Spring Storm in Boise, Idaho

May 16, 2010

Here are the photos, mostly panoramics, from my shooting session in Boise, Idaho. As mentioned previously, a rain storm provided some wonderfully dramatic skies to go along with a setting sun over the city of Boise. I headed up to Camel’s Back Park to get a vantage point overlooking the city and spent some time shooting panoramics. Click on images for larger versions, though the panos can be printed huge. The web doesn’t portray the detail in the shots. The above photograph was created by merging nine photos together to form a huge panoramic. It was very tough to get my tripod level and to get everything lined up to get this shot to work out but I am glad that I made the effort. It’s my favorite shot from the series and captures the storm front as it moved in over Boise. The above photograph is a merging of seven photos that have been stitched together using Photoshop. It captures the storm as it continues to pass over Boise and the rainbow adds a wonderful touch of color to the shot. The above photograph consists of five photos stitched together to create a panoramic image. It was taken much later in the evening than [...]

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Spring Shooting in Boise, Idaho

May 15, 2010

I just returned from a business trip to Boise, Idaho and I packed my camera along for the trip. I sure was glad I did because, as I was eating dinner one of the nights, I noticed a nice storm rolling in that might allow for dramatic skies and great lighting during the sunset. I jumped in the car and headed to a spot I had “scouted” on Google Earth called Camel’s Back Park. I was looking for a good panoramic of the downtown area and this looked like it might hold promise. As I pulled up and saw the hill within the park I got pretty excited. It would allow me an unobstructed view of downtown from a location that was not too close and not too far away, thus allowing for good panoramic-friendly focal lengths. I hiked up the hill and spent the rest of the evening there shooting panos as the weather changed. I eventually got pounded with wind and rain but I stuck it out and was rewarded with some very dramatic skies over downtown Boise and a well-lit sunset. The most difficult thing with the outing was having to deal with the wind. The wind was strong enough to jostle [...]

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Incredible Quality and Value of Tamron 28-75mm Lens

May 11, 2010

I really like my photography equipment. One of my lenses is a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD and it is my workhorse lens, easily getting the greatest amount of use of my three lenses. The lens is also an incredible value when you consider the image quality, which is Canon L quality for a fraction of the price of an L lens. The build quality is up to par with an L but the image quality is and, since I am fairly careful when working with my lenses in harsh environments, I’m not too worried about ruining it – especially when you consider, at $459 (according to B&H Photo), I could buy two of them for the equivalent focal length Canon L. Don’t get me wrong, the build quality is not cheap, but admittedly the Canon L lenses are in a different league in that regard. As for image quality – it is simply amazing. Below is a shot of my two-year-old son taken using the Tamron lens on my Canon 40D with my flash bounced off the ceiling. Click on the image to view a 100% crop. As you can see from viewing the 100% crop, there is tremendous sharpness and detail in [...]

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