Photography – C Chin Photo

Yosemite Horsetail Falls – Location Update

Location Report, Photography Comments Off

Feb 192013

February 16-17, 2013

Wanting to get out and field test some equipment, I went up to Yosemite for the weekend hoping to re-capture and experience the “fire falls” effect @ Horsetail Falls in Yosemite Valley. As described in my post back in February, 2010, this effect only happens once a year (though rumor is it also happens in the fall based on another blog post). The park rangers seem to have caught on to this phenomenon as evidenced by the cordoning off of a lane on both the north and south drives for “Special Event” parking. This is undoubtedly due to the popularity of this event.

Andrew Kee’s blog calulated that the optimal time this year would be from February 12 – 27, with the optimal time being mid-week, February 20-21. Viewing this phenomenon relies on several key factors with water flow and direct sunlight being the most important. During this past weekend, Saturday was the better of the two days, though not as good as back in 2010 when the water flow was more abundant. Water flow this year has been characterized as “below normal”. This however, may change as Yosemite probably got some snow today and perhaps again this saturday. Should the weather remain cold the optimal time could be pushed out several days.

Resources:
C Chin Photo 2010 Blog Post
Andrew Kee’s Blog
Fred Miranda
The Photographer’s Ephemeris

The Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch

Location Report, Photography, Travel 1 Response »

May 132012

Situated on 50 acres of hillside overlooking the Pacfic ocean are the Carlbad Flower Fields. Planted on the main fields are the Giant Tecolote Ranunculus flowers. Just below, towards the highway are the Carlbad Premium Outlets and up and over the hill is Legoland. As odd as the location may be, the Flower Fields have been there since 1965 and has been a popular tourist attraction due to its proximity to the highway. It was started by the Frazee family with seeds brought to the area by Luther Gage. Every year, these fields are open to the public for a limited time, generally during the spring when the flowers are in full bloom.

This year, the pattern of the fields has changed for the first time in 15 years. The new color pattern was designed by a professional colorist.

Surrounding the fields are other flower oriented attractions. One of the most notable is the historic Poinsettia Display where you can find the world famous Ecke poinsettias. Aside from the Poinsettia display, there are the antique tractor rides around the field, the “Artist” gardens, the American Flag of flowers, the Sweet Pea maze, the Cymbidium Orchid Greenhouse and Santa’s Playground to keep the kids busy.

During this visit, Canon happened to be sponsoring a mini-class on macro-photography. As with a free or low cost events (you need to pay admission to get into the fields, otherwise free), the barn was packed.

If you get hungry after walking the fields, two exits north on I-5 in downtown Carlsbad is an excellent italian restaurant, Vigilucci’s Cucina Italiana, where they claim to make everything fresh and to order. True to their word, I had special ordered a dish of pasta that was very well prepared. Highly recommended.

For more information:

For more photos, visit my gallery.

Website Link: http:www.theflowerfields.com

Restaurant: Vigilucci’s Cucina Italiana
2943 State Street
Carlsbad, CA 92008
(760) 434-2500

Apple Hill – California Sierras

Food, Photography, Travel Comments Off

Oct 112011

As the cool crisp air of fall arises, I long for the New England tradition of apple picking and everything else apple related. Here in the Bay Area, one of the best options is to head east on Highway 50 toward Lake Tahoe to an area known as Apple Hill, located in Camino, Placeville and Pollock Pines California. Originally an association of 16 ranches, Apple Hill is now comprised of over 50 ranches with christmas tree growers, wineries, a micro-brewery and spas. Many of the ranches are only open from Labor Day through Chrismas Eve. Kid friendly, one can pick apples, go for a hay ride, attend many of the festivals, pick pumkins or chop down a christmas tree. Of course, the main attractions of the area are Apple Cider, Cider Doughnuts, streudels, pies, dumplings and turnovers.

While up there, if your timing is good, you can get some decent landscape shots. Rolling farmland hills can be found almost anywhere along with fall harvest (Halloween and Thanksgiving) types of decorations. Pumkin patches, hay mazes, horse rides, petting zoos and other venues can keep the kids content.

For more shots of the area, see my gallery at: http://cchinstudios.zenfolio.com/applehill2010

For more information on Apple Hill, go to the Apple Hill Grower’s website at: http://www.applehill.com

Spring Mountain Vineyard

Photography, Travel Comments Off

Oct 042011

Spring Mountain Vineyard(SMV), located on the eastern slopes and lower half of Spring Mountain in St. Helena, CA, on 845 acres. SMV was once three separate properties: La Perla, Chevalier and Miravalle. Visits to SMV are by appointment only. SMV has four levels of tasting – Varietal Tasting, Estate Tasting, Explore Elivette and Library Vertical Tasting. The fee is waived with the purchase of wine of varying amounts, depending on the tasting. During this visit, we visited Miravalle and did an Estate Tasting.

