No I didn't take a bunch of pictures of non-Gentiles, I just returned from a trip to Yosemite National Park and finally finished going through all of the images. If you're interested, take a look at the collection here:
Here are a few bits of advice based on this trip:
1. If you haven't been to Yosemite, you should go. Seriously.
2. If you want to go this summer, go now. The falls are going to dry up very early this year.
3. If you can avoid going during the summer, do. Yosemite is best from November through May.
4. Bring a tripod. Duh. (One guy asked about my "iPod" during this trip. I didn't correct him. ;-)
5. Polarizers are great for color saturation and for seeing down into the water. But they make rainbows disappear.
6. Split ND filters are required for taking pictures of mountains reflected in water.
7. If you haven't been to Yosemite, you should go. Seriously.
Oooh, those places are so on my list too, Dave. BTW, congrats on sticking with the smoking ban! That's no small feat, so you must be very happy with yourself.
Our trip was going to include 6 days in Yellowstone also but it got cut short by 7 days. Maybe next year. Thanks for the congrats. It was and still is hard some days yet.
It's a clear filter on one end with a neutral density on the other. Comes in round (not useful) and square/rectangular. You can get them in hard or soft transitions with varying levels of neutral density.
When you're shooting a landscape reflected in water, the bottom (water) half of the photo is usually at least a couple of stops darker than the upper half. Using a graduated ND filter can darken just the top half of the photo so that the exposure comes out more even. Even without water reflections, it's an excellent filter for shooting landscapes.
Phillip, hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread, but here are some photos from my recent trip to Yosemite. I whole-heartedly agree with Phillip's advice to visit Yosemite - I've been there 5-6 times already this year and it's different every time. The photos below that don't have exif info in the border are HDR images created with Photoshop CS3.
