Eric's Photography Blog

San Francisco 2012

2012-01-29T17:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry guys for the delay in photos! I've been sick with a pretty bad cough recently. My immune system sucks like hell. LOL Anyways, today I got 18 photos from my recent trip to San Francisco! I hope you enjoy them! I went to Fort Point (like right under the Golden Gate) and Pier 39.

Cool Fact: San Francisco is widely know for its Golden Gate Bridge. The city is about 46.87 square miles and is home to about 808,976 people making it the 13th most populous city of the United States.

This is the Bay Bridge. I crossed it to reach San Francisco. I live around the area, so... Go there a lot! HAHA I took this photo with my hands out the sun roof. Don't worry, I wasn't driving. LOL

Alcatraz Island as seen from the fishing pier. The one that is kind of under the Golden Gate Bridge. The one where everyone catches crabs and fishes at.

The wildlife there are not scared of people at all... I took this photo at 55mm. I was like 2 feet away from the bird.

Hiked up the hill at Fort Point. This is the view of the Golden Gate Bridge there.

View of Golden Gate Bridge at the top of the hill near the pedestrian entrance to the Golden Gate.

On the left is Alcatraz Island. The close left object is the fishing pier I was talking about and far in the background left is downtown San Francisco. This photo was taken from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Also Taken on Golden Gate Bridge. There is a parking lot down there. Some kind of Historic Site I think.

Taken from on the Golden Gate Bridge. Far back is Downtown San Francisco.

Flower.

A boat.

Pier 39 Sea lions!

More sea lions!

Wanted to get a photo of the sea lion jumping in the water, but was a bit slow... So I got a photo of the splash instead. XD

Another photo of the sea lions.

The rest of the photos of this post is sunset from Treasure Island. For all you foreigners who don't know what this is, Treasure Island is a small man-made island extending from Yerba Buena Island. Both islands are located between San Francisco and Oakland and can be accessed via Bay Bridge (both directions). If you are a photographer from the area and never been there, you should go! The view there is spectacular! You can see the entire San Francisco coast from the island. The view there is especially beautiful during sunsets. However, I don't recommended you fishing there because the water near the island is severely contaminated.

That is all the photos for today. :D Well I have no clue what I will be posting next time as I have a lot of different photos still not released yet, so make sure you check back soon! I hope you enjoyed it, please share with your friends and family members!

Circular Polarizer Demo

2012-01-23T13:22:00.000-08:00

Today, I will demo a few sample photos using my B+W 58mm Kaesemann Circular Polarizer. First off, let me tell you why a circular polarizer is good. First of all, if you love landscape photos, you have to get one, a circular polarizer helps contrast the colors and deepen the blue sky. Using a circular polarizer can also help get rid of glare from water and glass. A polarizer will also protect your lens from the elements like fingerprints, scratches, and water. It is a good idea to use a filter. I have also read online that a filter saved his L model lens from a fall! Definitely worth the investment because $100 < $5,000. LOL

If you are serious about photography like me, I recommend you not get the cheap ones because they cause unwanted glares in your photos and the polarizing effect isn't good. The one I have is a B+W 58mm Kaesemann Circular Polarizer which is a prime filter. It is a German made filter, and includes special nano-technology coating that causes water that collect on there to drip right off. There is also little vignetting at wider angles. However, this filter is pretty expensive, but most good ones are. This one cost me around $100.

If you don't know much about polarizers, you will find two types of polarizers. One type is the linear polarizer and one type is the circular polarizer. The linear polarizers will have a slightly better polarizing effect than circular polarizers, but will render your auto focus function useless as the polarizer will prevent the auto focus sensor from seeing light. Linear polarizers are usually cheaper than circular polarizers. Circular polarizers won't effect the auto focus sensor and is what most people use. Circular polarizers are more expensive.

The only down side to using a circular polarizer (like with all filters) is that since filters is suppose to filter out the light, it will also slow down your shutter speed. If the shutter speed gets too slow, make sure you have your camera on a tripod.

Alright, let's move onto the sample photos I took. All these photos were taken at Lake Tahoe, California. If you want to see more Lake Tahoe photos, click here.

This photo was taken without any filter.

This photo was taken with my circular polarizer. See how the glare from the water just disappeared? :)

Lake Tahoe was cold, there was a think layer of ice on top of the lake near the shore. Lot's of glare from the ice right?

Polarizer on and part of the glare is gone and the bottom of the lake can be clearly seen.

Another photo of how the lake bottom is now clear due to the polarizer.

I already posted this photo several days back, but the effect in this photo can only be achieved with a polarizer. See how the glare from the water is gone and you can see the rocks at the bottom? See how the colors are saturated? Beautiful photo isn't it?

I also posted this photo several days back. I wasn't able to remove all the glare, but this photo is a lot better than a camera with no filter.

This is all the sample photos I got. Remember the filter I have is a B+W 58mm Kaesemann Circular Polarizer. If you are going to buy it, please buy it through my link. :) I get referral money that way and you'll be supporting the costs of running this blog. Even if you don't, please click in to check it out. I understand this filter might be a bit expensive for a lot of people, there are cheaper filters out there, but I don't recommend those. Also, when purchasing, don't forget to check if you got the right size filter!

Thanks for looking at this demo. I hope you have enjoyed it. Please don't forget to share with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook!

Lake Tahoe 2011 Part 5

2012-01-11T17:56:00.000-08:00

I recently went to Lake Tahoe for vacation. Took some photos. :) There wasn't a lot of snow this year though. The weather patterns have been really weird recently. Anyways. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Lake Tahoe is a large fresh water lake in the Sierra Nevada of United States. It is located on the state line of California and Nevada. The lake is 1645 feet deep making it the second deepest lake in the USA (#1 is Crater Lake in Oregon). Lake Tahoe is a major tourist attraction in both California and Nevada. It is home to a number of ski resorts, summer recreation areas, and other tourist attractions. The Nevada side also includes high amounts of casinos which also attracts quite some people.

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

Today's post will be landscapes again. Most of today's photos were taken at Emerald Bay. After today, I will have a little circular polarizer demo with the rest of the photos I took at Tahoe.

Hiked a little bit into the Tahoe Forest and took this photo.

All that there is artificial snow. It was a dry season. Unlike Soda Springs, this park was free for everyone to play. :) I didn't play. LOL

Emerald Bay. Too bad the lighting was bad. :/ There was no light shining on the island.

Another view from Emerald Bay.

Taken at Emerald Bay.

Still at Emerald Bay. The lighting sucked. :/ It was too late when I got there that day.

Taken at Emerald Bay.

So this is almost the end of my Lake Tahoe photos. During my trip, I took a few photos exclusively for a small circular polarizer demo. That will be coming on the next blog post. Thanks for looking at today's photos! Don't forget to share with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook!

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Lake Tahoe 2011 Part 4

2012-01-10T14:31:00.000-08:00

I recently went to Lake Tahoe for vacation. Took some photos. :) There wasn't a lot of snow this year though. The weather patterns have been really weird recently. Anyways. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Lake Tahoe is a large fresh water lake in the Sierra Nevada of United States. It is located on the state line of California and Nevada. The lake is 1645 feet deep making it the second deepest lake in the USA (#1 is Crater Lake in Oregon). Lake Tahoe is a major tourist attraction in both California and Nevada. It is home to a number of ski resorts, summer recreation areas, and other tourist attractions. The Nevada side also includes high amounts of casinos which also attracts quite some people.

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

Today's post will be landscapes again. There is only 7 more photos today. LOL I'm trying to evenly distribute the rest of my photos. Anyways, I think the first few photos is of Donor Lake. Not that sure though. XD Seriously Canon, why you didn't give the EOS 7D built-in geo-tagging features?!

I think this is Donor Lake.

Another photo of what I think is Donor Lake

This season was so dry. All that snow you see is artificial... This is Soda Springs. They were being very strict on who can get in this year. If you wanted to get in, you have to pay $5. I guess it is so the snow won't melt that fast as this would turn away a lot of people. I didn't go in. LOL Cheap Asian here. :P I took a few photos from outside and left.

Photo of Lake Tahoe. From up above!

Lake Tahoe

Beginning of the Truckee River. Right across the street from the Lake Tahoe Dam.

A pier in Lake Tahoe.

