Endeavour in the streets of LA

We traveled to L.A. to watch the "Endeavour Parade" as the Space Shuttle Endeavour was transported along city streets from LAX all the way to Exposition Park and the California Science Center, a 15 mile journey that was planned to take almost two full days.  We got to L.A. on Friday morning and Endeavour left LAX around 2 AM.  We found a busy city with closed streets but found a parking spot along a street one block from Manchester Avenue not far from LAX where it was schedule to roll past around 2PM in the afternoon after a stop to reconfigure the transporter.  We found our viewing site at Wiley Post and Manchester.  The crowds grew and finally, we could see the tail of the orbiter appear and it slowly moved past us at 2 mph.  This view was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure f/9 and 1/400 seconds at ISO 100.

As it slowly passed us, I was able to change lenses and get some closeups of the orbiter which flew 25 missions into space.  The thermal blankets used around the upper part of the fuselage around the cockpit show their structure as well as the wear and tear of flying to and from space.  This image was taken with my 75-300mm telephoto at 190mm focal length with an exposure of 1/800 seconds at f/9, ISO 100.

Another closeup of the tiles on the side of the orbiter shows the streaking on the black tiles due to re-entry heating on the tiles.  You can also see that each of the tiles had an identification number printed on it.  This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/100 seconds at f/9, ISO 100.

"Cut Her for Emergency Rescue" was happily never used but this shows rescue personnel where an area of the cockpit designed to be cut through more easily was so they could access the crew compartment if needed.  You can also see the serial numbers on the thermal blankets and the stitching in them.  This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/500 seconds at f/9, ISO 100.

The nose of the Endeavour housed the forward Reaction Control System engines that were used to orient the orbiter in space as well as to make fine adjustments to its velocity.  In front of the RCS is the grey colored nose cape that had to withstand some of the highest temperatures on the orbiter during its re-entry into the Earths atmosphere.  The entire RCS module could be removed for servicing between missions if needed.  The RCS used hypergolic propellants that would ignite when the fuel and oxydizer came into contact - a reliable but rather difficult fuel to use.  This image was taken at 75mm focal length with an exposure of 1/160 seconds at f/9, ISO 100.

You Old Fossil

 These first two images are on a layer in the Quarry site at Dinosaur National Monument which is preserved for visitors inside a building.  These bones are about 150 million years old -  farther back in time from the K-T boundary when the Dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago than the K-T boundary is from us today.  The bones collected in this layer most likely after dying elsewhere and being washed downstream before collecting in a common area over millions of years.  both images were taken with my 24mm lens and an exposure of 1/80 seconds at f/4, ISO 400

This image finally gives you some scale for the size of the bones - notice the gentleman and his son at the bottom right of the layer of bones visible here.  They are generally quite large.  This layer extended in all 4 directions, left, right, up and down.  It was excavated starting in about 1910 by Earl Douglass from the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.  They removed huge layers of rock and dirt to get to the layers that contained the dinosaur bone fossils like these.

Another pair of views of the wall of dinosaurs - you can see how small we humans are in the 2nd view.  The last 3 images were all taken with my 24mm lens and an exposure of 1/60 seconds at f/4, ISO 400.

A closeup of a segment of vertabrae with my 75-300mm lens at 120mm focal length with an exposure of 1/50 seconds at f/4.5, ISO 400.

Dinosaur Double Rainbow

 We arrived at the Quarry Visitor Center entrance to Dinosaur National Monument near Jensen Utah just before sunset.  As we headed for a campground in the park, we were treated to this rainbow show. This image was taken with my 24mm lens and an exposure of 1/250 seconds at f/2.5, ISO 400.

I put my 10mm fisheye lens on to capture the full rainbow - the inner rainbow is complete while the outer one is visible over more than half the arc, maybe more with a little imagination.  This image was taken with an exposure of 1/30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 100.

The sunlit cliffs were dramatic along with the rainbow.  This image was taken with my 75-300mm lens at 75mm focal length and an exposure of 1/100 seconds at f/4, ISO 400.

