The San Diego area is getting more rain tonight and later on in the week. It’s not nearly the same amount as last week but will probably be the last significant amount we get in this area for the remainder of the year. It was fun while it lasted.

Yesterday afternoon/evening, I met up with a fellow photographer to do some night photography at Coronado, CA. We are both new to night photography so we really didn’t have too many expectations. We did, however, have an idea as to what we wanted to take pictures of – the Coronado Bridge and the San Diego Skyline. The lighting on the bridge wasn’t really ideal so we ended up focusing on capturing the San Diego Skyline.

With night photography, a tripod is a must but what I wasn’t prepared for was the need for a shutter release cable. This was evident in the later part of the evening when the exposure reached over 30 seconds long. I had to make due with making adjustments to the ISO and aperture to get proper exposure.

The picture above was one of the better ones that I captured during the later part of the evening. The picture below was taken about 45 minutes after the sunset. Love the purplish lighting. By the way, this is not a true panoramic. The original photo had to much dead space and broke the rule of thirds, so I decided to make it look like a pano.

ISO200, 35mm, f16, 30sec

More photos to come…

The other day, I received an email verifying that my photo was chosen to be included in the upcoming edition. You can’t even imagine how psyched I am about this! Below is the photo that will be included in the San Diego guide for the Wild Animal Park.

You can check out the guide for the Wild Animal Park here:

www.schmap.com/sandiego/tours_tour5/p=27771/i=27771_141.jpg

For those that do not know about Schmap, they are a publisher of digital travel guides for 200 destinations throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Their guides can be downloaded from their site or browsed online with verisons optimized for iPhone and Nokia users. For more information, check out their website: http://www.schmap.com/

The San Diego Wild Animal Park is…WILD!

I would totally recommend going here instead of the San Diego Zoo if you had to pick and choose. The first time I went to the Zoo at Balboa Park, it was hit or miss if I would actually see the animal in their exhibit. At the Park, I didn’t have that problem. At least not on this trip.

The Park offers many different options for you too see the animals. I chose to walk around the park to witness the 3000+ animals in their natural environment. There are many exhibits such as The Nariobi Village, Condor Ridge, Heart of Africa and my favorite, Lion Camp.

The park also offers different tours to see the exhibits and to interact with the animals. These tours have an additional fee which you’ll need to check when you first enter the park. Some of the different tours include: Journey Into Africa – A tour ride that will take you into the wilds of Africa to observe animals in their naturalistic environment. Rolling Safari – A unique two hour tour that takes you on an off road path using Segway X2. Photo Caravans – A Safari tour where you get a unique opportunity to go into the heart of the Wild Animal Park and feed giraffe’s or rhinoceros.

When my family comes down to visit in late May, I’m definitely taking them here and will undoubtedly do one or two of these tours. For this trip, walking gave me the best opportunity to take some great photos of the park and animals. Here are a few of my favorites.

Enjoy!