The tasting was lead by Sarah Livermore, a very knowledgable and gracious host and tour guide. After a brief tour of the grounds, we sat down in the dining room of Miravalle to do some tasing. Overall, the wines were quite good and the tasting quite enjoyable and educational.

As you enter the gates and park in the visitor area, you immediately notice the greenhouse and the Carriage House. One of the differences you’ll notice immediately is that the vines are grown vertically – Vertical Gobelet vine training. SMC did this primarily because of the topography of the vineyard. SMV says that this allows the vines to follow the topography of the vineyard on hillsides, that it preserves topsoil, improves yield and quality, reduces stress on the vine and canopy management on all sides of the vine means even ripening and higher wine quality.

SMV practice sustainable winegrowing methods since its new ownership in 1992. The most common sustainable winegrwoing practices include avoiding herbicides and insecticides and embracing natural, biologically-based regimens. The goal of sustainability is to avoid depleting the long-term health of the land and environment for short-term gain.

SMV is a must see if you’re ever in the area and wish to visit an outstanding vineyard, away from the crowds.

Winery Website: http://www.springmtn.com/

Address:
Spring Mountain Vineyard
2805 Spring Mountain Road
St. Helena, California 94574-1775

Fall Foliage Photography

Photography, Travel 1 Response »

Oct 192010

Its fall, the temperatures are dropping and for those of us here in Northern California, its time to start thinking of a fall foliage trip to capture the amazing show of colors that nature puts on for us every year. Though the colors are not as brilliant and wide in range as they are back east (aka New England area), we still get an excellent show due to the magnificent backdrops that the Sierras provide with high mountain peaks and alpine lakes, rivers and streams.

Prime fall foliage season in the Sierras generally falls between late September and early November, depending on the weather conditions for that specific year. The most popular area is in the Eastern Sierras, from Mono Lake down to Bishop. Here we find many places to shoot brilliant yellows with patches of orange and reds. The nicest places to shoot include Lundy Canyon, Rock Creek, June Lake and Bishop Canyon area (North Lake, Lake Sabrina, South Lake). Closer to Tahoe is the Hope Valley area.

Another popular area is the Plumas County area. Located in the far northern sierras, this area is known to be rich in maples, providing that rich scarlet red that many of us yearn. Many of the other trees and plants in the area fill out the color palette – California Black Oak, Indian Rhubarb, Mountain Dogwood and the perennial quaking aspens. Some of the best areas to shoot include Lake Almanor/Chester, Feather River Canyon, Quincy-Oroville Road and the Lakes Basin.

If you plan to shoot the fall foliage, here are a few essential tips;

1)      Shoot during the “golden hours” – Early morning or late afternoon.
2)      Use a tripod
3)      Shoot in RAW – This allows for an endless amount of post-shoot processing of the photo. It also provides a richer color gamut and greater flexibility to recover from errors during the capture process.
4)      Limit the use of the polarizer and don’t use full strength – Often, at full strength, the skies turn a dark blue which may look a bit unnatural. If using a wide angle lens, be careful that the saturation is distributed evenly across the sky or you may end up with an unnatural looking shot.
5)      Use a Graduated Neutral Density filter – Particularly useful in the sierras where a capture without a filter will result in a blown out sky. The ND filter helps maintain that blue sky and detail in the shade.
6)      Bring long a laptop – after a long morning of shooting, its always nice to review your photos, saving the keepers and discarding the ones that didn’t turn out so good. It also ensures that you got the photos you intended to capture and allows you to fix any problems that may be preventing you from getting the shot you came to get.
7)      Forget the enhancing/warming filters – In today’s digital age, we have Photoshop (or similar photo processing programs) which allow us to selectively enhance specific colors.
8)      White Balance settings – Instead of using Auto White Balance, you can use Shade or Cloudy to adjust overall color bias and make the shot a bit warmer.
9)      If the sky is grey, limit the amount of sky you put into the shot.
10) Close up shots – To capture the essence of fall, get some close-up shots of trees, leaves, rock and water capturing the different textures and colors.