Flaming Gorge geology

As we approached the south end of Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, we found ourselves in an area with stratified cliffs showing the geology of the area in spectacular views.  This image was taken with my 75-300mm lens at 75mm focal length with an exposure of 1/800 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 200.

The top of this cliff has an interesting layer a few feet thick that differs from adjacent layers. This image was taken at 75mm focal length with an exposure of 1/1000 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 200.

 A closeup of a few layers in a cliff wall.  This image was taken at 75mm focal length with an exposure of 1/400 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 200.

Finally a view of the lake that fills the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area from the roadway at one of the scenic viewpoints.  We could see boats and water skiers.  This image was taken with my 24mm lens and an exposure of 1/125 seconds at f/11, ISO 100.

This last image shows a number of boats on the lake including one with a skier in tow.  This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/200 seconds at f/11, ISO 100.

Bighorn Sheep

After leaving Yellowstone, we drove south, heading for Dinosaur National Monument.  As we neared the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, I saw a car pulled off to the side of the road at the junction of a dirt road.  A lady had her camera out so I grabbed mine and quietly walked up the dirt road and was treated to a group of Bighorn Sheep that she was photographing.  Here are a few of them.

 This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/640 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 200.

 

This image was taken at 90mm focal length with an exposure of 1/800 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 200.

This image was taken at 200mm focal length with an exposure of 1/800 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 200.

Lewis River and the Moon in twilight

This HDR combine was shot while I waited for some visitors who hopped out of their car and put themselves right in the middle of the frame for the photos of Lewis Falls from the north end of the bridge here.  I knew the contrast between the darkened scenery and the bright twilight sky and Moon would be tough to catch in a single exposure, so I took 3 images bracketed by 1 stop around 1 second at f/4, ISO 100 with my fisheye lens.

This HDR combine really paid off compared with the original bracketing exposures.  I used 4 exposures in this case thanks to mis-setting my first attempt here - now I wish my old Canon 20D could take 5 bracketed images automatically.  The central exposure in the bracket was 2 seconds at f/8, ISO 400 with my 24mm lens.

Here is one of the original frames that went into the above HDR combine with the central exposure.

Lewis Falls

 As we  drove south through Yellowstone National Park, heading for the south entrance, we passed Lewis Lake and then crossed a bridge and saw this waterfall which we weren't expecting, so we pulled into the pullout and I grabbed my camera gear.  It was close to sunset, so exposures were going to be long, so I decided to bracket shots and maybe combine them later with and HDR program.  Using my 24mm lens, I took shots +/- 1 stop around 6 seconds at f/22, ISO 100.  I used ExpoBlending under Linux to do the combine

This is the middle image of the three used in the above HDR combine.  The improvements are not all that obvious in this case, but the next image did well with the HDR combine.

From the same location, I switched to my 10mm fisheye and took three exposures with a 1 stop bracket centered at 1/6 second at f/2.8, ISO 100.

I set up at the north end of the bridge over Lewis River and took an HDR set of exposures with my 75-300mm lens at 90mm focal length, bracketed by 1 stop centered on 5 seconds at f/11, ISO 400.

Bison Bison everywhere

After leaving Tower Falls, we headed for the south exit of Yellowstone National Park.  Along the windy road, we passed several herds of Bison. As we crested a hill on the highway, I saw some vehicles stopped up ahead and sure enough, there were some Bison on and near the road.  "Bison crossing" would be a worthy road sign here.  This image was taken with my 75-300mm lens at 300mm focal length and an exposure of 1/800 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 400.

A Bison calf moves slowly across the ridge not too far from the roadway.  The cars tend to slow to a crawl when there are so many animals so close to the road, so the opportunity to shoot from the car as we drove past was too hard to pass up.  This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/1000 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 400.

More Buffalo than you can count.  A bull stands at the top of a hill not too far from the calf above as we drove past.  This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/500 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 400.
 

Another bull wanders the grassland of Yellowstone.  This image was taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/800 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 400.

This bull seems to be watching the traffic go by (it was bumper to bumper for quite some distance).  I took this out the drivers side window as my sweetie drove slowly down the road.  This image was taken at 205mm focal length with an exposure of 1/640 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 400.

