Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Part 3)

Several times a year, Half Moon Bay in California has it's mega low tide day. During the mega low tide, the ocean will retreats for a few miles, and land that is usually 5-10 feet under water becomes exposed. On 11-27-2011, it was one of the days. In following days, I will be showing you photos I've taken. Please come back and look!

Part: Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Today, I will be focusing on the more small stuff that was there. This includes anemones, mussels, starfish, and kelp. Most of them are macros. Hope you enjoy viewing them! Usually these things are not visible. I did not use Photoshop to touch up any photos here. I tried to use it to remove the glare from the water, but wasn't too sure how. So yeah, these are original. First off, I got a few pictures of a starfish.

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best photos from this event, use this link. To see all of the photos from this event, use this link. To see my best wildlife photos, use this link.


Photography Tip: So you see the glare from the water in the image? That can be gotten rid of with a polarizing filter. Polarizing filters help filter light coming in from different angles, which helps get rid of reflections from water, deepen the color of blue skies, and help saturate colors. Polarizing filters are great for taking photos of things underwater (while your above water), and for landscape shots. It is a very handy tool to keep in hand, but shouldn't be kept on your lens at all times. A professional photographer always keeps a number of filters on hand for different effects. The effects can be mimicked in Photoshop, but it's not as good as the real thing.

A purple starfish.

Another close shot. :)

A sea anemone closing up. They close up if you touch them.

Hm... Wonder how the sea snail got there.


There were lot's of anemones in the tide pools. It was really cool.

More anemones and kelp.

Close up shot of the kelp. Don't they look like mini palm trees? LOL

Lot's of mussels. They were further off sure than the anemones and stuff. Oh yeah, they are edible. LOL Ate them before... Collected a few while fishing at Half Moon Bay last time. :P They are really good.

There are more mussel patches at Half Moon Bay, you probably have to go during low tide. The ones at this State beach can't be collected, but you can look elsewhere. I ate them before. LOL

Close up of the mussels. Some of them were really big.

Another close up shot.

Tomorrow I got landscape pictures and pictures of birds. Also this group of Occupy Wall Street protestors I saw on the way there. HAHA Come back and see! The landscapes are great!

Part: Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Part 2)

Several times a year, Half Moon Bay in California has it's mega low tide day. During the mega low tide, the ocean will retreats for a few miles, and land that is usually 5-10 feet under water becomes exposed. On 11-27-2011, it was one of the days. In following days, I will be showing you photos I've taken. Please come back and look!

Part: Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Today I got some landscape photos and pictures of the organisms that live in the tide pools. :) I got more coming in the following days. The exposure was adjusted in Photoshop on a few of the photos. Mainly because I got the ISO setting wrong. The day before I tried to take a picture in almost no low light, so ended up over-exposing some of the first few photos I took at Half Moon Bay. You will see that photo I took in the dark on a future post. :) I was driving on a mountain road at night, and saw 2 deers on the side of the road. Stopped to take a picture. It actually turned out well! Make sure you check back! So anyways, let's continue on to the Half Moon Bay photos.

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best photos from this event, use this link. To see all of the photos from this event, use this link.

A landscape shot of the pier at Half Moo Bay. Anyways, this was the photo I was talking about, over exposure. I had several more, but I got too lazy to touch up. Mainly because the JPEG's I took was "locked" unlike RAW.

Photography Tip: Like I said above, when in doubt, take in RAW or auto. On professional DSLRs you will usually have a RAW button that temporarily turns on RAW mode for the next picture. RAW will up the photo size by like 2-4 times, but it records the CMOS's data with minimal processing. RAW is sometimes called the "digital negative", because that is pretty much what it is. When your camera converts the photo you took to JPEG, a lot of things are locked like white balance and exposure. In RAW, you can always go back and use a software like Photoshop to correct some things that you didn't get right at the time the picture was taken. So when in doubt, shoot in RAW or auto! RAW can be converted to JPEG later on a computer. Anyways, the sunset pictures I took (I will be posting them at the end) were took in RAW, adjusted then converted to JPEG. They are really wonderful and beautiful! Make sure you check back.

A boy showing me this eel he caught. Nice!

Anemones like this was everywhere. I'm guessing these are anemones... Anyone wanna confirm? Post a comment for me. Please. ROFL

More anemones. They were everywhere!

Landscape shot. See the kelp? That is usually underwater. 

Lot's of sea snails. I wonder if they are edible.

Sea anemone and sea snails.

Generally anemones on the west coast can be touched because they don't have long enough or strong enough stingers to puncture human skin, but they are poisonous to fish and other small ocean organisms. Some more tropical anemones elsewhere can really hurt you! Don't touch those! 

Another picture of an anemone.