For more fall foliage photos, check out;
Eastern Sierras – http://cchinstudios.zenfolio.com/2009fallfoliage
Plumas County – http://cchinstudios.zenfolio.com/2010plumascounty

Two resource sites for planning your outing are;
Carol Leigh’s Fall Color Report
Plumas County Leaf Peeper Report

Napa Winery – Jarvis Winery

Food, Photography, Travel 2 Responses »

Jun 242010

Jarvis Winery and Vineyards are located above Napa in between Mt George and Milliken Canyon allowing for cooler growing temperatuers due to altitude and maritime breezes. Founded by William and Leticia Jarvis, the winery itself, 45,000 square feet, is located underground in a cave that was excavated in the Vacas Mountains, about 4 miles east of downton Napa. The overall estate is 1320 acres with 37 acres allocated for vineyards. The Jarvis’ have owned the winery for over 20 years. All winery operations and administration are located in these parabolic shaped caves designed by William with the help of consultant Gregg Korbin and the UC Berkeley computers. A stream runs through the middle of the cave and is fed by a waterfall. Tours of the vineyards and cave is by appointment only.

The two tours available are the Vintage Tasting Tour and the Platinum Tasting Tour. More information can be found on their website.

We choose to take the Vintage Tasting Tour primarily due to the last minute decision to take the tour. The tour included a walk through the caves to see the facilities and a tasting of six of their wines accompanied by cheese and crackers. This visit, we tasted;

2007 Finch Hollow Chardonnay
2005 Cabernet Franc
2004 Lake William – Blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot
2006 Merlot – my favorite of the group – tastes more like a pinot noir
2003 Cabernet Sauvignon
2003 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve

Some of the highlights of the tour included;

– the bottling room with a custom designed bottling machine by William Jarvis. Notably, the wax seal a top some of Jarvis’ premium wines is done by hand.

– underground stream and waterfall

– storage/fermentation tanks

– event room

For more information, you can visit their website at: http://www.jarviswines.com/. More photos can be found at: C Chin Studios Gallery.

Napa Winery – Kenzo Estate

Food, Photography, Travel 5 Responses »

Jun 162010

Opening to much fanfare and publicity, Kenzo Tsujimoto, Chairman and CEO of Japan’s Capcom Group (better known in the gaming circles for hit titles such as Street Fighter, MotoGP and Resident Evil), opened his winery on May 1st of this year after purchasing the property in the early nineties from the Murray family. Kenzo is a wine connoisseur who travels the world and has a large wine collection at his home in Japan (10,000 bottles). He loves wine so much that he decided to put $100 million into developing Kenzo Estate. The property, 4,000 acres a top Mt. George, was previously an equestrian center. Back in 1984, Mt George was the training site for the US Polo Team. Of the 4,000 acres owned by Kenzo, only 100 will be planted for the winery. As of now, this winery has the distinction of being the only winery in Napa with a tasting menu created by Sir Thomas Keller.

The location, about 1,000 feet above the valley floor, gives Kenzo an extended growing season due to the cooler air. Kenzo does everything in a simple, first class way. The food is done in collaboration with Sir Thomas Keller (of French Laundry, Per Se, Bouchon and Ad Hoc fame), wine is done in collaboration with Heidi Barrett (of Screaming Eagle, Grace Family Vineyards, Dalla Valle and La Sirena fame), and vineyard design/management by famed perfectionist David Abreu.

Being relatively new, the vineyard has only has only had two releases. The current release, 2006, has four varietals;

Asatsuya (morning dew) Sauvignon Blanc – bordeux style white wine – $60, $35 for 375ml
Rindo (referring to Gentians) Red Table Wine – Signature wine – blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot – $75
Murasaki (Purple) Proprietary Red Blend – blend of Sabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot – $150 – My fav of the group
Ai (Indigo) Cabernet Sauvignon – 100% Carbernet Sauvignon – $150
*** note – purple is the traditional color of Japanese royalty

Visits to the winery are by appointment only. During your visit, you may sign up for one of three tours, differentiated only by amount of wine and food. In short, the three tours are as follow;

Tour 1 – $30 – Four one ounce pours of Kenzo Estate Wines served with a plate of crackers
Tour 2 – $50 – Four two ounce pours of Kenzo Estate Wines served with charcuterie
Tour 3 – $60 – Tour two served with a full lunch brought in daily from Sir Thomas Keller’s Bouchon restaurant in Yountville. Lunch generally consists of a choice of one of four sandwiches (French Madrange ham and gruyere, beef brisket, tuna Nicose, ) with fixins. Other food choices are available for order a la carte, including deserts from Bouchon Bakery.

