Sunday in San Clemente

After spending a week in Colorado with winds up to 90mph and evenings below zero, it was nice coming home to San Clemente for the weekend. Sunday morning brought bright sun and temps in the 70's. Even better, we were able to sit outside in our recently completed yard enjoying coffee and reading the Sunday Times.

DA12-24 Sample Images

All images photographed with a working sample of the DA12-24mm lens and an *ist-DS2. Photographs shot in RAW and processed into TIF files using Pentax PhotoLab. Only image processing done in PhotoShop was to set black and whitepoint in Levels and in two cases rotate the image to correct for slight tilt in perspective. The web images were created using Breezebrowser's html feature. You should be able to click on any blog image and see a larger file of the photograph.


FOV: 14mm f/8 @1/180




FOV: 15mm f/8 @ 1/90




FOV: 21mm f/8 @ 1/1000




FOV: 16mm f/8 @ 1/750




FOV: 12mm f/8 @ 1/1500




FOV: 16mm f/8 @ 1/500 Image rotated slightly for perspective




FOV: 24mm f/4 @ 1/30 Image rotated slightly for perspective

Central City, Colorado

Central City and Black Hawk is the site of Colorado's first major gold rush in 1859. Today, you can take a bus up here to get rich at the many casinos that, for some, have ruined the charm of this historic area. Driving up past the casinos you can reach the summit (9,000 ft) to explore the original Central City cemetery and remnants of the gold mines. Today was a beautiful fall day and the Aspen trees were at their peak, as seen in the photo of the Boodle Mill. All photos, expect Boodle Mill, were shot with the Pentax *istDS and the DA14mm lens.

California Woody

Being one of the oldest surfing beaches in California, San Onofre is the mecca for examples of the "classic" surfing lifestyle. Here's the ultimate surf wagon - a 1946 Ford Woody. Today, these wagons sell for $60,000 to $80,000, even with a little rust and wear. Photos taken with a Pentax *istDS and DA16-45mm lens.

Yuta, Yoji and Mike

Miki and Mike brought the kids down to our house Saturday afternoon. Yuta and Dad had fun inspecting the construction work in our yard. Yoji loves just sittin 'n rockin.

Profiles in Ikebukuro

My routine on the last morning in Japan, on most trips, is to get a Starbucks coffee and sit on the steps of the Crown Plaza hotel. I enjoy people watchng and the shade-covered sidewalk gives me a great view of the hustle and bustle of people on their way to and from Ikebukuro Station.
The temporary wall at the construction site across the street provided me with a perfect backdrop to photograph folks as they passed by. As these are quick visual sketches and not perfectly composed studies, I just picked one view or perspective and randomly photographed people as they passed across my field of view. All photographs shot with a Pentax *istD-S and the 16-45mm lens.

We have concrete

They poured the concrete for our spa today. It needs to be sprayed twice a day for the next week to prevent cracks while it cures. The pebble-tech surface goes on next.

California Dreamin