Road Trip; Part IV

Painting on the Rocks of Acadia National Park (click to enlarge)
X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 55mm; 1/900th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200
This is a scene that is repeated all over the park. Artists capturing the beauty in their own way.

The Road Trip continues!  

My thanks to my friend Mike Johnston (The Online Photographer) for mentioned me in his recent blog post.  If you have come here from his post, thank you!  If you haven't read The Online Photographer you should.  It is one of the absolute best photographer related blogs on the Internet.  

First a quick camera comment.  I've been passionately photographing for 46 years, a lot of that time professionally.  I've used camera systems from 4" X 5", carried a 6 X 7 Pentax and lenses around for over twenty years, owned and used Leica, Canon and Nikon for 35mm work and, you name it, I've probably used and experimented with it.  Recently, I made the decision to sell my D810 and lenses after using the Fuji system for the past 2 1/2 years.  I liked the Fuji X-T1 a lot, but the X-T2 is "the camera I've been waiting for."  I mean that. It pushes all the right buttons and produces the image quality that I was getting with full frame and I couldn't be happier.  When the road trip is over, I plan on writing a post on my extensive use of this camera (you can't forget those incredible lenses) out in the field under my real world use.  My wife asked me the other day what camera I would buy if I won a lottery.  I told her I already have it.  I have no need and no desire for another camera.  The X-T2 is that good, in my opinion.  Most of all, it disappears in my hands and I don't have to struggle in any way to use.

Our plan is to stay in Acadia National Park for 7 days.  We are staying with friends and we all chipped in to rent a house.  Renting a house with friends is a very pleasant way to travel as we can and do go our separate ways at times but at other times we do things and go places as a group.  This all works nicely if everyone gets along, as we do, but I think it would be difficult if personalities, values and life philosophies greatly differ.  It has been a very pleasant experience for my wife and I.

Stand of birch trees with autumn ferns in early morning light (click to enlarge)

X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 30.2mm; 1/45th sec. @ f/11; ISO 200

Along with iconic ocean and mountain scenes, Acadia has a wonderful birch forest

and miles and miles of trails.

I wasn't sure what to think about Acadia.  Acadia National Park certainly has a reputation as having some of the finest places on the east coast of the United States to photograph and I have seen many, many images made there.  But seeing small slices of a place versus experiencing the entire place is quite different.

It turns out that Acadia and its surrounding communities and harbors have a wide variety of subject matter which would be of interest to almost every photographer.  From rocky shorelines, to reeds and dead wood in still ponds, to birch tree forests, to harbors filled with sailing and work boats, to lobsterman plying their trade on the docks and out to sea. Of course, there are a lighthouse or two if you want to photograph one of those iconic structures as well.  Acadia and surrounds offers endless opportunities to photograph.  But, you must spend some serious time there to wander and explore to really understand it. Even 7 days was just touching the surface of what is available.

Bar Harbor is the main town adjacent to Acadia.  It is a bustling town as cruise ships regularly dock offshore and ferry hundreds of passengers into the small, but very quaint shopping and eating area.  As much as I thought Bar Harbor was a cute place (especially at night after the crowds re-boarded their cruise ships), I much rather concentrate on the natural beauty of the area.  But Bar Harbor offers photo opportunities as well, but you just have to look harder for them if you are a nature photographer.  But a street photographer would have lots of fodder for images.  People are everywhere during the day.

X-T2, 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens and 1.4X tele-converter @ 560mm (850mm equiv.); 1/75th sec. @ f/11; ISO 800

This is part of the Precipice Trail—Straight up!  These three guys are friends and I tried to photograph them about
three quarters of the way up to the top of the mountain.  I didn't have my usual very large and sturdy tripod on this trip but 
brought my Gitzo travel tripod so using this much focal length at this slow shutter speed is a recipe for trouble.  I'm surprised I was able to get anything close to this sharp, but not as sharp as it could have been with my very large Induro and RRS B55 ball head.

Probably the most prominent aspect that I see visitors to Acadia enjoying is hiking.  There are a myriad of hikes available from virtual flat land to sheer cliffs up the sides of the local mountains.  Personally, at my age, I'm kind of a flatlander.

If you visit Acadia, don't neglect visiting the surrounding villages and harbors on Mt. Desert Island.  Southwest Harbor, Tremont, Bass Harbor, Southeast Harbor all provide opportunities to find and record very interesting scenes as well as activities such as unloading lobster boats.  More on that in the next post.

Acadia is a very unique and beautiful place.  I'm very happy we have a National Park Service who maintains and preserves this beauty in our country.

More in my next post.  The road trip continues and I am smiling everyday!

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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