Partial Solar Eclipse 10-23-2014 - Pleasanton, CA

There was a partial solar eclipse yesterday on 10/23/2014. I shot these photos of the partial solar eclipse from my front yard in Pleasanton, CA. I shot these photos at 300mm with two ND filters (5 stop + 9 stop) and a polarizer as layers of protection. I hope you enjoy viewing these photos. If you look closely, you can see some of the sunspots in my photos.

Full Resolution Photos: If you want to see full resolution photos of any of the photos you see here, use the following links. If you wish to purchase prints of any of the photos, please contact me here. To see all of my photos from the solar eclipse, use this link.

 3:01 PM

 3:05 PM

3:09 PM 

 3:12 PM

3:15 PM 

Maximum coverage during this partial solar eclipse. About 40% of sun is covered.  

 3:16 PM

3:18 PM 

 3:21 PM

 3:24 PM

3:30 PM 

3:35 PM 

 3:44 PM

3:55 PM 

4:17 PM 

4:24 PM 

 4:30 PM

4:31 PM 

4:31 PM 

4:31 PM 

4:32 PM

These are all the photos for today. I hope you have enjoyed viewing the photos! Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Instagram. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

Galena Creek/Mt. Rose - Lake Tahoe/Reno 2012 (Part 2)

If you live in the SF Bay Area, you probably know it never snows here. Many people like me who live in the SF Bay Area love snow. The nearest place that does get snow is in Lake Tahoe and Reno. Many of us go there in the winter to go ski and snowboard, but for me, I don't like any of that. I enjoy taking photos of snow and playing in it. :) Here are photos of Lake Tahoe and Reno I took during my trip in Christmas of 2012. I will be splitting them into several parts as I took a lot of photos there. Hope you enjoy.

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 Lake Tahoe/Reno/Donner Lake photos from 2012, use this link. To see all of my photos from this trip, use this link.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 

Before I get started today, I would like to tell you about a great product to add to your camera bag. The product I would like to tell you about today is called the Giottos Rocket Air Blaster. This product is pretty much a rubber air blower. You squeeze on the ball and a big puff of air comes out of the tip. I always use this product on my lens before I wipe to get rid of any big  particles that could potentially scratch my lens. It usually does a good job and I don't even need to wipe! This product also lets me dislodge any dust that have gotten onto my sensor without even touching it. This is usually all I need to bring my sensor back to a clean state. Not only is this product great for cameras, I also use it to dust my keyboard and mouse. Another great feature that sets this product apart from other air blowers is that it includes a patented one way valve that prevents you from sucking up and dust that you have just dislodged! Greatest invention ever and I never regretted my purchase because it is so useful. If you don't have one, you should get a Giottos Rocket Air Blaster now! The company makes the product in 3 sizes: Large (Also Available In Red), Medium, and Small. The company also makes a Q-Ball Version that has a flexible tip that can be angled.

Okay, now let's get started with today's photos. :) These photos are some of the photos I took on the 2nd day of my trip. Most of them are from Galena Creek Recreation Area, I also have 1 photo of Reno, NV from my hotel room, and 1 photo on the drive up to Mt. Rose. The rest of the Mt. Rose photos will be coming next time.

Here is the view of Reno from my Harrah's hotel room.  

Now I being the photos form Galena Creek Recreation Area! :) 

 So much snow!!!

Try out a Giottos Rocket Air Blaster today!

Someone's snowman.  

Here is a bridge. I'm guessing it is suppose to be over the creek? I didn't see any creek though. No water, nothing.  

 Not sure why there isn't a lot of snow on the trees... I though't if the ground is going to be covered, the trees should be too. Weird. 

I think the area is beautiful with the trees and snow.  

Here is a photo of the visitor center half buried by snow. This is all the photos I took at Galena Creek Recreation Area. Sadly, when I was about to leave, saw this car blocking the only way out... I think the ice somehow froze under his tires when he was out taking photos. He was stuck there for quite a while until someone helped install chains on his tires. HAHA Wasn't too long of a wait, but I did get a bit inpatient. Wanted to head to Mt. Rose to get some snow shots! 

Here is a photo of partially up Mt. Rose. See how fast the snow storm came in? I will have the rest of the photos up next time, but look at the mountain in the distance. That is a snowstorm brewing, not fog. It is funny how I still had some sun to lens flare this photo. LOL The snowstorm isn't that far away... 

This is all the photos I have for today. I hope you have enjoyed them! Next time, I will have photos of me freezing in the snowstorm. XD Not kidding. I forgot to bring enough clothes, but I toughed it out and took some photos to show you guys. Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Instagram. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

Next Post >>
<< Previous Post

Sun Dogs at Arroyo Del Valle Trail in Pleasanton, CA

If you are a long follower, you'd know that I live in a small town called  Pleasanton, CA. I normally go take walks on Arroyo Del Valle Trail (I used to call it Pleasanton Trail) because it is close by my house and a great place to exercise. The trail also has a lot of plants, insects, birds, and squirrels, so when I feel like it, I will bring my camera along. I know this is quite some time ago, but September last year, I saw a natural phenomenon called a "sun dog" in the sky as I was taking a walk. I immediately took a photo of it. Here I am sharing it with you guys. :) Hope you enjoy the colors. Really sorry about the short post, I'm sick. Flu season hit me hard this year. :/ I'll try to do a longer post with more details once I'm better.

