Hi all,

I was out and about this afternoon and decided to drag along the camera. It was a big puffy cloud day with lots of wind (20-25mph). It was also about 45 degrees. Brrr!! The sun peeked in and out pretty much all day, with rain/ice/snow in between. Very strange for this part of October, although Michigan weather never ceases to amaze me...anyhow! Here are a couple shots.



The shot above was taken from the State Park Beach about 6pm.



Shot #2 was taken from the North Pier Boardwalk about 15 minutes later showing an approaching ice pellet storm.



Here in shot #3 was the storm about 30 seconds before it let loose and I was dashing back to my very toasty car I left running!

Enjoy!

Nice pictures, Jen. Like the breaking waves in the first one. The storm clouds dipping down in the third one give interesting contrast. How come you didn't stay and get pictures of the pellets coming down??????

Dave

Dave, with the wind I can handle rain, but ice pellets sting a bit more. Plus I didn't want my camera getting too beat up...

Smart move Jen! Great pictures! You captured a touch that we don't get to see very often. I for one don't venture out in the rain with my camera. Maybe I should once in a while. Thanks!

Bert

Nice pictures Jen. That's quite a difference from the day we were there in June to climb the tower.

Nice photos Jen! Now, knowing that the rule is whatever you get there, it comes here (Syracuse, NY) about a day later, do you think I thought, "Gee! At least I got a heads up!" Nope! So it came as quite a surprised when I walk out of the library and ran into SLEET! Made for some great views of the weather from my dorm window though (the clouds a couple hills over looked a lot like the ones in your third photo, which is my favorite of the 3...)
Keep up the great work in your wanderings out and about!

Great shots. I love the ominous clouds in the last picture. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the comments! It's not very often I get adventerous to wander out in weather, and frankly, most of the day was pretty nice sky-wise - just pockets of isolated showers/ice pellet showers. It was the wind that got me to wanting to stop in Grand Haven (I had to go to Holland for the afternoon) and get some waves crashing on the pier.

Nice shots,Jen- I like shooting in weather like that, love the contrasts!

Thanks for sharing your photos. That photo with the fluffy white clouds in the background and the gray clouds is cool.

It was 30 degrees here this morning. We had some light rain earlier in the night, and that was frozen solid on my vehicles. Amazingly though, the cold temperatures didn't harm what is left of my garden.

Bob

ICE!!!????!?!?! What the heck is that? It's still in the mid to upper 80s here in Tampa. Well I guess we did have a cold snap a couple of days ago. The overnight low was in the upper 60s.

Great photos

Nice shots, Jen. I was in Grand Haven this past Tuesday night. The sunset was spectacular!!! I hope you got to see it too. I need to get some slides from that scanned....

As for the weather, we've already had a hard freeze here in Kalamazoo this year... down in the mid 20's one night this past week. We had some snow flurries and sleet... some places up in the Upper Peninsula were supposed to get 6-9 inches of the white stuff this week... They didn't get quite that much, but winter is definitely coming here in the north country!

Gary

Thanks Gary and all. I was in the UP at the same time the week before the snow hit...man am I glad I missed that!!

Gary, that sunset was spectacular last Tuesday. I didn't make it to Grand Haven (only 45 minutes away for me) as my other half was home from work too late (we have a two year old daughter and it's much easier to take pictures without having to worry about watching her) but I saw the reflection on the clouds as the sun dropped through onto the horizon - it was incredible! I kept muttering to my husband, "I should have gone to Grand Haven..."

Jen, after seeing what's posted below, I'm sure there will be no doubt that you'll wish you had been able to get to Grand Haven for the sunset last Tuesday...



Gary

very cool, Gary

Timing is everything, Gary, and it appears your timing was well planned. Great picture!

Bob

Wonderful pics Jen and Gary!

I love all that color in the sunset Gary. How do you know when you'll get such a great sunset? Is it all spur of the moment?

Gary, what were your tech details on that? Looks like it may have been around a minute or so. Wonderful capture! Below is one late night shot I did back on 9-10. Shot on Provia 100 with a Minolta Autocord, two second exposure. (Pardon the grain from the low-res file).

I love to see your photos you post. Thanks for sharing!!

Thanks for the comments on the sunset, all. I saw the potential for a spectacular sunset at Little Sable... looking at the cloud formations to the west out over the lake as we drove south. A little north of Grand Haven, there were openings in the clouds and sunbeams pouring through and it was a race to get there for the color that always follows, hoping that the horizon would be clear for the setting sun to light the bottoms of the clouds after it went below the horizon.

