Good Morning, Ms. E’Squared. Your Mission …

Saturday, 12 May

Isn’t that how the famous line from the Mission:Impossible TV series started out?  Of course, the mission was directed at Mr. Phelps and he was given the choice to accept or not.  Well, I had a mission today, and I accepted the challenge.  Am I satisfied with the results?  Eeehhh!  Let’s just say that I need plenty more practice.

Anyway, we had a great day today, even if it is ending on a bit of a sour note.  Why?  Because we’re holed up inside the Phaeton where the double-paned windows at least mute the noise generated by 10+ young boys camped in the site next to ours.  You can imagine the cacophony, can’t you?  All talking at the same time; each speaking louder than the other to get himself heard.  This has been going on for several hours now and there’s no hope of the noise dying down until quiet hours begin at 10:00p.

There is a group camping area in another part of this park.  According to the camp host, they did have reservations for sites down there.  Why they are here?  Why they were allowed to change those reservations for this campground, which is mostly for individual/family camping?  Why the chaperones put all of the boys in the site next to us and then dispersed themselves to three other sites?  We asked the questions, but didn’t get a straight answer from the camp host.  One thing’s for sure, should we return to Shenandoah River State Park (SRSP) for post-retirement camping, it will be during the off season or during the week.

Onto more pleasant things.

The map to the right shows the drive we took today.  Just so I could accomplish my mission.  You see, I bought a new lens not long ago and I need to figure out before the end of the month if I am keeping it or not.  The 300mm prime lens takes tack-sharp pictures — in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.  Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.  I was happy enough with the practice shots I took with the camera sitting on the tripod, but I anticipate having to hand-hold this lens most of the time for wildlife photography.  So, that was the mission — take hand-held pictures of some four-legged critters (birds to be practiced on later).  Well that, and also figure out whether I can even lug the lens around for a couple of hours at a time.

With that in mind, we headed to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park where I was guaranteed to find some white-tailed deer.  Yeah right; they must have heard I was coming and went into hiding!  Anyway, it was still quite cool — only about 50F (11C) — when we entered the park around 9:00a, and it just got cooler as we drove the 51 miles (82 km) to Big Meadows.  Fleece jackets were the uniform of the morning.

When there’s no wildlife to photograph, you make do with other subjects.

Unfazed by the lack of wildlife, I donned my cotton carrier vest and we set out on a walk around the meadow to at least decide if the lens was going to be too heavy to carry around for any length of time.  You might recall seeing me wearing this vest in some photos I’ve posted in the blog.  It’s THE BEST THING I’VE DONE FOR MYSELF when it comes to my photography hobby; worth every penny I paid for it!  In no time at all, I knew carrying the 5.17 pound (2.35 kg) lens was not going to be a problem.  Around my neck or on my shoulder, I would have been unable to carry the lens for long, but using the vest — no problem at all.

images of the cotton carrier (from a different photo shoot).
Top left: vest with optional holster for second camera.
bottom left: angled camera hub to attach the camera to the vest or the holster.
middle: camera hooked up to the receptacle on the vest.
right: all geared up with two cameras; the fanny pack is for extra memory cards/batteries.

Then the lens gods smiled on me.  Just as we were heading back to the car sans deer photographs, I noticed movement in a thicket of trees in middle of the meadow.  Looking through the viewfinder confirmed that it was a small herd of deer — two does and three bucks.  Alrighty then.  Following the deer trails through the grass, we slowly approached them and I went to work clicking the shutter, making adjustments to my ISO and other settings, and clicking the shutter some more.  The deer turned out to be willing subjects.  They were more interested in grazing than the woman wandering around with a big lens in her hands, and I kept a respectful distance so as not to spook them.

The lens has a very shallow depth of field, which is great; but it’s going to take a lot of practice before I get the hang of using it just right.  The photos from this afternoon are a little ‘soft’; something else I need to work on improving.  At the moment, I am leaning towards keeping the lens, but a few more outings won’t go amiss in the coming weeks.  I’d already started working out with hand weights to build up my upper body strength; now I have even more reason to do so.  Of course, if I go out on frequent photo shoots and just heft this lens for a couple of hours each time, I won’t need the hand weights :-)

Mission accomplished, we left Shenandoah National Park through a gate further down on Skyline Drive.  It made our drive back longer, but we were able to make better time with higher speeds once we exited the park.  Finding a picnic table along the way, we stopped to enjoy an al fresco lunch before returning to the campground to enjoy a quiet afternoon.  Which we did — until the kids showed up around 4:00p.  At least they took off for a swim in the river and we were able to take advantage of an hour or so of quiet time to dine in our screen shelter before taking refuge in the Phaeton.

Tomorrow, we hope to go for a walk we kludged together from the trails running through SRSP; it will be a nice way to wrap up our stay.  No, the lens will not be going with us this time!