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| Upper Antelope Canyon. A magical place! (click any image to enlarge) All images made using an OM-1 Mark II; 8-25mm f/4 PRO lens |
The day after we visited Horseshoe Bend, we visited one of the famous slot canyons a few miles southeast of Page, Arizona. In this case, Upper Antelope Canyon. This was another 'bucket list' place I wanted to visit for decades. The only word that comes to mind when describing the place is "magical." A must see, in my opinion.
I am positive that almost all of you reading this have seen photographs of the sandstone slot canyons outside of Page, Arizona. They are iconic. They are beautiful. To me, it was well worth the time and effort to visit. They are amazing places to see in person.
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| If you book your tour around noon in the spring, summer or fall, you will have an opportunity to have a beam of sunlight strike the floor. I just wish I had asked the tour guide to throw some sand into the air through the beam to make it a bit more visible. Also, I was shooting with two rows of cell phone photographers in front of me for this image. |
I’ve wanted to visit a slot for at least three decades and finally was able to do so. As I mentioned in my previous post about Horseshoe Bend, the last time my wife and I were in this area I failed to do my research and thought we could just drive up and visit. It doesn’t work that way. Last time, when we arrived, there was a parking lot full of tour busses filled with tourists groups as well as miscellaneous other vehicles. I would not make the same mistake twice. This time I did a lot of research.
What you need to know first is that the slot canyons are on Navajo tribal lands. The only way to see them is through booking a spot on a local tour. I booked a Navajo Slot Canyon Tour company tour. The tour guide and tour both were excellent. But there are many other tour companies locally as well. The entirety of arriving at the tour company site to driving to the canyon, to seeing the canyon, to returning to the tour company site took about 2.5 hours. Our actual time in the canyon was about 40 minutes but it seemed much shorter.
There used to be specific ‘photography’ tours you could book but they discontinued them around 2019. According to our Navajo guide, the crowds just were getting bigger and bigger which no longer allowed the hour or more time it took for one photography tour.
On the current tours, no camera bags, backpacks or tripods were allowed into the canyon. Nor could you bring your relatives' remains—cremation ashes—as the guide said someone brought them a couple of years ago. Yikes! No video either. Only still photos.
Our little group consisted of 14 people along with our Navajo guide and we were sandwiched in between other groups. The guide 'moved' us along relatively quickly, it seemed. As we meandered through the canyon we had a very short time to make photographs at any one spot but still had time to do so if we were quick. There was no time in any one spot for more than one or two compositions, however. What I found, like Bryce Canyon or when photographing woodlands, one has to stand and really see what's before them in order to pick out and photograph the best compositions. There was no time for that, unfortunately. I had to quickly see (mainly in the very dark canyon bottom) what was before me then make some exposures. The trick is to make photographs without other people in them and that was difficult at times. It’s not ideal but that is the way it works.
Before going to the slot canyon, I did a mountain of research and I'm glad I did. I read numerous blogs from photographers who had visited in the past as well as some families who were on vacation (holiday). It all helped me decide how to approach our visit and be best prepared to make some images, anyway.
One of the first things I had to decide was what photo gear to take. There were three reasons I decided to take my OM Micro4/3 gear on this road trip. First, the size and weight of the gear made it so easy to carry. It never gets in your way or is a burden, even carrying it all day. Second, I knew I would need to use an extremely wide angle lens for Horseshoe Bend and Upper Antelope Canyon and the OM 8-25mm f/4 PRO lens is sharp all the way to the edges and corners. It is an all around better lens than either my Nikon 14-30mm f/4 lens or my Fujifilm 10-24mm f/4 lens. Finally, I wanted to maximize depth of field at any given aperture, especially when shooting wide open or almost wide open in near darkness. Micro4/3 fit that requirement perfectly. At any given aperture the depth of field is much greater than the larger formats.
What about dynamic range? After all, the light ranges from clear blue skies at the tops of some of the canyon to almost black at the bottoms, all with beautiful gradations of light in between. No matter what system I took none could handle that kind of dynamic range so I knew I would have to bracket. Again, the Micro4/3 OM gear makes that easy.
