[/caption] Evening photo of Mt. Bailey and Diamond Lake on the last day of May. If you plan on visiting the Southern Oregon Cascades, during the month of May, plan on bringing a pair of snow-shoes or cross country skis if you want to get out and explore the wilderness. In fact, I’ve visited the area in late June and still had to put on my snow-shoes in order to explore the area. I took this shot at about 6:00pm and the sun was just starting to lower behind the mountains. The sun was too bright for me to set the camera in the shutter priority, even with my ND filter. I decided to take advantage of the bright sky and the saturation of the water.
Tag Archives: Diamond Lake
Mt. Thielsen, OR
[/caption] Mt. Thielsen with its incredible snow pack during late June in 2011. It’s hard to imagine that you can’t take more than 5 steps while hiking any of the Mt. Thielsen trails without running in to snow. You are well advised to bring your snow shoes if you plan on hiking near the higher elevations of the mountain. Most of the campsites within the Diamond Lake area are still closed due to the high snow pack and the north entrance to Crater Lake National Park isn’t scheduled to open until later this week. I took this photo near the snow park just south of Hwy 230 and about 1/2 mile south of Diamond Lake. I was using my Canon T1i along with my Sigma 17-70mm lens. It was about 8:35am and the sun was in the upper right hand of the photo which was creating a pretty intense glare unless you took cover in some shade. I made sure to attach my CIR-PL and warming filter in order to tone down the glare in the sky and warm the mountain as well as the forest in the foreground. I set the ISO to 100 and reduced the white balance to -1.3. I had the camera mode in Program/Normal mode so the aperture was automatically set at F-8 and the shutter speed at 1/320 second. I wanted to get as much of the mountain in the photo with the trees in the foreground so I set the focal length at 70mm. I was still able to have a really good depth of field since there were no distracting subjects too close to the main subject.
Mt. Thielsen, OR
[/caption] Mt. Thielsen with its incredible snow pack during late June. It’s hard to imagine that you can’t take more than 5 steps while hiking any of the Mt. Thielsen trails without running in to snow. You are well advised to bring your snow shoes if you plan on hiking near the higher elevations of the mountain. Most of the campsites within the Diamond Lake area are still closed due to the high snow pack and the north entrance to Crater Lake National Park isn’t scheduled to open until later this week. I took this photo near the snow park just south of Hwy 230 and about 1/2 mile south of Diamond Lake. I was using my Canon T1i along with my Sigma 17-70mm lens. It was about 8:35am and the sun was in the upper right hand of the photo which was creating a pretty intense glare unless you took cover in some shade. I made sure to attach my CIR-PL and warming filter in order to tone down the glare in the sky and warm the mountain as well as the forest in the foreground. I set the ISO to 100 and reduced the white balance to -1.3. I had the camera mode in Program/Normal mode so the aperture was automatically set at F-8 and the shutter speed at 1/320 second. I wanted to get as much of the mountain in the photo with the trees in the foreground so I set the focal length at 70mm. I was still able to have a really good depth of field since there were no distracting subjects too close to the main subject.
Mt. Bailey, OR
[/caption] The snow in the Southern Oregon Cascades are nearly 600% above normal and you will be sure to find that most of the hiking trails are completely covered in snow. You would be advised to bring some snow shoes and plan on having an epic time snow shoeing at Crater Lake National Park, Mt. Bailey or Mt. Thielsen. I spent one day snow shoeing on the south side and the next day snow shoeing the north side of Crater Lake and found myself amazed at the amount of snow there was. I camped at Diamond Lake and took this photo of Mt. Bailey just as the sun had set behind it. I was amazed at the amount of osprey and bald eagle that was flying along the lake as well as just over my head. I witnessed an osprey catching its dinner as it plunged towards the lake. I was using my Canon Rebel T1i along with my Sigma 17-70mm lens. I was standing along the edge of the lake as thousands of hungry mosquito’s swirled around me. I took this shot at 8:58pm and the sun had just set to the right of the mountain when I noticed that some clouds were beginning to move over Mt. Bailey. I decided to set the camera mode to shutter priority in order to flatten out the water. I set the shutter speed at 4 seconds which put the aperture at F-18 since I had the ISO at 100 and the white balance at -1.3. I was using my tripod, bubble level and remote switch to ensure that there would be no camera shake or blurs. I also attached my CIR-PL and warming filter. I had the focal length at 38mm in order to keep Mt. Bailey as the main subject. You would be advised to watch out for avalanche dangers since I noticed that all of the mountains had been experiencing avalanches during the mid afternoon.
Mt. Thielsen, OR
[/caption] Here is a photo of Mt. Thielsen and Diamond Lake in the foreground. I took this shot the same day that I had visited Crater Lake National Park back on 6/30/10. The one thing that I will always remember is the thousands of mosquito’s that thrive along the lake during the summer months. It was like being attacked by a barrage of pesky flying pests that were determined to suck the blood right out of you. However, luckily I brought plenty of bug repellent and I had only spent about an hour at the lake. It was about 6:00pm so the sun was fairly low and I was facing due est so there was little to no sun glare. The mountains behind me were also shadowing the sun which helped eliminate most of the glare from the lake or clouds. I was trying to get several shots without having any of the dozens of fishing boats that dotted the lake but this was one of only a few with no boats in the photo. Since the water was creating some glare I made sure to use my tripod, bubble level and my remote switch so I could eliminate any blur. I was using my Canon EOS T1i along with my Tokina 12-24mm wide angle lens. I attached my warming and CIR-Pl filter and set the focal length to 14mm. Since the camera was in Program/Normal mode the aperture was at F-7 and the shutter speed was at 1/100 second. I set the ISO to 100 and the white balance at -0.3 in order eliminate some of the harsh light in the clouds. Diamond Lake is an amazing place to camp, fish, hike and there are also several miles of single-track mt. biking trails along the wilderness. This part of Oregon is one of my favorite places to visit during late spring or early summer. If you can handle the mosquito’s, it’s one of the best places to truly enjoy the outdoors with all of the trimmings. You have a National Park, huge pristine lake, Several volcanoes to explore, alpine lakes, meadows, massive forest, creeks, rivers, waterfalls, no cities and hundreds of miles of hiking trails. The air is absolutely amazing and the atmosphere is very peaceful. You can see Diamond Peak, Mt. Thielsen, Mt. Baily and Mt. Scott. I’ve seen bald eagles and dozens of species of wildflowers. If you increase in some elevation you can see all of these mountains, including Mt. Shasta to the south and the Three Sisters to the north. Truly, this is a place to explore when the weather is nice.