The next post will be 7 more post of landscape photography. I have 12 more photos left, usually I'd put them all into one post, but a few of them I reserved for an introduction to circular polarizers. So... :) Anyways, don't forget to share today's post with family and friends!

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Lake Tahoe 2011 Part 3

2012-01-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

I recently went to Lake Tahoe for vacation. Took some photos. :) There wasn't a lot of snow this year though. The weather patterns have been really weird recently. Anyways. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Lake Tahoe is a large fresh water lake in the Sierra Nevada of United States. It is located on the state line of California and Nevada. The lake is 1645 feet deep making it the second deepest lake in the USA (#1 is Crater Lake in Oregon). Lake Tahoe is a major tourist attraction in both California and Nevada. It is home to a number of ski resorts, summer recreation areas, and other tourist attractions. The Nevada side also includes high amounts of casinos which also attracts quite some people.

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

Today's post will mainly focus on landscape. Most of my good photo is in today's post. Hope you enjoy!

An effect like this can only be achieved with a circular polarizer. The one I own is a B+W 58mm Kaesemann Circular Polarizer. This photo was barely touched up in Photoshop. The colors on here are almost original. The only change was +3 on Vibrance.

The grass and bushes on the bottom of the photo acts as an "eye catcher" for the photo. If you were to just take a photo of the blue water, the photo will be too blue. The bushes on the bottom helps balance out the blue in the photo. To have everything in focus, it is also a good idea to put your camera in aperture priority mode and close down the aperture (high f-stop). The camera was pointed downwards on a hill to take this photo, so the water is farther away than the bushes in the foreground.

Photography Tip: Circular polarizers are great for getting rid of reflections from water and glass. It can also help saturate colors. It is especially useful for taking photos of things underwater (while you are above water) and landscapes. If you are serious about photography, try not to aim for the $10 or $20 ones. They will leave you with horrible glares. The B+W Polarizer I have costed me around $105.

A photo of Lake Tahoe. Remember the "eye catcher" trick I showed you yesterday? The rocks here act as an "eye catcher". Compare this photo to the next photo.

I zoomed in a bit and took out the rocks. See how this photo now looks average? It is good to have an "eye catcher" in your photos.

This effect, again, can only be achieved by a circular polarizer. Apart from your lens, a professional will always tell you that it is good to keep a variety of good filters on hand to achieve different effects.

This is another photo of Lake Tahoe. This is one of my good photos in my mind. See those 3 rocks? Those also act as the "eye catcher" for the photo. Like I said before, even if the photo is of landscape, the eyes still tries to look for something to look at in the photo. If they eyes don't find anything, you will feel like it is an average photo. When compositing a shot, always look for eye catchers for a beautiful photo.

Another photo of Lake Tahoe.

Stopped by the side of the highway and took this photo. The area looked more beautiful the the photo. That is what I mean "eye catchers". I couldn't find any.

Taken on the side of the highway.

Lake Tahoe's view from the peak of the mountain. Taken on the side of the highway. You know what the funny thing is? I think several years ago, I took a photo from the exact same place. The trees grew a lot! Take a look at my post from a few years back.

This photo was taken at a view point.

I got more landscapes coming your way in the next blog post, so make sure you check back! Please share today's post with your friends and family! Also, please "Like" us on Facebook and get notifications when I post new photos!

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Lake Tahoe 2011 Part 2

2012-01-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

I recently went to Lake Tahoe for vacation. Took some photos. :) There wasn't a lot of snow this year though. The weather patterns have been really weird recently. Anyways. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Lake Tahoe is a large fresh water lake in the Sierra Nevada of United States. It is located on the state line of California and Nevada. The lake is 1645 feet deep making it the second deepest lake in the USA (#1 is Crater Lake in Oregon). Lake Tahoe is a major tourist attraction in both California and Nevada. It is home to a number of ski resorts, summer recreation areas, and other tourist attractions. The Nevada side also includes high amounts of casinos which also attracts quite some people.

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

Today's post will show some landscapes and the Tahoe Forest floor. I hope you enjoy it. Anyways I got better photos to come in the following days. :) These weren't the best ones I took.

A small partially frozen creek. The creek flows into Lake Tahoe. Even though there wasn't snow, the temperature outside was cold enough for water to freeze. I literally had iced tea in my car when I got up in the morning! XD

A small bridge allowing people to cross the small creek shown above. I thought it would be fun trying to get across with out using the bridge, but almost fell into the water because the ice was not thick at all! LOL It was fun though. :P

I saw a group of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) resting on the ice and rocks and I thought it would make a great "eye catcher" for a landscape shot. Here you go! This is probably one of the best photos I took on vacation. :) The sun slightly under exposed my photo though.

Photography Tips: Every good photo needs an "eye catcher". Try different angles! Even if a place is beautiful, a landscape photo will look average with out an "eye catcher". See how the above photo have geese in it? When you look at a photo, your eyes will look for something that catches the eyes. The geese in the above photo acts as an "eye catcher". Try it and see for yourself!

More Canada geese. There is some frost on the neck of one of them.

Another landscape shot.

Some great camera accessories for you camera! Remember, ad money helps pay for my camera equipment and online storage fees. :)

Tahoe forest floor.

Another photo of the Tahoe forest floor.

A close up of the leaves on a bush. If anyone knows what it is, tell me. :)

Frozen ice balls on grass and dried twigs. Part of the water's reflection was removed with my circular polarizer.

Another shot of ice.

I have around 30 photos left. Most of my good photos will be in the next post so make sure you check back! Also, if you enjoyed today's post, please share it with your friends and family members! See you guys next time! Thanks for looking at today's photos.

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Lake Tahoe 2011 Part 1

2012-01-02T14:47:00.001-08:00

I recently went to Lake Tahoe for vacation. Took some photos. :) There wasn't a lot of snow this year though. The weather patterns have been really weird recently. Anyways. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Lake Tahoe is a large fresh water lake in the Sierra Nevada of United States. It is located on the state line of California and Nevada. The lake is 1645 feet deep making it the second deepest lake in the USA (#1 is Crater Lake in Oregon). Lake Tahoe is a major tourist attraction in both California and Nevada. It is home to a number of ski resorts, summer recreation areas, and other tourist attractions. The Nevada side also includes high amounts of casinos which also attracts quite some people.

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

Today's post will include several panoramic shots taken at Lake Tahoe and several photos of the Steller's Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri). I will start off with the Steller's Jay photos.

Cute bird right?

Birdy butt. :P

Now moving on to the panoramic. They are either photos of Lake Tahoe, or some place near it. Click the image to see the full size. Also, the panoramic photos are probably resized by Blogger. Not sure how much though.

Also, these photos were taken at 18mm with a circular polarizer attached. The one I own is a 58mm B+W Kaesemann Circular Polarizer. It is probably one of the top polarizers in the market, and I will post a review up soon. :)

Photography Tip: If you are interested in landscape photography, you should invest in a good polarizing filter. It helps saturate colors and make the sky blue. It can also help you to get rid of reflections of water and glass. Please remember attaching any type of filter (especially a polarizing filter) will cut out a lot of light, so you will need to compensate for it with ISO, shutter speed, or aperture. The top filters (ones I recommend) are usually over $90. Mine cost me around $105. A filter can also shield your lens from falls, water, dust, scratches, fingerprints, etc (another reason why you should have one). Anyways if you are noob, a linear polarizer means no auto focus, and a circular polarizer allows auto-focus. The polarizing effect is not that different, but circular polarizers will cost you about double the price of a linear polarizer.

It kind of sucks how the Canon EOS 7D doesn't have geo-tagging capabilities. :( I don't know the name of the view point. I also took the photo at a bad time of the day, the sun was shining directly at my camera. that's why the left top corner is so over exposed.

Another panoramic. :) Photo taken at the side of the highway. This one turned out perfect. :D

I too this panoramic with my camera, and used my phone to take a back up... Okay not really back up, I wanted to mess with the new panoramic feature on my Galaxy Nexus. Well anyways, apparently there was no geo-tag data on my phone's photo either... I don't know why, I turned it on, but yeah, no idea what the name is for this view point either.

This photo was also taken on the side of the highway. The over-exposure in the top left hand corner was due to the sun. Sorry.

So I started the Lake Tahoe photos :) The next photo will be more Lake Tahoe photos. Today's was kind of a preview. I hope you enjoyed it! Please share this blog post with your friends and family! See you guys next time.

