Sugarloaf Wind

High Flight. Sugarloaf Mountain, Colorado, 2015

Another sunrise, along with a moonset, on the Sugarloaf Mountain summit this morning. The high winds and a cold front made it seem like winter had most definitely arrived.

Some basic hints for high wind photography…

–If you are not completely out in the boondocks, shoot from inside your house, tent, or vehicle.

–Wait for a lull. Wind and waves share the idea of cycles. Just wait out the strong winds and hope for a calm moment to hit the shutter (better, the remote release). With a little awareness, you’ll soon pick up on the sounds that warn of an impending monster gust, or tranquil lull.

–Put your tripod as low as possible–collapse all of the legs and make it nice and short, thus more stable. Yes, this will effect how you can compose, just stop whining, be creative, and work around it.

–Grizzly bear down on the tripod (not on the camera) with your body weight. Just don’t shake or tremble as you do it.

–Consider a higher ISO to get a faster shutter speed to avoid blur. A wider aperture (if you don’t need the depth o’ field) will also help with this.

–Capture multiple images of the same scene. On the computer later, you may discover one to be sharper than all the others.

–Big lenses vibrate more in the wind when on the tripod (unless on a lens tripod collar). Consider whether you really need to use that excessively phallic lens or not.

–Hand-holding may actually work better than using the tripod in some more extreme circumstances. Again, multiple exposures will increase the likelihood of getting one that is sufficiently sharp.

–Watch out for flying saucers, sand, dirt and debris. Changing lenses without getting extraterrestrial garbage inside your camera can be a challenge. Change them during lulls or under some kind of shelter, maybe even just under a jacket, or in a tent or vehicle.

The lack of clouds, along with high winds and low temps, this morning had me thinking it would be a big bust for photography. Even so, there seemed to be one or two scenes worth freezing in time…

The three “stars” at the top of the picture (putting on my best Neil deGrasse Tyson voice here) would be Jupiter, Venus, and Mars (top to bottom). The next time you will get to see these three celestial objects so close together will be in 2021! Note the obvious line of headlights commuting from the Denver metro area in to Boulder on Highway 36: