Frank, thanks for your kind comments!
It's time now to wrap up this series of photos from a fruitful and enjoyable photographic expedition. This is my last photo post in this thread.
First, though, I'll discuss some lessons learned and questions raised.
I've spent the last eight years or so trying to unlearn decades of bad entrenched habits and relearn photography. On a practical level this has meant abandoning my former overuse of small apertures and wide angles to produce thematically unfocused photos. I've instead been learning to see (usually) simple and smaller compositions that can be isolated for presentation by using longer focal lengths and wider apertures. I still pursue wide-angle photographs at times as you've seen here. I've improved at the narrower compositions, and the next steps will be to relearn wide-angle photography and the appropriate use of small apertures while continuing to work on improving the narrower compositions.
As far as gear goes, I need to so some rethinking. My FX system consists of a D810 and some nice primes, along with a couple of zooms (14-24/2.8 and 70-200/4) for specialized uses. The whole idea behind this system was careful landscape photography on a tripod using primes (normally), live view focus, mirror up, and a remote to obtain the high resolution that the camera is capable of. One then hopes the wetware behind the camera can do its part to produce worthwhile photos (!).
Yet on this trip I ended up doing a lot of photography in nature while walking around, much more than I expected. Some of this was in places where a tripod was inadvisable and in some other cases one would have been merely inconvenient. Instead of using my compact Micro Four Thirds system for quick handheld grabs, I ended up using it seriously for hours at a time. The zooms were handy in doing close framing when foot zooming was impractical or simply impossible, although much of this framing was substantially revised in post. However, the compact system had the disadvantage of reduced dynamic range in an often high-contrast environment, a shortcoming which was felt keenly at times.
I really need to give the D810 and three or four primes a try for walking around in nature. Yes, it'll be heavier, but I can save the heavier primes for shooting close to the vehicle. For instance, I could try the 25/2.8 Zeiss, the 50/2 Zeiss, and the 105/2.5 Nikon as walk-around lenses. I can choose to carry a tripod over the shoulder at times if I want to try for higher resolution when forced into lower shutter speeds.
All food for thought to mull over and experiment with over time. Now on to the photos...
Continuing with the red fir forest:
Red Fir Forest 3 by
Bill de Jager, on Flickr
Red Fir Foliage by
Bill de Jager, on Flickr
Red fir bark. Each layer is equivalent to a annual growth ring in wood.
Red Fir Bark Closeup by
Bill de Jager, on Flickr
Sierra Nevada lodgepole pine in its natural habitat.
Lodgepole Pine Bark by
Bill de Jager, on Flickr
Finally, I present a Jeffrey pine (
Pinus jeffreyi) forest at Gin Flat just east of Crane Flat. (
Flat is an Americanism for a relatively flat place in the mountains, perhaps a valley but in some cases at the top of a mountain or ridge.) Jeffrey pine is nearly endemic to California and is similar to the much better known ponderosa pine that's common across the American West. One of the ponderosas, in its California version (
Pinus ponderosa var.
pacifica) is on the left in the photo below. The bark color is visibly lighter and the cracks farther apart than with Jeffrey pine, among other differences.
Jeffrey Pine Forest, Gin Flat by
Bill de Jager, on Flickr
It's been a pleasure presenting my photos and text to an appreciative audience!
