A Trip To Yellowstone National Park - Trip Planning

After we set our sites on a target we rarely miss.  Yellowstone National Park (YNP) was in the cross hairs, so the planning was in full force.

My wife being a much better planner of travel than me, handled the flight details, lodging and rental vehicles.

Budget
We discussed a budget for the trip.  We wanted to be roughly around $3000USD in total for lodging, travel and car rental.

Flights versus Driving
Our vacation time was limited to 7 days and we even planned the trip around a holiday weekend(Aug 26 - Sept 2).
Researching travel options showed that flights from our location would be the best option.  A flight from John Glenn International Airport (KCMH) to Yellowstone International Airport (KCOD) would take around 5.5 hours, while driving would yield a 24 hour trip time.

There were 2 main choices from our location: Delta and United Airlines.  Both flew from John Glenn into Denver, then a connecting flight from Denver to Cody.  United won out for us.  We decided to spring for first class.  I'm very glad we did.  Almost 4 hours in the air, it was nice having the extra leg room and the enhanced services.  Flight costs were $1600 for 2 round trip tickets.

Lodging
Our first look into lodging was staying in a resort within the park itself.  Possibly at Mammoth or Old Faithful.  Those proved to be cost prohibitive for our budget.  Lodging cost alone in those places would have almost exhausted our budget.  One of our favorite ways of securing a place to stay is using the mobile app called Airbnb.  If you've never used it, let me tell you that it is one of the most convenient ways of finding a place to stay.  Since using the service, we have never stayed in a hotel since.  I'll not get into the details of it all, but look it up on your smart phone and see the cost savings as well as the convenience/quality of the lodging.

Using Airbnb, we found a great one bedroom place in downtown Cody, WY.  From here, it would only be a 50-60 minute drive to the East Entrance of Yellowstone.  Cost of rental for the week was $800

Why so far away from the entrances?   This is my thought process.  Cody, WY has a lot to offer.  Not being familiar with the region, we were unsure of the weather.  We wanted to make sure that we had activities and entertainment for the bad weather days.  Another consideration is fatigue.  We have had times when you try and pack too much into a day and then you get tired from all the boping about you did.  While possible to run through a lot of YNP from a car, we wanted to be able to experience quite a bit more, so plans for hiking could wear you out.  Having a backup plan would be a good idea.

Vehicle Rental
We were able to get a package deal with our flight from United.  $380 got us a Toyota Camry with 2100 miles of use for the entire week.

A lot of people think that you might want a truck of some kind.   I would consider it a "nice to have" not a necessity.  We did quite well everywhere we went for the whole week.  Since we were driving almost 100 miles per day just too and from the park, having the more fuel efficient car was also a bonus.

Viewing Plan
As hinted to in the first post, we wanted to have an idea of what we wanted to do, but not be so planned out that we scheduled a specific when.

I downloaded a map from the YNP website that had an overview of the park.   Labeled all the entrances, the grand loop and most of the major stops along the way.   From that I made a list of the must see areas.  Old Faithful, Mammoth, Canyon Village, Mt. Washburn just to name a few.

Being an avid hiking family, we wanted more detail on the trails we were going to be exploring.  A book that helped a lot in the planning process was Top Trails Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Park: 46 Must-Do Hikes For Everyone by Wilderness Press.  It lays out most of the major trails, rating them for difficulty, use, access.  It also gives you details on length in miles as well as trail types, such as loop, one way or out and back.  This resource helped us pick some great hikes and we could pre-plan them to our desired skill level.  We chose to stick with ones that were 5 miles and under.

I also picked up the National Geographic YNP regional topo maps.  I thought those wold be a good, light weight and small addition to the pack for hiking.

With all that down and out of the way, all that was left was the waiting for the day to arrive.  Our next post will cover the photography and hiking gear.  Stay tuned and enjoy!

Outer Banks 2013 - Keeping It Simple

I've posted previously regarding family vacations/travel and photography.  In the post Travel Photography - What To Take, I discussed how to get the best images you can with minimal gear.

Took a family vacation to the Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina - the infamous "Outer Banks" or "OBX".

I switched up the gear a little bit this time and instead of going all Nikon D50, I took the relatively new acquisition of the Fuji X-E1 and the Nikon D50.  The X-E1 handled the ultra wide to moderate range and the D50 took the moderate to telephoto.  Why go this way?  Well, the Fuji 55-200mm OIS lens was not released at the time of this vacation, so the Nikon was still required.

