Birds of the Grand Canyon II

Here is another bird checking out the melting snow near Desert View Point. He never got close enough to get a better picture. This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/320 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

Birds in the Grand Canyon I

This unidentified bird greeted us as we walked from the parking lot to Desert View point. This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/320 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

Lone Sentinal

A fellow visitor takes in the spectacular view from Powell Point about 10 minutes after sunset. This image was taken at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 0.8 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

The Canyon after sunset

Here's another view of the Canyon after sunset - I love the colors! This image was taken at 35mm focal length with an exposure of 1/60 seconds at f/8, ISO 1600.

Shooting shadows

My Friend Richard, looking every bit like Ansel Adams, shoots the Earths shadow as it rises over Point Royal on the North Rim from our vantage point at Powell Point. This image was taken at 35mm focal length with an exposure of 1/50 seconds at f/8, ISO 1600.

Geology in the inner gorge

This view from near Yavapai Point shows some of the complex geology inside the Grand Canyon including several vertical dikes in the inner gorge just above the river, particularly the one right of center near the bottom of this image. Just above the craggley tree branch at right is Isis Temple in front of Tiyo Point on the North Rim. This image was taken at 34mm focal length with an exposure of 1/320 seconds at f/8, ISO 100 with a polarizing filter.

Maricopa Point from Grandeur Point

This view west from Grandeur Point along the rim trail towards Yavapai Point shows not only the distant Gran Canyon, but Maricopa Point on the left. This exposure was made at 25mm focal length with an exposure of 1/250 seconds at f/8, ISO 100 with a polarizing filter.

Bright Angel Canyon

Bright Angel Canyon is one of the most prominant cross-canyon features of the Grand Canyon. Here, it is visible cutting into the North Rim and across the canyon below. It follows a fault which cuts across the canyon and is the site of one of the most popular trails from the South Rim where it cuts into the South Rim. Just left of Bright Angel Canyon on the North Rim is the main North Rim National Park visitors center at Bright Angel Point. At bottom left is the end of the trail out to the Colorado overlook. This view is from along the rim trail as we approached Yavapai point coming from the South Rim visitors center. This image was at 25mm focal length with an exposure of 1/200 seconds at f/8, ISO 100 with a polarizing filter.

Moonset over Maricopa Point

Taken from near Grandeur Point on our hike along the rim trail to Yavapai Point, this view is of the setting Moon just off of Maricopa Point on the south rim. The right end of Maricopa Point is in front of Powell Point that actually makes the sharp edge of the canyon below the Moon. Powell Point is where we ended up for the sunset later that day. This image was taken at 55mm focal length with an expsoure of 1/400 seconds at f/8, ISO 100 with a polarizer filter. 

Fellow traveler

Richard stands on the edge of the canyon taking photographs which included one of me as we hiked out along the rim trail to Yavapai point. This part of the tail overlooks the Bright Angel Trail - the most popular trail on the South Rim. This image was taken at 55mm focal length with an exposure of 1/50 seconds at f/8, ISO 100. 

Shooting the North Rim

About the time Richard took the photo of me on his blog, I took this photo across the canyon towards the North Rim. You can see the Bright Angel trail heading out to the overlook of the Colorado River near center. Bright Angel point, the location of the North Rim main visitors center is just left of the bluff on the right in the distance on the far rim. This image was taken at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 1/200 seconds at f/8, ISO 100. As with most of these images, I was using a circular polarizer to cut through the haze and increase contrast.

Isis Temple & The Colonnade B&W

This is the same image as yesterday's converted to B&W with a red filter in Picasa. 

Isis Temple & The Colonnade

This view from Powell Point across the canyon shows the spectacular pair of Isis Temple on the left and The Colonnade behind and on the right with the North Rim Tiyo Point in the background. This image was taken at 70mm focal lenth with an exposure of 1/500 seconds at f/8, ISO 400.

Setting sun from Powell Point

This is the view downstream in the Grand Canyon as the sun slowly sank in the sky. Sunlight hitting specific spots in the canyon stand out spectacularly against the shaded areas around them. Point Sublime is on the North Rim just right of center. This view is during our 2nd Canyon sunset from Powell Point west of the South Rim visitors center. Smoke from a distant fire appears on the horizon in the sky as well and the layering which makes the Grand Canyon so pretty is also very apparent. This image was taken at 133mm focal length with an exposure of 1/640 seconds at f/8, ISO 400.

B&W version of today's image

Here's a B&W version of todays image. I used a green filter to convert to B&W in Picasa and then tweaked the contrast a bit. 

Cape Royal after sunset

This is the view towards Cape Royal on theNorth Rim as viewed from Powell Point, west of the South Rim main visitors center. Cape Royal extends from the left edge of the frame on the horizon. Right of Cape Royal is Wotans Throne and then Vishnu Tempel. The South Rim's Yavapai Point with Yaki point behind it extends out from the right edge of the image. In the immediate foreground at the bottom of the frame is part of The Battleship. Zoroaster Temple is at the left edge of the image. This image was taken about 15 minutes after sunset. You can see some of the dark blue of the Earth's shadow in the sky, though I took the image and adjusted it to show the canyon rather than the sky. The light shortly after sunset is some of the warmest and prettiest, though it requires a longer exposure and a tripod. Being a large hole in the ground (Richard remarked around the time I took this picture "That sure is one large hole in the ground!"), it disappears into the shadows long before sunset with the northern and westward facing walls still lit by sun before sunset when the magic hour colors are their best, making photography of most canyon features difficult at best. But there is a short window of time after sunset where the colors are still spectacular if you are ready to take the shots and are patient enough to stick around for a few minutes after sunset while everyone else is heading for their cars. This image was taken at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 0.8 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

