Desert Wild Flowers, Death Valley, etc.
Don Bradner
1998. We've only covered a couple of areas so far, and I've
photographed 33 species so far.
Any plant experts out there? I have decent identification of 21 of the
33, but not the other 12 at this point. The visitors center say nobody
there is any good at it - may be rangers who can on duty next week.
The pictures can be found at
http://www.arcatapet.net/travel/dvflowers.cfm
I haven't linked to that page yet from the main Death Valley travel
page yet - will do so when I put up some non-flower pictures.
There have been a few references here to the road up to (and down
from) Dante's View. We stopped several times on the way up to take
flower pictures (missed a picture of the coyote that crossed in front
of us), so on the way back I just coasted. Literally, except when
using the engine for braking.
Got to be a game to see how far I could coast. Touched the brake and
throttle only once, at the stop sign at highway 190. Otherwise it was
just clutch and gear shift in my Hyundai Santa Fe.
Twenty six and a half miles from Dante's View to the Furnace Creek
Campground entrance stop sign. Except for slow speeds on the 15% grade
at the top in first and second gear, the Dante's View road was mostly
at 45 with clutch in, or 4th or 5th gear to keep from going too fast.
No problem maintaining 55 on 190 to stay ahead of a tanker truck. I've
never coasted that far before in my life!
The altitude difference is 5665 feet (plus 5475 to minus 190), so that
works out to an average 4.2% grade if my calculations are correct.
--
Don Bradner
donb at arcatapet.com
Posting today by Satellite from
Furnace Creek Campground, Death Valley NP
www.arcatapet.net
George Starcher
"Don Bradner" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:h08c60di13n0qms98...@4ax.com...
> They say it is the best year for wildflowers in Death Valley since
> 1998. We've only covered a couple of areas so far, and I've
> photographed 33 species so far.
>
Don,
If you don't mind sharing, what kind of camera are you using and what are
its basic specs?
George Starcher
Don Bradner
>If you don't mind sharing, what kind of camera are you using and what are
>its basic specs?
I'm using an Olympus C-2100. Old by today's standards; bought it in
November of 2000 when they had only been out a couple of months.
This is my third digital. The first I don't remember the model, but it
was an Olympus they sent me for software testing - did 640x480. A
couple of years later I got a D-600 (also gratis) that is still in use
in our business as the camera for product photos.
When I was in the market to buy my first one with my own money, I was
attracted to this one because of its optics, speed, and 10:1 optical,
stabilized zoom. All of the reviews included the word "Fun." I now
know about 15 other users, and not an unhappy one in the bunch.
It is 2.1 megapixels, 1600x1200. I thought I would want to move up,
but so far I haven't found a camera at higher resolution I like as
well or better. I've had the opportunity to take side-by-side images
with Oly E10 and E20 cameras, and to my eye the images I get with this
one are better. I look forward to some point being able to do the same
with other brands.
These days I put up most web images at 1024x768, and so the 2.1 is
fine for that. It also does a very good job on prints up to 8x10.
That's about the limit.
It will do about 2 frames per second - on the main page for this trip
I have a 4-frame shot of Barry Bonds hitting a home run, and you can
clearly pick out the ball part-way to home plate in the second frame.
For these wildflower pictures it is nice having both spot-focus and
spot-exposure readings, coupled with macro. I missed the focus on a
few of them, but most are very sharp. Some of those flowers are less
than 1/4 inch across!
Although it is a bulky camera because of the lens barrel length, it is
lightweight and rests comfortably in one hand.
I paid $1000 for mine as an early adopter. A year ago you could get
refurbbed ones on e-bay for $500, but most of them are going for more
these days. The camera's reputation is that good!
George Starcher
> I'm using an Olympus C-2100. Old by today's standards; bought it in
> November of 2000 when they had only been out a couple of months.
>
>
Thank you, Don, for the good info. I remember seeing the review of that box
on the Stevesdigicam site. I just checked it again and his conclusions are
the same as yours - good and fun.
