28 February 2009
Today, we visited the “other” cloud forest reserve. It is located about 5 miles north & west of Santa Elena along a rugged dirt road. We took a taxi both ways.
The weather was perfect for a cloud forest. Light (or no) wind, the place was bathed in a misty fog that would settle and then lift, creating magical lighting effects. The mood was in turns peaceful and ominous. Everything was wet in a serious way. The hiking was a mix between well-maintained trails and mud slogs, but all seemed appropriate for the setting.Photography conditions were quite good, especially because I’ve learned a few new tricks with my camera. One, called “BSS” (best-shot selector) allows one to hold the shutter button for several seconds while the camera snaps shots at about a 1 Hz rate. It then saves only the one “best” photo, judged, I expect, by the steadiness of the image. In dim lighting conditions, this helps, because some of the camera shake comes from depressing the shutter button. The other setting I just started using reduces the amount of light recorded. Again, this tool is good for dim light conditions, since the shutter speed is faster. Also, the natural darkness of the images helps better mimic reality than if the camera tried to capture a “normal” amount of light.
I’m happy with about a dozen of the photos I took today. These three do a reasonable job of representing my experience of the place.
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