Picture of the week

Cathedral Peak clouds

A view of clouds accumulating on the top of Cathedral Peak. Located south of Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park, this peak rises majestically above the surrounding mountainous terrain of this pristine country.  Nearly 11,000 feet in height, Cathedral Peak acts as a barrier for some of the passing weather systems.  The spires of this granite mountain are extremely steep, like a knives edge when viewed from the west.  I backpacked into this area with a couple of friends, staying at Lower Cathedral Lake, capturing this photograph directly from our campsite.  While up here we also explored some of the surrounding terrain including upper Cathedral Lake (another 1/2 mile to the south), and Long Meadow pass just beyond.  Much further to the south and the backcountry for this region of the park was closed due to the recent fire in Little Yosemite Valley.  While up there we also ran into some packers and their mule trains, bringing out the equipment and supplies from Sunrise camp just a couple of more miles up the trail, closing it up for the year.

While at the camp site I was able to gingerly approach and photograph an immature red-tailed hawk, apparently hunting pika in the area.  I later ran into a naturalist who hiked in for the day to study these small rodents.  They were quite noisy in the morning, once I became aware of their existence and what to listen to. Reviewing my shots in the camera, she also helped with the identification of this omni-present raptor that can sometimes be a bit confusing due to the number of morphs. 

On the third morning in the park, I woke up early with the expectations of some morning photography.  But due to some of the lingering fires including the large King fire still growing to the north, the entire Yosemite basin had filled up with smoke.  This pretty much put the kabosh on further photography and plans for more days of backpacking in the area.

This image was captured handheld using a Canon 70D and the newer EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens that I borrowed from another Canon photographer friend.  Settings were f/13, 1/125 sec, ISO400, and 50mm.  I was really impressed with this lens, yielding good quality results, yet much lighter and with better reach compared to my  EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens.  The construction quality of the STM lens also seems more refined and better compared to the 17-55.  But after some pixel peeping, I did notice that the 17-55 is slightly better optically, but not significantly.  For backpacking, these benefits of the 18-135 seem to outweigh the slight improvement in IQ where weight matters more than ever.  After using a postage scale to weigh and evaluate everything going into my pack this year, I was able to reduce my load from over 50 lbs carried on last years trip to the Minarets down to 40 lbs for this trip.  Paying attention to all the details such as the lenses, body, ballhead, and tripod weight can make a difference, adding up when you accumulate everything you need to carry for overnight hiking trips like this.

All content and images are property of Stephen Fischer Photography, copyright 2014.  Last updated: 9/21/2014   ()