This post will wrap up my photography in Yosemite National Park, shooting the sunset golden hour at Yosemite Valley along the Merced River.
I shot as the shadows creeped upward on the rock formations, pushing away the golden sunset light, so there are subtle differences between some of these images.
The final image is near the very end of golden sunset hour, looking up river.
This wraps up my time in Yosemite. Until next time,
Ken
While waiting for sunset golden hour at the edge of the Merced River at Yosemite Valley, I continued to make a few iPhone images of the scene in front of me, experimenting with compositional variations.
When the scenery is so marvelous, it is difficult to be satisfied with just a few image variations.
Bridal Veil Falls is visible in the distance across the river from this location and is seen in many of my compositions here, but usually as a small part of the image. I zoomed in to get this shot.
Looking ahead to the next post with these last two images, after shooting the golden hour with my DSLR, I made a few images with my iPhone as the golden hour ended.
Stay tuned for my final shoot in Yosemite,
Ken
For my final evening shoot in Yosemite, I decided to check out locations in the valley, finally choosing the Yosemite Valley View Point.
I arrived early to be sure I could find a place to park in the small pull out and walked around the area with my iPhone scouting shooting locations before I retrieved my tripod and DSLR from my vehicle.
I also experimented with test compositions, using my iPhone camera to do so.
I finally picked a place at the very edge of the Merced River at the parking lot. I would have like to have shot from farther done the river, but there were people sitting where they would be in most of my shots and lots of visitors wandering around that area, too. So I figured shooting across the river and back up the river from the parking lot area would avoid most such disturbances.
I set my tripod legs on rocks in the edge of the river and I had a rock to sit on while I waited for golden hour. While I waited, I made more images with my iPhone and a few test compositions with my DSLR.
More later,
Ken
After my early morning photography, my wife and I returned to the park to drive to Glacier Point. It is a long drive, but well worth the time, as the views from the stops along this route are spectacular.
I shot with both my iPhone and my DSLR with 24-70mm lens and 80-400mm lens with an extension tube. It was not optimal time for the best light for landscape photography, but this was the only opportunity I would have to be here for the foreseeable future, so I captured many images while I could do so.
Sub Dome blends into the background in some of these shots, but it is just above and to the left of the two waterfalls, which might appear small in these images, but those are quite large.
Sub Dome towers above Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls.
The bridge over the stream feeding Nevada falls and the many people around the top of the falls only became apparent upon using the 80-400mm lens.
There were some people standing near the top of Vernal Falls in this image, but I removed them in Lightroom. I think there may be other people in the far background, but I did not attempt removing those small, fuzzy objects.
These images are representative of the views from Glacier Point and Washburn Point overlooks.
Thanks for following,
Ken
After a sunrise shoot at Tunnel View, I stopped at the parking area for Bridal Veil Falls. The falls can be seen from the parking lot and there is a short trail that gets one much nearer the falls. The trail is easy, but is slightly uphill most of the way, so it does take a little effort to hike.
I switched back to my 24-70mm lens before hiking the trail, but soon realized that the 80-400mm lens would have allowed me to capture close up images of details in the tall, slender waterfall.
The image above gives an idea of how far away the end of the trail viewing area is from the falls. This view covers the entirety of the falls from top to the bottom most part that I could see, including small portions in the bottom left, but excluding the sky to avoid exposure difficulties. I could have gotten a little closer, as a few people do, by climbing beyond the viewing area border, but I elected not to do so. One can easily see how a big lens would be useful for isolating smaller portions of this waterfall.
This long, slender waterfall does not fall straight down, but swings back and forth across the rock face. Maybe with a heavier water flow it might fall in a more linear fashion, but this meandering path creates more interesting features and that “veil” appearance.
This wider angle view gives a better indication of the local environment.
If I had brought my big lens, I would have zoomed into features such as the ledge in the bottom portion of the image above.
Some of the close up look images are extracted from wider angle ones by cropping the images, which I’m sure readers have realized.
That’s more than enough for now. Thanks for following,
Ken
My online research suggested that Tunnel View at sunrise was a favorite Yosemite NP location for many photographers. I had not been happy with my evening photography at Tunnel View, so I decided to try again at sunrise.
I knew that this would require photographing directly into the rising sun and would be a challenge for getting a good exposure and timing would be critical for catching the first glimpse of the sun as it rose over the horizon.
The evening prior, I had shot with a 24-70mm lens, which did not let me acquire much detail of the distant rock features. So I opted to use my 80-400mm lens with a 1.4x extension at sunrise.
The sky was totally clear this morning, which was a disappointment, since the sky would be bland and uninteresting. Largely due to that bland sky, I converted the only reasonably good images I got this morning to monochrome.
I say pre-sunrise, only because the sun had not shown itself above the horizon that I see, but it is obviously already above the horizon behind this view.
The shadows in the sky cast by some of these rock features was a pleasant surprise and add interest to that bland sky. I especially like that dark streak radiating from the peak of Half Dome.
The sun rose at the right edge of Half Dome and this is the best image that I captured. I could have used software to enhance the sun’s starburst and brought up the shadows a bit more, but I like this more natural look, except for the bright halo behind the sun, which is a highlight that I could not avoid.
Until next time,
Ken
After spending a few days in San Jose, California where we enjoyed their annual Jazz Festival and visiting with our son and daughter in law, we traveled to Yosemite NP, staying in lodging just outside the park.
Getting into the park during peak hours of the peak season requires a permit. Fortunately, I was able to secure a permit good for three days, so we were able to drive into the park during the daily peak visiting hours and when going into the park for sunrise or sunset photos, I entered before or after peak hours, so I did not have to wait in line or stop at the entrance station.
Our lodging was not far from Tunnel View, which I had been informed was one of the best locations for photography, so I chose that site as my first sunset shoot. Even though we had driven around main portions of the park, after checking into our lodging, I had not scouted Tunnel View. So I really had no idea what to expect at that location.
As I was driving the route to Tunnel View, I noted that the big rock features along my route were getting some really good late day light, which made me think this would be a good photography outing and I was noting other possible locations for shooting at sunset.
There are two parking areas at Tunnel View, where there were many people, but I had no problem finding a place to park at this late hour of the day. After looking around, it appeared the best place from which to shoot was atop the stone wall bordering the parking lot in which I had chosen to pull into.
I made a number of iPhone images well before sunset and converted these to monochrome, since the color images were not all that interesting. The big feature on the left is El Capitan and in the distance, left of center, is Half Dome.
When golden hour arrived, it was obvious that due to the tall rocks behind me, most of the big rock features of Tunnel View would be in shade.
I cropped in more closely for Tunnel View 2, trying to emphasize more of the golden hour light that only appeared on the very tops a few features here.
The image above is a focus stack of several images shot with a 24-70mm lens.
There were clouds in the sky, which got some sunset color, but even that was not spectacular and faded quickly.
I waited and watched the clouds as the sunset progressed, hopping for at least some last minute spectacular colors, but that never happened.
This is a wonderful natural scene, but I came away disappointed in my photography experience today. Maybe I was not creative enough, or picked a poor place from which to shoot or maybe I was here at the wrong time, not in the best season, or I should have captured more images prior to golden hour. Whatever…, I do not think I captured this scene very well today.
Thanks for following,
Ken
