Month: January 2010

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Menlo Park Weblogs

InMenlo.com – Our Hyperlocal Blog about Menlo Park, California

For the last several months, we’ve been incubating InMenlo.com – a “hyperlocal” blog about Menlo Park, California. My partners in this endeavor are Linda and Chris Gulker – active bloggers in their own right.

We started InMenlo.com on a whim, after a chat about hyperlocal news blogs over coffee last summer. Since we started, Linda and Chris have really managed the near daily cadence of blog posts for InMenlo. It’s been great fun to watch it grow – and to learn more about the people and places of Menlo Park in the process!

Today, the Almanac – the local newspaper for Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley and Woodside – ran a story by Sean Howell titled “Menlo Park blog captures local life, people, vignettes” about what we’ve been doing with InMenlo – noting that “InMenlo sketches the community, and the people in it.” Indeed – that’s what we try to do. Explore what’s interesting and fun about the people and the community that is Menlo Park.

If you have suggestions about things we should cover, please email them along to tips@inmenlo.com!

Categories
Half Moon Bay HDR Photography Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S90

More Canon PowerShot S90 HDR Photography – Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

I had such fun on my brief excursion to Stanford yesterday shooting HDR photos for the first time on my new Canon S90 that I got going early this morning for a trip over the hills to Half Moon Bay and environs.

I have several favorite spots for taking shots in Half Moon Bay and I visited each of them in turn this morning while the light was still good and low over the winter horizon. But, of all the places, the best shot of the day came from one of my favorite walks among the cypress trees in the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. See what you think – view it larger here!

sv-fitzgeraldmarinereserve-03jan2010.jpg

The sun glow in this photo is amazing – especially considering that the sun was actually a bit beyond the upper right corner of the photo. Today, I again used a tripod for the S90, shot three JPEG images at 0 and +/- 2 stops in aperture priority, f/8, ISO 80, and post-processed using Photomatix Pro and Lightroom 2.6. (Here’s a link to a similar shot taken last July with my Canon 5D Mark II.)

Shooting HDR with this superb tiny little camera is turning out to be a whole lot of fun! Throw the S90 on a lightweight tripod (it looks so tiny up there!) – and you can go almost anywhere and take some really superb HDR shots – without the weight of a big camera and lens! After all, the only reason I bought the Canon S90 was because of my rotator cuff surgery in my right shoulder about 10 weeks ago which made shooting with my Canon 5D Mark II impossible for a period of time. The S90 has kept me in the game – learning new things about using compact “point and shoot” cameras to make some great photos!

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HDR Photography Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S90 Stanford

My First HDR Shots With the Canon PowerShot S90

Lily and I took a quick trip over to the Stanford Quad this afternoon to get a bit of exercise and to try out my new Canon PowerShot S90 on some tripod-based HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. I was very pleased with the how well it all worked!

Here’s an example of the results – my full Flickr set is here.

Stanford Memorial Church (HDR)

PS: This tiny camera looks a little silly up on a tripod – but it sure took some great photos! Next time, I’ll try some handheld HDR as well – we’ll see how they turn out. I also need to remember to shoot the HDR shots in Aperture Priority – at least that’s how I do it on my Canon 5D Mark II!

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Living Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S90 San Francisco/California

New Years Day 2010 at the Golden Gate Bridge

We had a quiet New Years Eve last night at home – beginning with a delightful pasta dinner – see the recipe on Scott’s Kitchen!. We worked a jigsaw puzzle while watching Hulu.com’s excellent coverage from Times Square in New York City – conveniently three hours ahead of our own clock. Couldn’t get into the weird Anderson Cooper/Kathy Griffin coverage on CNN. Hulu was a great, high quality HD alternative – delivered, as they say, “over the top”!

This morning, we had this wonderful light overcast that seemed might make for some interesting pictures – so I slid my Canon S90 into my shirt pocket and headed north to San Francisco – initially to Inspiration Point at the Presidio (appears to be a great place for a wedding but photographically a bit of a disappointment) but then on to Fort Point, the overlook off Langdon Drive above Battery Boutelle, and an old favorite, Baker Beach. As these things go, it was a quick trip – a bit over 2-1/2 hours roundtrip.

The triptych below captures shots from each of those locations – a way for me to remember this New Years Day from each of those locations! Here’s my Flickr set for these shots.

New Years Day 2010 - San Francisco - Golden Gate Bridge

Hope you had a wonderful New Years 2010!