Three viewpoints on Mystic falls

Last week I visited hidden Mystic falls which is close to Telluride, Colorado. It is an amazing box canyon waterfall that you have to scramble a bit for to reach. There are many pages on the web that detail how to reach it. The best is probably found here. I rode to the trailhead in my little Subaru without any issue but I might be a lot less careful than most so hiking the last part is not a big deal if you need to especially since the descent to the falls is really quite short. I have three favorite images to share that were taken at different angles and focal lengths.

The Mystic river.
Nikon D600, Nikon 14-24 mm at 14mm, f/11, three shot HDR at 1/50, 1/30, and 1/15s.

Mystic streams.
Nikon D600, Nikon 14-24 mm at 24mm, f/16, three shot HDR at 1/13, 1/6, and 1/3s.

Levels.
Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85 mm at 50mm, f/16, 1/6s.

My favorite is the tighter composition at the end but it does omit some of the context. I am guessing this place is going to be awesome in fall! Lastly as a bonus, here is a 360 degrees panorama of the place. Follow the "view on google maps link to see it in full screen glory and don't forget to look all around!

Andrews Creek

In the process of cleaning up my Lightroom catalog I am running into 100's of images I love. Here are two images from Andrews Creek in Rocky Mountain National Park that I took on July of 2015. I published one image from here but have never shown two others that I love. These are both at the point where the semisecret trail (it's not marked and disappears several times in the trees so you'll need some route finding skills) to Andrews glacier takes off from the main trail that leads to Lake of Glass and Sky Pond in Loch Vale. This is a gorgeous area in Rocky Mountain National Park well worth the hike. The first image is one I published before but never highlighted. The second and third are ones that I just discovered and actually like even more. I hope you enjoy these images.

Downfall.
Nikon D600. Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16 mm, f/13, 0.8s, ISO 100.

Jumbled.
Nikon D600. Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16 mm, f/16, 0.8s, ISO 100.

From hither.
Nikon D600. Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 at 16 mm, f/16, 0.8s, ISO 100.

Gate keepers

It's been a daunting task to keep up with the images that are being ingested into Lightroom. I have a set of images to share from the Great Sand Dunes, which I visited back in April. I've only shared some fully immersive panos from that trip but I haven't shared much in the way of actual images. See an example of one of such immersive panoramas here. Worse, I haven't been able to share many of my images from a trip to White Pocket in 2014! The best images from that trip except for the ones in the link are still locked up in my Lightroom catalog. At the same time, some revelations in digital imaging as well as the new panorama tools in Lightroom have made me go back to even earlier times. The image I share below for example was taken on October 31 in 2009 in Zion National Park while exploring the Narrows with my friend Dave. We were there just on the cusp of fall color hitting and once in a while we would find trees in the canyon that were in color like the one on the right here while the one on the left is still mostly green. We were in full wetsuits and at places we had to hold our gear above our heads as the water was near our shoulders. I was reminded of these images and the trip while hearing about the tragic deaths that occurred in the slot canyons in this beautiful park just recently. The image below is a stitched high resolution composite of 9 images along the gorgeous Virgin river in the park just a few days ago. I shot this with my D300 camera using the kit lens using my old homemade panoramic head. I stitched this using the new panoramic tools in Lightroom and edited and cropped. The native image is 7530x7530 pixels or 57 megapixels as I cropped from the full stitched image for a better composition. I hope you enjoy the image

Gate Keepers. Zion National Park. Oct 31, 2009. Stitch from 9 images, Nikon D300, Nikon 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 at 35mm, f/16, 2.0s, ISO 200.

Boulder Brook in rain

I went back to Boulder Brook, this time in summer to see if it is nice with some flowers around it. Indeed it is, however, it was raining hard when I was there. I also needed to shoot a series of images for the presentation I did for the CMC photoclub about moving water where I change the shutter speed and show the effect on moving water, so despite incessant rain and mosquitoes, I made the series and here is one shot from Boulder Brook. I have been to this magical place many times before and it is always fantastic. This time is no exception. Unfortunately I dropped my Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 lens' cap and it got carried of by the stream. I haven't located a replacement yet.

Wetness in the forest. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On Google+.
Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 17 mm, ISO 400, f/16, 1/5s.

Fish creek trail waterfalls

A few weeks ago, I went on a hike along fish creek near Steamboat Springs.
Upper fish creek falls detail. Buy a print. On flickr. On facebook.
Nikon D600, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at 130mm, f/16, 1.8s, 3 stops ND filter.

This is a detail of the falls I came accross after hiking a while along the trail. This is sort of a mini version of the really well known Fish Creek Falls that is just a short hike from the trailhead. Reaching this took quite some slipping and sliding over icy trails and wading through surprisingly deep snow in places. At the end there was some scrambling over very icy rocks before suddenly this waterfall opened up. I thought this was a nice opportunity to try out the 70-200 mm f/2.8 VRII I had rented from lensrentals.com to play with. That lens is just extraordinary in sharpness and handling and apart from the weight (especially annoying on a long hike such as this) it is ideal. I am looking forward to trying the much lighter 70-200 f/4 that just came out. Below is the context for this shot:

Upper fish creek falls. Buy a print. On Facebook.
High resolution compisite, stitched from 9 images from Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 50mm, f/16, 0.5s, ISO 100, 3 stop ND filter.

