The confluence of various photography factors yesterday morning looked really, really good: A fresh, deep snowfall in the mountains and in Boulder, the possibility of catching the departing storm in its dissipating stage, and a just-past-full Moon scheduled to be maybe 15-20 degrees above the western horizon (Rocky Mountains/Continental Divide) upon the arrival of the scheduled 6:37 a.m. sunrise on the eastern horizon…A wonderfully tempting combination!
I look for those kind things to come together when I am in the mood for some landscapes. Storm, Moon, sunrise…good stuff.
Soooo…I set off in the pre-dawn darkness for the trailhead of one of my favorite vistas–the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain. There was light traffic on the dark, icy road as I motored up the 2,500 vertical feet and 12 miles or so from downtown Boulder. I parked in fresh snow up to the bumper (yep, 4×4 engaged), then hiked…er…slogged the 20-30 minutes up the trail to the summit, working hard to break fresh tracks in the 12 inch-deep white carpet. As morning light seeped in, and with the added moonlight, I could see that there were low thin clouds covering many of the Continental Divide peaks and that the big fatty Moon (99% waning or so) was up, as predicted, just above that western cloud line. To the east, the high cirrus were starting to glow red as the sun climbed from beneath the Earth up toward the Great Plains.
Wonderful view, wonderful possibilities!
I had forgotten the right gloves and had on some thin ones that didn’t work well in the 12-degree breeze (read: frozen hands), but they did allow me to work the camera controls. I did have with me another set of very thick gloves but these wouldn’t allow me to push any buttons at all. So I elected the frozen hands option…Yep, my “photo gloves” were back in the truck.
Yes, a relearning of a small lesson with the gloves…But wait, there’s more!
Near the summit, I started seeing some potential images, so I pulled my tripod from my camera pack, extended the legs, and lifted my camera up toward the ballhead. And that was when I had my anti-Eureka moment. Ugh! The metal camera-to-tripod attachment plate was missing from my camera–I had removed it the week prior for another trip during which I knew I wouldn’t have time to use a tripod. Now, in low light on Sugarloaf, just when I needed to be shooting at very slow shutter speeds, I was saddled with a heavy, and now very useless tripod and just my frozen hands to stabilize the camera…ay, what to do…what to do…
I tried setting the camera on top of the tripod, then holding it firmly in place while the shutter released. Not good. I searched through my camera pack thinking I would have put the metal plate there so as to not lose it–I do try to be sensible and organized, dontcha know–but no dice, must be at home. So, I resigned myself to the situation, bumped up the ISO, turned on the Vibration Reduction (VR), turned off Shutter Delay Mode, turned off the 2-second timer, and resigned myself to shooting handheld. Not ideal at all, given the light (and my frozen hands). No, not ideal at all.
I didn’t come away with any super images after all that, of course. But really it was more because the sunrise/moonset/departing storm combination didn’t quite yield the perfect situation I was looking for–merely a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. It really had less to do with the lack of a tripod.
And the clincher???
The tripod plate was with me in my camera pack all along…I just didn’t look in the right pocket until later that day! Aaacckkkkk!
So, the lessons:
1) Taking photos isn’t all there is to life and simply being outdoors and in the moment is quite fulfilling. For me, it was still a very beautiful experience just to be up on that mountain, making first tracks in the fresh snow at dawn, and watching the sun light up Longs Peak. So, when the “worst” happens, relax and enjoy it!
2) You don’t really need all that equipment…you can actually make do with less if you have to.
And…
3) Always double check your gear before heading off for a photo shoot!
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