This whole area is usually underwater. What an experience! 

Another sea anemone. There were lot's of them.

This kelp palm tree looking thingy. HAHA They were pretty far from the beach itself. Not normally visible. 

I will be posting up more picture tomorrow! So please check back! There will be more landscape pictures and pictures of the organisms in the tide pools including star fishes, anemones, and mussels. At the end, I will also be posting the beautiful sunset pictures I took. Make sure you check back! Bookmark me and spread the blog post with your friends!

Part: Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Monday, November 28, 2011

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Part 1)

Several times a year, Half Moon Bay in California has it's mega low tide day. During the mega low tide, the ocean will retreats for a few miles, and land that is usually 5-10 feet under water becomes exposed. On 11-27-2011, it was one of the days. In following days, I will be showing you photos I've taken. Please come back and look!

Part: Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

So, I have decided, I will not be posting the photos in order. Everyday I will be picking around 10 photos I have taken at the Mega Low Tide day. :) I've got around 70 photos I will be posting! So please check back! I got a lot of cool and rare photos! Today, I got some landscape shots, and some pictures of the organisms I found in the tide pools!

Today's photos are original, straight from my Canon EOS 7D. No touch up work what so ever! :)

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best photos from this event, use this link. To see all of the photos from this event, use this link.

Here is a landscape shot! You see the kelp and the rocks? That area is usually underwater. At that time, it was around 3 PM. The lowest tide was around 5-6 PM. You can already see the water retreating.

Another landscape shot. This isn't at the low tide point yet.

There were lot's of baby crabs under rocks. They were so tiny! ^_^ The picture on my preview post and these two were the best ones I took. I actually messed up the other shots with wrong manual adjustments. XD Pretty much shows how much of an amateur I am. ROFL


Another shot of the crab. 

Photography Tip: Alright, a photography tip for you amateurs out there (Okay well I am one too... but... anyways), macro shots like these are usually done at a low aperture. So instead of using auto, put your Mode Dial on either AV or A (depends on the camera you have). This mode tells the camera, you want to control the aperture, the computer can decide on the shutter speed. Now use the adjustment thingy (different on every camera) and turn it down to the lowest aperture it will go. It will show up as x.x/f. make x.x go down as much as you can. That is your f-stop number. The lower the number, the bigger the ring (aperture) in your lens opens up and vise versa. The wider the aperture, the blurrier the background. If the subject blurs up, go up a bit with the f-stop number. The lower the f-stop, the faster the shutter. Great for quick pictures. For landscapes, put your camera on a tripod, and play with the f-stop, usually a higher f-stop will work better. This also slows your shutter speed and put more of the view in focus.

I sea shell I found.

The sun over exposed my shot. 

This is a sea anemone. There were a lot of them! I will be posting up more photos of them in the following days. Surprisingly, the outside isn't much, but the inside is filled with color! If you touch them, they'll dig itself back into the ground. HAHA It's really cool.


Lot's of kelp... HAHA Usually this is all under water. No wonder so many people came to see this. There were way over 10,000 people there!

Another picture of a sea anemone. 

Another landscape shot. You can see the beach in the background. (The part not covered by kelp) That is usually the only land NOT under water. What an experience!

Tomorrow, I will be showing more landscape photos plus photos of the little critters that lives in these tide pools! Stay tuned. In  the following days, I will also be posting some really really nice sunset photos I took.

Part: Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Preview)

Several times a year, Half Moon Bay in California has it's mega low tide day. During the mega low tide, the ocean will retreats for a few miles, and land that is usually 5-10 feet under water becomes exposed. On 11-27-2011, it was one of the days. In following days, I will be showing you photos I've taken. Please come back and look!

Part: Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Today, I will be starting off with a panoramic of the hill on which an Air Traffic control tower is located. The place I was standing is usually underwater. Very rare photo! Please enjoy! You can click on the photos to see the full size. (Okay, for some reason Google keeps resizing my panoramic photo for me. If you want to get a full size view, ask for it in the comments below. Type your email in the email box, it won't be visible to anyone else except the mods. The photos are still copyrighted works of mine and may not be redistributed, printed, or used with out permission.)

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best photos from this event, use this link. To see all of the photos from this event, use this link.


Photography Tip: Have you ever had a ruined panoramic shot? Here are some tips to prevent it!
  • Take your photos as fast as possible, usually panoramics don't work well with lakes and oceans because it moves.
  • Use your camera vertically. This way, you will get more of the subject in your picture, you are going to take multiple pictures anyways, more or less...
  • Use aperture priority, and close up your aperture (higher f-stop number). This will put more of the view in focus.
  • Use a tripod and level your camera.
  • Pick a good exposure for the entire shot and use the exposure lock button on your camera and do that the whole time you take the pictures for your panoramic.
  • A software like Microsoft ICE can be used to stitch your photos together. I usually use that.
If you do all that, your panoramic shots should look a lot better!

