Back from Trip to Eastern Sierra, White Mountains
Related: Apple, Apple iOS, Apple iPhone and iPad, Dr S, Eastern Sierra, focus stacking, Inyo National Forest, iOS, Mt Dana area, panorama, peak bagging, Saddlebag Lake, White Mountains, Yosemite
Back from an 8-day trip with daughter which allowed no time for posting. Plus cell coverage in the White Mountains is unusable... after working at high speed for a decade... something changed, cell service a real problem up there now in spite of line of sight to tower 1/4 mile away. I think the receiver is turned off or mis-aimed so that anything to the north is barely usable, vs multi-megabyte per second the last time I was there.
Post COVID malaise or chronic fatigue? Vitamin C might have been a factor in returned vigor.
Unbelievable snow levels
Some iPhone snaps for now, crap-grade image quality wow it’s so awful but works for a blog post I guess. But the iPhone makes it easy to get interesting grab shots and I can post these quickly. Takes time to process Fujifilm GFX100S images, particularly focus stacks.
Best weather, cleanest crystal-clear air, fewest visitors I have seen in 20 years. Incredible.
Snow levels are unbelievable. August is like June and more/deeper/thicker snow. Unprecedented in my experience and surely my lifetime, even the heavy snows of 2016 are laughable by comparison.
Much of the high country snow will not melt this year, at 10K elevation on up there are very large and thick patches of snow. A few years like 2022/2023, and large north-side areas will remain a nearly unbroken white blanket at 11K elevation, and above that crystallize first into an ice field, then glaciate. It is a serious threat to my favorite places in the Sierra, should that come to pass: inaccessible, fish and wildlife destruction, etc.
Below: usually dry by now, heavy water flow and even a 4-foot-thick snowbank nearby.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 7759 ft / 2365 m
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iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 7613 ft / 2320 m
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No snow below 7600 feet or so, just lots of snowmelt.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm
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Below: pollen in Saddlebag lake in August (!) and lakeside trail in distance still covered by snow.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm
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Below, notice the unprecedented snow pack on the eastern ridge of Mt Conness.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 10108 ft / 3081 m
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Below, a warm and pleasant day fishing. at Saddlebag Lake. Look at that August snowpack!
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 10113 ft / 3082 m
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Glacier Canyon
Below: upper Dana Lake has more icebergs in August than I’ve ever seen in June.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 11024 ft / 3360 m
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Below: Dana Lake #2 is dammed by a huge block of snow/ice, with water levels ~2 feet higher than one might see in June. See Dana Lake #3 at right? Nope... it will be lucky to emerge by September, if at all, as it is crushed into oblivion by at least 30 feet of hard-packed snow/ice.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 11033 ft / 3363 m
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Below, Dana Lake #3 in its beautiful topaz glory. Oops—it’s buried under 30 feet of hard-packed icy snow, and all the fish have been killed from what I can tell at the tiny bit of it at the outlet.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 11014 ft / 3357 m
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Below, even in heavy snow years (eg 2016) there is never any snow as seen here, not in August. But here in August 2023, a deep plug of hard-pack snow/ice dams Dana Lake #2 enough to raise the level 1-2 feet over June levels higher than I have ever seen it, and expanding the area of the lake.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 11200 ft / 3414 m
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iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 10763 ft / 3281 m
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White Mountains
Sadly, it appears that there was a high mortality rate for marmots. We spotted only half a dozen over three days, and none at the end of the road where there are usually dozens. I suspect that overwintering with the grass showing up two months too late, many starved to death. Ditto for Pika; I saw far fewer than normal.
Below, green and growing and its own grade of superbloom in August that’s like a vigorous June.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 11823 ft / 3604 m
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We were treated to a wonderful rainstorm.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 6.6 mm f/4 @ 6.6mm ENV: altitude 11923 ft / 3634 m
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iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 6.6 mm f/4 @ 6.6mm ENV: altitude 11613 ft / 3540 m
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Below, this “hummingbug” feeds like a Hummingbird, but it’s an insect. Anyone know what it is? It’s almost as large as a small hummingbird.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 12070 ft / 3679 m
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iPhone XR + iPhone XR 4.2 mm f/1.8 @ 26mm equiv (4.2mm)
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iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 11653 ft / 3552 m
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Below, an ideal day in the 12000' elevation area of the White Mountains. White Mountain Peak is see in the far distance.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 11472 ft / 3497 m
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Below, irrefutable proof that the weather was much warmer at least several centuries ago: weathered-away bristlecone wood at 12100 feet elevation, where no trees grow today (yet).
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 12100 ft / 3688 m
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iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 6.6 mm f/4 @ 6.6mm ENV: altitude 11800 ft / 3597 m
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Dr S writes:
Just a quick note.... Your iphone 7 pics are pretty good for what they are intended. And they're damn good!
Second, from day one I could not really figure out Fuji's auto bracket feature and just abandoned it for landscapes. Takes a little longer to MF but I know I get what I want. Secondly, and I alluded to this before you left, for one-shot landscapes I use AF+MF, especially with the 20-35. I found AFs does not accurately or consistently achieve infinity focus. I would like to believe for such a light kit the AF would be better but if I want critical focus I need to rely on my eye with focus peaking.
DIGLLOYD: iPhone 7 Plus image quality is garbage, the latest models are little better. I have to downsample at least 2X and often 3X, linearly eg a reduction in megapixels of 9X. Multilated “crumpled” image detail, extreme “high quality” compression, no tonal subtlety, etc. But yeah, on a Retina display they can look OK. Shot in RAW, quality jumps much higher, but there is no RAW for panoramas.
Especially with medium format, I strongly recommend against manual focus stacking. As bad as having to take that last INF frame is (switching modes, etc), it’s much better than trying to guess and execute intermediate focus distance shots for a stack. It’s not just the much larger effort, it’s that the stack can be ruined by lighting changes or subject motion.