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Nuttall's Woodpeckers and House Finches

2011-12-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

Today I got some bird photos for you guys. :) There are two photos of the Nuttall's Woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii) and two photos of the House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus). I hope you enjoy them. I know it's a tiny post, mainly because I want to still have photos to post while I work on the Lake Tahoe photos. XD

The Nuttall's Woodpecker photos were taken on the Arroyo Del Valle trail (the trail that I call the Pleasanton Trail). Arroyo Del Valle trail is located in Pleasanton, California. I go there very often as this trail is very close to my house.

This was the first time I spot this bird... It was hard to get a good angle because there was always a branch in the way. Good thing I got two good photos of it. :) Isn't it a cute bird?

Another photo. :) Anyways, here is a tip for all you bird photographers. Use aperture priority and open up your aperture wide!

The House Finch photos were taken at Shadow Cliff Regional Park. Shadow Cliff Regional Park is also located in Pleasanton, California. I do not go to this park that often, the park is very small, not much walking. I actually prefer the Del Valle Regional Park in Livermore.

This is a female House Finch. How do I know? The female birds usually look all the same (my opinion). Females are usually less colorful and vibrant than the males.

This is the male House Finch. I've seen this bird many times. See my House Finch photos from Quarry Lakes Regional Park last year here.

I hope you have enjoyed today's post. Like I say, nature is very beautiful. Feeling sad or depressed? Go into nature and take a walk, it helps out a lot. Breathe the fresh air, mother nature will always fix you up. :) Well anyways, don't forget to share this blog post with your friends and "Like" us on Facebook! I have more bird photos coming up and Lake Tahoe photos. Due to my procrastination my Taiwan photos have not even been touched yet. Hopefully I will find time. LOL

Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)

2011-12-26T18:39:00.001-08:00

Like I said last time, today's post will be on birds. :) Today I have 5 photos of the Canada Goose (Branta canadensis). The photos was taken at Del Valle Regional Park located in Livermore, California.

Fun Facts: The Canada Goose is everywhere in North America. There are also at least 11 subspecies of Canada Goose that have been recognized including the Crackling Goose.

I can't believe I actually caught the goose about to take off. :P My reaction times are usually really off. LOL

Photography Tip: Generally for photos like the one above, put your camera in shutter priority, turn it to a fast shutter speed, and do a few test shots. Make sure the photos come out correctly. Then point your camera at the bird and wait. Yes, I know your arms will probably hurt holding it that long, but it takes practice. That is how you get a photo of a bird taking off. If you are just starting off and practicing try it on bigger birds first, bigger birds are probably easier as small birds fly off faster.

The bird off to the right side is an American Coot. Those are also very common around the Bay Area.

Generally a circular polarizer can help get rid of the water reflections. At the time of the photo, I did not have a circular polarizer, but I have one now. I will show you the effects in future posts. :)

I got more bird photos (including Canada Geese photos). I recently headed to Lake Tahoe and took photos. Not a lot of snow this year, but the views are still very good. I guess you can say, some rare views. That is because there are ice and a little bit of snow, but not as much as before. Not everyday you can see views like that. Please check back! Also please don't forget to leave me a comment and share the blog post with your friends! Also "Like" us on Facebook to be updated when I post up more photos.

Alliance Redwoods

2011-12-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

Like I said a while back, I actually went to Alliance Redwoods recently. Alliance Redwoods is a Christian retreat located in Occidental, CA. It's not I'm Christian or anything, but my parents are and they wanted to listen to a speech there, so I decided to tag along because I heard it was on a mountain top and I thought I can get some great photos. I was right. Here are the rest of the photos I took. If you missed out on the photos I posted before you can find them in the following two blog posts.

I hope you enjoy them! If you get the chance, maybe you should head up the mountains there. It is really beautiful and the air is very fresh. :)

A bear! :P

Judging by the campground name, I'm guessing those are giant redwood trees. I'll be honest here, I suck at remembering the names of things. XD

Close up shot of the moss on the tree.

Another shot of the giant trees.

Alright, I admit I didn't feel so comfortable going to a Christan campground, but I agree I had a great time. The air was fresh, and it was nice to get out of the city environment for a while. I really love nature, and that is part of the reason why I do photography. If you are one of those people who just stays on the computer all day, you know, get out once in a while, go hiking, go take some photos, it's good for your health. :) Anyways, thanks for reading today's post, I hope you have enjoyed it! My next blog post will probably be on birds.

Wild Turkeys

2011-12-15T15:34:00.000-08:00

Like I promised last time, today's post will be on birds. :) So, the other day, on way to Del Valle Regional Park, I saw a flock of turkeys on both sides of the road. So I stopped and took some photos. :) I even shot a few photos of them in flight, but only one was clear and usable.

All photos today was taken in manual. Setting it in aperture priority was messing up the shutter speed, so I had to mess with the options in manual. It resulted in lesser photos, but at least most of them were usable. I only have 4 photos today, hope you enjoy them! Del Valle Regional Park is located in Livermore, CA.

This was probably the best photo I shot of the turkey.

Turkey crossing the street. By the way, there were at least a hundred turkeys on the side of the road. They were eating, what I guess is grass. HAHA Cute! They weren't scared of me at all.

This one started running because I car was coming. The car stopped and waited while the some 20 turkeys crossed the road. LOL

Later the rest of the flock flew away. I quickly increased the ISO and decreased my shutter speed for the in flight birds. This was the only "usable" photo I had as the rest were blurry. I was really surprised I even got one! Really gotta thank my Canon EOS 7D for its fast shutter speeds. LOL

That all for the turkey photos. I hope I will get to see more turkeys in the future. :) They are really cute birds. Don't chirp that loud though, they were all like Gobble Gobble. HAHA Too bad I didn't get these photos before Thanksgiving, would have been more fit for the holiday. Oh well! Hope you have enjoyed these photos! Please don't forget to share with your friends and "Like" us on Facebook!

Squirrels on Pleasanton Trail (Part 2)

2011-12-13T17:24:00.000-08:00

If you read my blog a lot you probably notice I post a lot of Pleasanton Trail photos. This is because the Pleasanton Trail is very close to my house and I take walks over there everyday. There are lot's of squirrels on the trail probably due to all the blackberry bushes and the walnut trees there. When you walk on the trail, generally you will see a bunch of them eating walnuts. I took a total of 13 photos of them and will split them into 2 blog posts. The Pleasanton Trail as the name says is located in Pleasanton, California.

If you missed my blog post last time on the Red-tailed hawk I saw on Pleasanton Trail, you can see it here.

Part: 1 | 2

I'm sorry I am so late in doing a new post. For yesterday and today, I had some issues and trying to complain to Customer Support and stuff. You know how those things go down, I'm sorry, I'll have to transfer you to another agent, and you have to explain your problem again. Then you get a stupid headache and forget about your blog. HAHA I had two problems total, one is solved, the other one not yet... Anyways, here are the rest of the squirrel photos I took on the Pleasanton Trail. :)

What a fat squirrel? Cute. HAHA

I wonder how squirrels get fat off of walnuts. Hm...

Cute squirrel. :P I only got one photo of it before it ran off.

So many walnut trees...

Another photo.

I wish my camera would stop picking such high ISO speeds... But again, adjusting the ISO manually is kind of a pain? LOL Maybe I just didn't master the camera controls yet.

Another squirrel picture.

That is all the squirrel photos I took this time. I might take more next time. The next blog post will probably be on birds. :) Hope you have enjoyed today's post. Again, I'm sorry for posting so late. Please share the blog post with your friends!

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Squirrels on Pleasanton Trail (Part 1)

2011-12-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

If you read my blog a lot you probably notice I post a lot of Pleasanton Trail photos. This is because the Pleasanton Trail is very close to my house and I take walks over there everyday. There are lot's of squirrels on the trail probably due to all the blackberry bushes and the walnut trees there. When you walk on the trail, generally you will see a bunch of them eating walnuts. I took a total of 13 photos of them and will split them into 2 blog posts. The Pleasanton Trail as the name says is located in Pleasanton, California.

If you missed my blog post last time on the Red-tailed hawk I saw on Pleasanton Trail, you can see it here.

Part: 1 | 2

So today, I will post a total of 6 photos of squirrels I saw there. Also, none of the photos were touched up. They are the original photo. I cropped them down a bit for some of them though.