The grapes are picked by hand and the vineyard is sub-divided into multiple lots so they can be picked at different times. About 6,000 cases are produced annually. The wines themselves are not available for retail sale anywhere except at the winery, where quantities are limited. The wine is served at select restaurants throughout Japan (where the majority of the wine production currently goes) and at the Thoms Keller Group restaurants in the US. There supply model is a direct producer to vendor model due to the limited production. The goal is for the wine to eventually be served at about 200 restaurants throughout the US.

The experience – upon entering through the gates, you drive about a mile past a lake and through another gate following the signs for 3200. It turns out that the estate is still actually home to several others including the previous estate owners. Arriving at the tasting room and production facilities, one notices the attention to details and the simplicity of the design. The building are of architect Backen’s California barn style with modern earth tones. For example, from the wine production (fermenting rooms) area to the cave area is a straight line, so transportation from one to the other does not unsettle the wine. The aged olive trees (@150 yrs old), recently imported, are strategically placed as are the other landscaping details (plants).

At the beginning of the tour, each guest is given their first taste of the wine, the Asatsuyu Sauvignon Blanc. As you pass the newly planted “grove” of imported aged olive trees, one starts to notice the simplicity of the overall design as well as the attention given to the smallest details.

Being such a young winery, Kenzo is still finding its way. This year, they started experimenting with concrete vats for fermentation. Other grapes are fermented in stainless steel tanks. In a straight line from the “production” area are two entrances to the caves. The caves (20,000 square feet), currently sparsely populate due to the age of the winery, may eventually hold events such as dinners and private events. After the caves, we headed back to the tasting room area where outside, there were tables setup with the flights of red wines for our tasting (and food depending on tour signed up for). Overall, it was a pretty relaxing and laid back experience.

The winery is located at 3200 Monticello Road in Napa, CA (about five miles from the Silverado Trail). Visits are by appointment only. For more information, go to their website, http://www.kenzoestate.com or http://www.kenzoestate.jp for the japanese version. More photos of our visit can be found at our Kenzo Estate Winery gallery.

American Le Mans Series (ALMS) 2010 @ Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

Events, Photography 2 Responses »

May 242010

On May 22, Saturday, I spent an unseasonably chilly and windy day at Laguna Seca watching (and of course photographing) the ALMS 2010 race. Monterey is the third stop in the American Le Mans series. The race is a six-hour, 11-turn, 2.238-mile circuit. Some bill this race as a warm-up for the 24 hours of Le Mans in France in June. Today’s race will air next weekend, May 29, on CBS. Live streaming and more information on the series can be found at the series’ official website, http://www.americanlemans.com.

Patron Highcroft racing took the overall podium in the LMP class with the HPD ARX-01c of David Brabham, Simon Pagenaud and Marino Franchitti.

This year’s race was highlighted by several accidents, 10 full course periods, and a finish where first and second in the GT class was 3/10 of a second apart. In the highly contested GT class, four ferraris, BMWs, two Porsches and two Corvettes all ran within 10 seconds of each other for most of the race. Environmental friendliness seemed to be a re-current theme. The “race within a race” Michelin Green X challenge in all classes had teams competing for the prestige of the award. The running of the two Rahall Letterman team cars on E85 Ethanol and other teams running on E10 Ethanol added to the green theme.

Of note this year, Rahal Letterman Racing enters the GT class with two BMW M3s running on E85 Cellulosic Ethanol fuel along side other cars such as the #3 Corvette ZR-1 from Corvette Racing. E85 Cellulosic Ethanol fuel is made from non-food products such as corn stalks, wood chips and switchgrass, presenting a more green alternative fuel. The fuel has its advantages such as lower emissions but also has drawbacks such as lower power output. No. 90 M3 GT of Joey Hand and Dirk Muller finish second after a re-build from an accident earlier in the day. No. 92 M3 GT of Bill Auberlan and Tommy Milner finished eigth. Oreca’s FLM09 debuts in the 2010 series. Corvette’s, headed for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a few weeks finish third and sixth in the GT class. The JaguarRSR XKR GT completed its first endurance run here.

In the meantime, I’ll be posting some shots from the event, with on-track shots and paddock shots, during the course of the week. Check out my gallery for this event at http://cchinstudios.zenfolio.com/alms2010.

For more information, other resources;
American LeMans Series Official Site – http://www.americanlemans.com
Le Mans Official SIte – http://www.lemans.org/en/
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca Official Site – http://www.mazdaraceway.com
Racetrack Map – http://www.mazdaraceway.com/pages/Track_Map
Paddock Racing News – http://paddocktalk.com/news/html/index.php

Wildflower 2010 Location Report – Mt Diablo – Mitchell Canyon

Photography, Travel 2 Responses »

May 082010

Location: Mt Diablo -Michell Canyon, Clayton, CA
Directions: From 680 North, exit Ygnacio Valley Road, head east for 7.5 miles until you get to Clayton Road, turn right. Go 1.0 miles, turn right onto Mitchell Canyon Road, go to end. $6 car fee for day use.
Date of visit: May 5, 2010 – Cinco de Mayo.