Gear List:
Nikon D50
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR
Fuji X-E1
Fuji 18mm f/2, 35mm f/1.4R
Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye in Nikon mount/Fotodiox Nikon to Fuji lens adapter
Joby Gorillapod for DSLR
Nikon SB-26

Did not need the speed light for exposure on this trip.I did use it for another reason, which I will explain later.

We tend to travel and find our own way around.  We do take some of the chartered stuff, but we don't plan out the entire trip and have a schedule for everything.

Nikon D50
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR

Ok, so I told you earlier that the SB-26 was used but not for the reasons you would expect.  The family wanted the beach and ocean in the background.  I placed the Nikon D50 on the Gorillapod and attached it to a hand rail leading into the beach.   Set the timer and fired it off.  The camera was sufficient distance away that we could not see the small light on the camera body that let us know when the timer went off.  Instead, I set the camera on manual and dialed in the correct exposure.  I then placed the SB-26 on top of the camera and placed it in manual mode as well, popping off at 1/64th power.  We just needed a confirmation on when the shutter was released.  We go the perfect shot in 3 tries!!

Fuji X-E1
Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye

Fuji X-E1
Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye

Fuji X-E1
Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye

 The previous 3 shots were captured using the Rokinon 8mm Fisheye.  It is in Nikon mount and uses a Fotodiox adapter.  It has an aperture ring, so exposure in the camera is automatic!  Just set the aperture ring and the X-E1 will adjust the ISO and shutter automatically for you.   I used it just to get a different effect.  I very well could have gotten great shots with the Fuji 18mm, and I did...but sometimes you experiment and do some things a little different.
I chose to go with the Rokinon in Nikon mount because it can then also work with my Nikon D300.  Double duty is always good.

It is also a manual focus lens, so I get a large depth of field by putting the lens at f/8 and setting the focus ring to about 1.5 ft.   With this setting you should get everything from a foot and a half to infinity into focus.

Fuji X-E1
Fuji 35mm f/1.4R

Couldn't resist!  The above shot were some of the youngsters riding inner tubes down the sides of some of the dunes.

Fuji X-E1
Fujinon 18mm f/2
In Camera Panorama

Playing about with some of the in camera features, the Fuji X-E1 has the ability to capture panoramas in camera.  Just set it to that mode and follow the on screen guidance.

Nikon D50
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR

The shot above was helped tremendously by me going out and doing my "visual push ups" and taking up street shooting.  It doesn't hurt studying people like Fan Ho or Henri Cartier-Bresson....understanding their methodology and applying it.  I walked the beaches near our rental and treated it like a street shooting assignment.

Nikon D50
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR

This crab claw in the sand, most likely left here by a seagull after a meal, caught my eye as a great still life.  The contrast of the course sand/gravel with the smoothness and bleached out look of the claw really pulled my attention.  This is a situation where the VR came in handy.  It was bright, but I was standing straight up and shooting down at 200mm.

Nikon D50
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR

Nikon D50
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR

Nikon D50
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR

The 3 images above of the horses were taken at sunset.  These are wild spanish stallions that roam this area.   Back when America was first getting settled, the Spanish explorers would come into this area, and their large boats would get stuck in the shallow coastal waters.  They started throwing anything of weight overboard....and some of those things were the horses.  The ones that were never recovered, lived off the land and went back to their wild roots.
This is another situation where the VR really helped.  Most of these were shot at ISO 400 on the D50, which is still very usable.
The first 2 images were very typical of what you could expect to see, and the sunset light really helped pull out texture in the horses coats and the scenery.  We specifically asked for the sunset tour times for this very reason. Sometimes a little planning does help out!

The last image was shot on our way into the beach area.  The back lighting was so intense and the part of the beach we were on did not allow you to stop, so this was captured as a silhouette on purpose.   Sometimes you only have a split second to get that capture!

Fuji X-E1
Fujinon 35mm f/1.4R
In Camera Panorama

This is Currituck Light House.  We ended up here after just driving around exploring.  This is a situation where some of the in camera features save your bacon.  I only had the Fuji 35mm with me on the X-E1 and I could not get far enough back with an effective field of view of ~53mm.  So, I put the camera in Panorama mode and got this shot.

Nikon D50
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR

Here, we took the dolphin tour.  Spent most of the time racked all the way out to 200mm.  A lot of specular highlights from the water caused some havok with the meter.  So, we shot these in manual mode.  After looking at some of the shots, I'd say that the D50 was giving us a good under exposure of 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop under in aperture priority.  To not have to deal with the exposure fluctuation, we went right into manual mode and left it there for the duration.

Nikon D50
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR

This image is of an ospreys nest. There were three babies in the nest.  This was an unexpected find on the dolphin boat tour.