Here is a preview of some of the little critters I saw. I will show more pictures of them in the following days, but photos from this blog post will not be reposted. So please take a good look at them! I usually start from the beginning, but I'm still in the process of picking out photos to post up. I was in a hurry to get some of the photos up so, here is the preview! :D Also, don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook. You can find a Facebook box on the top of the right sidebar. :)

These little critters were hiding under rocks! Very easy to spot and there were lot's of them. They were very small. Babies? Maybe.


A little boy showing a eel he's caught. Very cool! They were very slippery and hard to catch. I didn't try, because I didn't want to get my brand new camera dirty. Did I tell you I got a new Canon EOS 7D? Yes! I upgraded my DSLR. 


I star fish stuck to a rock. How often do you get to see that? It was a really great experience.

So how was it? I would say, best experience of my life! Not only did I get a lot of great photos, but I got to stand in places where it is usually underwater. This only happens several times a year! There were way over 10,000 people there yesterday! Almost all my photos got people in them. XD 

Anyways, I did upgrade my camera to a Canon EOS 7D, mainly because my old camera is dying on me. (It keeps rebooting when I try to use the LCD) I have to say, best camera I've ever used. I'm not even using the "L model" lenses and I see a big difference. I got an 18 to 55mm lens and a 70 to 300mm USM lens. I also got a deal on Amazon. They gave me a $200 discount on my lens for bundling it with a camera. What a great deal? Too bad it's over. HAHA Anyways, none of the photos I posted today was touched up! You're looking at the original!

Well anyways, keep checking back for great photos! :) I'll be posting tomorrow, hopefully! I'm still not done picking out from my 800 photos. That's why I did a preview. Normally I'd start from the very beginning, but I'm pretty sure lot's of people would want to see this, so enjoy! Don't forget to share the blog post with your friends!

Part: Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Friday, November 18, 2011

$200 Discount on DSLR Lenses

So anyways, I've been looking around because I am looking forward to upgrading my current DSLR. Obviously as you know, I am an amateur photographer myself. Anyways as I was looking on Amazon, right now they are having a deal. If you bundle select DSLR lens with a Canon EOS 7D DSLR camera, you will get a $200 discount on select lens. If you get a select Canon EOS T2i or T3i DSLR, you will get a $100 discount on select lenses. So this offer lasts until November 23, 2011. Anyways I couldn't get my referral link for the discount page, but you can find the offer on the Canon 7D DSLR page on Amazon. I think there are more discounts if you bundle it with a printer. I'm not sure, but great time for deals! I mean it's Black Friday, then there is Christmas. A lot of stores are holding great deals! Did you know Amazon already started their Black Friday deals? You can check them out here! Enjoy your holiday shopping! :)

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Central Park Squirrels

Today's post will be dedicated to the cute little squirrels from Central Park. I got too many animal photos so I will separate them a little bit. :) The rest of the animals will come on the next blog post. Central Park is in Fremont, CA. If you want to see the other animals there, check out this post.

今天我会放一些我拍的松鼠照片。这些照片是在 Central Park 拍的。下一次我会放一些别的动物的照片。

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best squirrel photos from 2011, use this link. To see my best Central Park photos of 2011, use this link. To see all of my Central Park photos of 2011, use this link.


Okay, you guys are probably wondering how I got such close up shots... Keep looking down and you'll see. XD The squirrels at the park are so nice and so cute! ^_^


Okay, you guessed right. I offered the squirrels crackers. :P I know the signs at the park say don't feed the animals, but really who ever reads them... Everyone feeds them... The squirrels there aren't afraid of people at all. I even got to pet a few of them before. :D It's fun. :P And yes, the squirrels are really really fat... So many people feed them. LOL

Nom nom nom... Yummy....


2 chubby little squirrels. :P 

I think he's trying to say "My Cracker". HAHA 


Hmm... What's this on the ground... 

Yummy! A peanut! :P

I wonder what it is eating... 

The squirrel's all like WHAT YOU LOOKING AT?! HAHA 

I actually meant to post this picture on my next post but accidently uploaded it. If you look in the background you can see little ducklings. :D Aren't they cute? ^_^ I got more coming next time! Oh yeah these pictures were taken back in March... Sorry about that, I got busy doing other stuff... As I mentioned in my previous posts.


Next time, okay the baby duckling pictures may not be in the next blog post but the ones after that. I'll see how to plan it. I accidentally got those pictures mixed up with my Taiwan pictures. So... Might take a while for me to sort those out. Next time, I got pictures of ducks, birds, and geese. Stay tuned!