Hit the water this morning at 7am. Full sun, deep blue sky, not a cloud, mild warm offshore breezes, glassy sea, small but fun waves. Went for a walk with my daughter at Moonlight Beach at sunset tonight, deep orange-red sky, not a cloud, mild warm offshore breezes, glassy sea, small but fun waves. Get the picture? While much of the country is dealing with snow, rain, or just plain miserable cold, it is nearly idyllic here.

7:30am

4:45pm

Fun surf at Ponto this morning. Nice offshore wind, shoulder high sets once in a while. It got crowded about 8am, and the high tide softened the waves up so I got out by 9am and off to a soccer game.

Wave breaking in early morning sunlight. Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA. Image: 21779   Location: Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Longboarder carves wave in early morning sun. Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA. Image: 21783   Location: Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Wave breaking in early morning sunlight. Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA. Image: 21785   Location: Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

I made a banzai run up to the Alabama Hills last weekend. The weather forecast looked favorable, and I had not been up along the Eastern Sierra for some years, so it just seemed like the thing to do. I got up early to photograph Mobius Arch at sunrise. Mobius Arch, a natural stone arch, is the most striking and notable arch in the Alabama Hills. It is also known as Movie Road Arch, Alabama Hills Arch, Moebius Arch, and, in a tribute to photographer Galen Rowell, Galen’s Arch. Mobius Arch is about 17 feet wide and 6 feet high, and nicely frames both Lone Pine Peak and Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada range. Situated in the Owens Valley alongside the Sierra Nevada, just below Mt. Whitney, the Alabama Hills Recreational Area (administered by the BLM) is a 30,000 acre area of fantastic granite and metamorphosed rock, in an endless variety of rounded shapes and sizes.

Mobius Arch at sunrise, with Mount Whitney (the tallest peak in the continental United States), Lone Pine Peak and snow-covered Sierra Nevada Range framed within the arch. Mobius Arch is a 17-foot-wide natural rock arch in the scenic Alabama Hills Recreational Area near Lone Pine, California. Alabama Hills Recreational Area, California, USA. Image: 21729   Location: Alabama Hills Recreational Area, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

See more of our Mobius Arch photos

We came to Monterey packing some serious photo schwag to photograph the otters. Between the Jon and I, we had two 50Ds and at least one each of 5D, 1DIIN, 1DsII, 300/2.8, 400/DO and 500/4 lenses, plus a nice medium format film rig. This sea otter (Enhydra lutris) was nevertheless quite unimpressed.

A sea otter, resting on its back, grooms the fur on its head. A sea otter depends on its fur to keep it warm and afloat, and must groom its fur frequently. Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, Moss Landing, California, USA. Image: 21605   Species: Enhydra lutris Location: Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, Moss Landing, California, USA

See more of our sea otter photos

When I visit Monterey I always make a stop by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Always. My kids love it, and I can get a better look at some of the undersea life by visiting the aquarium than if I went to the hassle of actually diving. (I used to dive in the cold waters of Monterey, but am now a wuss and … you get the picture.) The Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the finest aquariums in the country. This sea nettle jellyfish (Chrysaora fuscescens) is beautifully lit in one of the Outer Bay jellyfish tanks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Sea nettle jellyfish. Image: 21511   Species: Chrysaora fuscescens

I made this shot using some tricks I know for making good photos in an aquarium setting, hand held with no flash.

See more of our jellyfish photos

A great egret (Ardea alba) stands on a floating patch of kelp, picking fish out of the water that are unfortunate enough to swim too close. Monterey’s famous Cannery Row stands in the background.

Great egret catches a fish while standing on floating kelp in front of Cannery Row buildings, along the Monterey waterfront, early morning. Monterey, California, USA. Image: 21554   Species: Ardea alba Location: Monterey, California, USA

Here is one of the cuter sea otters (Enhydra lutris) I managed to photograph in Monterey recently. After shooting one afternoon’s worth of otters, both Jon and I decided that it was not worth spending time taking pictures of the dark-faced otters – their deep brown fur made it tough to get an appealing exposure without blowing out the background. So, like guys are wont to do the world over, we focused our attention entirely on the blondes. Seen in this photo is “Paris,” known for her vacant expression and vacuous intellect.* As one would expect, the blond otters made for the best photos, something about having been to modeling school and having a good surgeon.

A sea otter, resting on its back, holding its paw out of the water for warmth. While the sea otter has extremely dense fur on its body, the fur is less dense on its head, arms and paws so it will hold these out of the cold water to conserve body heat. Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, Moss Landing, California, USA. Image: 21602   Species: Enhydra lutris Location: Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, Moss Landing, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

See more of our sea otter photos.

* The astute observer will note that this otter, being male**, technically should not be named Paris. Good point, we’ll call him Jessica.

** If you are not able to identify this otter as a male, then go here to get the info.

I’ll offer my comments on my Canon 50D. I’ve used it for one shoot so far, and will keep it for at least another shoot (at Bosque del Apache next month) before I decide whether to keep it. Note that this is not a formal test, just my anecdotal observations of one body. I am fairly critical of my images as ultimately I would like them to past the laugh test and go out into the publishing world to be seen by bazillions of admirers.

First, when I received it I checked the focus of the camera right out of the box using a 300 f/2.8 on a few static subjects in my back yard. It was fine, no front or back focus that I could see. My raw converter (Capture One) currently does not support 50D raw files (hopefully in a few weeks this will be fixed) so I am using the DPP software coming with the camera. I find that I need to use a high sharpening setting in the raw conversion to get results I am happy with. In other words, the raw images appear soft coming out of the camera, which was mildly disappointing to me. However, I’m fine with countering that in raw processing, provided it does not create other problems (noise, artifacts). Realizing that I will have to sharpen the raw files hard, I have decided to expose “to the right” with this camera to avoid noise problems with underexposed images that are then exacerbated by hard sharpening.

Last week I used the 50D on a Canon 500 f/4, 80% of the time of a 1.4x teleconverter, to shoot sea otters (Enhydra lutris) from a boat. I also shot with a 1DsII, same lens setup. I shot about 2800 images with the 50D, and about 400-500 with the 1DsII. My plan was to use the 50D to get a little extra reach, and more “pixels on the subject", than I could get with the 1DsII. I used ISO from 200 to 1000 on the 50D (200 to 320 on the IDsII).

I shot the 50D using servo AF, IS stabilizing mode 2, single focus point was typically upper right, upper left or center. I always have it in high speed drive (something like 6 or 6.5 fps I think?).

A) the 50D images taken **without** a teleconverter look pretty good. I’m happy with the sharpness of those, given I exposed to the right (just getting the tiniest of blinkies on the highlights of the animals) and then sharpened hard in the raw.