I think this is the best squirrel photo I have ever taken. Isn't it cute. ^_^

Okay, I'm going to say this and if you know the answer, please tell me. So at first I thought the squirrel was probably taking a midday nap, but its eyes were open. So I went up to like 8 feet in front of it and waved. It did nothing. Then I moved in closer to about 5 feet, it just lifted its head up just a little, then put it down again and looked it it went back to sleep? But it had its eyes open still... This also happened with another squirrel. Usually the squirrels on the trail runs when you get closer than 8 feet. Well if you can guess the reason, tell me in the comments below. Also nice photo right? LOL

It's all like where you come from? HAHA

Look at it scratching itself... I was surprised I actually got a shot of it doing that.

This photo makes the squirrel look like an acrobat.

Squirrel standing on walnut tree eating a walnut. Lot's of walnut trees...

So yeah, like I said above. Tomorrow's post will also be squirrels. So check back. Also, please leave me some comments below if you liked the photos! Make sure you share the blog post with your friends too! Thanks for looking.

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The Moon

2011-12-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

The moon, Earth's only natural occurring satellite. A giant piece of rock floating in outer space. It is a wonderful site. Although it doesn't emit light of it's own, it reflects light from the sun so we can see at night. I recently taken some moon photos from my house, including the full moon. I hope you like them! I missed the lunar eclipse, sorry. One night of no sleep and I have very bad headache the next day, so I didn't say up. HAHA

These photos was all taken with my Canon EOS 7D at 300mm on my USM lens. I will tell you what settings I used under each photo. Hopefully it will help you take some better photos yourself! :) Also, click the photo to see the full size.

Anyways, this photo, it says I used 280mm focal length. This is the only exception.

Mode: Shutter Priority

Shutter Speed: 1/250 of second

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

Mode: Shutter Priority

Shutter Speed: 1/250 of second

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

Mode: Shutter Priority

Shutter Speed: 1/250 of second

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

For some reason it says focal length 260mm. Huh. Weird...

Mode: Manual

Shutter Speed: 1/250 of second

Aperture: f/8

ISO: 100

Mode: Manual

Shutter Speed: 1/320 of second

Aperture: f/10

ISO: 100

Mode: Manual

Shutter Speed: 1/320 of second

Aperture: f/10

ISO: 100

So, full moon was yesterday. That was all the good photos I took. I hope you have enjoyed it! Please leave me a comment if you loved it and share with your friends. You know, this is the first time I even tried to take a photo of the moon. Surprised I can see all the craters on the moon! Wow, what a strong camera and lens. Anyways, please like my blog on Facebook. You can also do it in the box on the top of the right sidebar.

SDXC Cards in your EOS 7D

2011-12-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

Hello guys, do you hate the costly prices of CF cards? Do you want to get a lot more storage and speed with the new SDXC cards? Worry no more! Today's post is a camera hack, I will help you use your SDXC card on your Canon EOS 7D, 5D, 1D, or other similar cameras!

Disclaimer: You follow these tips and instructions at your own risk! The author of the blog is not responsible for any damages that may result from these instructions. These tips and instructions are provided for educational and informative purposes only.

First of all here are the three things you will need:

A Canon EOS 7D, 5D, 1D, or other similar camera.
A CF to SD adapter. (I recommend this one, it is also the one I'm showing in the image above.)
A SDXC Card. (The one in the picture above is the Lexar Professional 64GB SDXC.)

Alright now, first of all, insert the SDXC card into your adapter then put it into your camera. Right now, it will tell you the card needs to be reformatted in order to be used. I know the SD card website tells you not to do it, but do it anyways. This will format your SDXC card into FAT32 file system. The original file system is exFAT. So you might be wondering if this is safe right? See the following reasons:

Your write and read speed is untouched.
Same amount of storage (as for me 64GB).
Only difference now is you will be limited to 4GB per file (This is a filesystem limit, can't be fixed.). Photos you take will never be that big, don't worry.
You can always format it back into exFAT on a computer if you ever need to store something over 4GB on it.

There you go, after you format the card, your camera should read it. You have a very large storage on your camera now! Hope you enjoy it. Also some reviews for the products I've shown above.

The adapter I'm using, I think is the best, but this is the first one I've bought. I would recommend it. Unlike other adapters I saw online, this one has no speed issues, and is compatible with SDXC cards. Which is great. On my EOS 7D, I had no problems with shooting videos or taking RAWs with this one. It works as if I had a real CF card in there. Only one complaint as with all adapters like this, you have to take the adapter out of your camera first, before you can take out the SD card. Doesn't affect the quality though. The other thing I noticed after using it a bit (I tried to do some high speed photography), after 10 shots, I took out the adapter and it felt warm to the touch, but no speed problem. So I'm guessing there could be a small chance with over heating, but I would still recommend it if you plan on having a back up flash memory.

Now for the Lexar Professional 64GB SDXC, I have already tested this thing out on my camera. I can take over 1000 RAW + JPEG (High Quality) photos on my camera! No problem. Also the write and read speed is amazing. If you always shoot in RAW, I would totally recommend this.

Of course I do not use this adapter as my main storage. I also have an 8GB CF card, but with my RAW photo shooting, it will exhaust that memory card quick! So if you are like me who take a lot of photos, or do RAW, get these! It works great as a backup memory card and SD cards cost like 2/3 the price of CF cards and they work a lot faster.

Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)

2011-12-08T15:41:00.000-08:00

Today I got some photos of what I believe is a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). If I'm wrong, please correct me. The hawk was spotted on the Pleasanton Trail in Pleasanton, California. So I was taking a walk on Pleasanton Trail, almost at dusk (that is why the photos look a bit grainy), when I saw a giant bird land on a tree about 500 feet away from me! I quickly zoomed in onto it my camera, and took several shots. Then I kept my focus on it just in case it wants to fly off, but it didn't. So anyways here are the photos I took of it. All these photos was taken using Aperture Priority at 5.6 /f with spot metering. The photos were cropped and watermarked in Photoshop, but not touched-up.

You know what came to my mind when I first saw this photo on my computer? The creepy eyes are staring at you... XD

Good birdy. I was hoping it was going to fly off and I'd get a good photo, but it didn't. Sadly. :( I guess its nest was there, it was pretty late. All the birds were going home.

Final photo of this bird. My other photos had the wrong focus, so I didn't post them.

That's all for today! I still got squirrel photos, bird photos, and Redwood Alliance photos to come! Make sure you check back! Oh yes, I almost forgot, once I get a photo of the full moon, I will be posting those up too! They turned out very very nice! Hope you liked today's post! See you next time. Don't forget to share with your friends and "Like" us on Facebook!

Oh yes, I almost forgot, I recently bought a Nikon Micro Fiber Cleaning Cloth and a Giottos Rocket Air Blaster, I will be writing a review for them on this blog in a few days. I tell you, if you are serious about photography, those two things are a must have! They are cheap and gets your lens cleaned as good as new! I just got it and used them to clean my lens. They were free of fingerprints and dust in a few seconds! If you already have these, use my method of blow, wipe, and blow. Works really well. Please remember to check back for my review! :)

Tips on Winter Photography

2011-12-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

Photo taken near Reno/Lake Tahoe in Nevada.

It is winter again, and you know what that means! Lot's of gift giving, shopping, and an extremely jolly time of the year. In some parts of the world there will be snow and lot's of it! It is the time of year where people go skiing, snowboarding, playing in the snow, and for photographers, snow photography! One issue a lot of photographers get into while taking pictures of snow is the "Greying Effect". See the photo below if you don't know what it is. The "Greying Effect" ruins a lot of photos, even for people who are not photographers! So now your question is probably how do I get my photos to look like the one above instead of the one below? In today's post I will offer you some tips on how to prevent the "Greying Effect" and some other tips on how to protect your camera equipment while you are out in such a cold environment.

The left show the "Greying Effect", the right shows how snow should look like. Big difference right?

So why does the "Greying Effect" happen? To effectively teach you how to get rid of this problem, I will need to educate you on why it happens. So usually when you take a photo, your camera weighs in the different colors and light of the scene you try to take. When you try to do snow photography, most of the light coming into the camera will be white. So the problem actually happens here, when this much white light enters the camera, the camera will think you are trying to take a picture of an extremely over-exposed 18% grey object. So the camera tries to compensate it by lowering the exposure, hence making the snow grey! There are several ways to fix this problem.

