New pics from my first road trip
 

We took our first road trip from Seattle to the Columbia Gorge east of Portland to see Crosby, Stills and Nash at the Maryhill Winery. Almost eight hundred miles were covered which included everything from torrential rains in Portland to Snow on Mt. Hood and sunny, warm top down driving in the Gorge. If it wasn't raining, we had the top down and loved it. I'm really happy we forgot to take out the winter hats before we left.

I have to say that having the two trunks for luggage is a real luxury and made our decision to buy the Boxster over any of the other convertibles we were considering a lucky stoke of genius. We loved the road trip and look forward to another down the west coast and/or up to B.C. Canada this summer.

Near Goldendale Washington with Mt. Adams in the background
http://www.pbase.com/wconley/image/9...9/original.jpg

A vewpoint in the Hood River valley with Mt. Hood in the distance
http://www.pbase.com/wconley/image/98380037/large.jpg

The skiiers and snowboarders gave us strange looks and high fives for having the top down at Timberline on Mt. Hood.
http://www.pbase.com/wconley/image/9...9/original.jpg

The first photo is simply stunning!

I agree ... wow! Just goregous!


Nice pics!

You take some good pictures. Well done!

Here's a tip I find most valuable: Take down radar detectors, gps units, and anything else that dangles from the windshield. I'm picky, so that's distracting. So many pictures I have taken could have been so much better without that clutter in the car.

Those pictures are absolutely beautiful ! Great job. Do you have negative comments about the BOX on such a long trip ? Just curious.

Some of the best pictures I have even seen on this Forum!

Well, I am sure Wconley will answer your question, but I can tell you I did a 2,000 miles trip last year to the Tail of the Dragon, and my only complaint is that I wish it were further away! :)

Thats excellent to hear. As soon as I get some good time off I want to do a long road trip myself.

Thanks everyone!

Jeph, good point on the GPS clutter. Didn't even think of it for any but the mountain shot and there I knew it wasn't in the picture.

gmboxster, I really don't have any negatives so far, well other than you have to remember sunscreen. :) It's comfortable and easy to drive for long distances. I installed the rear speaker option and ipod connection kit and that makes for good tunes even with the top down. As I mentioned, this was a trip to an outdoor concert so we had low lawn chairs in back, a soft-side cooler, light hiking gear and day packs, clothes for the different weather expected and my camera bag and tripod. A lot of stuff!

I was amazed after I got the car to find out you can put two roll-on suitcases in the front trunk, stacked one on top of the other so there's tons of room. We only had one for this trip and then the other loose gear on top. Probably the only negative was that we couldn't buy much at the outlet malls - oh wait, that's a positive as well.
http://www.pbase.com/wconley/image/9...2/original.jpg

Beautiful shots, thanks for sharing. I live on the east coast where there are lots of nice curvey roads but you can't beat the scenery in the northwest.

Gorgeous pix! Keep them coming on this thread. You are a great photographer... love your use of depth of field, perspective, and framing.

Thanks! Here's another one from the same spot as the top photo - just from a different perspective. Shows what happens when you go from 560mm (200mm with a stack of 1.4 and 2.0 converters) down to 12mm.
http://www.pbase.com/wconley/image/9...3/original.jpg

Wow. Got lenses??

On the telephoto, did you tripod it? Or did image stabilization take care of the camera shake? Shutter speed?

Nice work...

Frodo-
Tripod is definitely required for the long lens. Either that or I need to drink less coffee. No IS on any of my lenses and I regret not getting that on the 80-200 f/2.8. I was 100+ feet back down the road with the tripod as low as it would go, laying on my side in the on-coming lane hoping not to get run over.

Stats on the long shot, 1/200s f/5.6 at 560mm iso100 (my camera doesn't recognize the stacked multipliers so it reports 400mm). The extremely short depth of field surprised me. I focused on the "porsche" on the windscreen and the back of the car was slightly blurred. The wide angle was 1/500s f/5.0 at 12.0mm iso100.

The full set from the trip can be viewed here.

Another great pic, Walt. Good work!

Quote:

"I was 100+ feet back down the road with the tripod as low as it would go, laying on my side in the on-coming lane hoping not to get run over."

Posted by wconley.

Yeah, I have a little experience with settin' up shots and feeling vulnerable. Many years ago (decades) I was into a lot of outdoor photography: mostly long lens shots of various migratory birds (and the occasional raptor) and, at the other end of the spectrum, short close-ups.

In the latter category, very early one spring morning I was out in some field in NE Kansas, framing a shot of some flower with dew on it or something, fiddling around with my macro lens, a shutter release cable, a tripod with the legs clicked way up so the camera would be well supported a few inches off the ground, maybe some extension tubing, and probably a couple other items as well. I was concentrating on camera settings (a film-SLR, of course, Kodachrome 64 as I recall), really engrossed in what I was doing. For whatever reason, I suddenly looked up and there, about 5 feet away from me was a full-sized buck staring down at me.

I froze, just watched him without moving, hardly breathing. He tried to figure me out, what I was doin', WHAT I WAS maybe, me just half laying there like a statue. He even stomped the ground a little with his front hoof, trying (apparently) to see if I'd react. I didn't. Finally he snorted one or twice, turned and just sort of sauntered off.

Funny, but while it was happening I didn't even feel particularly nervous. (I even recall thinking about trying to point the camera in his direction, but of course I had all the wrong attachments on it---I couldn't have focused on anything more than a few inches away from me.) It wasn't until he was gone that I began to realize how scared I should have been. He most certainly could have done a number on me had he decided to go that route. I guess ultimately he decided I wasn't a threat and just left.

Your pictures are beautiful. They look like they belong in a brochure or magazine.

Amazing pictures !

Nick

Great shots!! I really like 0137 across the back of the roll bars!

I must buy an interchangeable lens slr digital for general usage.
I shoot a Pentax 67 - 60 x 70 mm negative for real film which is still the way to go for very large format enlargements. Most I do are in the 20x30 to 30x50 range and digital doesn't cut it for that size. Problem is, if I want to post anything I have to scan in proof prints and they.......suck!
Like someone said above, it's hard to beat the Northwest for spectacular scenery. It kills me to be going to Olympia, WA next week, but they won't let me check the box in the luggage compartment :mad:

BY the way, how were Crosby Stills and Nash?
Beside really gray!! Great shots of them also.
Wifey gave me their four CD box set many moons ago. I drug it out and put them in as 4 of the 6 in my CX7 DD (Great Bose Premium Surround Sound). I haven't listened too much to the other two in a few weeks now. Man, what a great group they were. :dance: