Hike at Pescadero Marsh (CA)

Protect Our Freedom ^ | 10/6/17 | Me

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It was a magnificent fall day on the Northern California Coast this afternoon. I decided to return to the Pescadero Marsh, 30 years after my first visit and the worst case of poison oak of my life. It took cortisone shots to stop it from spreading through my circulatory system. Back then, I didn't know how to identify the poison oak plant, but I sure do now. Today, a couple of the trails at the marsh were overgrown with poison oak, so turned around and didn't even try to get through or bypass.

It was a short hike today, less than three miles and less than 100 feet of elevation gain.

For those that like technical photography details: I have an old Canon EF 35 mm camera I bought in Tokyo in 1977 for my international travels. I bought four prime additional lenses with the camera; with the included lens, I have 17 mm (not a fisheye), 35 mm, 50 mm, 85 mm, and 135 mm. The old glass Canon SC and SSC (Super Spectra Coating) lenses are still phenomonal design and manufacturing. These are the first generation FD lens mount which used the breech-lock mount. I just bought a Fotodiox adapter to mount the old lenses on my Olympus OM-D M1 mirrorless camera and tried the rig out today with the 35 mm lens. There is no autofocus and you lose communications between the lens and the camera, so you have to put the camera in Aperture priority mode, select an aperture, and let the camera select the shutter speed. I also learned about using the "peaking" feature with the electronic view finder (EVF) on the camera to precisely focus the lens.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Here are a few shots from today. These were all processed in the Aurora 2018 HDR program from Macphun which came out a week ago. I generally take three bracketed (-2 EV / 0EV / +2 EV) exposures with the camera on a tripod and store RAW plus JPG files (Large/Fine). The brackets aren't centered at 0EV; rather, I reduce all brackets by ~0.7EV. I learned this week that the extra information stored in single RAW files works well with HDR software, almost as well as using three bracketed images. The first two marsh shots are handheld and tone-mapped using single RAW exposures (I took three auto-bracketed exposures, but alignment was poor in Aurora, so I used the middle exposure alone in Aurora). The ocean shots were taken with the camera on a tripod, but again are single RAW images, not merged 3 bracket HDR (because of the wave motion).

Lots of experimentation today! After leaving the beach, I stopped at Duartes in Pesadero for artichoke soup. Good as always.

Images #1 - 3 below: Single RAW, handheld, ISO 200, Canon 35 mm S.S.C. f/1.4 (1977) on Olympus OM-D M1, Aperture Priorty, Manual Focus using Peaking, tone-mapped in Aurora HDR 2018
Image #4: Three RAW exposures, tone-mapped Aurora HDR 2018, tripod mounted. Same Canon lens.
Image #5. Three RAW exposures, tone-mapped Aurora HDR 2018, tripod mounted. Switched to Olympus pancake lens.
Images #6 & #7. Single exposure, tone-mapped Aurora HDR 2018, tripod mounted. Switched to Olympus zoom lens.

Image #1

Image #2

Image #3

Image #4

Image #5

Image #6. There's some heavy surf hitting Northern California. Some wave sets were crashing really big! Looking north on the coast - that's Marin County in the background, tapering off to Point Reyes on the left.

Image #7

[clintonh8r]

Bump

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Pinging FReepers who enjoyed (or otherwise) my previous hike reports and pics. I guess this is developing into an informal, low-volume/occasional NorCal travel, hiking, outdoors, and photography list (with some photography and post-processing technical details).

If you want off or on this list, let me know.

POF

[nickcarraway]

Wow. For some reason your pictures usually aren’t visible to me, but fir the first time they are.

[11th_VA]

CA is a beautiful state - I've been in and out of there for 40 years (work).

I made two WestPACs in the late 70's - never made it to Japan, but buying cameras were all the rage.

We were a day out from anchoring in Taiwan when Carter closed their embassy, never got to visit.

And the Poison Ivy and Cordizone shots - same happened to me in high school.

[nickcarraway]

I hiked this with a guest about nine years ago. I think the trails weren’t maintained towards the end. Great place for a leisurely stroll. I think these marshes were home to carniverous duvks.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yeah, the trail that loops around the northern pond was almost choked off with brush and a LOT of poison oak. I tried coming in from both sides and got about 40% in from north and again from south.

Not tempting fate ever again. Apparently every time you get it, you become more sensitive to the urushiol oil and you get a worse case. I remember it was EXCRUCIATING!

God’s biggest mistakes: mosquitoes and poison oak. Why?

[W.]

I had a whole summer ruined by poison oak—what was l gonna do, cry about it? Har!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I forgot you were having that problem. Glad you can see them!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The marsh is on the Pacific Flyway. We are in the middle of migration season right now and there were a lot of waterfowl on the north pond. Good description of the birds there in the fall at the Sequoia Audobon Pescadero State Beach and Marsh page.

[Axenolith]

I think you can get attenuation shots for it now. I got sensitized and didn’t realize it hunting for gold up on the Stanislaus and subsequently immersed myself in it sampling soil over on the east side of Sebastopol at the bridge just out of town. Took about a day for it to really kick in but I was polluted with the s***!

I keep a bunch of technu around now. It’s persistent too though. I’ll handle a tool that had it, or spread it off my shoes to spots sometimes. Wipe tools down with gas, diesel or kerosene and it’ll be off...

[txnativegop]

Looks like a nice place.

Scenery is beautiful.

Thanks for posting.

[easternsky]

Pictures were incredibly clear puts you right there, yes enjoy your pictures if one has been there brings Smiles thank you.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I keep forgetting to buy Technu at REI when I’m there. Need to get some.

I’ve gotten it on fishing trips on Sierras foothills rivers. Some of the river banks are just covered with it.

Persistent is right! You’ll get it from your dog, too, when he wanders off and brings the oil back to you.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Glad you liked them!

[txnativegop]

[Vendome]

The photos are so beautiful I can smell the ocean and feel the wind....

Thank you.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Very good photos. I especially like the coastline with the water spray coming off the wave.

Last week we went to the Berlin Zoo and I took pictures with my LG Q6. Which is a mid price range camera so the quality is not expected to be great but the processing power of the smartphone with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage made it a good deal.

One picture I took was of the flamingos. As it turned out a huge wind storm hit soon after and killed 18 of them. Flamingos are hard to get inside, it takes a few days.

Nine people were also killed.

[Berlin_Freeper]

I think the white point is too intense. I had a camera in the past with the same issue and then an update corrected it. The LG Q6 just started sales in August so we will see. There are always photo editors.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Next spring I am getting a GO PRO you can strap to your head and activate taking pictures and video with your voice.