veerendra_chirala

I might be headed to Tampa for a weekend in near future. I did a

search but only discussions that turned up on Tampa are the ones

related to birds or wildlife. I am more interested in

scenic/landscape stuff like beaches, palm trees, piers etc. Do you

have any suggestions? Thanks.

First of all I need to thank you all for the advice you provided.

I got back from my 5 day trip to Death Valley a couple of days back. I thought I should share my experience with the group. I rented a 4x4 at Ontario, CA and headed to DV on the night of July 3rd. Spent the night at Stovepipe wells. Was pretty hot on the way.

July 4th: Headed to the Dunes near the Stovepipe Wells at 5:30AM. It was 107F already. What a great start. Spent the morning at the dunes, was a little nervous, a little overwhelmed, I saw a bunch of storm clounds and also the wind was blowing the sand. Spent the rest of the day checking out different points around badwater/furnace creek. The temperature hit 125f that day and the wind felt like it was much hotter. Was out till 9PM before I headed back to the hotel.

 

July 5th: Started out at Zabriske point at 5:30 AM, checkedout Marble canyon and headed towards Wildrose/Charcoal Kilns/Telescope for the rest of the day. Came back to Badwater to get some pics of the salt pans. It felt much better that day. I think it was around 115f at Badwater.

 

July 6th: It was overcast by time I woke up and it was relatively cool. It started around 90F and went up to 110F, felt like in paradise. Went to Rhyolite the ghost town, then went to Scotty's castle. After that I headed to the Eureka Dunes. Not a good choice with the advantage of hindsight. I could see clounds coming down on to the mountain ranges and I could see it raining on the Last Chance range to my left. The 50 mile dirt road was not bad but I recommend a high clearence vehicle. Reached the dunes, not a soul around, not a sound either. Could feel the ringing in my ears. Great place to be in. It rained there before, so the sand was compacted and there were no sharp ridge edges.

It kept getting darker and started a sprinking. I decided it was time to get back. On the way back I was one scared person, because there were these clouds all around me, it felt like they were on the ground and I was scared that I would be hit by a lightning bolt. As you can guess it was one scary drive back. Fortunately the road was not washed out or damaged till the castle.

I wanted to stop at the ranger station to enquire about the road condition from the castle to the wells but it was closed and it was raining like hell. I was worried about flash floods. A ranger I spoke to before I started did warn me about that. I decided to try my luck and continued towards the wells and I was nervous till I came across a ranger who told me that lot of debris was washed on to the road and asked me drive slowly, and he said if I do that I would be fine. As he said there was lot of debris on the road and the road was closed for the next day.

 

July 7th: Did not do much the whole day. It was not very hot. Only 106F, felt good. Wanted to go to race track but the road was closed because of the damage by the rain last night. It rained again that day. Power was knocked off in the night and no power the whole night at the Wells. Fortunately it was in the 80s.

I headed back the next day. I have some of my Death Valley photos in my portfolio in a folder called Death Valley. Please check then out if you have a minute.

Thanks for all your advice. One more question. Sorry for not giving you guys a break. Is it true that if UV is quite high, if I take my photos as per the meter reading, they will tend to be washed out. Is it true that I may get photos if I underexpose by half or 1 stop? I assume that UV radiation is low during the "golden" hours and peaks during noon, or in case of DV most of the time.

I thank you for all the advice and sharing of your experiences. I will keep everyting you all said in my mind. I also called up the visitor center and discussed with them about the precautions I need to take and areas I should not try to get to. I moved to Texas from India some time back. I know its hot in Texas but its hotter where I came from. Been in those 110F situations but was never in a deasert.

Anyway, I am thinking to head up there, give it atry and If I find it unbearable I may just head north in California to other places. Or just west to Vegas. Never been there either.

I am planning to take two camera bodies, one loaded with color slides and other with B & W. This is my first attempt at B & W. I am thinkin to use a green filter for B & W when I shoot sand dunes. Any opinions on what filters would be helpfull for B & W? Thanks again!

You guys are great!

I know, a trip to Death Valley at this time of the year sounds crazy

but this is one chance I have that cannot let go.

I did go through the archives, and also http://www.nps.gov/deva/ and

also

http://www1.ridgecrest.ca.us/~matmus/DeathV.html.

Here is what I want to know. Is this really a bad time in terms of

photography other than being too hot and no wild flowers? Will I be

really missing something in terms of Photography if I go now instead

of in November. I will try to do all my shooting during the golden

hours and rest when it really gets hot, so I am thinking the heat may

not be such a huge issue.

Also, are there any places in Death valley that are must visits but

can only be reached using a 4x4 drive? Because the 4x4 are so

expensive to rent I am just trying to see if I can complete this trip

using a 2 wheel drive and cover most of the interesting stuff like

Salt ponds, Devil's golf course and Badwater.

I am planning to spend 4 days there. This one trip I may not be able

to make again in a long while. Your feedback greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks.

"I've been practicing near my home, using the 13mm tube ".

 

I am just curious..did this 13 mm tube alone cost you $220.00?Wow..thats one expensive extension tube.

But, if you got a 3 set of extension tubes, I am sure you know that you can stack them up and use them with a higher focal length lens to to get similar magnification but increased working distance between the lens and the subject.

Here is another site that has uptodate wildflower sighting information

http://lone-star.net/wildflowers/

Y'all may find some usefull info at the following site.

http://www.phototravel.com/wildflower/wildflower.htm.

Everybody is saying that the conditions are good this time for wilflowers. I am looking forward to my trip this year.

You could find some usefull information about the locations and sauch at this web site. http://www.phototravel.com/wildflower/wildflower.htm

http://www.phototravel.com has lot of usefull info about wildflowers in other states and info about about most of the locations that photographers are interested in. I hope this helps.

You may also want to check out the workshops conducted by the Ansel Adams Gallery at

http://www.anseladams.com/taag/webpage.cfm?WebPage_ID=10&DID=8

Past instructors include Ansel Adams, Morley Baer, Ruth Bernard, Olivia Parker, Al Weber, John Sexton, Ray McSavaney, Arnold Newman, Jerry Uelsmann, Henry Gilpin, and Edward Weston.

This here they have some work shops by the likes of Bruce Barnbaum.

The cost of these workshops is upto $750.00.

I attended one that was instructed by Jeff Grandy last July and it was worthwhile in my opinion.