Disclaimer: You follow these tips at your own risk! The author of the blog is not responsible for any damages that may result from these instructions. These tips are provided for educational and informative purposes only.

Exposure Compensation
This might not be available to some of the more low end cameras, but is the most effective in preventing the greying effect. So first of all, you will need to put your camera into a mode where you are allowed to adjust the exposure compensation number. Then you will need to locate the option on your camera, usually marked with an icon that shows a black and white square with a + and - sign in it. Now increase the exposure compensation and take a shot, do this until the image looks satisfactory and the "Greying Effect" has disappeared. Generally you will have to increase the exposure compensation by +1 or +2 to compensate for the camera's under-exposure.

Beginner explanation on why this works: Since the "Greying Effect" is caused by your camera underexposing your image, by putting your exposure compensation at +1, this tells your camera, what ever exposure the sensor tells you to use, add 1 on top of it.

Custom White Balance
This method most accurately fixes the "Greying Effect" problem but will be a bit of a hassle to configure and will require you to buy an 18% Grey Card. Configuring the custom white balance will vary from camera to camera, so consult your camera's instruction manual for more information. Again, this method will most likely not be available for low end cameras (especially point-and-shoots). For the Canon EOS 7D you will first need to take a photo of your 18% Grey Card, then go into menu (2nd menu) and they go to Custom White Balance, select the photo you took, then configure your camera to use the new white balance. As I said, this method is probably not the most efficient method, but corrects the problem more accurately.

Beginner explanation on why this works: By taking a photo of an 18% Grey Card and then telling your camera to use that as the white balance, pretty much tells it what grey looks like. So now when it sees the white snow, it will know it's white instead of an overexposed grey object.

Open the Aperture
Another method, although I would not highly recommend it as this method will definitely put some blur on your image, is to use aperture priority (Av or A) or manual (M) and open up the aperture by 1-2 f-stops to compensate for the underexposure by letting in more light. This feature might not be available on some low end cameras.

Use a Snow Scene Mode
For a change, this feature may not be available on some of the high-end cameras (LOL). This method is very amateur-ish and not needed by professionals. Also, this method I do not highly recommend as it may overexpose some of your photos. You can do this by setting your camera to a "scene" mode specifically designed for snow. This may fix the "Greying Effect", but may also overexpose your photo, I recommend my first 2 methods.

Fixing Your Old Photos in Photoshop
Those are the methods for preventing the "Greying Effect". So now you are probably wondering, what do I do now with my old ruined photos? Throw them away? No need to fear, Photoshop will come to your rescue. Remember, use this method only as a last resort. To do this do the following:

Open up the ruined photo in Photoshop.
Now go to Layers >> New Adjustment Layer >> Levels...
Press Okay on the pop up dialog.
Click on the White Dropper (Same in image to select white point).
Click around in your picture of where you think should be white. Experiment with this until the image looks satisfactory.
Now save it as a copy, I usually don't like to save over the original.

Protecting Your Camera and Equipment In Cold Climates
Those are the tips for preventing the problem, now let's move onto how to protect your camera equipment in cold weather. Don't think this is easy, because it is not! One mistake can ruin your camera and lens! These tips are more targeted towards DSLR owners, not so much for you guys with a small point-and-shoot.

First rule, I know it is easy to forget, but don't put your camera under your jacket in a cold climate. When moving your camera from a cold place to a warm place, or vice versa, condensation may gather on your lens (including the inside), and it may damage your equipment! When going from a cold place back to a warm place (like hotel), before you go back, make sure you take out your battery and memory card, then put your camera back in the bag. After you arrived at the hotel, leave your camera in your bag for at least 2 to 3 hours before you open it up. If you don't have a camera bag, use a Zip-lock bag. Make sure you take out your battery and memory card before you go back so you don't get tempted to open up your camera bag before the camera is allowed adequate time to warm up. The 2 to 3 hour rule usually works for people who are going to Alaska or place with similar climate. If you are going to Reno like me, 1 hour tops because it isn't as cold and your camera will warm up or cool down faster.
Warm up your battery. A warmer battery will work longer than a cold battery due to the chemical reactions (I think). So for professionals, some people will keep and extra battery in their pocket to warm it up, and then they will keep switching the batteries to get more life out of it. Make sure you don't keep change in the same pocket though, I seen a comment on another blog of a guy accidentally shorting out the battery and burning a hole in his pants...
And as for tip number one, try not to use the heater in your car, just wear more clothes. I think I explained it pretty clearly in tip 1 why, so not going to do it again. Another way, put your camera in a cooler, so it stays the same temperature as when you put it in, then when you need to take a photo, you can just take it out of there.
If you are going to Alaska or a place of similar climate, try not to exhale onto your camera, your breath will instantly become a thin layer of frost!

Well that's all the tips! I hope you have enjoyed the tips on winter photography. Please don't forget to share this article with your friends and leave a comment! Also please don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook. You can also do that with the box on the top of the right sidebar. Have fun with snow photography! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Beauty of Fall Leaves

2011-12-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again, leaves turn red and yellow and start falling. For trees, I think fall the the most beautiful time of the year. A lot of people probably dread the coming of fall, because there will be a lot of raking for the falling leaves, but for a photographer, fall is a magnificent time of year! Today's post will be dedicated to the beauty of fall leaves. All the photos today (with exception of one) was taken at Alliance Redwoods in Occidental, CA. I recently went there with my parents because they wanted to hear a speech. You can check out my last post on Alliance Redwoods here. Also, none of the photos today was touched up in Photoshop (other than the watermark).

A close up macro shot of the red fall leaves.

Photography tip: For macro shots like this, it is generally good to take the photo in Aperture Priority (Av or A) mode and set your camera to use a wide aperture (small f-stop number). Experiment with the f-stop until you get a satisfactory photo. Photography is all about experience!

Another close up shot. You know what's weird? Isn't fall suppose to start like in October or something? It just occurred to me, the leaves around SF Bay Area didn't turn red until late November! Weird. LOL

This was the exception I was talking about. The above photo was not taken at Alliance Redwoods, instead it was taken on the Pleasanton Trail. As the trail name mentions, the trail is located in Pleasanton, CA. At the time of taking the photo, I only had my zoom lens with me, so I had to back up a lot before I was able to get the shot! But still, turned out better than I thought.

Need camera accessories? Check these out!

A beautiful shot doesn't always have to be a leaf still on a tree! This is a photo of a red leaf that fell and landed on a bush underneath. What a great balance between the red and green right? :) Well, I touched up this photo with Photoshop just a little bit. I enhanced the colors, because the original didn't turn out too well.

A shot of a whole tree that turned yellow and red.

Another shot of the tree. I am guessing the trees behind are Redwood trees because the retreat is called Alliance Redwoods. LOL

I will have more Alliance Redwoods photos coming on this blog in a few days! Please check back! I hope you have enjoyed today's post. Please leave a comment for me! Also, if you liked it, please don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook! You can also do that in the Facebook box at the top of the right sidebar.

Update (12-16-2011): I have posted up the rest of my Alliance Redwoods photos. They can be viewed here.

Critters of Fremont Central Park (Part 2)

2011-12-05T13:02:00.000-08:00

This will be a short chain of posts, only 2 parts. I have around 18 photos of little critters around Fremont Central Park. Fremont Central Park is a small park located in Fremont, part of the SF Bay Area. These posts will include birds, snakes, and ducks. I will not be including any squirrel pictures in here because I already did that in my previous post. :) These photos were taken back in March. Long time back. As I said before I got busy with moving and stuff, that's why I'm posting them now. Hope you enjoy them!

Part: 1 | 2 |

Since these photos are so old, I decided to post them all today! Please enjoy! HAHA

Seagulls and American Coots.

Also some rock pigeons

At Central Park, a lot of people feed the wildlife, even though the signs say not to feed them. The animals there are so tamed, I even got to pet a squirrel once. :D It was pretty cool. No wonder some of the birds that are suppose to migrate during winter still stays there. HAHA I mean it... LOL They never have to worry about food right? ROFL

This is a tree swallow. They are everywhere.

The birds all like what is that?!

I have no idea what this is. A duck?

A snake off in the distance. Can't really make out what it is. Usually it's either a gopher snake or a rattle snake.