My only digital is an Oly C700-UZ. The image quality is OK and the 10x
optical is very good but not image stabilized like the 2100.
I want to upgrade to the Nikon D100 so that a whole shelf full of Nikkor
AF-D lenses won't go to waste but have been waiting for the prices to come
down some more. Perhaps someday soon <sigh>.
Thanks again - nice pics - keep them coming!
George
Bob Giddings
wrote:
>"George Starcher" <poolp...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>If you don't mind sharing, what kind of camera are you using and what are
>>its basic specs?
>
>I'm using an Olympus C-2100. Old by today's standards; bought it in
>November of 2000 when they had only been out a couple of months.
>
>Although it is a bulky camera because of the lens barrel length, it is
>lightweight and rests comfortably in one hand.
>
>I paid $1000 for mine as an early adopter. A year ago you could get
>refurbbed ones on e-bay for $500, but most of them are going for more
>these days. The camera's reputation is that good!
I like it. Paid $800 for mine, probably a year later than you.
That's the camera that I left on the toolbox in Utah. It bounced of
the pavement at 30 mph or so, was found by a road crew, and returned
to me. I started taking pictures immediately. Undamaged, except for
a scratch.
I wouldn't want to repeat the test though. I'm not that curious. Or
lucky.
Bob
www.arcatapet.net/bobgiddings
Current email at:
bobgiddings0 at yahoo dot com
Don Bradner
>I like it. Paid $800 for mine, probably a year later than you.
>That's the camera that I left on the toolbox in Utah. It bounced of
>the pavement at 30 mph or so, was found by a road crew, and returned
>to me. I started taking pictures immediately. Undamaged, except for
>a scratch.
Roger Martin has one, so there are at least three among the newsgroup
folks here.
Tom Marik
Campground entrance stop sign. Except for slow speeds on the 15% grade
at the top in first and second gear, the Dante's View road was mostly at 45
with clutch in, or 4th or 5th gear to keep from going too fast. >>
Since my bike was geared for about 35, I got up to 48 by putting my head down.
Those first few curves on the top gave me a blow out. In the future, I'll use
disc brakes. My record was 49 minutes.
You did much better on the flowers than any of my twelve trips to DV.
Tom M
Don Bradner
>Since my bike was geared for about 35, I got up to 48 by putting my head down.
>Those first few curves on the top gave me a blow out. In the future, I'll use
>disc brakes. My record was 49 minutes.
I've got some DV pictures up now at
http://www.arcatapet.net/travel/deathvalley.cfm
Includes a valley panorama from Dante's View.
>You did much better on the flowers than any of my twelve trips to DV.
The rangers say this is the best year since 1998, which I guess is
considered the best year ever. I've removed a couple of pictures that
turned out to be dupes, and added a few more; still need
identification on some.
We are planning on going up to ubehebe crater tomorrow, which they are
saying is covered in flowers.
James Gemmill
help. Sorry I can't help.
On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 17:00:40 -0800, Don Bradner <m...@privacy.net>
wrote:
>They say it is the best year for wildflowers in Death Valley since
James Gemmill
http://www.jburroughs.org/science/resources/azwildflowers/azwildflowers.html
Don Bradner
>You may want ot number the flowers you don't have named so someone can
>help. Sorry I can't help.
The images all have numbered file names, so I don't think that would
be too restricting. In any event, with the help of other campers, a
few good books, one helpful ranger, and countless websites, I'm down
to only one unidentified plant. Some of the identifications are
marginal, but that's good enough for now. The ranger thinks my one UFO
(as a correspondent from this group called them in an e-mail) is a
very young cottontail cactus; I haven't been able to find a picture of
one that young (it was only a couple of inches tall) to verify, and
I'm skeptical. He definitely wasn't definite.
Of the many websites, the one that gave the most help (after narrowing
down to a family) was
http://www.calflora.net/bloomingplants/photographsscientificnamelist.html