Bentonite and Rain Don’t Mix
After riding 200 miles, I drove over to the Carrizo Plain National Monument, crawled into the back of my car around 11:30 pm (trying to avoid a painful hamstring cramp), then woke up at around 5am to the sound of raindrops. So I drove out to pavement to sleep until 8am or so, knowing the roads impassible when wet.
There is only one problem with rain and Carrizo Plain National Monument: the roads are a sort of bentonite clay (or something like it). When soils containing bentonite clay are wet, a typical car will slide right off the road at about 2 mph. In my Cayenne with its center and longitudinal differentials locked and in low range, I was able to drive 10-15 mph or so up a slight grade on a straight road, but not exactly in a straight line. As the rain intensified, I bailed. All the interesting side roads become impassible as they are steeper and curvier. While the roads dry out fast, it can still take a day or two. And there were no flowers to be seen, quite unlike the impressive flower carpets I have seen there in past years (drought + cold I suppose),
I circled the monument on paved roads, but the rain never stopped, so late in the day, I headed for home. It was not a successful day for photography, but I fared better than this bullet-holed sign.
Thanks to B&H Photo for making the 5D Mark III available for testing.
Canon 5D Mark III + Zeiss 100mm f/2 Makro-Planar
Dynamic range with the Canon 5D Mark III looks like it might be significantly improved.
Canon 5D Mark III + Zeiss 100mm f/2 Makro-Planar
The color seems to be along the same lines as I’m used to seeing from Canon. But I need a lot more shooting to say anything definitive. And it’s unclear whether Adobe Camera RAW beta is producing the best results for the 5DM3.
Canon 5D Mark III + Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 Distagon