Due to the distance between the bird and me and how I was on my camera phone, I can only guess this is a green heron. Too much details of the bird was not caught. :/

Barn swallows

That's it for the Central Park photos! :) Next up might be squirrel photos (more of them) or maybe Redwood Alliance photos. I'll see! Please check back! Thanks for your time!

<< Previous Post

Critters of Fremont Central Park (Part 1)

2011-12-05T12:45:00.000-08:00

This will be a short chain of posts, only 2 parts. I have around 18 photos of little critters around Fremont Central Park. Fremont Central Park is a small park located in Fremont, part of the SF Bay Area. These posts will include birds, snakes, and ducks. I will not be including any squirrel pictures in here because I already did that in my previous post. :) These photos were taken back in March. Long time back. As I said before I got busy with moving and stuff, that's why I'm posting them now. Hope you enjoy them!

Part: 1 | 2

Alright, today's post will mainly be ducks and geese with a photo of turtles.

A group of turtles sun bathing.

Found another one not far from that group.

Mallard Ducks. One female, one male. Guess they are they are resting

Close up of the female.

Lot's of white ones at Central Park too!

Another photo. :)

The black ones are American Coots.

So do you like the photos? I know these photos look a bit crappy, I actually look it on my phone. LOL I hope you have enjoyed it!

Next Post >>

Pitch Dark Deer Photo

2011-12-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

So anyways, I did go to Redwood Alliance the other day (for one afternoon). It's this Christian campground retreat thingy in Occidental, CA. My mom wanted to hear a speech, and I agreed to tag along mainly because I knew it was on a mountain and I guessed I could get some really nice photos there. So anyways, on the way home, I saw two deers on the side of the road. It was about 9 o'clock and it was pitch dark on the highway. I knew it was too dark to take a photo, but I decided to take a shot at it. Using my camera's built in flash, and about 10 seconds while the camera sensor tried to auto focus, I got a shot of the deer. I know the following picture doesn't look like much, keep reading. :)

Due to my camera's slowness at night, I only managed to get a picture of the deer's butt... Sadly. XD So after some touching up in Photoshop (auto adjustments). Take a look at the result!

Surprising isn't it?! That's the power of Photoshop people! :P Anyways, as you can see my built-in flash did nothing but illuminate the signs, did little for the deer. I was very surprised that Photoshop managed to restore a lot of the colors! I didn't even see that much! All I saw was almost pitch darkness! HAHA I will post the Alliance Redwood photos in a few days! :)

Anyways here is an update (12-16-2011), I have posted up the rest of the photos I took at Alliance Redwoods. Here they are:

Anyways here is a some more info on the configuration I used:
Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Mode: Aperture Priority
Aperture: 4.5/f
Shutter Speed: 1/60
Focal Length: 32mm
ISO: 300
White Balace: Auto

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Part 6)

2011-12-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

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. This is the last post for Half Moon Bay. You can check out more photos from my previous posts. :) If I catch another day like this, I will post more photos, but like I said, only a few times a year.

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

Today is the last post for my photos from Half Moon Bay. I have posted all of the good photos I took there. Today's post, like I said before, will be sunsets. Beautiful sunset photos. :) Please enjoy!

Photography Tip: Like I said in yesterday's post, the key to a great sunset photo has to do with exposure. It is good to take your sunset photos in RAW, because you will usually not have time to mess with the exposure at the time of the shot. Taking the photo in RAW allows you to adjust exposure and a lot of other things later.

I know this might sound a big ironic, but I accidentally took this photo in JPEG only, apparently it turned out better than I thought. XD Probably the best sunset I've got! HAHA The rest of the photos was shot in RAW and then converted to JPEG after some minor adjustments in Photoshop.

Great Accessories for you Canon camera!

What did I tell you? Beautiful isn't it? I saved the best for last! ^_^ I hope you have enjoyed it! This is the last photos of my Half Moon Bay trip. Next time I will either be doing fall leaves or animal photos. Please check back! Also please don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook. You can also find the "Like" button on the top of the right side bar.

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Part 5)

2011-12-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

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 mainly be focusing on landscapes. And as a special treat, a preview of some of the sunset photos I will be showing tomorrow. :) I hope you like it! Please leave comments! Also please don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook! I added a button to the top of the right-hand sidebar. That way I can notify you whenever more photos are posted. Thanks!

I decided to post the sunset preview first. Tomorrow I got like 8 more sunset photos. :) So for this picture, just the right amount of orange and blue right?

I hope you enjoy these shots. The land I was standing on is usually underwater, an angle like this is very rare!

Photography Tip: For my sunset photos I post today, I shot them in RAW mode. The key to a good sunset photo is all in the exposure. Low exposure is key to sunsets, but usually when you do sunsets, capturing the moment is the key too, so you don't have much time to mess with the exposure settings to get it "right". Taking the photos in RAW keeps the exposure settings unlocked, this way you can adjust it to a setting you like later on a computer. By shooting in RAW you will always have a good looking sunset. :) The same applies for sunrises.

A photo of kelp. Did not turn out as good as I though.

Was testing out how macro works on my new EOS 7D. Not bad right? LOL

Another landscape shot. See all that kelp? See the rocks in the far back? That is usually underwater, but it was all exposed during the low tide. If Half Moon Bay ever have a low tide like this again, I would recommend you go. They are pretty rare! Only a few times a year.

So many people right? LOL So much kelp too.

More landscape shots.

This island rock thingy. I'm guessing the rock is usually underwater considering how there is kelp growing on there.

Those are mussels on the ground! Lot's of them. And like I said before, they are edible. XD I think I know why I saw so many star fishes there. They got enough food. ROFL

A landscape shot taken after sunset. See the red at the horizon? Beautiful.

I hope you enjoyed today's post! Tomorrow will be the last post on Half Moon Bay, and it will be all sunsets! I hope this has been an experience for all of you as it was to me. Thanks for your time, please share with your friends! Don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook!

Next Part >>

Do you like my blog? (New Facebook Fan Page)

2011-12-01T18:29:00.000-08:00

Hello visitor of my blog. Do you like my photos? Would you like to be notified whenever I post up new photos? I recently added a Facebook "Like" button to my blog. You can find it at the top of the right sidebar. Please click "Like" to support me! Plus, you will receive notifications on your Facebook feed when I post up more photos, and I will also be offering some photography tips right on Facebook! Become a fan now!

This is optional, but I would love if you did. Thanks for your time! Please don't forget to share my blog with your friends! I hope this will help me interact with my visitors/fans more often! I don't want to be the only one doing all the talking, it's time you can share your thoughts.

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Part 4)

2011-12-01T12:32:00.000-08:00

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's post will mainly focus on some landscape shots. After today, I will have around 20 more photos from Half Moon Bay, which I will be splitting into two more parts. The last part will be the sunset! It is very beautiful. So make sure you check back and share my posts with your friends. :) For those of you who couldn't make it to the low tide opportunity, I hope you have enjoyed the photos! There are also a photography tips in today's post. Make sure you read it!

That is a lot of people... LOL That ball in the background is an air control tower. What a magnificent view. :) I think this is one of the best photos I took at Half Moon Bay, other than the crabs.

Zoom in on the air control tower. No idea why it's shaped as a ball.

Photography tip: For landscape shots, it is the best to set your camera in Av or A mode. Then close up the aperture to the max or almost to the max (bigger f-stop number). This will put more of the view in focus, but will also slow down your shutter speed, if the shot looks blurry, use a tripod and turn off the image stabilizer. The image stabilizer can sometimes actually introduce blurs, if your camera is on a tripod, it is wise to turn it off. A wired or wireless shutter release is also recommended.

Another landscape shot. A bit overexposed. :/

Wonder what than man is pointing at... LOL

Not sure what they are fishing for... I mean, the ocean really retreated. ROFL

A seagull up in the air. HAHA

Photography Tip: For pictures of birds in flight, you should set your camera's auto focus not to a "One-shot" but to auto tracking. On the EOS 7D, the mode is called AL SERVO. That is the mode you should be using. In that auto focus mode, the camera will continually try to track and focus on the moving subject as long as your finger is pushing the shutter button half way. Also, you should set your camera on shutter priority and set the shutter speed to something lower. Don't go to the lowest, but you should adjust it until it gives you a clear image. Try experiencing with the function, it's all about experience! :)

Stupid camera underexposed my image. :/ Oh well... I was shooting straight at the sun. ROFL

Another landscape shot. That is the air control tower in the background.

