A Stop Along the Way

We are actually in the Jackson Lake Lodge in the Teton National Park.  Today will be the first day out – we had a long drive from Laramie.  Without a laptop, much less good internet connections in the Wild West, it’s been difficult to edit pictures or make an entry to a blog here or there.

I’ve been using Polarr editing software with my Chrome Book, and I have rather mixed feelings about it but that is just because I am not sure how things look in the final edit.  Still, it is an easy-to-use editor, and given that, I am not going to complain.  I just need to master it, and when home, compare the images I see on the screen of the Chrome Book to my 27″ monitors at home.

We have really been enjoying the trip!  We started out in California, and the first stop was in Flagstaff, Arizona.  I really like Flag – as we are known to call it – and we stayed at a wonderful B&B.  Knowledgeable hosts are one of the draws of a good B&B, along with great breakfasts.  We had both.  We were in Flagstaff for two full days, taking in Shoshone Point in the Grand Canyon, and a drive through Oak Creek Canyon to see Sedona.  The Grand Canyon is truly grand, and unfathomable, so to speak, until you are on the edge, looking down and across from the rim.  Sedona is a tourist town surrounded by incredible red rocks, buttes, mesas and cliffs.  To get there, one drives through a lovely canyon, and it is worthwhile to stop at Oak Canyon to wander through it.

Oak Creek Canyon is a deep, narrow canyon, complete with creek, old buildings, and a former apple orchard put in by some of the original families who settled there.  It was my favorite part of the day out to Sedona, other than fantastic food at a restaurant – Mariposa – which has 360 degree views of the rocks surrounding Sedona.  The canyon is surrounded by red cliffs and traversed by a winding road.  The drive is one to take slowly, stopping, hiking, gawking.  It’s a wonderful corner of the world to see.

 

Tripod or Not?

I rummaged through the pile of camera gear cluttering the studio.  And then I discovered a tripod I had bought some time ago:  The Manfrotto MKC3-H01.  It will fit in my suitcase!  And, with small cameras, it should be just fine.

Image result for manfrotto mkc3-h01

It’s really small and lightweight.  I like the lever clamps, instead of twisty ones.  It’s got nice features, such as a swivel head, thumb thingies, and can handle up to 3.3 lbs (2.5 kilos) of camera.  Given I am bringing only small and light – except when the V3 has the 70-300 on it – it should work out really well.

Image result for manfrotto mkc3-h01

A tripod is honestly something I have been wanting to bring as I want to get the long exposures you can get with ND filters.  The smoothness of water can make for great photographs – and I want to do this with both film and digital.  Maybe I will even do a video, just for grins, but they aren’t things I really ever do.  So, problem solved, eh?  At least, I think it is!!  An 18-inch-tall-when-compacted tripod is a pretty cool thing.

 

 

A Portrait in UltraMax 400

This is the other half, taken with UltraMax 400 and the Nikon F3HP and scanned on the Pakon 135. A bit of retouch in LR, but overall, there is little difference. The skin tones were important, because he has a rather ruddy complexion (not as bad as mine), and sometimes toning it down removes a lot of other qualities in an image. Above is the “retouched” and below is the untouched.