Road Trip; Part III

Nubble Lighthouse, York, Maine (click to enlarge)
Fuji X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 20mm; 0.8 sec. @ f/3.6; ISO 200

Our road trip to New England continues.  The X-T2 is still exceeding my expectations. Read on.

We had a lovely day slowing driving across southern Vermont and New Hampshire.  We made a few stops at places that had things we found interesting.  One can do that when one is "traveling" and not just "going somewhere."  I've always wanted to see Putney, Vt, not because of the charming town itself, but because at one time I was a follower of Fred Picker, photographer, teacher, manufacturer of photo materials, etc.  He and his company were based in Putney, VT and over the years he published many photographs from the area illustrating his comments in his newsletters.  Now I've seen the area and things are now in context.

We ended the day in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, right on the Atlantic Coast.  We had a restful night and left early for Acadia National Park in Maine, which is our location for seven days.  The morning was clear and crisp and beautiful.

The first images I made were of Nubble Lighthouse in York, Maine.  Unfortunately, the sun was almost in my photo, 3/4 backlit, and produced an unbalance in the light. However, it was a beautiful morning setting so I climbed down on the (very slippery, I found out!) rocks, put on the 16-55mm f/2.8 lens, set up the tripod and made several images.  One is at the top of this blog post.

Jordan Pond just after dawn, Acadia National Park (click to enlarge)
Same gear, 18.7mm: 25 sec, @ f/16; ISO 200
Unfortunately, there was a heavy wind.  I envisioned still water with blades of grass reflecting dawn's warm light.  Didn't
happen so I went to plan B, long exposures to smooth out the water.

We drove north on U.S. Route 1, through small towns and along harbors, again, stopping when we discovered things of interest.  I had done much research before leaving and mapped about 12 small towns and harbors I wanted to visit on our journey north. There were two flaws in my plan.  First, that is too many towns.  There is no way I could have seen them all with any meaning.  I could have spent two weeks covering the same ground. Second, it was a Saturday in the autumn when weekenders were out driving and visiting the Maine coast and the small, winding, two-lane Route 1 was very crowded with traffic. Mental note made.

Later in the day, we arrived at Acadia National Park on Mr. Desert Island on the Maine Coast.  I will say now that Acadia is one of those places that grabs your heart and you feel at home immediately.  I was excited about the possibilities of making photographs.

On Sunday morning, I set out before dawn to photograph and had a grand time.  The only drawback was that it was very windy, even at dawn, and my planned "grasses in still water" images I wanted to make ended up being a bit different.  Same happened again the next morning.

In-camera generated panorama from atop Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Maine (click to enlarge)
Same gear, using the auto panoramic feature in the Fuji X-T2.  I made several, it was easy and the camera
performed well.

I've posted a few Acadia images for your viewing pleasure.  I'll have more next post.

As far as the Fuji X-T2 and lenses are concerned, it performed better than expected. Whenever I needed to change a setting, the setting was right where I thought it would be. I was pleased with the battery life as I was very prolific with my exposures.  Only one day did I have to press a second battery into service.  I had never used the in-camera panoramic creation feature before.  When I was looking over the top of Cadillac Mountain, it was obvious to me a pano was the right format for an image.  I made several using the in-camera feature.  It was easy to use and I was pleased with the JPEGS that resulted.

As for image quality, I'll let the images speak for themselves.  They are not spectacular by any means, but they are pleasing to me.  As I mentioned in the last post, I can't vouch for their color balance or luminance as you are looking at them as I'm roughly editing them on my laptop, which feels very foreign and unsure.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

All content on this blog is © 2013-2016 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.