Nature

Sourland Mountain, Somerset County

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On Sunday, I spent the afternoon walking around Sourland Mountain Preserve in Somerset County, New Jersey. This was my first time at the location, and the entrance is not far from where I live. I’m not sure how many miles I walked while at the preserve, but I spent some time walking up and down part of the mountain, mostly in a clearing. I also spent some time walking trails amongst the trees. A pond nearby was populated with three families of geese, and two of these families included a number of goslings.

Most people think New Jersey is flat. Much of New Jersey is, but the state does have its share of hills and mountains, and Sourland Mountain is a great example. As I climbed higher, I could see the houses of Hillsborough in the distance.

I brought my Canon 1D Mark III with me. On hand was a Canon 70-200mm f/4L and the original 2x extender I borrowed from a friend. In addition to this combination, I shot with the Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 and briefly with the Canon 50mm f/1.4. The preserve is a great location, and I’d like to come back for portraiture.

The full gallery is on Flickr, and I’ve included a few more photographs after the jump.

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Thanksgiving in Temecula, California

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A few nights ago, I returned from visiting my family in California for Thanksgiving. I had a great time spending time with my brother and sister-in-law earlier in the week; one of the highlights was hiking at Echo Mountain outside Pasadena. For Thanksgiving, my brother departed for his in-laws’ home in Texas, and I stayed in California to visit Bill’s parents’ house in Temecula.

Along the way to a great Thanksgiving meal, we took some time to drive around Lake Skinner outside Temecula. There wasn’t too much to see; camping and fishing are the area’s favorite activities, and there weren’t many people around due to the holiday (and the chilly weather).

You can view a few of the better photos after the jump or view the set on Flickr containing more from Lake Skinner (and a nearby farm) as well as the hiking photos from earlier in the week. For these landscape photographs, a graduated neutral density filter would have helped in order to keep more detail in both the sky and the water. The problem with buying filters is that my variety of lenses have a variety of filter thread sizes, so the process of getting the right filters can be complicated and expensive.

With Canon’s professional lenses, I understand most lenses have the same filter thread size of Φ77mm, so was I upgrade lenses, I’ll develop a full set of filters.

I’m now back in New Jersey, ready to get back to work.

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Hiking at Echo Mountain, California

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Almost every Thanksgiving, I visit my family in California. I was able to spend a few days with my brother and sister-in-law, and we packed those days with a number of activities. We spent a few hours hiking the Sam Merrill Trail to Echo Mountain. It was a tough hike for me — a reminder that I could use more exercise.

The weather was beautiful, however, and the views were amazing. I brought a small contingent of my photography equipment with me on the hike, including my Canon Digital Rebel XTi and two lenses: the 17-85mm and 70-300mm. I used only the shorter zoom, leaving the longer telephoto in my backpack for the entire duration of the hike.

My brother brought his new iPhone. The phone contains an amazing little camera that automatically combines three exposures to create an HDR image. The result is quite interesting, and someone could have a lot of fun with that feature.

I added the three best photos to Flickr, but I’ll include all three here as well, after the jump.

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