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California's Central Coast
11 12 13 14 15 April 2012

These are snaps from Dave Wyman's springtime photo tour of the Central California Coast.

ALL IMAGES SNAPPED HAND-HELD. No tripods or raw files needed, thank goodness.

 

Canon

The Canon shots start on Friday.

I brought a new Canon 5D Mark III with cheap old Canon EF 20-35mm USM, 24-85mm USM and 55-200mm USM II lenses. This entire set of lenses will cost you under $600 for all three at eBay. The 5D Mark III corrects the optical flaws of these old lenses, so I was able to dump my big old 16-35mm f/2.8 L II, 24-70mm f/2.8 L and 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L II all in the ocean, and travel light — and getting better overall picture quality on my Mark III than I used to get with the heavy old lenses on my old 5D Mark II. Hey, look at these pictures.

I set the 5D Mark III's Picture Control (or whatever it's called) to +3 or +4 for saturation, and set the Automatic Lighting Optimizer to AUTO. I set AUTO ISO and Pro ("P") exposure mode to let my camera figure out all the apertures and shutter speeds and ISOs. I also set AUTO White Balance, with A4 amber shift, and light metering on Evaluative. Everything was shot in JPG NORMAL.

I set everything as automatically as possible, since it gets me where I need to be faster. I know when I need to take something off manual and have to drive myself when needed.

My Canon's exposure compensation was usually at -1/3.

 

Fuji

I also shot a brand-new Fuji X-Pro1 with Fuji XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH lens. I needed no other lenses; this 50mm equivalent lens is perfect for everything. I shot the Fuji in its VIVID film simulation mode, with colors cranked to +2. I used AUTO white balance and trimmed the white balance with two units of red and two units of yellow. I shot in AUTO ISO, JPG NORMAL, AUTO DYNAMIC RANGE.

 

Colophon

I used iView Media Pro 3.1.3 to identify and losslessly rotate all my JPGs. I then sorted the images in Phase One Media Pro. I would have rotated the images in Phase One Media Pro, but it's pretty flaky doing rotations, so I've given up and now do it in iView Media Pro 3.1.3 first.

Once selected, I take the not-too-bad ones and format them for publication in Photoshop CS5.

The Canon shots look so good right out of the camera that these snaps are as they came out of the camera.

The Fuji X-Pro1 weren't colorful enough for me, even cranked to the maximum, so I tweaked most of them in Photoshop CS5. The Fuji's AUTO White Balance is excellent in mixed light, however.

Lastly I then created these pages and uploaded it all in Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 from 2006.

 

11 April 2012, Wednesday      top

We met at at Dave's house in Los Angeles, and headed north.

We were in scenic Santa Barbara for sunset.

Santa Barbara Mission

Santa Barbara Mission, 6:53 PM. (Fuji X-Pro1 with Fuji XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH, f/5.6 at 1/180 at AUTO ISO 200.)

 

Gaviotta Rest Stop

Gaviotta Rest Stop, 7:41 PM. (Fuji X-Pro1 with Fuji XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH, f/1.4 at 1/120 at AUTO ISO 800.)

 

 

Orange Can

Gaviotta Orange Can, 7:44 PM. (Fuji X-Pro1 with Fuji XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH, f/1.4 at 1/50 at AUTO ISO 640.)

 

Gaviotta Space Pod

Gaviotta Space Pod, 7:46 PM. (Fuji X-Pro1 with Fuji XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH, f/1.4 at 1/52 at AUTO ISO 2,000.)

 

Pea Soup Andersen's

Pea Soup Andersen's, 8:03 PM. (Fuji X-Pro1 with Fuji XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH, f/1.4 at 1/52 at AUTO ISO 2,500.)

 

Pea Soup Andersen's

Pea Soup Andersen's Kitchen, 8:21 PM. ORIGINAL © FILE. (Fuji X-Pro1 with Fuji XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH, f/1.4 at 1/90 at AUTO ISO 200.)

Pretty sharp for f/1.4, eh? THere's no falloff: that's the way the spotlight is hitting the counter.

 

Pea Soup Andersen's

Andersen's Pea Soup, 8:29 PM. (Fuji X-Pro1 with Fuji XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH, f/1.4 at 1/52 at AUTO ISO 320.)

 

Pool, Best Western, Arroyo Grande

Arroyo Grande, 10:32PM. (Fuji X-Pro1 with Fuji XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH, f/1.4 at 1/52 at AUTO ISO 320.)

This Fuji and its f/1.4 ultra-speed lens are pretty darn good, super sharp and contrasty even wide-open at f/1.4. Whoo hoo!

 

That's all for today. NEXT ->> Thursday

 

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