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Ashland Springs Hotel and Ashland, Oregon from the base of Grizzly Peak
I took today’s photo back in mid-June. Alas, things are browner now. The location I took this picture from was the same as this prior blog entry.
The Ashland Springs Hotel is in the distance on the right. Empty box cars can be seen on the train tracks that cut through town (even though trains coming through are extremely rare these days).
Ashland before 5 a.m. with the shutter open for 30 seconds
I’m back in Ashland after five and a half weeks in (mostly) Scandinavia. In my first two mornings I haven’t been able to make it past 4 a.m. Maybe tomorrow…
This photo, BTW, shows things as being much lighter outside than they really are. This picture isn’t the first time I’ve found myself jet lagged and taking a shot like this.
The last time I showed you this scene was from right down by the water’s edge in a vertical shot. This landscape-orientation photo I took from the road that runs through Lithia Park.
Vineyards (and wineries) aren’t exactly new to the region, but there seem to be a lot more now than when we moved to the Rogue Valley 11 years ago. In the distance, you can see Pilot Rock in this photo to the right. The east side of the valley (which is what is in this picture) has a number of bluffs as you can see.
Deer, squirrel, and raccoon are common sights in town. I have also seen bear, fox, turkey, and skunk. This was the first jackrabbit I’ve encountered in Ashland.
I picked up a few lenses for my Nikon on Craigslist at a great price. I’m not sure if I will keep them forever, but it’s nice to know that I can sell them for more than I bought them for. The one I used for this photo was a Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED Telephoto Zoom Lens. The lens is great for outdoor sports photography. However, it doesn’t fit in my bag (with the lens hood on anyway), and 70mm is too telephoto to make this lens at all versatile. The 300mm zoom isn’t that much of a difference from the telephoto end of my 18-200mm so I don’t see myself using this lens much. Still, it delivers nice sharpness and bokeh for scenes like the above. By the way, I took this photo at Garfield Park in Ashland.
Back on father’s day I was trying out my 24mm prime lens while on a bike ride up in the Siskiyous. As luck would have it, just as I got my D7000 out of the bag to take a photo of the Caterpillar Trail sign, a few riders came down so I got to test out the responsiveness in low light.
For the first rider I had the dial in the “Auto-No Flash” mode and didn’t have time to change it. Needless to say he blurred a bit as they were coming down the trail fast. That first shot was taken with a shutter speed of 1/160, ISO200, f6.3. I had a few seconds to adjust for the second guy pictured above. I quickly spun the dial over to Scene and then moved the scene to “sports.” I then fired off the above three shots in rapid succession. The camera fired at 1/1000 with an ISO of 500 and f4. I was pleased with the result of three well focused, sharp images (in poor light even), with a frozen rider in each.
While this kind of photo is the more common one you see of Mt. Ashland looking across town, you can also get pictures, like today’s, from some of the farms and pastures that grace the Grizzly side of the valley. I had to get to just the right point along this fence to have Mt. Ashland squeeze in between the gate and trees.
From the same spot as this location, I pointed my camera in the other direction to capture the above view of Ashland Creek in Lithia Park.
My timing was off to make this photo really work. I took it before 8 a.m. in the morning, but I think it would have come out much better before 7 a.m. or at dusk. Stumbling across a field of sunflowers and other wildflowers is always fun though, no matter the time of day. These sunflowers were actually huge. I was at quite a distance and couldn’t get closer due to a fence.