Antelope Valley part I
March 17, 2006
Whenever I travel for work I try to throw in some fun too. So I added a couple of days of desert hiking and photography to my trip to Palm Springs for the ESRI Business Partner Conference. Going to the desert in Spring without getting outside would be a crime. The conference started on a Sunday so I left on Friday around 1pm and headed down 99 for the Antelope Valley. From the San Joaquin Valley, the easiest route is down 99 to join up with 5 and head over the Tejon Pass. A little past Gorman is the turnoff for 138. There always seems to be some interesting wildflowers in Spring along 138 even if the poppies of Gorman are taking a break. There's a nice chunk of public land near the Antelope Hills called the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.
Antelope Valley is the western tip of the Mojave Desert that asserts itself between the Tehachapi Mountains to the North and the Sierra Pelona Mountains on the South. One of the great things about the Antelope Hills is I'm always alone there. Most people don't give it a second glance especially when the poppies aren't in bloom. But even then it's often quiet. At sunrise or sunset it's often vacant and that's when the lighting is the best.
I started shooting photos of the goldfields (Lasthenia sp.) and the storm that was sweeping through the Valley. I got a number of landscape and close-up photos before I left my tripod and returned to the car to get another layer of Fleece to stop the wind from making me shake. As I reached the car I heard the last thing a photographer wants to hear: the WHUMP of camera biting dirt.
A wind gust had tossed the whole tripod over. I picked up the camera and noticed that the adapter ring had taken most of the impact. It was bent. A good sign. I turned the camera back on and
everything looked okay. Now the problem was I couldn't get the adapter ring off the lens and I couldn't put a filter holder or lens cap on it. Bad, but not as bad as a busted camera. It was 5 o'clock on a Friday. I called my lovely assistant Pamela at home for a desperate internet search that turned up King Photo Supply in downtown Lancaster. And they were open 'til 6! I drove in to Lancaster and I got great service from Eric in the shop. I was able to remove the adapter ring and they had a replacement in stock. That was pretty lucky because I had to mail order the original. Eric cleaned up a bit of moisture on the lens that had transferred from the high speed ground vegetation encounter. He also noticed a bit of a fog on the inside of the lens. Aye carumba!
I considered the possibility of having to buy a replacement lens but they had sold out of the one I needed. Eric informed me that the best thing to do was to wait a day or two and see if the fog went away on its own before committing to repair or replacement. After a nervous night in Lancaster the lens was crystal clear. The trip was not going to be a total loss.
Next installment .. SuperNatural.
-j-
Whenever I travel for work I try to throw in some fun too. So I added a couple of days of desert hiking and photography to my trip to Palm Springs for the ESRI Business Partner Conference. Going to the desert in Spring without getting outside would be a crime. The conference started on a Sunday so I left on Friday around 1pm and headed down 99 for the Antelope Valley. From the San Joaquin Valley, the easiest route is down 99 to join up with 5 and head over the Tejon Pass. A little past Gorman is the turnoff for 138. There always seems to be some interesting wildflowers in Spring along 138 even if the poppies of Gorman are taking a break. There's a nice chunk of public land near the Antelope Hills called the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.
Antelope Valley is the western tip of the Mojave Desert that asserts itself between the Tehachapi Mountains to the North and the Sierra Pelona Mountains on the South. One of the great things about the Antelope Hills is I'm always alone there. Most people don't give it a second glance especially when the poppies aren't in bloom. But even then it's often quiet. At sunrise or sunset it's often vacant and that's when the lighting is the best.
I started shooting photos of the goldfields (Lasthenia sp.) and the storm that was sweeping through the Valley. I got a number of landscape and close-up photos before I left my tripod and returned to the car to get another layer of Fleece to stop the wind from making me shake. As I reached the car I heard the last thing a photographer wants to hear: the WHUMP of camera biting dirt.A wind gust had tossed the whole tripod over. I picked up the camera and noticed that the adapter ring had taken most of the impact. It was bent. A good sign. I turned the camera back on and
everything looked okay. Now the problem was I couldn't get the adapter ring off the lens and I couldn't put a filter holder or lens cap on it. Bad, but not as bad as a busted camera. It was 5 o'clock on a Friday. I called my lovely assistant Pamela at home for a desperate internet search that turned up King Photo Supply in downtown Lancaster. And they were open 'til 6! I drove in to Lancaster and I got great service from Eric in the shop. I was able to remove the adapter ring and they had a replacement in stock. That was pretty lucky because I had to mail order the original. Eric cleaned up a bit of moisture on the lens that had transferred from the high speed ground vegetation encounter. He also noticed a bit of a fog on the inside of the lens. Aye carumba!
I considered the possibility of having to buy a replacement lens but they had sold out of the one I needed. Eric informed me that the best thing to do was to wait a day or two and see if the fog went away on its own before committing to repair or replacement. After a nervous night in Lancaster the lens was crystal clear. The trip was not going to be a total loss.Next installment .. SuperNatural.
-j-
posted by -j- at 9:17 PM
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