Hey all,

Just recently returned from a skiing excursion over the St. Patty's Day weekend in Austria. Thought I'd share the images with you

1) On the first day, we went to "Bad Gastein" and it was an absolutely incredible scene on the slopes. I've never seen such beautiful snow before. And it was also the quietest place I've ever been - stunning.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA 18-135 WR




2) Another take on the above scene. As you can see, those are ski trails in the foreground - unbelievably beautiful trails.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




3) One of the guys we were with enjoying a smoke and a beer after a day on the slopes.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




4) A portrait of my skiing partner gliding towards me.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




5) Me at the "Top of Salzburg." There is a building built on the side of the mountain face that has a platform to stand out on and view from the top. Stunning vista.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




6) And of course it would have been conduct unbecoming if we left without having a beer
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA 18-135 WR




7) A view of the top of the ski resort and the glacier, as well as the surrounding massifs. It would have been fun to bring a fish eye and really bring out the curvature of the earth.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA 18-135 WR




8) I found the elaborate spider web of interconnecting paths interesting. Also didn't deliberately time it to get the railcar/gondola/lift (whatever you call it in your corner of the globe lol) at the top like that, however I think it helps ground the image.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




9) We climbed to the top of the glacier as far as we could and it came to a cliff where you could look on the backside of the mountain. Man what a view!
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA 18-135 WR




10) Looking over the other side, I fell absolutely in love with the textures of the untouched snow. To get this shot, because it was so bright out, I had to underexpose the entire image by about -3eV. Probably a bit too much, but I didn't want to blow any of the highlights. Instead I had to work out of "shadow" details, which the K-5/K-30 series has so much latitude to work with because of the incredible dynamic range. Also, I discovered that this setting works very well for bright snow scenes, and proceeded to make my very first Lightroom Preset In case anyone is interested, below this image is the screenshot of my LR4 settings for the preset.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA 18-135 WR






11) A zoomed in shot of the central crag in the above image. This also used the above preset.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




12) Particularly the bottom right, it seems to be made of silk rather than snow.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




13) I remembered that my watch has an altimeter (Suunto Vector HR - a great watch if you are an active outdoor person), so we tried to get as high as we could and then ski as far down as we possibly could.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




14) The view from the top of where we were going to start skiing from.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA 18-135 WR




15) And we finally made it down! You probably missed it, so scroll up to the other image and see the time difference - the bottom row on my watch in both images My legs were KILLING me
Pentax K-5IIs, DA* 50-135




16) And so the correct answer was that it was time for a beer break! Anyone need a model?
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA 18-135 WR




17) A shot of the slopes towards the end of the day with everyone backlit by the setting sun. I used the aforementioned preset on this one as well. I really love how this image turned out.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




18) One of the bars on the mountain was an igloo made of three interconnecting igloos. Here you can see a bed of bean bag cushions for skiers and snowboarders and the bar made of sculpted ice/snow in the background. It took me about 20 minutes to get this shot because of everyone walking directly in front of me and taking out this cell phones to photograph the bar. I was a bit irritated, but I waited, and it cleared out with a bunch of people on the bed at the same time, so it was worth the wait. Still frustrating though. And yes, that is a TV in a cut out in the wall...

Pentax K-5 IIs, DA 18-135 WR




19) By the end of the last day, there was so much snow it was reaching whiteout conditions. Super dangerous but super exciting at the same time. I called it quits at this point.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




20) The wind started blowing really hard, and as a result the powder was getting blown to where it was an interesting effect on the packed snow. I tried to capture it with a slow shutter speed to emphasize the wind blowing, and just by chance, a snow boarder jumped right in the frame. I was impressed with Pentax's Shake Reduction here. 1/20s handheld in the blowing (and bitingly cold) wind at 135mm. It was super bright and even with an aperture of f/22, it was still too fast, so I remembered I had a CPL in my bag and attached it to act as a weak ND filter to lengthen the shutter speed.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




21) So I started taking pictures of the guys I was with. I thought a flat white background with just person on it was boring, so I found this small tree and used it to help ground the image a bit. I think that it added to the image as opposed to just being "empty." Thoughts?
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




22) Same concept as above, slightly different framing. I feel like this might be a tad underexposed as well...
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




23) My skiing partner coming down the mountain. As you can tell, the visibility was getting really bad as this was only maybe 20m away. I lowered the clarity a little to enhance that feeling. I really like how this came out.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135




24) Same as above.
Pentax K-5 IIs, DA* 50-135



It was my first real outing with the K-5 IIs, and I must say, that I am impressed with it's improvements over the K-5. The obvious AF improvements with regard to locking in low light - I never once had an issue except for complete lack of contrast in scenes (i.e. a blanket of snow with no shadows). More importantly is the image quality, and I must add this at the very end - not a single image above was sharpened. The resolution is incredibly impressive. The K-5 IIs is the camera for me for the next several years, and I must say, that with the small caveat of needing cutting edge predictive tracking for AF, I can recommend the K-5 IIs with no reservations. I still have yet to find moire

It was a blast, it really was, and I hope you enjoyed

-Heie

[patrick9]

Glad to see you home safe, and enjoying some R&R. Nice series Definitely a different kind of bar not many igloo bars here in TN.

[jford]

Some really beautiful shots, and together makes a nice story.
Thanks for sharing.

[Tamia]

Great series, Alex. You've done a super job of capturing the texture and nuances of snow. Pictures of snow are often far too flat for my taste and leave out its character. I particularly like Numbers 11, 12, 17, 20, which are very well done. One question: In Photo 7, is that zig-zagg feature a cross-country ski track in the middle- to lower left? A beginners' run? Never saw anything like it in my downhill skiing days. Lovely country, and thanks for posting, especially because I'm considering the K-5IIs and the snow shots are the kind I like to shoot myself.

[Na Horuk]

Really nice series, thanks for posting! A bunch of really stunning shots, I especially like the ones of the ski slopes with ski trails and the mountain ranges

[volley]

A great set of shots. Especially the B&W conversions #10 and #17 are outstanding!

[kcmadr]

The black and white snowscapes are really excellent, but #17 is just sublime. I can stare at it for ages. If I had another arm it would be 3 thumbs up for #17!!!

Great job Alex.

[miles]

Excellent Heie, these are amazing! My favourites are #3, 8, 10-11, 17, 20. Looks like you had a wonderful time!