Aleksandr and Victoria Gallery

   In case if you are going to look for best spots with fall colors in California, I recommend to check out Carol Leigh’s blog. Arguably the best tracker of fall colors in California (and beyound).

Since I started tradition of posting news from Sony/Minolta world, omission of such a big news would not be excusable. Here it is, long awaited Full Frame Sony. Check out dpreview’s preview (sorry for the pun).

As always, David Kilpatrick gave a good a look at the new gear. His insightful articles could be found at www.photoclubalpha.com.

I personally like the headline picture from dpreview showing both A700 and A900. Look at those 50/1.4 Minolta branded lenses! Minolta is still alive!

It’s interesting to compare A700 and A900 side by side (click on the image to zoom it in). Essentially, A900 looks like an upgraded and scaled up A700. As many reviewers noticed, A700 users will feel home while handling A900 body. Funny enough, huge pentaprism housing on top of the camera drew the most attention and became a subject of jokes from Canikans. Well, if you buy camera to be fashionable, then you better spend your money on Louis Vuton and Prada. Real photographer does not care how his camera looks. Right?

Dreamstime stock photos site featured one of our photos in its blog.

Thanks Dreamstime!

Here’s the link to the article:

http://blog.dreamstime.com/2008/07/01/hot-hot-hot_art26706

This spring in California like the previous one was not photogenic. Late rains in Northern California and relatively cold weather did not let the mother nature to show its all beauty. Although it was reported that some areas in Sierra were showing some decent blooming and dogwoods were fine as always in the Yosemite Valley. Can’t confirm this as we were not there. This spring we checked one of our favorite spring spots - Pacheco Park. This year we could find some patches of poppies but that is almost about it.

Anyway, we enjoyed a little hiking, good sunny weather and nice views. Here’s a couple of pictures from that trip.

Good bye Spring!

and a few pictures from 2 years back:

New Victoria’s painting just posted to the gallery. Enjoy…

Probably most known view of Yosemite Valley. Call it a business card or postcard. Anyway, it was hard to pass it by. This picture was taken this January when we were going skiing to the Badger Pass. Unfortunately, snow slide cut the road to the Badger and we had to turn around. We did not regret as we spent day hiking and snow downhill sledging snowy slopes of Yosemite Valley. We had a lot of fun.

… and family photo from the same spot.

Photos from the trip to Uvas Canyon which is located between Morgan Hill and San Jose, CA. This year, in contrast to previous one, is abundant with precipitation. January was especially wet. At least here in Bay Area. So last few weeks were perfect for photographing waterfalls. We did not play to do extensive hikes for this season.

Uvas Canyon is very accessible and conveniently located. Waterfall loop starts right at the parking lot and goes along the Uvas Canyon Creek. Along the the way you can see 3 relatively big waterfalls and several picturesque rapids. It’s perfect for short hikes with little kids. We’ve arrived in late afternoon and did not have much time to explore all waterfalls in the area. But those we reached and photographed were spectacular and completely worth the visit. Upper Falls and Black Rock Falls are most beautiful and biggest. First picture shows Upper Falls.

Upper Falls

Stream

P.S. Afterwards, we found out that we missed one of the park gems - Uvas Falls. No wonder, as it’s not even marked on the park maps (bump!). Here’s the link to the “missing” waterfall:

http://www.waterfallswest.com/ca-uvas-falls.html

We’ll check it out next year.

David Kilpatrick put together a good review on new entry level Sony DSLR.

You can find it here:

http://photoclubalpha.com/2008/02/14/sony-alpha-200-review/

Good report with videos and hands-ons on new cameras including Sony A350.

http://reviews.photographyreview.com/pma2008/

As a Minoltian guys I’m keeping my eye on news from Sony camp closely. At last PMA Sony managed to surprise the market by announcing new entry level DSLR’s with live view. This is fully functional Live View, i.e. focusing and all other functions are intact when Live View is turned on. Kudos to Sony!

Here’s the link to press release on dpreview site:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0801/08013004sonyalpha300350.asp

Some lucky sony/minoltians managed to lay their hands on new camera and even post first preview:

http://www.alphamountworld.com/previews/alpha-a300350-hands-previewfirst-impress