Beautiful Nature

Some cool Nature images:

Beautiful Nature

Image by Balaji.B

Panchgani - Western India

healing in nature




Image by AlicePopkorn

Created for ~Faestock~ Challenge #3
model by Faestock

texture bokeh and ray of light

Crown Point - Attemt #3. Mother Nature *sucks*




Image by ttstam

Amethyst expressed interest in a print of my Crown Point shot for her new pad in Hood River, OR, so with nothing to do after work, I headed up to the mountains to reattempt the shot. Previous attempt yielded a mediocre shot with what I've got, and the second previous attempt was foiled by heavy cloud covers.

I felt the wind tug on the car on the drive up. Even with the borrowed Lexus's AWD system, Tthe car didn't feel so sure footed and more than once the vehicle stability alarm sounded - even though I was sticking to the speed limit if not below. When I first got up to Crown Point, the wind was blowing so strongly that I had trouble opening the door against the wind pressure. Then the wind reversed and literally ripped the door handle out of my hand...

Normal people would have packed up and went home, but we all know that *I* am not normal. Against the howling wind I managed to deploy my tripod, and I had bought along 6L of water to fit in my camera bag to use as ballast - 6L being the most I can fit in the bag. I figured - 6L = 6kg = 13.2lbs - approaching the load rating for the tripod, and plenty of mass to balance against the wind...

Long story short: The wind blew the tripod over. Twice. With my 5D Mark II on it. Once was when I was backing the vehicle in place to use as a wind break - imagine my face when I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the camera was *gone*. @!%!^!!!!

The camera survived two drop tests - and I wasn't about to run a third one. The original plan was to stay up on Crown Point "to the limit of crew endurance" and try to attempt a 3-4 hour stacked exposure for the star trail background with the lens wide open, then a few long exposures at f/8 to bring out the building in HDR form. Given the wind conditions, there was no way I can guarentee the camera's safety for 3 minutes, let alone 3 hours. I tried a plan B of setting the camera on the snroof, routing the cables in through the side of the car, and using the car as a resting surface. No dice - the wind buffetted the car so much that after 3 shots I just gave up.

Update
Camera failed drop test. Stress fracture on housing and popped the top LCD protective glass out compromising weather sealing. ARGH. With *this* camera I'm going to have Canon do the repairs. ARGH !$@!%^.