Picture of the week

Oak of resilience

Lone oak tree on the Table Mountain plateau just northeast of the town of Oroville. This scene was photographed near sunset while an oncoming storm front was moving into the area.  Lightning could also be seen in the distance, forcing a hastier retreat off the table. Being up at about 1000 feet above the adjacent valley floor, storm fronts moving across the northern Sacramento Valley tend to form up here. This is because the air is pushed upward, causing it to cool, and results in more condensation of the air into clouds. For this reason, you may see a bit more rain in this area than down in the upper Sacramento valley.  The open plain on the plateau here tends to also get quite a bit of wind, being exposed from the west, south, and north like an island in the sky.  The wildflowers have continued to be active and colorful, but going into decline. I expect conditions should be favorable for another week.

This image was photographed on a tripod using a Canon 5D mark III with a 24-105 f/4 L zoom lens. To properly capture this image, 2 separate exposures were captured in a bracketed configuration with settings of 28mm, ISO 400, f/11, 1/5 second + 1/15 second for the first and second images.  This allowed getting a more balanced exposures of both the sky and foreground. Mirror lock-up and a cable release was also used to further reduce any vibrations. The two bracketed images were then combined during post-processing using Photoshop CS5. I prefer this more manual approach versus the use of automatic HDR tools, as it is easier to achieve a result that maintains the realism of the scene in terms of color and contrast.

All content and images are property of Stephen Fischer Photography, copyright 2014.  Last updated: 4/20/2014   ()