After a brief blogging hiatus due to an extended vacation, I have returned with ample content for the next few weeks! I took the family on an RV trip where we drove from Tucson up to Monterey, CA to start our adventure. While in Monterey we visited my lifelong best friend and his family. They live in a lovely house overlooking the Monterey Bay and were gracious enough to let us park our RV in the driveway for a few nights while we visited. Time with them is precious but I did excuse myself for one morning to walk down to the wharf to take some photos. I also toted my camera along for other activities just in case an opportunity arose.
I also acquired a new lens. At this point, I think my bag is well (enough) rounded out that I can stop buying them. The new addition is a Tamron 70-300mm. It’s quite inexpensive due to, I assume, the lack of any vibration reduction or stabilization within the lens itself. I’m still learning how best to use the lens and what shutter speeds I am capable of taking handheld at longer focal lengths.
This seagull photo is a reasonable lesson. I have a user preset on my camera for wildlife. I originally set it up for hummingbirds back in Tucson but after this outing, I think it could use some updating. Primarily, the shutter speed is way too high, especially for seagulls. Compared to hummingbirds, this species is terribly slow. Since that preset has auto ISO on, it got ramped way up to compensate for the dull overcast early morning with a fast shutter. I have already changed these settings to set a maximum ISO value and a default shutter speed of 1/100. That preset’s base mode is shutter priority. I have to think about that also as I’d like some control over aperture.
Sea lions in the Monterey Bay are plentiful. I ran out of time that morning to see the are where, I’m told, hundreds exist. I could hear them all morning barking at each other. What was very interesting to me is that these creatures will go to shallower water and put themselves up on rocks either partially or fully to sleep. This seems smart. Sharks would have a much harder time getting their morning protein this way. I saw these three sea lions lazing around and thought it would make a nice photo with the negative space. Had I remembered my tripod (lots of forgetting that on this trip) I would’ve slowed the shutter way down and smoothed out the water as much as possible. Maybe even added my ND filter. I think that photo would’ve been a definite level above the one here.
As I walked around, there is a pier that seems to be owned by the Coast Guard. The entrance gate was open and a sign was posted allowing public access so long as visitors don’t get in the way of official duties and assume the risk for their own existence on the pier. Seemed easy enough so I proceeded. Many sea lions had perched themselves on the rocks directly next to the pier. This one seemed to be happy to say ‘good morning’. Again, I used my wildlife setting here which was completely unnecessary. Post processing helped with the excessive ISO value but I still feel silly looking at the metadata for this one.
The final photo I’ll exhibit from that morning is one where I captured some of the colorful buildings on the wharf. I thought the rock in the foreground was nice. A slew of brandt’s cormorants and a trio of pelicans all preening themselves. As mentioned, the morning sky was overcast. I have gotten plenty of opportunity lately to practice photography with overcast sky. Mostly what I’ve learned is to avoid it. I cropped the photo to 2:1 for this reason.
The final two photos are not wildlife but I still found them compelling enough to share. One day we wandered down to the tide pools of Asilomar. The kids got to collect shells, jump in massive piles of seaweed, and hunt for hermit crabs. I got a few interesting photos from the outing of some birds, sea lions, and a few sea otters but I decided to post this one. I put the ND filter on and took a long exposure. The result almost looks as though it was taken from a mountaintop looking down on low level clouds. I love the whispy-ness of the water. It is an interesting perspective though I am not sure that I would print this for my walls.
We were able to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium one morning. While I didn’t get any outstanding photos from that, we briefly walked Cannery Row to get to the entrance. This door and rail stuck out immediately. The original photo had about 15 possible crops as there was a lot going on. I’ll include the original below so you can see. I didn’t have much time to stop and analyze more of the scene or what I wanted in the photo. I had three kids I was responsible for at that moment so photos were not my priority. I simply zoomed as much as my presently mounted lens would and snapped the photo.
Thanks for reading. After Monterey we ventured our way into the Sierras. If you’d like to subscribe to know when those posts become available, please do so!