Copyright © 2014 Deborah M Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!

Myself, and  friends Rainey, Rene, Jonathan, and Nik got an early start on Day 1 of our trip to the Eastern Sierras. Our alarms were set for a  4:30am wake up so, we could shoot the Moonset over Convict Lake.

We spent most the day in the Bishop Creek Area. The foliage there was very good overall. Some portions were stripped by the storm the week before, but for the most part it was full, dense, and pretty. I used my new Df, and had my D700 for back up.

I took only two lenses; my Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8, and Nikkor 180mm f/2.8D. I wanted to be fairly light, and not have too much stuff to worry about. My pack was still heavy!

ICM- (Intentional Camera Movement) Nikon D700 w/180mm f2.8 lens. Getting pleasing blurs gets easier

the more you do it. The trick is slowing down your shutter speed then moving your camera up, down or zoom it!

On the one below I zoomed, and shook a bit. Does it make you dizzy?

I also took my LensBaby Composer Pro II with the Soft Focus Optic. I had fun playing with it, and used it more than I thought

I would. I even took an image of my friend Rainey. I’ll ask her if she minds if I post it later.

I think we had our timing just right for the foliage, and weather. It’s overcast, stormy looking, and windy in the Eastern Sierras now which will strip the leaves off a lot of trees. But Jeff Sullivan of JeffSullivanPhotography says there’s still hope! He writes, ” We still have the cottonwoods coming in the 5000 and under elevations, (Bishop to Lone Pine and many Nevada counties) so there will be another round of opportunities if we don’t have a deep frost that rushes them towards brown.”

Let’s hope there’s no deep frost and there will still be some color to enjoy for a few more weeks!

More to come…