PhotoEscapist

Chittenango Falls

Here it is, Fall in Central NY.  The trees are decked out for their fancy dress show, the harvest is coming in and we begin to think about winter.   Much like spring, it’s the time for rain and wind (on sometimes on Halloween, snow).  On Friday and Saturday, we got some of our Fall wind and rain.  Enough to pull leaves from trees, but, not enough to strip them bare.  We received over an inch of rain Saturday.  That much rain means energetic creeks, rivers, rain gutters, storm drains and water falls.

Seeing Sunday lived up to its name, a photo trip was necessary!  Tossing my camera bag over my shoulder and putting on some boots, I headed for the nearest gutters and storm drains!  After taking a dozen or so pictures of styrofoam lids and gum wrappers careening along the gutters and down to their ultimate demise in the drains and listening for the whispers of “It”, it occurred to me that these weren’t really interesting shots and really not a place most people would go to to get out of the house.

A moment or two of contemplation later I decided on going to Chittenango Falls.  The trip is about 25 minuets, half of it Highway and urban  four lane roads.  The other half simply beautiful especially in the fall with the vibrant yellows oranges and occasional deep reds surrounding the roads.  On the Way, I stopped in Chittenango to grab a friend and fellow geek, Dave, to find he and his family had gone off adventuring on their own

Located off of Route 13, Chittenango State park has a decent sized parking area, several picnic areas and two trails leading to the base of the falls.  At the top of the falls there are two great viewing areas giving fantastic views of Chittenango Creek running down the 167′ drop to the bed below, and its meandering path along route 13 in the distance.

From the top of the falls to the creek bed below

As I mentioned before, there are two trails to the base of the falls and the bridge that spans the creek.  The first passes several picnic areas and has a landing that gives an amazing view of the falls

Chittenango Falls 2008

But the path to get there looks like this

Steps of Dooooom

Thank goodness they reopened the Gorge Trail which is better suited for people who have worked in office chairs for the last 15 years and are climbing around with 20 or so pounds of photography equipment on their backs.  The last time I traversed the Stairs of Doom it took me a few days not to weep in horror at the sight of any kind of steps.

The Gorge Trail is mostly sloping pathways and fewer stairs that are more evenly placed.  However the path loops away from the falls then doubles back, so you get nice views of the woods and what seems to be a bed for overflow from the creek, but miss the great view of the falls you get from the other side.

Looking back along the Gorge Trail

To see more pictures from this Backyard Adventure, hop over to my Flickr photostream.

If you live in the area or are visiting and have never come here, it’s a must do.  Bring a lunch and some friends.  Parking will cost you $4 during the summer season.  For more details visit their site

I’d like to thank my 7th Grade Science teacher Robert Bliss, for keeping my interest in science, nature and people burning during my middle school years.  He’s one of the few who let us know it was ok to think and be creative in all aspects of our lives.

As always get up, get out and explore.  There are a lot of places in your backyard where you can go to escape if, you can’t afford that trip to Bermuda

Well, the last about the lens specifically.  I’ll still take pictures with it and you, may see it mentioned in passing.

This was the first ‘field trial’ with this lens.  It was in my bag as part of my normal load-out and, I found a opportunity to use it.  I also used the body doubler (not the kit doubler, I don’t like the way the camera balances with it on) for a few shots.

These were taken during my Quick Trip to Beaver Lake.  Unlike the other images in “more magnification testing” and “from the practical to the ridiculous“, these have been post processed, giving a better look at what the lens can do.

On to the pics:

Ducks and Geese @ 300mm

Ducks and Geese @ 800mm

Ducks and Geese @ 1600mm

I’m not sure where the fuzziness is coming from in the bright areas in the middle shot (around the duck’s chest) I’m assuming something (the doubler) has a finger print or smear on it.  In the third shot the blurriness is me, even with my tripod there is a lot of motion when shooting.  I’d take the shot with a remote, however the weight of the lens causes the camera to tip forward, without support.  I’m thinking about a counterweight or a string from the camera bad to the handle on the tripod to keep everything steady.

The Rokinin 800mm seems to be a good buy.  It’s cheap, and suits my purposes.  I need to better my skills with full manual and no light meter (or figure out how to make the light meter work with the D90 and a full manual lens   )  to get better shots from it.

This is a followup to “From the Practical to the Ridiculous“.  I got the sun I wanted to test the Rokinon 800mm and it’s doubler.  I also wanted to get really nutty and try the doubler I have for the camera body in addition to the doubler that came with the kit.  I’m making the assumption that using a doubler on the already doubled 800mm will result in a 4x increase and not a 3x increase.  It’s very possible that I’m wrong.  If so, please let me know, so I can edit my descriptions, titles and stuff and learn a bit in the process

On to the testing!

in addition to the Rokinon, I brought a Sigma 70-300m lens,  a 50mm Nikkor lens, the doubler that came with the Rokinon 800mm, a doubler for the body of the camera and a tripod.  All of the photos were shot a f/8 on my Nikon D90, as the Rokinon is fixed at that aperture.

The Rokinon is a mirror lens that weighs 2 pounds and has a 3 degree field of view.  This and the f/8 make it a tough lens to shoot from the hip with.  It can be done, but, you really need to have a tripod or something to steady it against.

For the testing I took general pictures with the 50mm and progressed through the lens lengths to see what kind of magnification and quality I could get.  I also have shots of the full moon, as it was a clear night.  With these pictures I started with the 800mm and added doublers to get to 3200mm.  You can find all of the photos form both posts on Flickr.

The pictures I selected  are from the Woodland Reservoir to Carousel Center Mall, which is about 3 miles to the North.

The mall is hard to pick out right away in the 50mm shot.  It’s the white line with the blueish speckles almost in the center of the shot.  You may need to look at the Large or Original size on Flickr to find it the first time.

Now the mall @300mm

Next @ 800mm – at this point, any movement shakes the image, and I’m having issues setting the shutter to let in enough light and not get blurring from shake.  The exposure meter does not work on the D90 with this lens.  I have to see if there is a setting on the camera that will enable the meter with this lens, but, that’s a different project

1600mm – More problems with shutter speed and shake, and due to the doubling tube, the center of gravity is far enough out to start tilting the camera down.  This wouldn’t be a problem if I had a third arm (or a 2nd tripod), since I had neither, it was fun trying to keep the image in frame and not blurred from the downward motion of the camera

and finally at 3200mm – At this magnification, objects are really to find.  It’s hard to focus the camera because any movement of the focus ring will cause blurring.  The cooling breeze was enough to cause a lot of shake, not to mention the pounding of the ground as people jogged by.

Yeah, yeah, this is a long article, with a couple of pics.  Just hang around for a bit more text and a few more pictures.  Yer almost at the end here…

Now for the moon pics.  These were taken from a friend’s front yard  (the same place I took the Grape Harvest pics)

Moon @ 800mm

1600mm

and at 3200mm

This lens is Ok.  At 800mm it’s pretty serviceable but, the subject is gonna have to be pretty still and brightly lit if I decide to use the either of the doublers