Since I had decided to take my OM gear and the slot canyons were deep and very narrow, I only took the OM-1 II and the 8-25mm lens into the canyon. I researched and carefully thought through what camera settings would be most appropriate and then created a custom setting (C4) on the camera just for shooting in the slot canyon. That was the wisest thing I did concerning my photography in the canyon. All I had to so was rotate the top dial to C4 and all of my carefully thought out settings were activated.
In general I set my camera to Aperture Priority, f/5.6 (an equivalent f/11 DOF on a full frame camera as there was a lot of depth to the compositions), Auto ISO and 10 fps (for non-bracketed shots). For those non-brackets shots I made small bursts of 3-5 shots which would insure that at least one in the burst would be in sharp focus and not suffer from motion blur since the ISOs would be high and the shutter speeds would be low. Also, I set my white balance for daylight. I shot raw and the Vivid profile. Additionally, I configured one function button to be able to instantly switch in and out of AE bracketing. I recommend that. I bracketed five shots, one stop apart for most of my images. Finally, for many of my images, because of the extreme darkness, I used manual focus with focus peaking. A godsend! Other times, where the light was just very dark, AF found my target, locked on and the focus was perfect. Over all, the OM-1 Mark II with the 8-25mm lens worked out perfectly. That camera and those lenses continue to amaze me in how good they really are.
Anywhere there was bright sunlight or blue sky at the top of my composition, those exposures were bracketed. The exposures which were just dark with some lighter areas, I counted on the dynamic range of the OM's sensor to handle it. It handled those situations very well. ISOs ranged from 200 to 12,800. Using DeNoise in Lightroom or DXO PureRaw 4 or Topaz Photo AI made quick work of the noise issue. I'm very pleased with my images considering the little time we had to see and compose, other people ever present and sometimes being in the third row of people and trying to shoot over their heads!
Also, I find it interesting that Navajo tribal lands adjust to Daylight Savings Time while the rest of Arizona does not. When we entered the tribal area outside the slot canyons (and the same applies to Monument Valley and the surrounding area) our watches and phones automatically switched time and when we returned to town, they switched back.
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| We were walking back from exiting the slot canyon. The canyon is a straight walk-through. You enter one end as you can see the people in the distance doing on the left, then at the exit, you walk up stairs and onto a metal walkway, about 1/4 mile across where the top of the canyon would be, then again on a metal walkway to the parking area. You can see some of the busses above. |
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| Here is another photo of more of the busses. Our guide told us they can take several hundred people through the canyon each day. I believe it as the small groups of us were on a "conveyor belt," so to speak, as quickly as we were moved through. Still a must see place. |
One other interesting thing to remember if you ever visit the slot canyons. Wear a hat, long sleeves and bring something to cover your camera. You may even want to wear a mask or bandana. Outside, the constant wind blows dust everywhere but inside it is worse. No wind but dust from sand, which has the tiniest particles I’ve ever seen, rains down from above. You can see it clearly in one of my images. You can’t avoid it. It gets all over you and your camera. Dust that small, I think, can infiltrate the crevices on your camera and lens. I took a plastic shower cap I picked up in a hotel that I keep in my camera bag as well as a small bulb blower with me. Most of the images you make are made with the camera pointed up so the dust gets on the front element of the lens. I regularly blew off my camera and lens as I walked through the canyon. Still, when I got back to the hotel, I found those tiny dust particles were everywhere—on me, my clothes and camera and lens. Luckily OM and Olympus cameras have the best weather sealing and there is no gritty feel when operating the zoom or focus rings on my lens. Thank you OM! In the end, still well worth seeing the canyon.
Pro Tip 2: If you use a zoom lens and it extends, do not retract the lens barrel back into itself until you have had an opportunity to thoroughly blow off the lens to keep from pulling the tiny grains of sand back into the lens mechanism. In fact, I bought a battery powered air blower to take with me just for this purpose. It completely cleaned the dust from every nook and cranny. But be aware! If the powered air stream is too powerful, it may blow the dust particles farther into the small openings in your camera or lens. Gentle air.
Pro Tip 3: If you can, take your tour between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. as that is when the sun will directly shine down through some parts of the canyon, illuminate a spot on the ground and create visible rays. I booked our tour specifically for that time period.