On the way to Half Moon Bay, I decided to test out my new camera. So I took a picture of the sign. :P

There were a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters on the side of the street. HAHA

And here is the shot of the protestors. Also, I have no idea what the whole Occupy Wall Street thing is about. Anyone care to explain it to me in the comments? ROFL

Tomorrow I will be posting more landscape shots, and the day after that, the photos of the sunsets I took! The sunsets were amazing! Better than my other pictures. Make sure you check back! Please share with your friends!

Next Part >>

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Part 3)

2011-11-30T16:42:00.000-08:00

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 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.

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!

Next Part >>

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Part 2)

2011-11-29T13:44:00.000-08:00

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.

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!

Next Part >>

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Part 1)

2011-11-28T17:14:00.000-08:00

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! :)

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.

Next Part >>

Mega Low Tide at Half Moon Bay (Preview)

2011-11-27T21:37:00.000-08:00

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.)

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!

Next Part >>

$200 Discount on DSLR Lenses

2011-11-18T12:34:00.000-08:00

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! :)

Central Park Squirrels

2011-11-16T18:56:00.000-08:00

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。

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!

The Newly Opened Microsoft Store

2011-11-12T20:31:00.000-08:00

So today, I headed over to Westfield Valleyfair in San Jose, CA. So the new Microsoft Store opened up across from the Apple Store... ROFL (Directly across from the Apple Store, I mean it...) Well anyways, to my surprise, they were passing out free Microsoft T-shirts and Joe Jonas (Jonas Brothers) was giving the first 200 people autographs. I missed that... :( But, here are some pictures of the new Microsoft Store!

What was in the store... A lot of stuff was on demo and sale in the store! I guess what I liked the best about today is I got to try out the Windows Phone. It didn't suck as much as I thought it was. It was really easy to use and I love the design.

Other stuff in the store included the Amazon Kindle, Xbox Kinect demos, some tablet PCs, and a lot of other stuff! The store was crowded today! Today was probably the opening day or something. So many people was in the store checking out stuff.

So anyways they were giving out free Microsoft t-shirts today too! It says "I'm a PC" and there is a Windows logo on the sleeve. You can see a picture of it at the end of this blog post. LOL Keep going down.

Yeah, you would be surprised at how fast the t-shirts went. Everyone was taking a handful. For me, I got like 7 t-shirts for me and my friends who wasn't there. HAHA Seriously 100 t-shirts went away in like 5 minutes... But they had more coming. Which was great...

Anyways, the Microsoft Store was not the only thing I did today. I went to the Apple Store across from it to ask about the 1st Gen iPod Nano recalls... You can read more about that here. Let me summarize what went down when I asked them the question.

Me: Excuse me, I have a few questions about the iPod nano recall.
Sales Associate: What recall? We don't know anything about a recall.

I am serious... In my head I was like WTF? ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUS? LOL Well anyways here is a picture of the t-shirt they were passing out.

Well so yeah, there was a change in plans. I was not expecting an event like this today, or else I would have posted bird pictures like I said last time. Hope you enjoyed this blog post! :)

Quarry Lake Flowers

2011-11-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

So guys it has been a while since I posted. To be honest, I moved, and well was too lazy to set up the computer I use to do my photos. HAHA Well the computer I use is filled with viruses and stuff and is very slow. The hardware is also a bit out of date. So I've been using my other computer and I've also been busy with other stuff around my new house. Well I'm back. Well keep looking down, I don't want to put such a huge amount of text on the top. HAHA I think it looks bad...

Well as I said before I probably won't know all the names of the flowers I posted here. If you know the name, comment below. Help is always appreciated. :)

Alright, no clue what this is. LOL There are some Califronia Poppies in the background. :)

Well part of the reason... So recently an old classmate of mine, she some how found my blog and then found me on Facebook. She emailed me saying I take great photos, but she couldn't really find how to comment on my blog... Well let me show you. HAHA She wanted to remain anonymous so no names.

"I didn't know where to comment about your pictures since I'm a little confused about the entire layout... LOL. But anyways if you're serious about photography try thinking up of new composition styles. Try new things and use the lighting to your advantage. You should try leaving some of the photos untouched because you never know the true beauty behind the nature of it. I leave all my photos natural, and it helps you improve your skills. Try getting the main focus of the picture out of the center. Most of your pictures with the animals in it are too centered (in my opinion, no offense!) look up the rule of thirds. I hope I don't come off as too rude or anything, I've been trying to think of ways to not sound mean when I write this D:. I don't mean your pictures suck please get that LOLOL. Keep taking pictures, practice makes perfect... haha what type of camera do you own? birds in flight can get annoying sometimes, but it's fun to take pictures of! i don't really remember you that much, but i... couldn't be too sure. but yeah, you're photography is really good though, i like your panoramics of landscapes. they're really nice." There is more to this story... :)

As I said above, I have no clue what these flowers are called.

Anyways thanks, you know how you are. :) Thanks for the tips too. At the time of writing I use an Olympus E-510 and my Nokia N97, it's got a fairly good lens on it. Well I know it has been months to all you who view my blog. My classmate's comment was part of the reason why I'm posting again. Anyways about the commenting system on my blog, you have into the blog post itself (click on the title) and you will find a Disqus commenting system on the bottom. I've enabled Guest commenting so you don't need to register. I love positive comments and tips! I really hate this stupid slow computer and I'm also short USB ports LOL, but um... let's move on to the Quarry Lakes pictures. :) I got a lot of flower pictures from back in March (WOW! I just noticed how long I've been gone. Sorry!). Quarry Lakes is an East Bay Regional Park located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

These are California Poppies.

I think these are Davy centaury (Centaurium davyi) with some California Poppies in the background.

Same as above.

I think these are Yellow bush lupine (Lupinus arboreus)

Flowers!!

I think these are Yellow bush lupine (Lupinus arboreus)

Same as above

California Poppies!

More California Poppies.

No idea what that is...

I think this one is called the Wind Poppy. Not sure.

Landscape shot of Quarry Lakes.

Some sort of spiky nut thing. I've always wondered what it was. Anyone got a clue?

I got no clue what flower this is.

Really tiny plants on the ground. :D They look cool all blown up doesn't it? Macro photography is fun. :D

These flowers are really tiny. Don't let the picture fool ya. :P

These are Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)

Landscape shot of Quarry Lakes.

Sure feels nice to blog again. :) Anyways that's all for this time. Next time I got photos of squirrels, birds, and ducks from Fremont Central Park. So check back soon! Also, I actually went to Taiwan recently. You won't believe how hot it was there. :/ I felt so sick when I was there, but I still took a lot of pretty pictures. I still need to get the photos out of my camera/phone and pick out the pictures I'm going to post. So... Yeah! See you guys next time! Don't forget to help me out with the flower names and leave some positive comments for me!

Recent losses. :( A personal message...

2011-06-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

If you guys take a closer look at my blog now, you'll see that I no longer have Google Adsense ads. This is because someone has click bombed me and Google already replied me saying that they can not reinstate my Adsense account. I'm not here to point fingers or anything, but here to tell you that I will most likely be replacing my old Adsense ads with Amazon Associate ads. I may find another PTC advertising company later. As of right now, the only program I am participating in is the Amazon Associates program.

I will do my best to still come and bring you great content on all my blogs and websites. :) But yeah, not saying you have to or anything. If you buy something from Amazon and you do it through my referral links, I do make some referral money.

Anyways guys, please don't forget to share my blog/website with your friends, family members, co-workers, and everyone else in this world! Thank you!

Why I haven't been posting recently...

2011-05-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I'm really sorry, but my photos and posts will be delayed for several weeks. I recently moved to a new place and there is a lot of work on the house. I generally process my photos on my other computer, which I can not set up now as my new house lacks furniture and we plan on doing hardwood flooring. I just want to keep you guys kind of up to date on why I'm not posting these few weeks. Once I can set up my other computer, I will begin processing my pictures for posting. :)

Now that I let you guys know the bad news on why my posts and photos are delayed, let me tell you what will be coming up on this blog. So right now I got more flower pictures, squirrel pictures, animal pictures, and even pictures of baby robins! They are very cute. :D

Apparently, I got 2 bird nests in my backyard at my new place, one of them is a robin nest. There were 2 babies inside and I took a lot of pictures. They are very cute. So please, come back and check if I have posted them! Well the babies already left the nest. So yeah.. And I also made one mistake. I actually took a few pictures with my phone. When I climbed up to take the picture, apparently the baby got scared and flew out. She (I'm guessing it's a she.) couldn't really fly yet. The baby ran fast! I caught her at the other end of my yard and put her back in the nest. I don't think the parents abandoned them anyways. That afternoon, I saw the parents trying to teach her how to fly. Which was really cute too.

