leighton w wrote:
Good to see you John, love the third one.
Thanks Leighton. The 16/3.5 is the only lens I get out with on a regular basis these days.
Still have the 400/5.6 ED-AI and the 300/4.5 ED AI, but have not used them much lately (plus they are too heavy to drag up a mountain ).
There's a new pup in town. My only hope with him and MFNG is to get him good and tired and give him a stick to work on. The 70-200 sure is earning its keep, though.
These were shot with the F5, 100 Series E, and Portra 800.
It has been so smoky here for so long, with only the odd break. In Montana, we seem to be. down wind of any fire on the west coast - from California, Oregon. Washington, BC and Idaho - this year especially. This has made landscape photography particularly challenging.
Last week I spent some time in an area east of here known as the Rocky Mountain Front (RMF), scouting for the upcoming fall colors. It is where the plains meet the mountains with dramatic escarpment cliffs, called "reefs" (as in Capitol "Reef" NP). It is said to be one of the most biodiverse areas of the US. All the animals that were here when Lewis and Clark cruised through are still here. This is especially true of the grizzly bear - this was its major habitat before colonization - something that was really on my mind as I was also shooting astro at night up there!
On this trip, I decided to shoot only my Df + legacy lenses, as I had "Sony-ed out" and needed grounding in that more tactile experience.
The smoke was pretty bad, but Thursday, a little less so - one could actually see blue in the dawn sky.
This first image is the breaking dawn to the east (cropped 5x7)
RMF dawn by Doug Stevens, on Flickr
Nikon Df; ISO 100: 35mm f2 AIS @ f5.6; 15 sec
The second image is of the cliffs above where I was camped. This is illumined from the glow of the dawn, before the sun rose above the band of smoke on the horizon (cropped 4x5):
At the time, I thought I wanted the wide angle of the 35. However, back home I ended up cropping this quite a bit - I think I would have been better served using my 50.
Finally, after the sun was actually up over the smoke bank, to the north, "Castle Reef" with the 105: (also 5x7):
).
