I'm on vacation, nothing has to happen.

It's a little overexposed for my tastes.

Bob.

I live in the Eastern Sierra Nevada...............were you in my backyard again?

No it’s the river straight, look very carefully LOL

John I am planning something similar very soon, where nothing has to happen , I am 3 years overdue

"It's a little overexposed for my tastes.

Bob
Thanks for giving me something to think about when I start thinking about it again.

"I live in the Eastern Sierra Nevada...............were you in my backyard again?"

Robert
No, but I'm heading south...

" I am 3 years overdue.

Rory
Do it! Do it! You can do it.

"Hmmm, I kept waiting for something to happen - like Sasquatch floating down in an inner tube, but nothing!"

ROTFLMAO!

John……I did it …… I did it, ………I am outa here. Gone for a month to the Mascarene islands with the family to visit the family
My family leaves tomorrow and I leave next week Saturday same time

Cheers you bunch of overworked muts.

to the far left of the big mountain is where the family stay

It's a little overexposed for my tastes.

Now that I am back in the world of the working, I looked at the Canon G9 manual and, in deed, it allows me to manually change the exposure settings while shooting video. I agree that parts of the white water were completely blown out. I never disregard your comments, Bob. Even if it takes me a while to follow up because I'm having too much fun.

On a side note, I do own lens cleaner though I went for days without using it. I did take a shower every day, though.

I even posted some cheesy vacation videos to youtube to further expose my ignorance:

Links deleted. See below.

EDIT: After changing the levels on some of the source and after youtube changed their acceptable length to 15 minutes, I posted the whole trip as one video.

Hey John,
great videos ... I started them both at about the same time ... it was neat how the audio of one enhanced the viewing of the other ...
I especially like the shot of the Old Faithful Geezer - I just couldn't figure whether the geezer was the one standing on the right or the one standing on the left... lol

Great videos ... not cheesy at all ... a couple more video testimonials over what a great country this is ... (salute to you for seeing, and experiencing, some of it) . . .

Until that time ... Earl J.

[I]"I even posted some cheesy vacation videos to youtube to further expose my ignorance:"[/I]

The only way we learn is by exposing our ignorance.

The river is looking better, less sky in the shot.
For shots such as that where you've got bright sky with white clouds, deep shadows and white water in full sun there is no 'right' way to expose them. The difference between the amount of light over the frame is too great for the most expensive cameras to cope. If you must shoot in such conditions then how you expose the shot is a matter of "taste" as much as anything.
In your original shot the sky is blown out and has gone a strange color and the white clouds have lost any detail. The white water in the rapids has also blown out. On the other hand already there's no detail in the shadows.
My personal choice would be to reduce the exposure to retain the detail in the clouds and the water. Of course your shadows under the trees will be much darker.
Now there are tools you can add to the kit bag to help you. A polarizing filter is the most basic. Depending on the position of the sun and the direction you are shooting in they can significantly darken the sky. The next tool is a graduated ND filter. These generally require a matte box, you need several of them and they certainly cannot be used in every shot.
There is two really simple solutions.

1) Dim and/or diffuse that big light in the sky. That's really simple, you just have to wait for the sun to go down. Light cloud cover can really help to diffuse the light too. A lot of great location still involved someone waiting months for the right light so don't be too hard on yourself.

2) Change the shot. More than once I've seen something that looks fantastic to my eyes but soon realise the camera can just not capture it. So you just have to go for a bit of walk. In you shot of the river I'd be down by the river bank with the camera looking accross the water, have it fill more of the frame and get the sky out of the shot. Or I might try that and it plain doesn't work.
Don't be afraid to try things, it costs nothing to roll a camera these days. Not certain of the right exposure. Close or open the iris a bit and shoot it again.

What I'd do and this is just me, if I wanted to tell the story of that river, is this.
Shoot a wide shot like you have for several minutes.
Take a walk and get lots of closeups of the interesting details, the water, the rocks in the water, the trees, things under the trees, rays of light through the trees etc, etc. Shoot lots and let the camera roll for plenty of time, you might get lucky and not just get some good vision you might get some useful sounds.
Then when I got home I'd start with that wide shot for a few seconds and possibly keep the sound from that shot for the rest of the scene. I'd cut in the vision of all the details to built a narrative as you let the viewer explore the river and the surrounds. Maybe as I went deeper into the woods I'd change the sound track to something I recorded in the forest.

Hope that gives you some ideas. Remember even if it all stuffs up you had a good time trying something as you got out in the wilds and I for one am jealous :)

Bob.

I am always battling high dynamic range it seems. If you expose for the highlights you can do something about the lowlights/shadows later, at the expense of increased noise.

For stills I use PhotoWiz LightMachine.

In Premiere they have the excellent Shadow/Highlight effect which like LightMachine, allows adjustment of the shadows and highlights independently, without destroying local contrast.

In Vegas the best tool I have found is NewBlue Shadows and Highlights, part of the Video Essentials II pack, but it seems to just do a global warping of the brightness range. Shadows lightened lack contrast. It is better than nothing.

" what a great country this is"

Earl,
Too long ago, I worked as a traveling musician. We played in Jackson, Wyoming every summer for three weeks until I was drafted and stopped traveling. Once you've seen the Grand Tetons, you never get them out of your head. While I was traveling, I never went to Yellowstone, primarily, because it took too long to get through. We worked six days a week and traveled on our day off. The same is true for the Grand Canyon. It's a little off the beaten track. I certainly feel lucky to live in such a beautiful country. Even my brother-in-law's front yard is beautiful. Ten years ago I had an office in Englewood, Colorado that faced the Rockies. It was very difficult to get any work done because of my staring at the mountains. I've said often that if I lived within sight of Mount Shasta, my work life would be over.

Bob,
I'll study your comments like a textbook.

Thanks Peter.
I was able to bring out the detail in the shadows of one of the Grand Teton stills with Photoshop. We got off to a late start, dawdled in Bozeman, and had to drive slowly on Yellowstone roads that had loose gravel so it was near dark before we got to Jackson Hole. But, I have done little with Vegas in terms of filters.

How do you adjust the shadows of a video in Photoshop? Do you process it one frame at a time?

Mention of Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Jackson Hole brings back memories of a tour I did over your way in 2006. I remember a stage coach with driver in period dress in Jackson. It really looked authentic except that the driver was talking on his mobile phone!

...one of the Grand Teton stills with Photoshop.

I only adjusted the levels of a still, but you could export an image sequence from Vegas, "Process Multiple Files" in Photoshop and open the processed image sequence in Vegas. I use Photoshop Elements so the batch processing is rudimentery, but I imagine that the full version of Photoshop has better batch filters.

In the sixties, the stagecoach drivers and gunmen weren't distracted with cell phones. Neither was the audience.

John,
great opening; too long ago, (grin)
Great story ...

I friend of mine of 40 years just passed away on 1 JUL ... one of his great adventures (among many during his time in the Army), was re-tracing the journey of Lewis and Clark ... now that would be a fun trip ... I was always jealous of him for that - and doing it on Uncle Sam's dime to boot. . . (wink)

I went to Fort Carson once for a few days ... and drove across the country twice - first time back in 1973 ... it is a great land, no doubt ... (sigh)

Until that time ... Earl J.