Jupiter Temple from Grandview Point

This view is just left of the view in yesterdays image towards the northeast from Grandview Point taken on Thursday night just less than an hour before sunset. In the center is Jupiter Temple, just to the right of Cape Final which sits behind the pyramid shaped Vishnu Temple. The flat topped butte in front of Jupiter Temple is Rama Shrine. In the distance on the horizon are the Echo Cliffs which parallel highway 89 as it approaches the Colorado River at Marble Canyon. This image was taken at 70mm focal length with an exposure of 1/400 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

Colorado River from Grandview Point

This is the view upstream, towards the northeast from Grandview Point as the Sun is starting to set on Thursday night. You can see the Colorado River near center. Before the river was dammed at Glen Canyon, the river would have been a brown color instead of the bluish color seen here. The spire left of center is called Solomon Temple. The river runs through Tanner Canyon, Basalt Canyon and then Cardenas Canyon in the area that it is visible. Just north of the river (to the left) is Basalt Cliffs and Ochoa Point. This image was taken at 70mm focal length with an exposure of 1/500 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

The Watchtower

This is a view of the Watchtower at Desert View on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. This image was taken at 100mm focal length with an exposure of 1/1250 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

Downstream from Desert View

This image is one of the first I took during our two days at the Grand Canyon. It was taken from the Desert View viewpoint, just below the "Watchtower" at that site. The Watchtower is a replica of a native tower, built in the 1930s here. This view is generally west and you can see both the south rim on the left and the north rim on the right. Visible near center on the horizon is Cape Royal, a popular viewpoint in the National Park on the North Rim. This image was taken at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 1/60 seconds at f/8, ISO 100 with a polarizing filter. I found that the polarizer really helped minimize the affects of the haze that was present in the canyon and also helped with colors too. You can see the affects of the polarizer with the wide angle lens in the dark area in the sky just left of center.

Sunset, shadows and craters

We arrived at Cinder Lake south of Sunset Crater near Flagstaff Arizona just before sunset and hiked out to the center of Cinder Lake where NASA created an artificial crater field to help train the Apollo astronauts for their missions to the Moon. The long shadows were very reminiscent of the shadows seen by the astronauts while on the Moon since they landed just after local sunrise. In this image, our shadows stretch across one of the artificial craters. Also visible on the horizon on the left is the Sunset Crater volcanic cinder cone which last erupted around 1065 AD. This image was taken at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 1/320 seconds at f/11, ISO 400.

Humphrey's Peak in moonlight

My friend Richard and I (See his Earth, Sky & Beyond photoblog - you can find the link in the links at right) are traveling to the Grand Canyon on a photo expedition this week. We stopped near Sunset Crater to get pictures of the Moonlit landscape. Here is a shot of Humphrey's Peak just north of Flagstaff Arizona. This image was taken at 24mm focal length with an expsoure of 30 seconds at f/4, ISO 400.

Anti-crepuscular rays

I wasn't planning on being on Kitt Peak at sunset tonight, but backups took a lot longer. I took this image looking away from the Sun about 6 minutes after sunset. The Earth's shadow is visible at the bottom over the top of Tucson with anti-crepuscular rays above the shadow. This image was taken at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 1/125 seconds at f/3.5, ISO 400.

Cactus Wren

While on the subject of birds, here's a shot of a Cactus Wren that was outside my folks place. This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/500 seconds at f /5.6, ISO 400.

Vermillion Fly Catcher

This Vermillion Fly Catcher lives around Freedom Park and I saw him land on the fence bounding the softball field after we finished playing our weekly Sunday morning pickup games there. I pulled out my camera as the other players left and over about 20 minutes, managed to get several decent pictures of him, here in this image, he is perched on a fence next to a nearby building. This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/1600 seconds at f/11, ISO 400.

Water Dragon II

Here's another view of the Water Dragon. This image was taken at 133mm focal length with an exposure of 1/125 seconds at f/5, ISO 1600 with some fill flash.

Water Dragon

This Water Dragon is one of the critters in my wife's middle school science classroom. The detail in this lizards eye is rather interesting and not all that different from that of the leopard geckos that are also in the classroom. This image was taken at 190mm in macro mode with an exposure of 1/60 seconds at f/5, ISO 1600 using flash with an FEC of about -1 stop.

W-I-L-D-Cats

At the end of the halftime show, normally just the Tubas do the "W-I-L-D-Cats" dance in the middle of the field, but last Saturday's game was the last home game for all the seniors in the band, so they joined the Tubas onfield after being spotlighted. My daughter was one of those so honored and is amongst the band members in the middle of the field, finishing her fifth and final year in the Pride of Arizona Marching Band. This image was taken at 70mm focal length with an exposure of 1/250 seconds at f/4.5, ISO 800.

Wilbur and Wilma Wildcat

A couple weeks ago I posted a picture of the Cal Golden Bear mascot. Here, Wilma and Wilbur Wildcat walk the football field before Saturdays ASU-UofA football game. Wilbur has evolved over the years, reflecting the "state of the art" in college mascots. This image was taken at 168mm focal length with an exposure of 1/640 seconds at f/8, ISO 400.