"The Road to Mt. Hopkins, Arizona" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks
[Good News, bad news: Good News? The drive up Mt. Hopkins was glorious, the finest dirt road I have ever driven on, and I have traveled on many an unpaved road. Why is this road so wonderfully maintained? Because there are telescopes at the top. Big powerful ones, multi-lenses ones, U.S. Government ones. Also, the road isn't beaten down that bad, not like, say, Middlemarch Pass Road out of Tombstone that winds through the Dragoons Mountains, that's used by many locals and tourists alike, and is all tore to shit. No, the Mt. Hopkins road is only used by the astronomers who take her to the top, and by the occasional cool weather camper who pitched a tent on its higher ridges. Saturday, it was 105 degrees in the Santa Cruz River Valley below, 107 in Tucson, but not up on the high Southern slopes of the Santa Rita Mountains. I'm guessing in mid 80S.
Bad News? My nighttime Lasso shots ended up being very 'noisy' and quite frankly, unacceptable for print and sale. I was despondent for much of Sunday, not knowing why they sucked so bad, but I figured it out, after looking at the JPEGS. Very underexposed JPEGS they were, and when I opened the same images as RAW digital negative files, they automatically compensated for the gross underexposure, but not without a heavy price to the quality fo the image. Hence all the f-ing noise.
Maybe some late moon shooting tonight, but I don't think I'll be driving a hour and a half south this evening to reshoot halfway up Mt. Hopkins. The Moon wont' be up until after 11 p.m. or so, and I do have a dayjob and responsibilities at work. Damn it all. But who knows. Perhaps I'll just drive five minutes north of my apartment, to the Finger Rock Trailhead and do some Light Lassos in the wash up there. I'll see how I feel after dinner. Hope I don't eat too many sugar cookies and pass out on the futon like last night. Well, I am grateful though, that I figured out the 'noise' problem, and thanks to a couple of photog friends that validated what I was thinking was right.
Least I got a nice shot of the Santa Cruz valley on Sunday, even if the Lassos pretty much sucked. Live and learn. And one out of two ain't bad. I'll just keep tell myself that until I get a Lasso I like.]
(Images: "The Road up Mt. Hopkins, Arizona" and "The Lights of Mt. Hopkins, Arizona" (c) Stu Jenks 2007)
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