plnelson
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 p.1 #1 · Yosemite Trip Report (LONG!) | |
I just returned from a week-long set of hikes in Yosemite. My wife and I were there with a hiking group so it wasn't a photographic trip, per se. Still, I brought a D300, a Nikkor 12-24, Nikkor 24-70, and Nikkor 300 f/4.
Conditions were a little tough because massive wildfires nearer the coast made a pall of smoke throughout the park, which limited visibility. Also it was quite hot - at the National Park Service visitor's center in the valley, which is at about 4000 feet, the daytime temperatures reached 105F two days in a row. We were hiking mostly around 7000-10000 feet where it was still in the 90's. (Fresno, where we flew into, hit 112F while we were there!). Despite the heat, elevation, and weight I was lugging - camera gear plus 3 liters (approx 6 pounds) of water - I did not find the hiking very difficult because the trails are much smoother and more gradual with lots of switchbacks than the ones I'm used to in Maine and New Hampshire. The hardest thing was sleeping in the heat back at our lodge - a converted Army barracks with no cross-ventilation. Our room had a screened door to the outside but we had to keep the bottom half closed because critters could break in. One member of our party came back from dinner to find a raccoon in her room!
I shot 3 2G CF cards - about 150 frames, and probably chimped out another 50 in-camera. I hardly used the 300 at all, I mostly used the 24-70, and then the 12-24. Even at f/8-f/11, the 12-24's 'sweet spot', its edge and corner performance was significantly poorer than the 24-70. It also had some really weird flare problems. In one case I was shooting up through the inside of a hollowed-out sequoia (imagine a long tunnel with a light at the end) and it was simply impossible to shoot this flare-free! I also experienced strange purple rings in some woodland shots even when the sun was nowhere near the frame and the lens was properly hooded. Between the edge sharpness and flare problems I wished I had a better wide-angle. The 14-24 would have been sharper but by most accounts its flare problems are even worse, and, of course, it's a heavy lens to hike with.
I had brought an Op-Tech chest strap to hold my camera in place while hiking, but I found that the normal chest-strap on my pack worked better - if I pointed the camera down so its base rested on my chest and I placed the pack's chest strap at the corner of the pentaprism housing and lens it worked great. I'm glad I brought the Op-Tech strap anyway because I used it to strap a desk fan to the back of a chair in our lodge to help sleep.
I didn't get many real "keepers" on this trip. As I said, it wasn't really a photographic expedition, so there was no real opportunity to wait or set up for the perfect lighting or background. And scenics aren't really my specialty so I don't have the creative instincts for it. Also the haze/smoke didn't help - it wasn't thick enough to use as a compositional element but it was thick enough to obscure mountains across the Valley, so mostly I got nice sharp, properly-exposed tourist shots. There was almost no interesting wildlife - marmots, deer, and squirrels were constant pests and many times when we stopped for lunch on the trail someone was assigned guard duty with a big stick, but I have all of them back east where I either kill them or use an electric fence to keep them from wrecking my garden. Also we had Stellar's Jays, plus bears in the distance and racoons at night, but we saw nothing exotic or interesting. With the exception of the bears I was able to shoot the critters so close that I could use the built-in flash and get pretty full-frame shots with my 24-70. There were lots of good flowers if you're into that.
But the biggest problem shooting in Yosemite is that the bar is so high. People think of Ansel Adams, but he's just the beginning. Many great photographers have done extraordinary work in Yosemite right up to this day. It takes patience and time and an intimate knowledge of the lighting and seasons of the Park (plus a little luck), but judging by some of the photos I've seen it's still possible to take exciting, new, original photos of what has to be one of the most photographed places on earth, if you have the time and patience and aptitude.
As a side note, 80% of the DSLR's I saw among other tourists were Nikons - everything from D40's to D3's. I have no idea why there was such a lopsided ratio.
Edited by plnelson on Jul 14, 2008 at 04:11 PM GMT
Edited on Jul 14, 2008 at 04:11 PM
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