Great, Thomas!
Of course, some dramatic clouds would always be a nice touch -- did you forget your #9 cloud filter, too?
Vaughn
Great, Thomas!
Of course, some dramatic clouds would always be a nice touch -- did you forget your #9 cloud filter, too?
Vaughn
Oh heck. I'm pretty much a has-been, Vaughn. Nowadays you've got these twenty somethings who will do fifty or sixty miles nonstop within a 24 hr period and climb some
remote class 2 or class 3 peak in the process. Ultralight is an understatement. They'll carry
a sweater or light parka, a water bottle, and a few candy bars. Spooky if they get hurt or
a storm moves in on them. For me an ultralight pack would be 60 lbs ... just a slow old
human pack mule, more comfortable slogging uphill than down. And I sure love the air up
on top those high passes. I was so sick as a kid with life-threatening allegies that the only
way I could find relief in the summers was in the clean air at high altitude. Guess I got
addicted to it.
Better a has-been than a never-been. My days of carrying an 85+ pound pack (w/4x5) down into the Grand Canyon for 10 nights are way way over. Sixty pounds sounds about right -- that is my 8x10 pack and tripod anyway. It was been decades since I packed into the High Sierras. These coastal mountains just don't get that high -- 8000' if one is lucky.
I've cut weight other ways. Recently bought a Patagonia down sweater which is more warm than my old goosedown jacket but half the wt. Picked up a Big Agnes ultralight tent
which saves me three more pounds over my Bibler - wouldn't want to use it in high winds
above timeberline, but so far it has done fine in summer and fall snowstorms. I've got a
carbon fiber tripod in reserve for my 8x10, though I still prefer the big Ries, and have
acquired a 6X9 rollfilm back for my 4x5 - I really like the proportions, but have to resort to
ASA25 film (Efke) to get comparable quality, and focus is fussier than with full 4x5. There
are quite a few ways to save wt, though for weekend training I try to keep the pack at
least 75 lbs. Trying to squeeze in some of those really long steep dream trips in the Sierras
while I'm still in my 60's. But I think arthritis in my hands will squelch the Class 3 stuff.
Unfortunately it was a cloudless mid-summer day. I shot it first from the right after managing to climb up on top of a rock there and somehow managing the level the tripod (Gitzo G 1348) and then again from this location to the left. This was some time ago and maybe I used a polarizer which would have darkened the sky as well...can't remember now. I exposed a sheet of C-41 and B&W at each location and this is the first time that I printed any of them.
More interesting to me is the image along the Merced that I posted today in the Yosemite thread. I printed in a few days ago and it's growing on me - has a nice peaceful lazy river mood about it and is a snappy 8x10 print. I'm going to enlarge it tonight and hang it on a wall - maybe above the sofa . Itr will look good there. This will be my first enlargement after switching to Fred Picker's "3-second burst" method. An enlargement from 8x10 to 16x20 should be about a 4x increase in exposure time or 9 seconds to 36 seconds in this case with the same aperature. It will be interesting to see if going from 2 "burst" to 9 burst will have any appreciable effect on the resulting print or would it be better to open up two stops and keep the time the same?
Thomas
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