Fern Springs had some nice leaves on it so we stopped and snapped away.

Fern Springs had some nice leaves on it so we stopped and snapped away.

Fern Springs had some nice leaves on it so we stopped and snapped away.

I thought this tree was really pretty but you can't really see it's wonderful color

We spent hours scouting for a good sunset spot to capture the fall color but couldn't really find anything. This was about the only scene we found with water and fall color but it ended up not being a good spot for sunset. When the sun started setting the color vanished from the trees :(

We spent hours scouting for a good sunset spot to capture the fall color but couldn't really find anything. This was about the only scene we found with water and fall color but it ended up not being a good spot for sunset. When the sun started setting the color vanished from the trees :(

Willie, Will, and I specifically spent last weekend in Yosemite so that we could capture the fall colors. Unfortunately on Saturday there wasn't much color and while there was a bit more on Sunday, we didn't really find any photogenic spots to photograph. It seemed like all the colorful trees were next to boring ugly spots and not next to anything pretty, like the Merced River. We arrived around 2pm and spent the next 3.5 hours trying to find a spot for sunset. While exploring I walked down to the Merced River where I had seen a couple yellow trees. Although the trees were on the wrong side of the river for sunset, there were numerous leaves that had fallen and made for pretty photos. Note that the leaves fell on this log on their own. I did not place anything or alter the scene in any way. I also did not increase the saturation in this photo. About the only thing I did was reduce some of the noise from taking it at ISO 640 on my D300s. Lazily I left my camera bag in the car and only had my 17-35mm lens on. It would have been better if I had the 24-70 or my 105mm macro but oh well. This came out great anyways. I had to use LiveView to get low and get close enough to this leaf! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 35mm, f/2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO 640, Handheld

While Willie and Will were off taking fall photos of the leaves I stupidly left my tripod and lenses in the car. Too lazy to go back to the car I decided to just shoot random things while they went to town on their own photos. I noticed that the water had some nice red light hitting it and thought it'd make a nice photo. I had to crop this pretty heavily since I only had the 17-35mm on but I thought it still came out pretty neat! Since I wanted motion and some blur I figured hand-holding ⅛ sec would be fine, and it was! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 35mm, f/9, 1/15 sec, ISO 320

While Willie and Will were off taking fall photos of the leaves I stupidly left my tripod and lenses in the car. Too lazy to go back to the car I decided to just shoot random things while they went to town on their own photos. I noticed that the water had some nice red light hitting it and thought it'd make a nice photo. I had to crop this pretty heavily since I only had the 17-35mm on but I thought it still came out pretty neat! Since I wanted motion and some blur I figured hand-holding ⅛ sec would be fine, and it was! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 35mm, f/11, ⅛ sec, ISO 320

While Willie and Will were off taking fall photos of the leaves I stupidly left my tripod and lenses in the car. Too lazy to go back to the car I decided to just shoot random things while they went to town on their own photos. Eventually I found this neat mushroom and started taking photos with my 35mm lens. I quickly realized that my 105mm macro lens would be MUCH better and finally went back and got the macro lens and my tripod. I experimented around with a gazillion different apertures but it really didn't make much of a difference. I decided I liked this photo best. It's almost like the mushroom is hugging the leaf! Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/7.1, 1/15 sec, ISO 320

While Willie and Will were off taking fall photos of the leaves I stupidly left my tripod and lenses in the car. Too lazy to go back to the car I decided to just shoot random things while they went to town on their own photos. Eventually I found this neat mushroom and started taking photos with my 35mm lens. I quickly realized that my 105mm macro lens would be MUCH better and finally went back and got the macro lens and my tripod. I experimented around with a gazillion different apertures but it really didn't make much of a difference. I decided I liked this photo best. It's almost like the mushroom is hugging the leaf! Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/16, 1/15 sec, ISO 320

While Willie and Will were off taking fall photos of the leaves I stupidly left my tripod and lenses in the car. Too lazy to go back to the car I decided to just shoot random things while they went to town on their own photos. Eventually I found this neat mushroom and started taking photos with my 35mm lens. I quickly realized that my 105mm macro lens would be MUCH better and finally went back and got the macro lens and my tripod. I experimented around with a gazillion different apertures but it really didn't make much of a difference. I decided I liked this photo best. It's almost like the mushroom is hugging the leaf! Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/16, 1/15 sec, ISO 320

