Carrizo Plain Flower Status + Yellow and Blue Along Soda Lake Road
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I’m at the Carrizo Plain National Monument, gonna stay one more day to try and located a huge blue bloom I saw from ahigh (found it: along Soda Lake Rd approaching Elkhord south). If not, this one below is very pretty and I'll go spend some time there at dusk/dawn.
I’m really liking the Fujifilm camera profiles—best in the business*—and my intent is to show some other examples (including some with a focus on B&W) once I return. See the first effort I made on that in Comparing 7 Color and 5 Monochrome ACR Camera Profiles. I also find it intriguing to verify whether the results from RAW indeed match the results from in-camera JPEG. One experiment with the ACROS-G profile showed identical results, except that the version from raw had more fine detail.
Fujifilm lenses are excellent: I’m shooting the Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2, Fujifilm XF 35mm f/2, Fujifilm XF 23mm f/1.4 and (my all around favorite for “most fun”) the Fujifilm XF 10-24mm f/4.
For example, compare to below (toggle).
* There are also various Sony camera profiles, but I find that the color is not as well done as with the Fujifilm profiles. With regards to "better color", this is not what I’m saying per se; I’m just saying that the canned profiles produce good color with one easy choice. This is not the same as “better color” from a camera.
X-Pro2 + XF10-24mmF4 R OIS @ 36.6mm equiv (24mm)
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Along Hurricane/Crocker Springs Rd, a dirt road that goes up over the hills. This is the best hillside display that I observed anywhere. Pity to not also have oranges and blues, but each species has its preferences.
X-Pro2 + XF10-24mmF4 R OIS @ 23mm equiv (15.1mm)
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This display is the best to see as of today (March 22). I shot this as I arrived, ascending Elkhorn Rd from Maricopa (ruts not suitable for passenger cars, use SUV) then turning onto Soda Lake Road; this vista unveils itself shortly thereafter. Since a passenger car could well get stuck in soft sand, there is about 1% as much traffic here as on the main thoroughfare.
As the sun descends, I’d light to shoot it again, but without the SUV presence. The cloud shadows add drama with moment-to-moment variation, a different shot even seconds later, but later they disappeared and left only clear blue sky. This stitched image using ; is just too strong an effect.
X-Pro2 + XF35mmF2 R WR @ 53.4mm equiv (35mm)
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