Hiking Corlieu Falls... in the Rain
Mar. 29th, 2025 07:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerWe got to the trailhead for Lewis Creek in Sierra National Forest a bit after 2pm on Friday. That would be plenty of time to hike to Corlieu Falls... and also Red Falls. But just as we drove up in our car and parked at the trailhead, rain started.
"We'll try waiting it out," we thought at first. Then it got worse.
The rain did get lighter again though not any lighter than when we first decided to try waiting it out. We grimaced and went about putting on our boots and zipping up our rain jackets. We've hiked in worse.
The trailhead for Lewis Creek, a National Recreation Trail, honestly looks dumpy right now. It used to be more covered in by trees. That made it harder to spot from the road but also increased the sense that, upon starting the hike, one was now "in nature" rather than near busy Highway 41 with cars rushing to and from Yosemite National Park.
It's not a long walk down to Corlieu Falls, probably less even than 1/2 mile, though on past visits I've met hikers unsure where it is. First you have to turn right when the trail reaches the creek. Next, you have to look for the trail continuation descending from the edge of a rocky plateau where there are great views of the creek and the canyon in the other direction. Then you have to carefully pick your way down a steep and loose trail to get to the bottom of the falls.
I brought my camera bag with me on this trek so I'd have my nice camera and my pack of filters— particularly my 6x neutral density filter. That let me capture the photo above with an exposure time of 1/6 (0.167) second. That slow exposure causes the water to blur like a silk curtain because it's moving. Unfortunately something else that's moving is the camera because I made this picture holding the camera free-hand. I tried to sharpen up the blurring from the camera shake, but it left artifacts in the photo as you can see above.
Ah, but I had another camera gadget with me. My hiking pole doubles as a monopod! I removed the cork cap to expose a metal screw mount and then screwed it into the mounting socket on the bottom of my camera.
This photo looks way better because there neither excessive blurring nor artifacts from post-process sharpening to attempt to solve the blurring. What there is, though, is my damn hand. Yes, that's my hand at the top of the photo above. I was covering the glass on the front of the lens because it was raining. While taking these slow-exposure photos (this latter photo is 1/5 second) I didn't want streaks or water droplets on the lens detracting from the picture. I thought my hand was out of the frame, but one challenge in working with the ND lens filter is that it makes the picture super dark in the preview. I couldn't tell my hand was still in the frame.
And the rain? Oh, it not only kept raining, it got worse. We decided to pull the plug on hiking further on the trail. We also decided to pull the plug on hiking to Red Falls in the other direction on Lewis Creek. "Maybe we'll do that tomorrow as a two-fer after Angel Falls," we agreed. And maybe I'll come back here as a three-fer to photograph Corlieu Falls without my hand!
"We'll try waiting it out," we thought at first. Then it got worse.
The rain did get lighter again though not any lighter than when we first decided to try waiting it out. We grimaced and went about putting on our boots and zipping up our rain jackets. We've hiked in worse.
The trailhead for Lewis Creek, a National Recreation Trail, honestly looks dumpy right now. It used to be more covered in by trees. That made it harder to spot from the road but also increased the sense that, upon starting the hike, one was now "in nature" rather than near busy Highway 41 with cars rushing to and from Yosemite National Park.
It's not a long walk down to Corlieu Falls, probably less even than 1/2 mile, though on past visits I've met hikers unsure where it is. First you have to turn right when the trail reaches the creek. Next, you have to look for the trail continuation descending from the edge of a rocky plateau where there are great views of the creek and the canyon in the other direction. Then you have to carefully pick your way down a steep and loose trail to get to the bottom of the falls.
I brought my camera bag with me on this trek so I'd have my nice camera and my pack of filters— particularly my 6x neutral density filter. That let me capture the photo above with an exposure time of 1/6 (0.167) second. That slow exposure causes the water to blur like a silk curtain because it's moving. Unfortunately something else that's moving is the camera because I made this picture holding the camera free-hand. I tried to sharpen up the blurring from the camera shake, but it left artifacts in the photo as you can see above.
Ah, but I had another camera gadget with me. My hiking pole doubles as a monopod! I removed the cork cap to expose a metal screw mount and then screwed it into the mounting socket on the bottom of my camera.
This photo looks way better because there neither excessive blurring nor artifacts from post-process sharpening to attempt to solve the blurring. What there is, though, is my damn hand. Yes, that's my hand at the top of the photo above. I was covering the glass on the front of the lens because it was raining. While taking these slow-exposure photos (this latter photo is 1/5 second) I didn't want streaks or water droplets on the lens detracting from the picture. I thought my hand was out of the frame, but one challenge in working with the ND lens filter is that it makes the picture super dark in the preview. I couldn't tell my hand was still in the frame.
And the rain? Oh, it not only kept raining, it got worse. We decided to pull the plug on hiking further on the trail. We also decided to pull the plug on hiking to Red Falls in the other direction on Lewis Creek. "Maybe we'll do that tomorrow as a two-fer after Angel Falls," we agreed. And maybe I'll come back here as a three-fer to photograph Corlieu Falls without my hand!
no subject
Date: 2025-03-30 07:55 am (UTC)Of course, it's a very lightweight and kind of flimsy tripod, which did not help steady things much.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-25 11:52 pm (UTC)1. Use a tripod-- and a sturdy one, at that. Last time I photographed an eclipse I braced my camera against a solid object-- which has worked fine for waterfall pictures-- but that wasn't enough to make eclipse pictures I was happy with.
2. Set your exposure release on a timer or use a remote trigger so your hand pressing the action button doesn't jolt the camera as it's reading the sensor.
3. Finally, if you've got a long or heavy lens on the camera, make sure it's all counterbalanced properly, otherwise the whole rig could still be oscillating several seconds after your last touch!