Dosewallips Camp Area

Dosewallips Trail

I have posted several images of hikes along the Dosewallips River trail in the Olympic National Park. Here are a few more images that I enjoy and thought I would share. The first (above) shows the trail above the old Dosewallips Campground (below) … now isolated by about 6 miles by washout of the road. Hiking the (closed gravel) road is a different experience than the lovely trail shown above. The bottom image shows the river dropping down the steep rapids (falls) just below the campground … the highlight of the road hike.

Dosewallips Campground
Dosewallips Falls

Cheap Lens Vignetting

Historic Buildings at Fort Casey

This is an example of the vignetting you get from a cheap lens. The same cheap 400mm reflex lens that I discussed on my last post (and from the same trip to Whidbey Island and Fort Casey). You tend to get some vignetting with any reflex lens due to design issues, but I was a little surprised at the amount I got in some of my images. I haven’t figured out why some images are more ‘severe’ than others, but there is some in most images. Vignetting can be intentionally added to some images to focus the viewers attention on the main subject. The image below shows how this might work … and is an example of cropping away a lot of the corner areas of the image to minimize the vignette.

Jefferson County Building Clock Tower

Finally, another couple shots from that trip that were cropped to eliminate most of the vignetting.

Point Wilson Lighthouse at Fort Worden
Fort Worden Historic Buildings

New Lens: Depth of Field

Wild Rose and Cow Parsnip at Fort Casey

I recently bought a new lens: a Tokina f/8 400mm reflex. It is a wonderful lens for its small form and cost (less than 10% what a Nikon 400mm ‘normal’ telephoto lens lists for). There are some trade offs for any reflex style lens: you get a fixed aperture and some artifacts from the front reflex mirror. I took it on the Port Townsend – Coupville ferry run and while on Whidbey Island, I walked around Fort Casey.

One of the characteristics of long telephoto lenses is relatively shallow depth of field. You can use it to your advantage, but it can be a challenge getting your image to work out. In the image below, I was focused on getting the kite in the image … which I did successfully. But the kite is just about all that’s in focus.

Kite at Fort Casey

Low Water

Low Water

This is the North Fork Skokomish from the Red Rapids Bridge just upstream from Staircase Campground in Olympic National Park. I’ve been there a lot and this is about as low as I have ever seen the water level.

Upstream – Downstream

Upstream from the Bridge at Six Stream

These two photos are taken from the middle of the bridge across the North Fork Skokomish at Six Stream, which comes into the North Fork just south of the bridge. The bridge is just about 6 miles up the North Fork Skokomish trail …

The Six Ridge trailhead is just at the upper end of the bridge … and that trail is one of the most rugged, least traveled and least maintained in the Olympic National Park. One that I have contemplated hiking in the past, but never got around to. (that’s what happens when you have a full time job)

Downstream from the Bridge at Six Stream

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