The Columbia River Gorge is one of the most beautiful parts of the country I have ever visited.
Earlier this month, I made my way out to the Columbia River Gorge just outside of Portland, Oregon. I had spent a few hours here and there in the Gorge while traveling for workshops. But this trip is exclusively for the Waterfalls and Wildflowers in and around the Gorge.
Will it be a success? You’ll have to watch and find out 🙂
As I have done in the past, I will share all of my footsteps from the journey. You will see:
► My Google Earth locations for the places I photographed.
► My success and failures with various locations.
► My favorite pieces from the trip.
► Secrets to make your trip to the Columbia River Gorge successful!
Shimoda Bag
My favorite Bag for Hiking and traveling is the Shimoda Explore V2. I have the largest and smallest. I prefer the big one because I carry a lot. But, it gets weighted down pretty fast!
Circular Polarizers
I have reduced my filters down to four.
1. CPL
2. 3 Stop CPL
3. 6 Stop CPL
4. 10 Stop CPL
I prefer the regular, 3, and 6-stop, but the 10-stop is handy for broad daylight images. I like the combination of CPL/ND filters. They can be found on Polar Pro or Breakthrough Photography.
I have one of each. My largest lens has an 82mm diameter. So I buy all filters in the 82mm size. I then buy step-up rings for my smaller lenses. Ie. if the lens is 77mm, I buy a 77-82mm step-up ring so I can put the larger filters on the smaller lens.
I have tried every ND filter out there, from Lee to Vu to Kase, square, and screw-on. I prefer a screw-on. But that is a personal preference.
I really appreciate the breaks in the playback video, definitely makes it easier to go back and rewatch particular segments. Thanks
Hi Blake. Love the location, bit hard to get to from Australia!!
One thing – I’m viewing the images on my Benq monitor from about 70-80cm and they all look soft. Was this purposeful? When I view from 30-40cm they look sharper!!??!
They are definitely sharp. You lose a lot in the rendering of the video and the playback of the video I’m pretty sure it’s a video issue. Also, they were small jpegs used to make the presentation to cut down on file size.
I had to go away when the session was on so it’s great to be able to watch it after the event. Blake, I love the pareidolia in that photo of the eye. I took a number of shots from a rubber ducky in Milford Sound when we were on a cruise and I see faces everywhere!