The Best Colors in the West

With all apologies to John Muir, the best colors in the West lie in Canyon Country. This past weekend (11/12 - 11/13/05) in Zion National Park and in the surrounding area I witnessed the most amazing display of fall foliage I’ve seen in my life. The Eastern Sierra is bigger and has more trees, but as for variety of color and sheer beauty it doesn’t come close to Zion’s fall season. Throw in the red rock walls and we’ve got the Garden of Eden. The Mormons were a smart bunch for sure…

At this time of year, the Zion Canyon seems to be in mostly shade which is perfect light for shooting foliage. The light allowed me to try my best Elliott Porter impersonation as my images would attest.

My First Week With the 20D.

I love almost everything about the camera though the 9 point AF system takes a while to get used to. My other cameras are of an older technology so selective AF wasn’t an option. For landscape the AF was not a problem since I manually focus a lot of landscapes and landscapes aren’t usually confusing for AF anyway. I had some unfocused images of a snowy egret and my dog though. The 17-85mm IS USM lens is very sharp. The dynamic range is good and the colors are accurate outdoors anyway. I’m not convinced the tungsten and fluorescent settings are entirely accurate. The best part was I saw no evidence of pixelization or noise when interpolating up to larger sizes. Very clean. Any agency that accepts 35mm scans should accept images from the 20D because I believe the 20D provides at least as good image quality. Looking at my own film scans, I can’t stand the grain at 100% magnification so I know I won’t have that problem with digital.

Outdoor Photographer recently had an interview with Jack Dykinga where he states that people are crazy to shoot landscapes with “even the best 16 megapixel cameras”. Obviously he doesn’t know photographers such as Jerry Greer much less seen a large print from a decent digital camera. I’ve seen prints from a classmate at art school taken on a D30 that blew everything else away in class. A 20D has better image quality than the D30. The way I look at it, I can lug around a 50lb pack and come away with a few frames per session if I’m lucky and have the physical stamina/will power to set the large format camera up or I can be free and at least have a shot at shooting provocative imagery. If I don’t come away with great images at least I know it was my fault and not because the equipment weighed me down. The ultimate goal is great content with an acceptable degree of quality at normal viewing distance not grain-less prints on 50 inch murals with your nose pressed against it. I couldn’t give a f*** if a run of the mill landscape was shot on 4x5, 8x10, medium format, APS, digital, 35mm or a doodle scribbled on a napkin. If it is a good image people will want to look at it. Besides, a properly processed RAW file will result in a print at least as good as film so to all you digital haters no one takes you seriously anyway. If they do, they shouldn’t.