Christmas Tree Lighting In Truckee, California

Last night's Christmas Tree lighting in Downtown Truckee, California was a lot of fun. It has been a while since I'd been to a tree lighting. The main street in Downtown Truckee was shut down and there was a very large crowd of people. Lots of the shops were open late and treats were being given out to attendees.

The vibe felt like it was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Very warm smiles everywhere, and everyone was having a great time. Of course, I brought my camera and got a few photos of the tree right after it was lit up.

Shot with a Canon 5DS R and a 24-105mm lens. The ISO was 2500, the lens aperture was f/4.0, and it was a 1/30 of a second exposure. Shot handheld with no flash. Fortunately, the lens has nice image stabilization built into it so it was a sharp photo even though it was a somewhat longer exposure.

A lot of work was done to this image in Photoshop in order to get the most detail out of the shadow areas and sky. I also used Photoshop's newer AI noise reduction in order to get rid of most of the digital noise. The ISO 2500 setting can be very noisy with this camera the the AI noise reduction did an incredible job at cleaning up the noise. The image is not going up on my website, it probably would not look great when printed big. But I think it looks nice for blog posts and social media posts.

Truckee does a great job of decorating for the holidays. Here are a few more photos from previous years. I hope to get more similar images this year but I will have to wait until we get a decent amount of snow...

Interested in buying a Scott Shots print as a gift? Please use the coupon code WINTERSCOMING for 15% off your order at www.ScottShotsPhoto.com. (Expires 12-21-23)

Thank you for looking and I hope you are all having a great weekend!

Scott Thompson
Scott Shots Photography
www.ScottShotsPhoto.com

Yesterday's Rainbow Above Donner Lake

What? You don't see it? Look harder, it's there...

Alright, here is a better look at it below. I was on a hike and when I got to a summit where I could see the lake, I noticed the big rainbow! So I took a photo with my phone real quick. Rainbows can disappear quickly. By the time I got my Canon camera out of the bag for the photo above, the rainbow had started to fade. Oh well, it was still a nice shot and very nice to witness.

What am I pointing at? My home! I could see my apartment across Donner Lake and it looked like my new home was at the end of the rainbow. My little pot of gold! I actually love my new home, the location anyway. The size of the pad is very small, but it works for me and I am enjoying being here.

The trail that I was on crosses railroad tracks. Unfortunately, this very long train was stopped on the tracks and was blocking the trail. There was one train cart/car that had a lot of space under it so I quickly ducked under it and crossed the tracks. I'm glad I did, instead of turning around. The rainbow scene was just a little bit past this spot.

It was a long hike, about 8.3 miles. I am participating in a cross-country ski training program and we have scheduled walks and runs six days a week. It's a lot of work but I should be in great shape for winter. Feeling ready to get out on the skis with my camera and capture many more winter wonder land scenes! It's actually supposed to snow a bit this evening, so I may be out there soon rater than later...

Thanks for looking and I hope you are all having a great day!

Scott Thompson
Scott Shots Photography
www.ScottShotsPhoto.com