Rose Parade

It’s already January 13th, and I’m just blogging about the Rose Parade — well, not even the parade, but the floats. I’ve lived in Southern California about 30 years and I’ve never gone to see the Rose Parade — not live and in person. In fact, on many a New Year’s Day morning, I didn’t even get up in time to see it live, on TV, but watched the ‘encore presentation’ that a local TV station is kind enough to run right after the parade. I’m not sure, but I think those floats looked just as good at 10AM as they did at 7.

I decided things would be different, this year. No, I didn’t have plans of cuddling in a sleeping bag, with my wife, on a Pasadena sidewalk, all night, just to get a good view. And no, I wasn’t going to be a volunteer and help glue a gazillion flower seeds on a mechanical bird for two week, before the parade. What I decided to do was go to Pasadena two days after the parade and see (and photograph) the static displays of all the floats, fenced off on two city streets. I got to Pasadena City College about 8AM, parked for free, and paid $3 for the shuttle bus and $7 for admissions and was able to walk right up and touch — OK, they don’t want you to actually touch — the floats.

I’m not going to spend too much time talking about camera settings, except to say that I could have probably shot the whole morning at 1/60 & f16 — sort of the basic f16 Rule! What I actually did, for most images, was shoot in Aperture Priority, ISO 200 with a Nikon D700. The lens was a non-VR 24-120mm. It’s not the kit lens that sometimes comes with the D700, but a predecessor of the VR lens. It’s about 10 years old. While not a particularly fast lens (f3.5-5.6), it was perfect for the bright Southern California morning, and for the range of focal lengths I needed.

Since I had 360 degree access, and the sun was move from low in the sky to overhead, the AP settings got a little adjustment, from time-to-time. For example, if I was shooting the shady side of a float, I dialed in a little +exposure (maybe .3 to .7EV). When I had a lot of sky, I underexposed a little to make the sky a deeper blue.

One drawback to the wy the floats where displayed, it that they had security barriers very close, so that it was sometimes difficult to crop them out of the photo. This is an example:

People and Security Baricades were Hard to Crop Out

Unable to get the composition I wanted, in camera, I made the following crop in Photoshop.

This Crop Was Made in Photoshop

With the sky as a background, I can almost convince myself that this fish is swimming in the sea — OK, the sailboat, beneath the fish is hard to explain!.

Aren't the Boats Supposed to be On Top?

24MM

The Above Angle, But Zoomed In

By setting the lens at it’s largest aperture (f3.5) when at widest angle (20mm), it will maintain the widest available zoom, for each focal length (5.6 @ 120mm).

54MM, f4.8, 1/800

This little guy reminds me of a puffer fish that I played with, while diving of Barbados, about 1975. Good memory, huh? Wonder if I can still get into those swim trunks!

Not Sure Those Power Cables Would be There in the Ocean

The next two shots show the difference that your camera angle can make. In the first, the power cables really take away from the image. By changing angles, you get a cleaner background. Shot #2 isn’t perfect. It could benefit from some tighter cropping. Also, a lot of foreground detail is lost in the shadows. I made a trade-off. I could have opened up, a little, to get more detail, but then I would have lost some of the blue, in the sky. I went for the sky.

Of course, there are two other options: I could have used a gradiated, neutral density filter, to keep the sky a deep blue, while allowing me to get more shadow detail — but, I didn’t have on with me. Sometimes, you are on a ‘job’ and have a lot of equipment available. Other times, you are just out and about, and have a camera with you. A second option would be to pull some detail, from the shadows, in post.

The third image was what I felt would be the best composition.

Generally, photographs are most powerful when they tell story. The next image give us details, but the second gives us the ‘story’ because it shows the protagonists.