I’m sitting in a kayak at the Sammamish River mouth on Lake Washington. Three hundred or so Common Mergansers flock nearby─in the slough fishing, roosting on the lake or flying in-between. The heavy birds fly at 40 mph up and down the tree-lined slough, a gauntlet that challenges the electronic viewfinder (EVF) and auto-focus of […]
Everything was going according to plan. At home, I consulted with www.stellarium.org for the Milky Way location, NOAA for cloud cover and Google Earth for orientation at Palouse Falls, WA. An October Milky Way shoot looked probable. I also checked the Palouse River stream gage, which was flowing above normal, not high but good enough. […]
My 2012/06 photo tip, Photograph Birds at Eye Level, covered getting down to the bird’s eye level for better photography. True enough, but often dismissed, so let’s re-visit. Not many photogs crawl on their belly in the mud. Yet dropping from a kneeling or sitting position to your elbows is huge. And, if you haven’t […]
No kayak trips, a couple of backpack overnights, bird photography in May and June and bird photography by kayak in the Fall. A thin year, but one that yielded keepers none-the-less. Oh, and every image here was shot with the tiny Sony a6300, using Canon, Sony or Rokinon lenses. Light in the Forest. I called […]
My backpacking cook set-up is tidy. Not perfect, but I wanted everything to pack inside my 650ml Toaks mug, and that’s done. Everything inside means stove, fuel, wind screen and lighter fits under the lid. I like the simple elegance; it saves space, with one less thing (the fuel bottle) floating about in the pack. […]
Light-weight your three-season backpacking gear to hike farther and higher, and capture the photographs of your dreams. Note: this is an update of a 2016/01/29 post. My ultalight Odyssey took root in a 1995 backpack to the Washington State Enchantments. On day one, we slogged over Aasgard Pass, a 4,550 ft elevation gain. My 55-pound […]
In the EarlySummer 2015 issue, Adventure Kayak Magazine published their 5W column (Who, What, When, Where, Why) about my kayak photography. I elaborate here on the Who—as in “Who/What has been your most difficult subject.” My answer—whether sought out or serendipitous—is rough water kayaking. An example is a storm paddle we did off Chichagof Island, […]
Significantly for 2016, I purchased the cropped-frame Sony a6300 for backpacking, video and added reach in bird photography. I then discovered the image IQ was as good as my Canon 5D III at moderate ISO’s, so I used it preferentially for landscapes. The proof is below, where seven of eleven favorite images came from the […]
The flash of lightning greeted us as we emerged at dusk from a steep climb out of upper Palouse Canyon. My heart raced. Lightning isn’t unusual here, but this was a photo op not to be missed! I sped to the cliff overlooking Palouse Falls, a perfect ringside perch for the ensuing show. A lone […]
Light-weight ideas for tripod, camera case, filters and other tools of the backpacking photographer I researched switching to a mirrorless camera for backpacking recently, figuring the weight savings and comparable picture quality would make the switch from a Canon 5D III a win. A driver of that investigation was that I skipped purchase the 50MP […]