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 of Pleasanton in 2012, use this link. To see all of my photos from Pleasanton in 2012, use this link.

This is all the photos for today. I hope you have enjoyed it. I really hate making short posts like these, but again, I'm sick. :/ I'm also slowing down on my RAW photo processing recently because of this, so those photos might take a bit longer before I'll be done with them. Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Google+. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

The Moon

Hey guys, I am so sorry about not posting recently. College classes has started for me and I have been very busy with school work and didn't have much free time left for photography and blogging. I happened to have found some time today, so let's get started with the intro to today's photos. For this post, I have some moon photos that I took over a period of one week (I think). I hope you enjoy it. The photos were all taken with my Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens. These photos have been cropped. Also, some of  the pictures don't seem to be viewing right on my computer via Safari. If this happens with you, just switch browsers and it should show up a lot better. There are some tips on moon photography in today's post, so make sure scroll down for it!

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 here.

For this photo, I exposed for the dark part of the moon that was not lit by the sun, so the part that was lit by the sun is washed out. As you can see there are some motion blur on the photo. This is not my camera moving, but the actual moon moving. You can also tell there was a star moving too. 

Same night as the first photo, but at a different exposure time. As you can see the dark area no longer shows up as the exposure was not long enough. After shortening the exposure, the lit side of the moon's detail is clearly visible.  

This is a different day from the above photos. As you can see, more of the moon is visible. 

More of the moon is showing.

Photography Tip: For photographing the moon, it is recommended you have a good telephoto lens or a telescope. Depending on your zoom, you want to keep your exposure as short as possible and try not to pass 1/100 of a second exposure as the moon would have already moved a great distance during that time and you will get motion blur. If you turn on live view, you can actually see the moon moving! You should also keep your aperture wide as the moon is very far away so you are getting quite a lot of depth of field at a wide aperture. Generally the camera will have a hard time getting the right white balance for these kind of photos, so take your photo in RAW. In Photoshop, I'd usually tweak the white balance a little bit, turn up the contrast, and then crop out the large black area around the moon. Photos right out of your camera of the moon will usually not have enough contrast. 

Shortly after I took the above photos, some clouds came in and blocked out the view of the moon. I thought it would be nice to see what it would look like if I did a long exposure of the clouds moving between the path of my camera and the moon. This is the result.

A even longer exposure than the one before.  

 A even longer exposure than the one before. I can tell both by my meta data in the image and how far the star streaked in the photo. 

Looks like an airplane or a satellite flew through as I was taking the photo.

 Full moon photo.

Another photo of the full moon.

I hope you have enjoyed these moon photos. I would appreciate it if you leave me some positive comments below! Please don't forget to share my blog posts with your friends! If you would like to get notifications next time I post, you can "Like" me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Google+. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

2012 Solar Eclipse Photos

These are not photos of the moon people (well it actually is), but photos of the sun! A solar eclipse is when the moon passes between the Sun and the Earth blocking out part of the Sun seen from Earth. These photos were taken from Shadow Cliffs Regional Park located in Pleasanton, CA. Sadly, to see the full eclipse, you had to drive further north in California to Eureka. In the SF Bay Area, we only saw a partial solar eclipse. A partial solar eclipse is similar to a full eclipse but the moon doesn't line up directly so you can see the "ring of fire". You only end up seeing a crescent of the sun. Either way, being able to see this eclipse from the Bay Area is rare and I see it as a blessing.

Websites did warn you not to take photos with your camera with out special filters, but I did with a simple polarizer filter. Nothing bad happened. XD I also looked at the eclipse with only my sunglasses. Nothing bad happened too. I'm not saying you should do the same, but if you do, you do it at your own risk. You should know looking at solar eclipses with out the right equipment and protective gear can be dangerous and can even cause blindness. How did I cope? Short 2 second looks at the sun. It works well as I do that by accident several times everyday.

The following photos were taken with a Canon EOS 7D at 300mm with ISO set at 100, shutter speed set at 1/8000 of a second with an aperture of f/45. This is probably why nothing happened to my camera. Using an aperture of f/45 lets in very little light. Some of the photos were taken through a polarizer filter, some of them are not. The solar eclipse occurred on 5/20/2012 beginning around 5:30 PM.

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 here.

 5:58 PM

At first, I didn't want to risk damaging my camera, so I waited for some of the sun to be covered before I take my first photo. This was about the time I got to Shadow Cliff and parked.

Just as a reminder, if you love my blog, you can also "Like" us on Facebook. You can also do that in the Facebook box at the top of the right sidebar. This will give you updates on your Facebook feed as I post more photos.

 6:14 PM

 6:24 PM

 6:30 PM

Things that has to do with solar eclipses.

 6:32 PM

 6:35 PM

 6:37 PM

 6:39 PM

 6:43 PM

 6:48 PM

 6:58 PM

 7:04 PM

 7:15 PM

The little dots in the photo are pollen. This is when I took off my polarizer filter. The filter filtered out the reflected light from the pollen, but since I removed it to take photos of other stuff, they started showing up.

7:27 PM

I hope you have enjoyed the solar eclipse photos! What a beautiful natural phenomenon isn't it? Anyways, again, if another solar eclipse occurs, don't stare at the sun with out special glasses (welding goggles may also work)! If you wasn't able to enjoy it, I hope you have enjoyed these photos! Please don't forget to share this blog post with your friends, family, and coworkers! Thanks for viewing!