I've been following David Shield's photos for a while on Flickr and over the past year or so we've built up a Flickr friendship. David lives in the area and we tend to be in similar places at the same time but never in the *same exact spot* at the same time. I let David know that we'd be in Yosemite this last weekend and he replied that he would be too -- at Valley View for sunset! Valley View was about the last place we wanted to shoot since it's shot over and over and over again (and I already have several photos from Valley View) so we thought we might meet up with him afterwards. Willie, Will and I scouted all over Yosemite Valley for the perfect autumn sunset location. Unfortunately mother nature was working against us and the leaves hadn't turned color yet or where they had, it was pretty ugly spot other than 1 pretty tree. We finally decided to just go to Valley View and meet David. We arrived to Valley View pretty late and had to rush to find a spot. I setup at the typical spot but I really liked that the low river exposed rocks and shrubs that I had never seen before! As the sun set the granite began to glow pink -- which was actually pretty awesome! Towards the end of the show David finally strolled over and asked if we were us and sure enough, we met David Shields! Super nice guy and I'm glad I finally got to meet him. Hopefully we can meet up again for some future shooting. If you haven't seen his photos, stroll on over to his stream! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 17mm, f/13, 0.5 sec, ISO 200 B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer, Hitech Soft ND Grad's Color Cast removed using recommendation from D Breezy

Will and Willie had just upgraded to Full Frame Canon's (5D Mark II) and Will rented the 24mm f/1.4 and wanted to do some star trails. We drove up to Tunnel View to see what it was like. While Willie was playing around I snapped a couple shots with my D300s. Apparently it's become an airport over the skies of Yosemite now. You can see the lights of a plane here.

Will and Willie had just upgraded to Full Frame Canon's (5D Mark II) and Will rented the 24mm f/1.4 and wanted to do some star trails. We drove up to Tunnel View to see what it was like. While Willie was playing around I snapped a couple shots with my D300s.

Will and Willie had just upgraded to Full Frame Canon's (5D Mark II) and Will rented the 24mm f/1.4 and wanted to do some star trails. We drove up to Tunnel View to see what it was like. While Willie was playing around I snapped a couple shots with my D300s. Apparently it's become an airport over the skies of Yosemite now. You can see the lights of a plane here.

We went over to Cook's Meadow to shoot some star trails around this tree and this is one of those photos. I forget what lit up the tree, perhaps one of our flashlights. You can kinda make out the milky way here too.

We went over to Cook's Meadow to shoot some star trails around this tree and this is one of those photos. You can kinda make out the milky way here too.

Willie, Will, and I drove over to Yosemite this past weekend to capture some of the autumn color. We knew that it might be a bit early for the red/yellows of autumn but we are all busy next weekend so we figured we'd give it a shot. It turned out that there wasn't much color at all … or where there was color, it was in the wrong spot and not very photographic! Willie and Will both picked up Canon 5D Mark II's and decided it would be a good chance (with the moon rising after midnight) to get some startrails. We headed over to Cook's Meadow (below Yosemite Falls) and found a bit dead ol' tree to use as the foreground for our startrails. OK, it's not all that interesting, but it was our first time trying startrails. As I just mentioned, none of us had done startrails before and this was a learning experience. We set all our cameras to ISO 1,000, 1 minute exposures, at f/2.8. We each rotated doing a 5 minute exposure first to figure out where the center point was. After recomposing 4 or 5 times we decided to give up trying to get the center point at the top of the tree (when we did, the tree was really ugly). For 1 hour, 15 minutes our cameras snapped away. At some point our lenses got all fogged up, cleared, then fogged up again. Luckily it didn't really effect the star-trail. I think there's way too many stars in this -- but it makes for a neat shot. Next time I'll definitely bump the ISO much lower so that a gazillion bagillion stars don't get picked up! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 75 exposures at 17mm, f/2.8, 60 sec, ISO 1000, Tripod Stacked in Photoshop

This tree stump had a really pretty autumn vine growing all over it but it wasn't very good to take photos of

While Willie and Will were taking photos of a tree glowing with the rising sun (and Half Dome) I decided to pull out the macro lens and take some macro's of some of the foliage in Cook's Meadow. This photo was actually shot with my 24-70mm but I decided to pull out the 105mm macro after this.

While Willie and Will were taking photos of a tree glowing with the rising sun (and Half Dome) I decided to pull out the macro lens and take some macro's of some of the foliage in Cook's Meadow. I really liked the dew drops on the spider webs here!