Michael Schneider Photography

Washington DC 2011

Michael — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:28:00 +0000

Just catching up on old photos. Here’s a couple of photos shot from the FDR Memorial across the tidal basin. These were taken with my second copy of the Canon EF 50mm 1.4, and to my surprise, this copy’s AF motor also fried, so I took it in for a repair. There’s no chance I will purchase this lens again, despite its great value and decent glass. Sigma makes a competitor that is supposed to be just as good.

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New Year’s Celebrations 2012: Seattle

Michael — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:52:38 +0000

Happy New Year! I’m pretty convinced that 2012 will be much better than 2011. I went up to Seattle for the weekend to spend time with family and some friends that I haven’t seen in quite some time. The town is still rocking. It isn’t the sleepy city that everyone makes it out to be. These photos are taken from Queen Anne district, up on a hill at Kerry Park. Fireworks are sometimes difficult to expose for, as they can be overwhelmingly bright against the background, and you want to get a good 1-3 second exposure to light up the patterns. Too short, and you don’t have the streaks. Too long, and the color turns into bright white blobs. Plus there is all the people that want to knock your tripod over. Enjoy. Prints available at the gallery.

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Glacier National Park 2011

Michael — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:22:40 +0000

The crown of Montana! Glacier National Park lies on the north border where Montana meets Alberta. The entire park is carved out my ancient glaciers, producing mountainous peaks and gorgeous lakes. The park has gone through a variety of changes, both short and long term. Over the past century, numerous glaciers have disappeared as a result of warmer climate, and most recently the park has suffered a forest fire. The park, including the famous “Going-to-the-Sun Road,” has gone through some renovations. There is wildlife everywhere. I was advised to carry bear mace (bairspray right?) along with the rest of my gear on hikes. The trip entailed flying into Great Falls, buying some camping gear, renting an SUV to sleep in, and camping a few nights at the park. Woke up early for some sunrise shots at St. Mary Lake. Overall, an scintillating location to travel. Enjoy the photos.

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Chicago 2011

Michael — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:29:14 +0000

Chicago was a short trip, where I managed to test out some new panoramic equipment and filters. After merging 8 RAW photos from the 5D Mark II and cropping out some water below, the original ended up being 97 megapixels. In short, I can print this photo out poster size on a high dpi printer with little loss in detail. The photo below has been shrunk to 4000 pixels long, only 1/6th of the original length. Megapixels is a big hype if you only ever plan to print 16×20 or smaller, but with pano equipment I can now use a 70-200mm or similar telephoto lens to stitch multiple photos together to create a MUCH sharper image than the 16-35mm wideangle lens. You’ll see more of this soon.

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Utah 2011

Michael — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 02:09:45 +0000

While out rotating at a hospital in Denver, I made a trip out to Moab, UT where my friend Billy worked and lived. The flight from Denver was on a Beechcraft 1900D, a 19-seater turboprop. Nice flight over the Rockies. The first trip that we made after arriving on a Friday night was a midnight hike to Delicate Arch. This proved to be fairly difficult. We used headlamps to guide our way to the arch, but our lamps were starting to go dim and we were losing moonlight. The last stretch was along an icy cliff (evidently in February it still snows in Moab). The 2-mile hike to the arch turned into a 3-mile hike after having to retrace our steps many times.

The photos of Delicate Arch are long exposures. I probably would’ve preferred even longer exposures to get longer startrails, but with a halfmoon interfering and the freezing temps, we were cut for time, as our next trip was about to begin. The closer photo is roughly an 8-minute exposure at ISO 1600 f/8.0.

After a 45-minute powernap, Billy and I woke up and made a 3-hour roadtrip down to the UT-AZ border, where we visited Monument Valley for sunrise. We caught a few shots, and gazed at the enormity. It felt like an alien world getting close to the landscape.

Finally, we returned to Moab and Arches National Park, and raced across an unmarked trail in Billy’s Land Rover chasing good light to nab a few shots of Balanced Rock and The Windows.

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Italy 2008

Michael — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 03:33:29 +0000

Ah! Thanksgiving! Which means I have a little more time outside my schedule to hunt more old photos to revise and share. I ventured into my 2008 Europe photos to find those taken in Italy. Played around in photoshop a bit more, and came up with these. Enjoy.

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Oregon 2010

Michael — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:04:57 +0000

Following First-Year summer final exams, my father and I travelled back to Oregon to visit family again. This time I brought along a lighter load–I recently acquired Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod (that TSA didn’t consider to be a bludgeon weapon this time!), and some new Lowepro equipment, which if I have time, I’ll have to write a review on here on my slowly returning website (I promise! New material will begin to appear!). Anyways, here’s a few shots that I acquired while visiting family.

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This is where these photos was basically taken:

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Two Trips to Paris 2008

Michael — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:35:09 +0000

I took a trip and visited Steph & Liz for New Year’s 2008 in Paris while Steph was studying abroad at Sciences Po. Took photos of Place de la Concorde fountain, Tour Eiffel, Champs-Elysse, Sacre Coeur, and other Paris places of interest. Some of the photos didn’t come out well, so while I was studying abroad in Europe, I returned to get more photos over the summer.

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The Place de la Concorde fountain wasn’t running during the winter. The trip during the summer redeemed that. Paris has numerous stories, people, smells, dishes, and textures within its old walls. Hopefully future travels will reveal more of them.

Independence Day 2010 @ Peachtree City, GA

Michael — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:37:05 +0000

For this year’s 4th of July I visited home to see the parents and photograph this year’s fireworks at Lake Peachtree. Peachtree City certainly has some of the best fireworks in the region for a small city (40,000ish), and many from town travel in their golf carts and bikes to the lake to watch. Great show this year–not as good as past years, but hey, times are tough recently. Gotta pay for the small pyrotechnics package. Thanks again John & Caroline for hanging out with me and letting me park at your new residence and bike over with you to the show!

For this shoot, I used bulb setting and a cable release to hold down the shutter for the lengths of the fireworks. I wanted to get a little bit of background as well, so I had to judge what aperture and ISO settings to use as the sun was setting. These were shot with the 16-35 f/2.8L II and the 85 f/1.2L II on the 5D Mark II. I also took a short video that I may play around with later.

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Costa Rica 2009

Michael — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:38:48 +0000

While photographing Ciera and Christian’s wedding down in Costa Rica, I managed to nab a few personal photos. Costa Rica features black sand beaches from the offshore volcanic activity, and of all the Central American countries, Costa Rica appears to be the most politically stable, boasting both a strong tourism economy and lacking the need for a military. It is warm there all year long, with a dry season and a wet season.

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