{"id":2535,"date":"2005-07-31T23:02:33","date_gmt":"2005-08-01T06:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/?p=2535"},"modified":"2005-07-31T23:02:33","modified_gmt":"2005-08-01T06:02:33","slug":"i-just-returned-from-a-photography-trip-to-the-eastern-sierras-above-bishop-with-a-side-trip-to-the-ancient-bristlecone-pine-forest-nearby-in-the-white-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/2005\/07\/31\/i-just-returned-from-a-photography-trip-to-the-eastern-sierras-above-bishop-with-a-side-trip-to-the-ancient-bristlecone-pine-forest-nearby-in-the-white-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"I just returned from a photography trip to the Eastern Sierras (above Bishop) with a side-trip to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest nearby in the White Mountains."},"content":{"rendered":"

I just returned from a photography trip to the Eastern Sierras (above Bishop) with a side-trip to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest nearby in the White Mountains. This was something of an experiment, as I had no previous experience in nature photography. I had rented a tripod and a 20mm\/f2.8 lens for my Nikon F6.<\/p>\n

Here are some lessons I learned from this trip:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Don’t forget the quick-release plate for the tripod when packing. Without it, a tripod is useless.\n
  2. The tripod wouldn’t have been much use anyway, as the terrain was so rough that it would have been dificult or impossible to set it up.\n
  3. Carrying a whole bunch of camera equipment in a backpack is unnecessary (and really heavy). For next time I’m going to look for someplace that sells pouches that I can put on my web gear to hold my F6 (with a small lens mounted) and one additional lens, and maybe some film.\n
  4. The F6 with its vertical grip removed is a perfect size for carrying through rough terrain. Just don’t forget to remove the quick-release plate for your tripod from the vertical grip if you do this.\n
  5. The Cobber<\/a> works really<\/em> well.\n
  6. Don’t assume that, because you’ve never had altitude sickness before, you don’t have to worry about it now–especially if you haven’t actually been at such high altitudes for fifteen years.\n
  7. If told to expect “a lot of mosquitos,” be sure you know what the person who tells you means by that. While a desert person might think “two or three,” the actual number might be closer to “millions.”\n
  8. Two army surplus canteens were a good idea. If I’d only had one it wouldn’t have been enough.\n
  9. It might have been better (if not as comfortable) to camp in the mountains instead of getting a hotel room in Bishop. Even leaving Santa Monica at 2 PM, there was still time to set up camp before it got dark, and probably would have eliminated problems with altitude sickness.\n
  10. The topographical maps I got of all the areas we might be going were quite useful.\n<\/ol>\n

    I went on two hikes during the trip. The first was Saturday morning from North Lake. I’d spotted a waterfall on a mountainside above the lake, and wanted to get closer to it if I could to photograph it. My topographical map showed a trail going up the mountain next to the waterfall (which was the North Fork of Bishop Creek), so I decided to head up.<\/p>\n

    The trail was quite steep, and not marked except for a sign that looked like a big yellow exclamation mark. I gather this is supposed to signify a trail difficulty, perhaps something along the lines of “turn back, you fool.” I only went to the top and back down again, but it continues on past Grass Lake to meet up with the Lamarck Lakes trail (which is a much easier climb).<\/p>\n

    The rest of the day I was wiped out by altitude sickness, but on the way back on Sunday I took the trail through the Methuselah Grove which contains bristlecone pines over 4,000 years old. This time I took only two cameras and a pocket full of film, and left the heavy backpack behind. I had no trouble with altitude sickness, thanks to the acclimation time the day before and the lighter load.<\/p>\n

    I won’t know how the pictures came out until I get them back from the lab later this week, but I used five rolls, and hopefully some of them will come out well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I just returned from a photography trip to the Eastern Sierras (above Bishop) with a side-trip to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest nearby in the White Mountains. This was something of an experiment, as I had no previous experience in nature photography. I had rented a tripod and a 20mm\/f2.8 lens for my Nikon F6. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts-from-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orange-road.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}