This herd of Buffalo were milling around on a hillside by the road that has a hydrothermal vent near its top which you can see in the middle of the frame with a beast in front of it.  This image was taken at 75mm focal length with an exposure of 1/250 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 400.

Confluence of the Yellowstone River and Tower Creek

Fun with special affects, this exposure was long enough to smear the rivers flow significantly with an exposure of 1 second at f/22, ISO 100 using my 24mm lens.  The river bends to the left, flowing away from me here and into the canyon wall.

Upstream from the confluence, the Yellowstone River turns a bend below this shallow canyon wall in the distance.  This image was taken with my 24mm lens and an exposure of 1/25 seconds at f/4, ISO 100.

Tower Falls is far left of this image but the creek below the falls flows down and intersects the Yellowstone River at the lower left corner of this image. This image was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure of 1/30 seconds at f/3.2, ISO 100.

To show the whole bend in the Yellowstone River, I used my 10mm fisheye lens for this shot.  The Tower Creek enters the Yellowstone River on the lower left corner of this frame, just below the small rapids in the rover below the yellow cliff face.  The river flows from the right, towards the left in this image.  The area smelled of sulfur which may have come from what may have been a small fumerole at the base of the cliff slightly upstream in the Tower Creek canyon.  I also suspect the yellow highlights in the cliff or canyon wall may be the result of sulfur rich deposits.  This image was taken with an exposure of 1 second at f/22, ISO 100.

Tower Falls

We arrived at Tower Falls in Yellowstone National Park last month in a bit of a rainstorm, complete with thunder and lightning, so we went inside the giftshop by the trailhead, thinking that the hike to view the falls was a couple miles long.  We discovered that the viewpoint is only a short relatively flat trail away and a longer hike went down towards the base of the falls (but we found out later that it is closed about halfway down).  With the storm lightening up with only very light rain, we headed out on the short hike.  I set up my tripod at the overlook and took the shots above with my 24mm lens, varying the exposure for different affects - the top is 1 second at f/22, ISO 100 and the falls are smeared, giving the falls a curtain-like affect.  The bottom was taken at 1/640 seconds at f/1.8, ISO 400, nearly stopping the water.

I switched to my 50mm lens and took these two images in portrait mode.  The top image was taken at 1/800 seconds at f/1.8, ISO 400.  The lower one was taken at 1 second at f/22, ISO 100.

FYI, the trail that heads downhill does not have another view of Tower Falls, at least not down to where it is closed.  It does have wonderful views of the river and canyon below - but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Mammoth Hot Springs

The Mammoth Hot Springs are on the north end of the Yellowstone National Park.  The area housed a Military expedition that was used to "tame" the area in the early days.  The hot springs are composed of a number of terraces with bubbling hot springs that drain downhill, forming the terrace features as the minerals in the water settle out into the landscape.  The grey-white limestone deposits are called travertine.  The material looks a lot like snow or ice from a distance.  You can also see a storm which moved into the area while we were there and chased us back into the car.  This image was taken with my 24mm lens and an exposure of 1/320 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 100.

The trails for visitors are on man made boardwalks to allow visitors to get close to the hot springs without damaging them.  Looking down into one of the terraces below the boardwalk shows the pools of water in the terraces and shows some of the structure found in the terraces.  This image was taken at 75mm focal length with an exposure of 1/250 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 100.

These fresh terrace structures show the wide variety of colors and structures.  Some of the features almost look like snow and ice structures.  This image was taken with my 24mm lens and an exposure of 1/400 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 100.

 A closeup of the terrace from the previous image showing some of the complex structures and perhaps you can see the slow trickle of water flowing downhill.  This image was taken at 75mm focal length with an exposure of 1/320 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 100.

 The travertine covered landscapes have a variety of textures and colors to be seen.  This image was taken at 75mm focal length with an exposure of 1/200 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 100.

This is a lower pool at the top of one of the lower terraces.  The pools can be seen steaming and it produces very colorful deposits.  This image was taken with my 75-300mm lens at 75mm focal length with an exposure of 1/320 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 400.