Mono Lake, Eastern Sierra, California
March held many good photo opportunities for me, especially with migrating birds, but the highlight was a visit at Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra in California. The tufa formations around the lake are a fascinating subject and with the snow covered mountains in the background you can’t go wrong, even if circumstances allowed me to be there for only a very short time around the noon hour.
Click for larger image! --------
We had a dull, dreary, and rainy day and as a result no new pixels made it onto the memory card today. Not a big deal and it was a perfect time to browse through older images and clean up the photo library this evening.
During my recent visit at Mono Lake on the east side of the Sierra Nevada I made a few attempts to shoot some panorama images. As mentioned in an earlier post, it was extremely windy that day and so I shot handhold the whole time. I remember my first attempts to make a digital panorama, about 8 - 9 years ago, were a nightmare in post process. Thanks to the amazing software capabilities of Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop (I used Lightroom for this photo) it is really a breeze to stitch several photos together for a panorama these days.
So why even doing it? On a website, like this blog, a panorama looks most of the time tiny, depending how big your computer screen or mobile device is. It is the printing that makes all the difference. This picture was made from four photos. The content needs to overlap a little but at the end it led to an image with over 12,000 pixels on the long side. This allows to make a print 40 inch wide (~ 1 meter) or even larger without any loss of detail.
Mono Lake, South Tufa area, California
Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4 ------
My goal last weekend was to come back with some decent photos from Mono Lake, California with its tufa columns and formations. Due to the three hours drive from Reno, Nevada I knew I wouldn’t be there in the early morning hours. I also didn’t want to risk to get trapped in fresh snow that was expected for the following night and so I left the lake in the early afternoon. With just a small time window around midday my expectations were not very high regarding the light. However, a very windy but clear day made for good colors and little haze in the air. The geology of the lake basin is fascinating and if you like to learn about the basics, here is the link that gives you some insight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake
