How About a Sunset

With high clouds and tropical moisture, the sunsets on the Central Coast have been spectacular for the last few days. I hope you like these photos.


Sunset, Atascadero Hills (during the lightning storm)


Sunset, along Highway 1 south of San Simeon


Sunset, San Simeon Point

When the Light is Right

Sometimes it takes early or late hours to capture the right light. Here are some recent photos from early morning and sunset explorations, looking for the best lighting for the location.


Downtown Santa Margarita.


Virg's Landing Sport Fishing - Morro Bay


Coastal chairs at sunset - Castle Inn - Moonstone Drive, Cambria


Leffingwell Point, Cambria

Morro Bay Power Plant at Dawn

Windows and Walls - Mission San Miguel

Mission San Miguel - located just off Highway 101 in the town of San Miguel - held it's annual Fiesta on Sunday Sept. 19. I brought the cameras along to snap some pictures of this historic site which has been undergoing restoration for the last few years.

You can read more about the Mission - which is still a fully operating church - about the restoration and upcoming events at the Mission San Miguel web site.

Chalk Art - Paso Robles

There was chalk on the sidewalk this Saturday around the Paso Robles downtown square as some very talented and creative folks brightened up the Park for the Arte de Tiza event.

Also underway Saturday afternoon was the Paso Robles Downtown Association's Taste of Paso Robles. Lot's of people strolled around the downtown in near perfect weather enjoying the food and wine of Paso.

Oh No - more cute kittens (please take one home!)

There must be a bug up there somewhere ....


I'm just so cute and stripy, how can you resist taking me home?
Visit the North County Humane Society to adopt a kitten or cat!

Camera Test, Atascadero Lake

Have you ever tried out all the setting on your digital camera? Far out settings like f29, ISO 12800, shutter speed 6000? All of the filters, in camera color processing, and special scene modes? (These are all options with my Pentax equipment, and I'm sure there are similar settings on other brand digitals).







I took the bright red KX out to Atascadero Lake Monday morning to try every setting possible and to learn what all the controls do. I'd recommend trying it with your digital camera. Find a nice location, bring the manual, put the camera on a tripod, and explore all the settings. Don't worry that the photos are not "Arizona Highways" quality - digital film is cheap, so don't skimp on photos.


Atascadero Lake Pavilion, HDR panorama composite of 18 photos. Next test, I'll shoot at a higher f stop and get crisper depth of vision.


10 mm wide angle digital lens - do trees really bend like that?


My companions for camera testing - they caught (and released) several 6" bass

Marine Band Concert in Cambria

The Marine Corp 1st Marine Division Band came to Cambria for the the Pinedorado parade and a noon time concert. They sounded great, and the enthusiastic crowd showed their appreciation with repeated standing ovations. The band played a mix of marches, traditional American songs, and jazzy pieces featuring some pretty hot players.

Thanks so much to the Cambria folks who worked so hard to bring the band to the festivities. Hopefully this will become an annual event.

Pinedorado Parade

Cambria's Pinedorado Parade - September 4, 2010


The Lion's Club Calliope


Librarians - carting books for sorting


Shriners from the Central Valley - We look forward to their visit every year.


Marine color guard, and pups along for the ride.

Cayucos Beach in the Fog

The fog provides minimal background. Objects vanish. Colors stand out against the greyness. Where is the end of that pier anyway ....

This is just a test ....

Hey, it worked!!! (This is the geek in me, amazed at technology.)

I took a close up digital pic with the Pentax, then used the in camera processing to alter colors, rotate 180 degrees, crop and re-size. I also applied a pastel filter and increased the sharpening slightly. I saved the processed photo back onto the memory card.

For memory, I took the Micro SD card from my phone, put it into an SD holder and put that in the camera. After transferring the pic to this card, I removed the Micro SD from the camera and put the chip back in my phone to send this picture to my blog page via Blackberry e-mail.

Next, I opened the photo in Pixlr on-line and did some more tweaking - adjusting levels and using the clone tool to remove a few spots.

Ok, its not the perfect picture, but I proved that I can do it. I'm sure this will be useful some day. For now it is just for fun.

Stone Soup Music Faire Photos

You can view some of my photos from this year's music festival at

http://catalottonthego.blogspot.com/p/stone-soup-music-faire-2010.html

For more details on this year's musical groups, see

http://groverbeachchamber.com/cm/Calendar/stone-soup.html

Midnight Moonlight Madness

(subtitle - I really should have been sleeping when I took these pictures)

The full moon this week presented some good photo opportunities - I just wish I knew better what I was doing with long night time exposures. Fortunately, digital film is cheap.

So I was up through some late night and early morning hours this week, but it was pleasant, mild weather, and good photo practice.

Photo to left is the moon about ready to set, around 5:45 am along Hiway 46 above Cambria, CA. 1700 ft above the fog. Pentax K20D with 300 mm lens. Underexposed -2.0 EV to show lunar details.




The Carlton Hotel, in beautiful downtown Atascadero CA, shortly after moonrise


Atascadero Feed and Grain elevator highlighted by moonlight


Golden hills, creeping fog, moonset and sunrise combine for interesting textures and colors.
Thursday morning around 6:10 am. Sunrise is still coming at 6:30 am.