This is a long stretch of Evans Creek with a steep gradient down to the the Carbon River. I had lost track of where it was; I photographed it with a large-format film cameras (4”x5”) two years ago and did a pretty bad job of it. Here is the scan:
I have been driving around trying to relocate the creek, and found it today. It’s off of the main road up the flank of Mt. Rainier (Rt. 165), on the way to the Mt. Rainier ranger station (Manley-Moore Rd. E).
The photo at the top of the page was taken hand-held with the new Sony A1 camera and the Tamron 17-28mm lens, at about 21mm focal length. Pretty impressive sharpness for a not-very-expensive lens. ISO 100, 1/30th second exposure, f/5.6.
I also shot this scene with the medium format camera, but at a lower angle than the handheld shot (the handheld photo was with the 35mm camera a few feet above the medium format camera). Sadly, this brought some extra out-of-focus vegetation into play in the shot, and although the smoothing of the flow from the long exposure (one minute, with a neutral density filter) is pretty cool, the overall composition isn’t as appealing to me. ISO 50, f/8.
I also like the roughness of the fine details in the first photo. Here is an iPhone shot of the camera set up to take the photo immediately above. A somewhat creative use of the tripod…
It does give some context to what it’s like to take shots in the wild. I don’t think I’ve taken my last shot of this creek; there’s always more to learn. I may be out there again tomorrow.