I tried pressing on a little higher than this place but was thwarted by very deep snow that was hard to get through without snowshoes, so I decided to turn around and photograph the well-known Fish Creek Falls closer to the trailhead around sunset time. At the bridge, I jumped the railing and scrambled over the rocks and jumped the creek a few times and arrived at a secluded area around the corner where I came accross this:

Seclusion. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook.
Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 38mm, f/16, 0.5s, ISO 100

I searched around for some different views and took many intimate images of the ice. I like the following image:

Cascade. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook.
Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/16, 0.6s, ISO 100

I like the hint of the sunset light in the top here. I also took some more conventional images of the big waterfall one of them is below:

Fish Creek Falls in Ice. Buy a print. On Facebook.
Nikon D600, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at 70mm, f/11, 1/5s.

I took a lot of other more wide images of the falls too and also one under mostly moonlight. I might post those later perhaps. Lastly, here is the G+ link for this post.

The river bend

I am going through a lot of old images that I didn't fully appreciated before. This one is of a bend in the Virgin river in the Wall Street area of the Zion National Park Narrows.

Around the bend. Buy a print. On flickr. On Facebook. On Google+.
High resolution composite stitched from 9 images. Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55mm at 24 mm, f/16, 1.3s, ISO 200. I made several versions of this image, several of which are in the Zion gallery on my smugmug site.

More from Rifle Falls

Some more images of the very photogenic Rifle Falls on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains. I posted an image from here before, as well as a a lamentation on water drops on the lens. My photo buddy Dave Peterman told me about this place a few years ago but I never had a chance to visit. Certainly nice and the waterfall works even during the day and not just at sunrise or set.
See also the G+ post on this.


Companions. Buy a print.
Tech data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, f/22, 1.0s, ISO 200, 4 stop ND + circ. polarizer.
Click for bigger. Image on flickr.


rear view mirror. Buy a print.
Tech data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, f/22, 1.0s, ISO 200, 4 stop ND + circ. polarizer
Click for bigger. Image on flickr.


Up front. Buy a print.
Tech data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 12mm, f/22, 0.8s, ISO 200, 4 stop ND + circ. polarizer
Click for bigger. Image on flickr.

Stormy fall

This is a waterfall just above Lake Isabelle in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. I was out on a hike with friends that only went to Lake Isabelle and I continued on to the glacier which would have been a little much for my companions. I showed the map profile to my hike in a previous post already. This was the wrong time of day for good light but nevertheless, some clouds came in and provided some extra interest.


A storm brewing. Buy a print. Click photo for bigger on my smugmug site.
Photo data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 13 mm, f/16, 0.5 s, ISO 200, 4 stop ND + polarizer.
Image on flickr. Image on Google+.

You can barely see Navajo peak peeking out above the falls. Above Lake Isabelle, the landscape is just teeming with Marmots. I must have seen more than 20 or so. I took a picture of one with my phone:


Post on Google+

They are quite funny.

Wild Basin waterfalls

Last sunday, I went hiking with my daughter in the Wild Basin area of RMNP. It was cloudy and overcast, so we went for late afternoon with the hope of photographing a few waterfalls and perhaps a lake with some clouds. The strategy for the Wild Basin trailhead as is true for many others in RMNP is to either come extremely early (i.e. 4 am or earlier) or later in the afternoon (>3pm), otherwise you'll have to walk quite a ways along the very boring road. We parked right next to the ranger station. We did not make it all the way to the lakes (Ouzel and Blue Bird) we were aiming for because not far before Ouzel falls we got in a major thunderstorm right above our heads and were pelted with heavy rain. Thunderstorms like this are the disadvantage of starting late and make it a very questionable idea to go up above treeline. So we turned around and photographed Calypso Cascades and the many nice waterfalls in Ouzel Creek in between heavy periods of rain. I am always proud of my 9-year old for not complaining about the rain and generally just having fun even when wet.

Calypso

Mosaic of 9 images for high resolution stitch. Individual images D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55mm at 34mm, f/22, 0.5s.
Buy a print.

Misty

Mosaic of 9 images for high resolution stitch. Individual images D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55mm at 34mm, f/22, 1.6s.
Buy a print.
The mist in this image is caused by the higher parts of the waterfall and of course the rain.

Casualty

Mosaic of 9 images for high resolution stitch. Individual images D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55mm at 34mm, f/22, 1.0s.
Buy a print.
This is the view from the bridge over the cascades. They are really quite impressive. There are not many flowers out yet which is quite surprising to me but probably owes to the long wet spring we had.

Unnamed Falls in Ouzel Creek panorama. This really should be seen large.

Mosaic of 10 images (five columns of two) for high resolution stitch. Individual images D300, ISO 200, Nikon 18-55mm at 34mm, f/16, 1/4s.
Buy a print.

The flow. Should be seen large for full effect.

Crop of above image and different treatment.
Buy a print.

There are a few more interesting images in the smugmug gallery. You can also check out a subset on flickr. They are also on Google+/Picasa. Enjoy!

Edit: Mariska noticed a very funny error in the post where I had replaced am with pm making it sound like it is hard for me to get out of bed before 4 pm. Of course am makes a lot more sense there.

Waterfall

I spent a small amount of time up in the mountains this weekend and found a little stream to photograph. There is still a lot of green high up, so the peak hasn't been fully reached yet. There will be lots of opportunities still I am sure.


(black and white conversion here)

Flickr link


(black and white conversion here)

Flickr link


(black and white conversion here)

Flickr link

I also made a horizontal version of the latter, which I think looks really nice:

As always, these are very high resolution composites of multiple images. My logo will not show up in prints of these images.