mm f/4 L lens for most of these. The shot of the elephant seals I took with a cheapy Quantarray 70-300mm telephoto.
Erich
-Gil-
[/FONT][FONT=Courier New, Courier, mono]My world of photography[/FONT]
Okay...I'm falling behind on these photos. Will be catching up tonight but I thought I go ahead and post this sunset shot. I got this just outside the hotel room we were staying. Wonderful spot.
Erich
Erich,
These are wonderful images. Can you tell me if you do any special post processing? The lighting seems to 'jump out' and they are very well exposed. Enjoyed looking at these!
Regards,
Kevin
http://www.newhopeimages.com/
My post-processing workflow is as follows:
1. Convert to RAW images to DNG using DxO Optics software. This removes the lens' optical distortions and blur. Works really great. Check out their website at www.dxo.com.
2. Use Camera RAW in Photoshop to do exposure adjustments. I usually underexpose my shots because digital has more latitude in the shadows. That means I tend to "push" the exposure about 1 to 1.5 stops in Photoshop. I also take care of any color corrections or white balance issues in this step.
3. I then use Photoshop to adjust contrast and saturation. I typically use Curves to improve contrast using the typical "S-curve". I also use a trick I learned in "Luminous Landscape" website for local contrast enhancement. Basically use sharpening at large pixel scale to improve contrast a bit. You can check this technique out at: http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/contrast-enhancement.shtml. I use the Hue/Saturation tool for small amount of saturation increase. If I want to get a lot of saturation (so that it gets the Velvia film type of look) I'll use the color mixer and bump up each color channel to 144% and dropping the others to by -22% to offset. I use layers so then I reduce the opacity as needed. Typicall down to 50-70%.
4. Depending on the shot, I may do a little extra sharpening with Photoshop Unsharp Masking. Typically 300%, 0.3 pixels, 0 to 8 threshold.
5. Convert to 8 bit.
6. Save as JPEG using level 10 compression.
If you don't have Photshop you can still get a lot of this done with most image processing software.
I appreciate your comments and hope this helps.
Erich
Here's a shot I took of my son at the Samoa's Cookhouse near Eureka, CA. Great place. You show up and they serve you all you can eat. No menu, just breakfast, lunch, or dinner. The place used to be a cafeteria for the lumberjacks. Can you tell he was thrilled?
Here's a shot of Hwy 101 going through the Redwood National Forest. These trees are majestic. Don't think the capture really does it justice but it's something at least.
We managed to hit some of the trails.... Here are my two sons making their way back from one of them.
Here's the famous Paul Bunyan. The boys liked climbing all over him. They were surprised when he talked to them and had a conversation!
We spent the night in Crescent City, CA. Nice little town. We were fortunate to have this view from our balcony. (The sunset shot previously posted was from the same place).
Erich
Michal
We finally made it to Oregon on the 5th day. Coastal Oregon is beautiful and we were blessed with a retreat of the fog that hung over most of Northern California. One of the nice things about Oregon is that all beaches are State Parks. There are quite a large number of vistas along the way. The first place we stopped at was The Samuel H. Boardman State Park. This is a great place for hiking with lots of of steep climbs but all done through lush forests and next to the Coast so weather is pleasant year-round. We managed to venture out just far enough to enjoy a bit of this great park. Here's a view of one of many natural coves in this area....
After this we stopped at Cape Sebastian which I believe is hailed as the Westernmost spot in the continental USA. The winds here were roaring (I estimate at least 80-100 mph). Here's a shot of my wife just trying to get out of the car...her hair immediately flew up in the air.
We then stopped at a small beach just south of Gold Beach. Very nice spot. Quiet sandy white area with lots of room to run. Here's a panoramic shot:
We stayed in Florence that evening but before heading to the hotel we stopped at one of the vista points overlooking the great Oregon Sand Dunes. These has traditionally been a haven for dune-buggies and other offroad rec vehicles but it's starting to get more attention as a unique ecological entity.
Next up: Northern Oregon Coast.
Erich
Thanks!
Disraeli Photography
"Only when the last tree has died, the last river poisoned, and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money" Cree Indian Proverb
Erich
We left Florence on Day 6 and drove up the coast to Cannon Beach where we watched the sunset and ate dinner at. We ended up taking a late night drive into Portland and staying in the city.
Here's a shot of the famous Heceta Head Lighthouse. I took this one from the Sea Lion's Cave parking lot.
Here's a view of the Oregon Coast Highway from one of the many excellent vantage points up and down the coast. We really loved the scenery!
We stopped for lunch at Mo's Seafood Restaurant in the small and quaint coastal town of Otter Crest. The food was excellent and the beer icy cold.
After lunch we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and had some ice cream. The place was pretty cool except for the very prevalent cow smell.... After the factory we headed up to Cannon Beach. We were lucky enough that it was a Thursday so it wasn't crowded at all. Here are a couple of shots from this wonderful beach (we could definitely see why it is so popular).
(By the way...all those specs of dust-looking things are actually birds. There were tons of them flying around the rock. They are clearly seen in the original picture.)
You can see more of the trip at http://hbphoto.smugmug.com/Vacation/104610
Thanks for looking!
Erich
Day 7 we visited Mt. Saint Helens. What an amazing place. I was quite surprised by the sheer magnitude of the destruction that resulted from the 1980 eruption. It's quite another matter to experience something like this than to watch it on TV documentaries or these photographs for that matter. The monument is well-kept and several interpretive sites are available. For more on this park check out http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/mshnvm/.
Here's a view from the Johnson observatory. This is the site that the geologist that first noted the explosion was at. He was completely disintegrated by the explosion.
We took a ride on a helicopter and flew as close as we could to the top of the volcano. That gave us a vantage point where you can see smoke coming out from the recent activity that is still going on here....
Erich
Erich
BTW, Great shots.
Basking in the shadows of yesterday's triumphs'.