Mitchell Canyon, located on Mount Diablo’s North Side, is located in the town of Clayton. Known for it rock formations and wildflowers, there are wildflower viewing opportunites for all abilities. We had a chance to visit and hike this area during the past week. The wildflowers are still out in force, though some are starting to die off. Different specicies can be found at different altitudes.

During this visit, we had planned to take it easy and do the Mitchell Canyon Nature Trail. However, due to the lack of details and signs, we were not able to find the trail. Starting from the opposite side of the parking lot from the visitor center, we headed out on Bruce Lee Road in an attempt to find the Back Creek Trail. We ended up doing a few circle and eventually decided to hike up the Back Creek/Mitchell Canyon loop for a total of about 8.1 miles and a 1600 foot elevation gain.

Heading up what turned out to be the Back Creek Trail, we found lots of varieties of wildflowers. At the lower elevations, we found Rose Clovers, Pineapple Weed, California Poppies and Wild Mustard. As we gained elevation, we proceeded to find an abundance of Ithuriel’s Spear, Winter Vetch, Scarlet Pimpernel, Royal Larkspur, Gray Mule’s Ear and Woolly Paintbrush and Indian Paintbrush. Throughout most of the hike, wildflowers were all around affording many photo opportunities. At the top of “Twin Peaks” on Deer Flat, one is afforded a panorama viewing opportunity to see Clayton, mountains and valleys. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture the fames Fairy Lantern which is the signature wildflower of Mount Diablo. A gallery of my 2010 Wildflower photos can be found at:

http://cchinstudios.zenfolio.com/wildflowers2010

It looks like the wildflower viewing should be good for another week or two, depending on the heat. For more info on hikes and features, go to: http://mdia.org/hiking.htm

Stay tuned for more wildflower reports!

Panorama Shots and Photo-stitching

Photography 1 Response »

Apr 282010

When visiting places, many people struggle to capture shots that represent what they see and experience. For vast landscape scenes, panoramic shots generally is one of the main answers. In this area, technology has helped make the capturing of the photo easier but processing challenges arise. Most of the challenges lie in the way that the camera works with the lense. Perspective, distortion and blending are three key elements that must come together to produce a decent panoramic image. The effort to merge several photos into one and make it look consistent and natural can be challenging.

Most of today’s photo processing programs do a pretty good job at automatically finding stitch points and stitching the photos together. Hardware and software requirements vary and memory handling sometimes is a key factor in processing (more on that in another posting). Correcting photos for barrel distortion, uniform color, contrast and tone, and finally adjusting for perspective is where this process gets challenging. For example, the above shot, taken from Sutro Hill in San Francisco, at first glance looks okay. However, what many pixel peepers will notice is that this photo is actually a stitched photo, comprising (in this case) of three separate photos.

In this example, three vertical shots were taken to be stitched together. The goal was to capture the view from the top of Sutro Hill looking towards downtown. I chose to shoot vertically to capture as much of the city (from the base of the hill) as I could with as few shots as possible (given my existing equipment). The other option, as a photographer with a modest camera, was to shoot 9 separate horizontal images to get the desired level of city detail. The stitching of the photos in many programs is handled automatically. The method to correct for consistent tone and color, barrel distortion and other nuances distinguishes the better programs from the crowd. Other features, such as the ability to create a Quicktime VR (think real estate 360 degree VR tours) or merging a non-sequenced series of photos either horizontally, vertically or matrixed are all available in various programs. For example, using a friend computer in the field with The Panorama Factory, I used the same seven shots that produced the photo below and converted it into a Quicktime VR fairly easily (as seen by clicking below on “Sutro Hill Panorama” – be patient. Once loaded, click on photo and use mouse or arrow keys to pan left and right).

Sutro Hill Panorama

So now comes the question of which software to use. Most cameras today come with free photo processing software that has the capability to create panorama shots (such as the Canon software) and sometimes Quicktime VR. Commercial and free programs/plug-ins such as The Panorama Factory, Panorama Tools, Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom, PTgui, Panavue, Arcsoft Panorama Maker and a plethora of others exist out there to choose from. Choosing one or a few shall be the subject of upcoming reviews as I search for the “best” one to use…stay tuned!

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