Fuji X-E1
Fujinon 35mm f/1.4R

We also made a trip to the NC Aquarium.  It is not large but a visually impressive show of sea life and indigenous OBX wildlife. 

An Over Nighter - Destination -- Pittsburgh, PA

As some of you may know, I'm a big fan of Jay Maisel.  Not just his work, but his mindset toward bettering your photography.  He has many a profound thing to say, not that they have never been said before, I just think that he happened to be there when I needed to hear them the most.

Cathedral of Learning

One thing I learned from Jay Maisel is that you need to do your "visual pushups" everyday.  This means going out and looking for image capture opportunities.  It doesn't mean you need to take pictures, but you need to make the attempt.  Find something that is interesting or that you've never seen before.

To that end, the family and I decided to take a trip to Pittsburgh, PA.   I've driven through before, but never stayed.  My wife, had occasion to travel there a short while back and recommended it as a great place for photographic opportunities.

We did some pre-planning and decided on one or two places that we wanted to visit, but we did not plan exactly when.  We do this to keep the flexibility of the trip to a maximum.  You do have some ideas of when the best time would be for lighting for outdoor locations, and we also had some places on the back burner in case the weather did not lend itself for outdoor photo opportunities.

Gear For The Trip

I wanted to travel light, but also use a good low light, high ISO performer.  I also wanted to keep it simple and not be dragging tons of lenses.

List:

Nikon D700
Nikkor 28-85mm f/3.5-4.5 Macro
Nikkon 24mm f/2.8
Nikon SB-600
Gorillapod DSLR tripod

I was able to get all this plus extra batteries, memory cards and lens hood into a Tamrac System 6 shoulder bag.

I picked this setup as I am slowly starting to get to the point where I am wanting to use my Fuji X-E1 setup for travel photography like this.  It does appear that the Fuji will fit the bill.  It has the hi ISO performance I would want and once I get the 55-200mm to go along with the 18mm/35mm primes I already have.

Interesting locations

Cathedral of Learning

An absolutely unique place to visit.   This 42 story, 535ft tall building is the tallest educational building in the western hemisphere.   it is built in the Gothic Revival style and broke ground in 1926, with the first class usage in 1931.  There are 29 "Nationality Rooms" which are all built with techniques and materials from the country of its origin.  Additional information regarding the Cathedral of Learning can be found here in this detailed Wikipedia entry.

Common Area Inside The Cathedral of Learning

The interior common areas are intricately built like an old cathedral.  University of Pittsburgh students can be seen frequenting the common areas, studying.
Lighting here is a bit of a challenge.  There is a strong tungsten light cast(red) and the lighting is very dim.  Fast glass and high ISO gear will help you a lot if you want to shoot hand held.  Otherwise, I'd recommend a tripod.

The first floor nationality rooms require you to pay a $4 fee per person to see.  Go to the gift shop/information room to pay and they will give you a key and audio player.  The audio player plays a description of the room for you. 

View From The Third Floor

 When done on the first floor, head to the third floor for more nationality rooms.  Before you do, you can return the key and audio player.  The rooms on the third floor are unlocked and have a switch in them for the audio information.

The English Room

Its hard for me to pick a favorite room as I loved them all.  It was a different look at the all the cultures represented.

Entrance to the English Room

Heinz Memorial Chapel

Henry John Heinz, founder of the HJ Heinz Co wanted to dedicate a building to his mother at the University of Pittsburgh.  Mr Heinz, upon his death in 1919 left money to build the Heinz Memorial Chapel just a short hop, skip and jump from the Cathedral of Learning.

Heinz memorial Chapel

This chapel has splendid exterior features as well as interior features.  Some of the most beautiful stained glass I've seen in quite some time.  Again, like the Cathedral of Learning, interior of the chapel is low light, see prepare accordingly.

Duquesne Incline / Mt. Washington

Mt. Washington give you the absolutely best view of the Pittsburgh skyline, day or night!  For a reasonable $5 round trip fee, the trolley car takes you from the Station A parking lot at the street level all the way up to the top of Mt. Washington.   Outside the station is an observation deck.

St. Benedict The Moor Church

St. Benedict The Moor was a freed slave that impressed the Catholic priests of his region, they invited him to join a hermit order.He is known as the patron saint of African-Americans.

St. Paul's Catholic Church

Located across the street from the Carnegie School of Software Engineering, this church has that great, old world architecture that will have you snapping pictures of it for hours!

Parting Notes

 While there are some places, like the ones I've listed above, Pittsburgh is a great city just to walk about and grab images.  The people and architecture leave almost limitless opportunities.  Here are just a few images of street photography I found close to our hotel as well as down side streets from the other places we visited.