Ducky Eggs! ^_^ 鸭蛋，好可爱哦！！

2011-05-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

So anyways, I found this duck nest at Fremont Central Park located in Fremont, California (SF Bay Area). It was the first time I ever found duck eggs! They are wild eggs by the way. I think there were 7 of them.

我在 Fremont Central Park 找到了七个鸭蛋！这是我第一次看见野鸭蛋。好可爱哦！:D

I also have more cool pictures coming up. I finally found time to look through the 100 pictures I took. It might take a while. This includes flower pictures, squirrel pictures, and a lot of other stuff!

我终于抽出时间来整理我拍的照片。我会放更多照片在这个博客上。我会有很多花照片、松鼠照片、等等。

Although, I don't have watermarks on these pictures, it does NOT give you the right to steal them and take credit for them!

Sorry for the bad quality on this one.

Want to raise a pet duck? Here are books to help you!

So there you have it! DUCKY EGGS! 好可爱哦！^_^ Please check back for more pictures in the coming days. 我会放更多照片上来！

A trip to Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Park (Part 23)

2011-04-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

Hello! This is the pictures of my trip to Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Park. Not all pictures are of the inside of Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Park. I visited Idaho Falls, Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, and some other places along the way. :) So please enjoy!

你好！这就开始我的黄石公园照片了。不是每个照片是黄石公园的。我还去了很多路上的地方。请欣赏。

<< Previous Part

I finally got my videos uploaded so here it is! :) Hope you enjoy them. This is the last part. I have no more content for Yellowstone as of right now.

Videos from my Grand Teton Floating Trip.

Ads. You might like these products. Some of them are for your video recording needs!

Ads. You might like these products. Some of them are for your video recording needs!

My other Grand Teton Videos.

Ads. Planning a trip to Yellowstone? These guides may help you!

My Yellowstone Videos

My other videos from this trip.

Flowers from Quarry Lakes Regional Park (Part 2)

2011-03-20T17:35:00.000-07:00

It's spring again and flowers are starting to bloom. :) Today I have 13 pictures of flowers from Quarry Lakes Regional Park located in Fremont/Union City, CA. Please enjoy. They are pretty! I will try to get the names of the flowers, but as you guys know, I am no flower expert. No promises. If I got the wrong name, please point it out in the comments.

As you guys can see I stopped watermarking all my photos. I only do it on some of them from now on. However, this doesn't mean you can steal credit for the pictures. I did that to improve your enjoyment and the viewing of my photos.

Parts: 1 | 2

Larkspur (Delphinium)

(Not sure)

Anyways, before you continue, I would like to tell you about a compact 1080p HD camcorder made by Sony. The Sony MHS-FS3 3D Bloggie Touch Camera has a built-in 2.4" glasses-free 3D display and can shoot up to 4 hours of HD video by recording it into it's 8GB internal memory. Great for all your outdoor photography needs! It will also take 3D pictures. You can find out more details here.

Cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum)

Paintbrush (Castilleja)

Not sure what flower this is.

The flower looks really pretty! I think it's the best picture I've taken. :)

California Saxifrage (Saxifraga californica)

Anyways guys. I don't have anymore photos in my library. :( Hopefully I'll be able to take more for next time. :) Stay tuned!

Sanyo Eneloop Rechargeable Battery Review

2011-03-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

The Sanyo Eneloop Rechargeable Battery is the battery I use in my DSLR's external camera flash. Unlike other batteries, this battery have a very strong long lasting charge. It is great for power all your battery powered electronic devices that uses AA or AAA batteries. The battery charge will stay for at least a year, unlike other rechargeables which will pretty much be useless in a year.

My external camera flash works great with this! It will power many many flashes, which proves it is very strong. I didn't regret my purchase yet! It is great! I can't believe I didn't use this sooner. All those money I wasted on the other brands that doesn't even work. If you need rechargeable batteries, I suggest you go get the Sanyo Eneloop Rechargeable Battery. This is great for DSLR's external flashes, your Wii remotes, flashlights, or other products that drains your batteries quickly! So go get yours now!

Do you like reading about interesting products? Come check out this blog I made!

Flowers from Quarry Lakes Regional Park (Part 1)

2011-03-13T16:31:00.000-07:00

Field chickweed (Cerastium arvense)

(Did not find a name for this one)

Sorry, very bad with names. Again... Not sure. If you know please tell me. :(

Great deals on camera equipment!

Bermuda buttercup (Oxalis pes-caprae)

Could not find a name. :\

What I do with these is that I go onto other people's pages of Bay Area flowers and try to match my picture with theirs' to get a name. I am not very good at doing that. XD So I'm sorry about me not knowing the names. Still, please enjoy my beautiful looking pictures.

I'm predicting another 13 pictures for the next post. I may take more. Not sure yet. If I don't take more, there will be 13 more flower pictures next time. :)

How to Donate to Money for the Japan Earthquake

2011-03-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

Photo credit goes to ABC News.

As a lot of you guys know on March 11, an 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, triggering tsunami waves that affected several countries, including the United States. Hundreds of people have died, not know where their loved ones are, or are homeless and is in desperate need of money, shelter, and clothing. The power of a nuclear power plant's cooling system was knocked and forced all the workers to flee. Please help contribute to this natural disaster by donating to the American Red Cross through Amazon. It is what God want's you to do! :)

!!!Donate via Amazon!!!

How to donate by text (extra charges will incur on your next phone bill):

To donate to American Red Cross Relief, text REDCROSS to 90999
To donate to Convoy of Hope, a faith-based organization that does community outreach and disaster response, text TSUNAMI to 50555
To donate to GlobalGiving, which focuses on “grassroots projects in the developing world,” text JAPAN to 5055
To donate to The Salvation Army, text JAPAN or QUAKE to 80888
To donate to World Relief Corp., the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, text WAVE to 50555

Donations may incur text-messaging fees or other data charges, depending on carrier. Sprint Nextel is waiving text-messaging fees for customers who send donations to the Red Cross, Convoy of Hope, the Salvation Army and World Relief (but not Global Giving).

!!!Donate via Amazon!!!

A Trip to Las Vegas (Part 4)

2011-02-20T15:18:00.000-08:00

So a while back I went to Las Vegas or as some people call it "Sin City". People usually think of Las Vegas as a place to gamble, get married, watch show girls strip, and have fun, but that isn't the only thing about Las Vegas. There are lot's of shows in Las Vegas. All the buildings are like pieces of artwork that famous artists and architects created. It's amazing how people can create such a big and crowded city in the middle of the desert. It's called "Sin City" because of the gambling and the strip clubs there. Guess what? They were passing out naked show girl pictures on the streets. At first I was like, what could that be? I took one and I was like "OH GOD! GET THAT AWAY FROM ME!" LOL Should have listened in my friends warning. XD At least they covered the private parts with hearts and stuff. I had a lot of fun watching the shows... Well the family appropriate shows. LOL Didn't waste too much money either on this trip. HAHA

Some of the pictures maybe a little bit out of order, because I took some pictures with my DSLR and some with my Nokia N97. The naming system is a bit different so Microsoft Windows sorts them out different for me.

<< Previous Part

Today, I'll be posting more pictures from my DSLR. :D Most of them is during the night. LOL So you can see some Vegas night life today.

The view of Vegas from the room I stayed at in the hotel. :)

Las Vegas

V Theater

Inside the mall. :D Stripper Bar. XD

Vegas has so many visitors...

GREAT DEALS ON CAMERA ACCESSORIES!!!

So many lights during the night. :) It's a pretty view.

Even though it's late at night, still a lot of cars on the streets...

More pictures inside the mall.

The V Show performers.

Monte Carlo, the hotel I stayed at.

More night time pictures.

And that concludes my pictures in Las Vegas. Yeah... I know... Well I have to be honest here. I don't have any pictures prepared for the next post yet. XD But it will probably be on flowers around the SF Bay Area. :\ I haven't really went anywhere... So yeah...

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