First pictures

I finally got the disk space issue resolved. Then I bought a new camera; a Canon Rebel XSi. It has some features I really like (12.2 Megapixels, RAW images, bulb shutter, etc). It has some drawbacks that have kept me from buying an SLR for a while. I bought a kit that came with a lens, but I still need to buy a telephoto lens. I'll probably get a macro lens, too. That's a bunch of stuff to tote around in the desert, and I'm worried about changing lenses out there. I'm afraid I'll get dust in the camera. Well, I just couldn't quite get the quality of pictures I wanted with the S3 IS. The S3 is a very nice camera, and I plan to continue to use it, but I hope to get some magazine quality pictures with the Rebel. I think the first thing I need to get is a polarizing filter.

I went out this afternoon to try the camera out for the first time (I was determined that the first pictures taken with this camera would NOT be of cats). As I left the house, I saw thunderstorm clouds far to the north (probably near Payson). I decided to find a nice spot in Bulldog Canyon and get some pictures of the clouds from there. I was going to hike up to the shadow on the side of this mountain and take pictures from there.

I was on the other side of the ridge in that picture a few days ago. Anyway, I parked the truck and took a look at the thermometer. 109. That couldn't be right. It was only 107 on the freeway on the way out there. Must be heat from the engine getting up to the thermometer. The operating temperature range of the camera only goes up to 105. Heck, my operating temperature range only goes up to 105. That reminds me, I was reading the owner's manual this morning and read that high temperatures can cause pictures to look grainy. Maybe that's why I've been disappointed with how some pictures turned out this summer.

I parked near a wash and walked along it for a while to where I would start climbing. It was there that I realized I had not locked the truck. I do that now and then, and usually I don't worry about it, but today I had left the S3 in the truck, so I went back to lock it. On the way back, I was trying to keep the Rebel out of the sun so it wouldn't fry. At the truck I got an umbrella to help keep the sun off the camera. I also used it to keep the sun off me.

By the time I got back to the spot to start uphill, I was sweating. Yep, it's really hot today. I'm walking on level ground and there's sweat running down my face. I started uphill and also started to really warm up. The umbrella just wasn't big enough. I always wear denim jeans when I hike, because they hold up well to things like cat claw acacia. Have you ever gotten a pair of jeans out of the dryer in the summer time and put them on and immediately thought, "That's just too hot", and taken them right off again? That's how my jeans felt in the sun. I wasn't about to take them off, though, not with all those sharp things around me. I trudged on up, trying to keep the stinging sweat out of my eyes, hiding in the shade of palo verdes and saguaros.

It isn't a very long hike to that shady spot on the side of the ridge. I'd been up there before on a day when I didn't feel like walking much. When I was about halfway there, I sat in the shade to cool off a little. My water was half gone, and I was just getting to the steep part. I still had my backup water, but it had been in the truck all day and was probably too hot to drink. I noticed that the part of the camera that was against my side was cool compared to the rest of the camera. I was being careful to keep it out of the sun, too. When I'm a heat sink for the camera, it's too darn hot. I decided to take pictures of the storm clouds from the shade of a palo verde. I turned to the north and saw scads of puffy little clouds blocking the view of the storm clouds. Rats. So I sat there for a few minutes taking pictures of the scenery.

After about 20 minutes of sitting there taking pictures, my water was getting very low. Time to head back. By the time I got back to the truck, the water was too hot to drink. A couple of flies got in the truck with me. You know how flies will fly away if you get within about 8 inches of them? I had the A/C going. I opened the window and had to physically push the flies out. I think they liked the cooler air in the truck.

I checked the thermometer. 102. That couldn't be right. It felt way hotter than that out there. Maybe some cooled air got to the sensor while I had the window open pushing flies out.

I didn't have a decent tripod with me (left it in the truck, dangit), and it was too hot to mess with figuring out how to store images in RAW format. I was able to hold the camera still enough (the fact that it takes successive pictures very quickly helps with that) to take some exposure bracketed pictures that I used to make some HDRI's. So all but one of the pictures in this album are highly processed. I didn't upload them at full resolution, either, because they aren't that great. Hopefully I'll have some good pictures soon, though. Click below to see the pictures.

BC_2008_08_24