Photogallery @ Drivehard.net

About 2 hours South of Silicon Valley just past Monterey, sits Point Lobos (Point of the Sea Wolves), a unique bit of rocky central California coast line. Prior to being a state reserve it served host to everything from a whaling station and cannery to a coal mine, military base and location shooting for several Hollywood film productions. The first few shots where taken en route to Point Lobos, first at a random beach cove off Highway 1, and then at Point Sur Lightstation (the hunk of volcanic rock beyond the barbed wire fence). All shots were taken with the Nikon D200 and later had the opportunity to borrow a (trusting) friend’s Nikon 200-400mm telephoto lens (which also had a 1.4x converter). Even though the 15″ long, 8lbs lens was a bit unwieldy, being able to see what the folks in Japan were up to that Thursday was well worth it. For perspective, the sea lions where at maybe 100 yards away and clearly seeing their whiskers was no sweat for this glass. As of yet Canon doesn’t offer a such an extreme telephoto that’s adjustable, they are simply fixed at 300mm, 400mm, etc. If you can afford it, this is once fantastic telephoto lens.I think my favorite shot is number 8. It’s interesting that the flower has the same spike laden defense mechanisms as the man made fence.I spent a few days in photography classes instructed by Pulitzer Prize winner Vincent Laforet who was also along for the days shoot and wanted to try out the 200-400 lens (since he’s a Canon guy). He snapped the last picture here, which I figured was as good or better than an autograph.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Nature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.