There is one more thing about the slot canyon tour that I found unfortunate. I saw no way a handicapped individual could take the tour. Maybe if one used a cane, but not much more disabled than that. There is no way a wheelchair could traverse the canyon nor a person using a walker. If one suffers from COPD they probably could not climb the steps and walk a quarter mile uphill to return to the parking area as well. I don’t know if the Navajo have to comply with U.S.handicap laws? Most likely not but as it is, many people will never be able to enjoy this magical place.
Lovely images Dennis. You are spot on with your observations about the dust inside the slot canyon. I can still recall standing near the walls and the sand just dumping on me from a higher shelf. When I was there tripods were allowed, which meant people jostling for position, and there were also photographers throwing sand in the air to try and create additional rays in the sunlight.
ReplyDeleteYou many find this interesting. Our guide told us that one day the upper canyon was suddenly closed because Britney Spears wanted to shoot a music video in there, and compensated the tribes enough to cancel all the existing reservations, angering quite a few people.
The other thing that happened to us is afterward we drove over to Lower Antelope to see about their hours and cost, and the young man hinted that for a little extra he would open it one hour early. So we agreed, and had an hour to ourselves. I'm not sure I could do that canyon again. It was very tight in a lot of places.
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Our guide told us about Brittany Speers making the video. He said that is the only video that has been allowed to be made inside. My wife and I found it on the Internet and watched it. If you look closely toward her feet, you can see water. Evidently, it had rained recently. That said, I found videos by families on YouTube who evidently didn’t respect the Navajo people’s wishes.
DeleteWhen considering which canyon to visit, I found the fundamental difference between Upper Antelope Canyon and Lower Antelope Canyon was the interior shape and the necessity to climb steps. The upper canyon is wide at the bottom and narrows at the top while the lower is wide at the top and narrows at the bottom where one has to maneuver through. Also, evidently, there are steps inside the lower canyon one has to climb whereas the upper canyon is flat and a straight walkthrough. Both are beautiful.
After our visit, I was told there is also a Canyon X slot canyon just down the road a few miles where they still do photographic tours. Tripods and accessories are allowed. I wish I would have had the time to check that one out. ~Dennis
You're right about the geological characteristics of the two canyons. If I only had time to do one of them, I would choose Upper Antelope Canyon, though based on your description, it is much more restrictive than when I did it around 20 years ago. We were allowed to bring tripods, and though it was timed, I don't recall feeling rushed or pushed. Though it was a popular destination, we didn't even make reservations until the day prior to visiting.
DeleteLower Antelope Canyon did require a walk down steep steps, and if I remember, a twist of the body to get into the opening to descend the steps. There were also areas where we had to push our camera bags and tripods through first, and then go sideways, and at times over rocks, as the openings were so narrow. Some cooperation was needed between tourists who were headed into the canyon and those leaving as the exit was the same as the entrance.
Thanks again for your images and well thought out descriptions. - Jim
Thanks for your comment Jim. I think I would like to go back without a camera just to let myself get lost in the experience and not worry about photography. ~Dennis
DeleteBeautiful images! You could have carried a larger camera but the images would not have been better. I was there in the early nineties. I remember paying $20 to a fellow who was sitting in a lawn chair under an umbrella. I climbed down a cheap aluminum ladder into the canyon, with a tripod and 4x5. I was the only person in the canyon until a German fellow walked up to be with a big grin on his face, and said "There is nothing like this in all of Europe". The canyon is an amazing place but not suited for those with claustrophobia. I would never go in there with a group of people. The canyon always looks larger in photos than how tight it really is in there.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I am being selfish, but I am disheartened by the crowds of people you have encountered on your journey. I was fortunate to be at many of these places with few other visitors. But, in 2019 we had a family vacation in a rented miner's cabin in Georgetown. The others were up for an extended hike, so I drove them to the trailhead for St. Mary's Glacier. There I saw more people than we did at the baseball game in Denver. My wife said there were fewer people about 5 miles into the hike. Not for me.
Your canyon images are a treat! I probably will not get there again.
Thank you for the compliment. I appreciate it. I’ve been visiting our national parks for the past 50 or so years. I’m happy others have discovered and enjoy them but it is to the point that there are just too many people visiting which degrades the experience—the very reason to visit. I suspect the NPS will have to start restricting the number of visitors at most parks in the future (or now). That said, I try to be very strategic about when I visit and carefully choose a time, if possible, to visit when crowds are fewer. ~Dennis
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