24mm ISO 100 f/6.3 at 1/320th of a sec
Saturday morning I received a call from my good friend Don inviting us to hike with his family up the Shackleford trail to Campbell lake in the Marble mountains.
I tried to convince Taunya to come with us, but she was too excited about the prospects of a whole Saturday sans children to go. Since there wasn’t any food in the house, Taunya ran to the store for some food for our lunches. Tyler, Nathan, Christian, Daniel, Ella and I headed out just after 1030am to meet up with the Hills. The Shackleford trail head is out in the Quartz Valley portion of the Scott Valley. The hike is about 3 and a half miles one way, and took us about 3 and a half hours, with the kids, to hike to the lake.
120mm ISO 400 f/5.6 at 1/500th of a sec
Everyone had a blast hiking up to the lake and I didn’t hear any complaining along the way even when Ella fell into one of the creeks that the trail crosses.
50mm ISO 400 f/5.6 at 1/40th of a sec
The trail winds through some gorgeous valleys along the Shackleford creek all the way up to the lake. I was also checking out the fishing possibilities of the creek as we hiked. I was pleasantly surprised to spook a few fish along the way as I approached the creek. The hike is not too difficult with a mild but fairly continuous climb up to the lake. The last fourth of the hike does head up some switchbacks and becomes more difficult. The kids didn’t have any trouble with this section, but I sure did.
70mm ISO 400 f/5.6 at 1/160th of a sec
The lake and surrounding scenery was beautiful. We rested on a large rock out cropping enjoying the sun and some rest. It was a pleasant temperature for hiking, not too warm or cold.
34 mm ISO 100 f/6.3 at 1/250th of a sec
I was the last to arrive at the lake as I spent some significant time stopping along the way to take pictures of the waterfalls and other scenery.
24 mm ISO 100 f/5.6 at 1/6th of a sec
One of the things I am still finding amazing with the D800 is how HUGE the photographs are, not only in megabytes but in pixel width and height. A full size image is 7360 x 4912 pixels. I am finding when I will do some cropping I still end up with a photograph that is larger in size than the full-sized images I use to get out of my D7000. I’ve taken several vertical photographs and after cropping them vertically I still am ending up with an image that is wider horizontally than a full horizontal image from the D7000.
24mm ISO 200 f/6.3 at 1/4sec
I really enjoy image stabilization in a lens. I think all lenses no matter the speed should have this included. I did not bring my tripod on the hike, but I did bring my monopod to use as a walking stick and to add some stability to some of my shots. I took the above photograph on the monopod with a shutter speed of 1/4th of a sec. I was also using my variable neutral density filter so that I could use such a slow shutter speed to get the exposure I desired. I had to get the feet a little wet for this shot as I stood in the middle of the creek to get a good angle. Using such a slow shutter speed would be entirely impossible without image stabilization or as Nikon calls it, vibration reduction.
24mm ISO 200 f/5.6 at 1/10th of a sec
The other thing I am enjoying about having a larger Fx camera sensor is that the wide end of my zoom is now truly wide! I find I can get much close to a scene and still fit it into the frame at 24mm.
I took the above photograph of Shackleford Falls hand-held, while sitting on a rock in the middle of Shackleford creek. I could never get this much of the falls in the frame with my D7000 and its narrower field of view. We stopped here on our way home to take some photographs and to show the kids the falls. Mainly I wanted to stop for the photography opportunities!
I hope you’ve enjoyed the photographs and the information about this great family hike. I’ve included the rest of the photographs from the hike below. Thanks again for visiting and enjoying my photographs!
