Clear Lake Trail
The Clear Lake trail runs in a roughly flat 5 mile loop around the lake intersecting with the McKenzie River Trail at the North and South ends. The trail is in very good condition but can be narrow in spots, especially in winter snow. While the parking lot is generally busy, the length of the trail, other activities, and connecting trails mean that the trail won't feel too busy.
The map shows my route along the north end of trail. The photo landmarks don't correspond to all of the photos below.
Click on photos to see a larger version.
Canon 70-200mm ƒ2.8L II at ISO 100, ƒ8, 0.4s
Canon 70-200mm ƒ2.8L II at ISO 100, ƒ16, 2.5s
Yellow Maple
This is a photo I've been searching for. It carries a lot of inspiration from Adam Gibbs and Thomas Heaton's work. I really enjoy the simple form of the tree against the yellow backdrop of the fall leaves.
Standing Together
I photographed these trees from the same spot as the Yellow Maple. The trail at this spot was quite narrow with a bit of a steep drop into the little valley with the yellowing maples. This group of trees were standing just to the right of the yellow maple and were the largest trees in the little valley. I just really liked how they were grouped together in this little procession with the detail of their bark.
Canon 16-35mm ƒ4L at ISO 100, ƒ5, 1/30s. Two image focus stack.
Canon 70-200mm ƒ2.8L II at ISO 100, ƒ22, 0.8s.
New & Old
This was photo was a bit more challenging than I expected. I needed the sun to backlight the yellow leaves but I wanted some diffusion from the clouds to bring a bit of light to the foreground. This photo is also a focus stack of two images, one focused on the yellow leaves and the other focused on the broken limb closest to the camera. In retrospect, it would have been nice to have one more mid-ground focused photo.
Blue Water
I really wanted this shot to work but I'm not very happy with it. In retrospect, I wish I had shot it from closer to the shore with more foreground interest. The water was very calm and I had intended to shoot this as a long exposure to capture more of a reflection but I discovered that my variable neutral density filter was incredibly soft losing almost all of the detail in the yellow leaves. I don't know how I missed how soft the VND was for so long but I will talk more about my new VND in a future post.
Photos from the Hike
These are a combination of test shots that didn't work out and just shots of the location. I'm taking more snapshots while out on hikes that aren't intended to be complete photos. Some of these are test shots to see if a scene might work for a photo but a lot of them are just shots to remember the location at that time of the year.