For Jen, the tech stuff - Fuji Velvia at iso 40, 1/10th sec (people were moving and I didn't want to blur their silhouettes and that was as long as I thought I could get away with) 145 mm f/4. The photo was shot with a Nikon F5 and an 80-200 mm f/2.8 AF-S Nikkor lens with the lens mounted on a Bogen 3021 Pro tripod with a Bogen 3037 pan/tilt head. Hope that helps some, Jen.

Gary

Gary, isn't the Bogen set-up nice? I have had mine for four years and initally thought it was too heavy - now it goes everywhere with me. Carry bag helps. I have the three way adjustable tilt pan head (I don't care for the ball mount). I'd have to look at the numbers but it's out in my trunk and I'm too lazy to walk outside tonight.

Where were you coming south from on your way home? Being in Fremont, I'm directly east of White River 30 minutes, but distance is about equal for me to go to Little Sable, Grand Haven, or Muskegon at 40-45 minutes each.

I have a couple questions for you. Are you having better luck shooting Velvia at ISO 40 than 50? I know there has been some controversy with rating it at 50 vs. 40. I have tried both ways and get decent color, but I don't seem to get the color you do. I have also tried bracketing with and without a polarizer. Would a warming filter 812 at sunset help do you think to color balance and offset the bluish tones of the water reflecting on the sky? I shoot with an N90s and Sigma lens (28-80/2.8 and 100-300/4.5). I want that Nikon 70-200/2.8 in the worst way...

Also, are you hand metering with a Sekonic or similar or using the F5 built in meter? What F-stop do you traditionally shoot at?

Jen, I'm on my second Bogen. My older 3221 I still use with a Bogen 4231 long lens tripod head for my Nikkor 500 mm f/4 AF-S lens which is very heavy -- about 17#. Tha poor older tripod is also rusting somewhat from the number of times that I've set it up in the Atlantic or Pacific oceans to photograph. I guess I always figured it should be able to let you set up when/where you wanted. I agree with you on the ball heads -- I don't like 'em either. I have both a 3047 and 3037 pan/tilt heads. The latter is the high end version and is exceptionally smooth and nice to use!

I was headed south toward home... I photographed at Grand Haven early that day then drove up to White River to shoot then on up to Ludington. Photographed some high contrast images there, shot some nice puffy cumulus clouds over Little Sable, which gave it a spectacular sky and then drove like a maniac to get to Grand Haven for that spectacular sunset!!!

If I'm shooting a sunset where I'll likely go to long exposures, I generally expose Velvia at iso 40 rather than 50. It seems to help but that's only my opinion. The best saturation comes when you stop the lens all the way down... f/22 is great, f/32 is better, and give the film the time to record the nuances of light. They're there but it takes time for them to be recorded. Occasionally, I've found that I get excellent exposures around 1/10th of a sec or so when I can't tolerate slower shutter speeds due to people. I've also had some occasional success pushing Velvia to iso 100 and shooting around 1/10th to 1/4 sec at sunrise.

Other than a polarizer to control contrast or the depth of color of the sky and the contrast of puffy cumulus clouds and nuetral density filters, I don't use warming filters or color intensifying filters at all. The bluish cast or shift that you mention can be corrected for in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop Elements, or whatever if you feel the need. Generally speaking, I'm pushing the film in the direction of the blue/purple color group via reciprocity failure anyway so I don't bother to color correct very often.

In my experience with the new Velvia 100F, the color shift when it goes into reciprocity failure is undesirable. It goes YELLOW -- yuk!!! -- rather than toward blue/purple as does Velvia 50. If you need iso 100 film for sunset/sunrise photography for any reason, I would strongly recommend that you use Provia 100F for that purpose rather than Velvia 100F.

Thanks for the help, Gary. I looked at my tripod and the legs are 3221 and the head is a 3030. I went out to Little Sable last night for sunset and actually got 1/10 second just as the sun dropped under the water line and I had that wonderful bright glow where it had set. I stopped down to F22 and shot with no polarizer on Provia so we'll see how they turn out. After the Fresnel came on I did a couple 4-6 second exposures too. The color stayed in the sky for almost an hour after it went down. I hadn't seen color like that in a LONG time!

PS - Glad to know I am not the only ony who races the sun to get somewhere for sunset! Just got to watch out for the cops... hehe...