Jeff Swanson -- www.interfacingnature.com's photostream  

Here's another from Saturday's shoot with Lukas down at Garrapata.

The wider angle lets in a bit more light pollution from Carmel and Monterey, though I don't think it hurts the image. Cranking the ISO to 1600 did make the sky a bit noisier, but I'm impressed with the rest of the image. Going to be a bit sad to relegate the D7K to backup status.

I have had this image in the back of my mind for a while. The conditions looked good for making it happen this weekend so I hollered at Lukas to see if he was interested in making the trek down to try. The skies were looking clear and the moon was 2/3 full and to our backs to fill in the earthly shadows.

I used the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 for the first time this night. Well, I should say for the first time I used it well. The first time I went out I could not find focus, all my stars were in bokeh and everything else was looking really soft. It turns out that's because the focus distance indicators are WAAAY off on my copy of this lens. Before it got dark I zoomed way in on live view to determine where the actual infinity focus distance was and found that the markings tell me that I'm focused inside of 2 meters. Whoa!! At any rate, now I know where to put the focus to shoot stars and I'm really happy with the results. Can't wait to shoot this lens on the D800. :)

I ripped a mudflap off my Subaru Forester trying to excitedly parallel park to shoot this scene -- that is a nasty sound let me tell you! Thank goodness it was low tide or there'd've been absolutely no foreground here.

SPLOOOOOSHHHH

Hung out for sunset with Lukas last night and came back with this little one.

I was wishing for some more color in the sunset, but sometimes you've just gotta work with what's there. Had a blast exploring the tafoni structures in this area, too. Better than sittin' on the couch for sure! :)