Hiking NE from Edison reservoir next week -

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Telkwa
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Post by Telkwa »

Good morning!
After all the great help, we didn't go. Be sure that all info has been collected for future use. In the end, it sounded like the Sierras would just be too beaten-down from the low snowpack and hot summer. And there's that 18+ hour drive to think about. Did a last minute detour to Eagle Cap Wilderness in NE Oregon.
Called the Visitor Center in Enterprise about permits. You self-register at the trailhead. They charge $5/day unless you have a NW Forest Pass. (Stupid use fees) Asked about bears & bear cans. The gal went silent for a moment, then she said they haven't had any complaints about bears. I'm not sure she knew a bear can from a beer can.
Tell you what - you folks who live near the Sierras have it so good. Take a look at a map of Eagle Cap. The white granite/alpine acreage is tiny, and the Lakes Basin is over-run on popular weekends. Hard to find isolation or put together more than a few days of walking without covering the same ground.
We stared at the map and picked two different spots above the main Lakes Basin. PM me if you're interested, although AFAIC there's little reason for anyone living near the Sierras to bother with Eagle Cap.
Some weather moved thru Thursday and Friday. We were fortunate to have a seat in the balcony to watch the beautiful thunderclouds blow thru, and only got rained on for a half hour or so.
Thanks again for all the help!
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mountaineer
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Post by mountaineer »

See if I ever give you any advice again! :D You missed perfect weather and there was nobody up there.
it sounded like the Sierras would just be too beaten-down from the low snowpack and hot summer.
Negative. You just have to know where to go. Of course the JMT is going to be dusty...and all the popular spots are going to be overcrowded...just go somewhere else. The Sierra Nevada is a big place! Here is what you missed:
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Telkwa
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Post by Telkwa »

Oh, thanks, rub it in some.
mountaineer, your images are very sharp and clear, yet they load very quickly even on our stupid-slow dial-up connection. How do you do that??
I took all of our Eagle Cap pics at the highest .jpg setting possible, and am having trouble reducing them. Have several different programs for re-saving an image to a lower res .jpg. Adobe Photo Elements, GIMP, irFanview, even tried the software that came with the Olympus camera. Every one of them gives horrid results when trying to take a 3+MB pic down to 200K or so.
My old 1.2MP digital camera was better for re-compressing to e-mail. I guess that makes sense but something I wasn't prepared for when moving up to a 6.3MP camera.
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mountaineer
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Post by mountaineer »

I use ACDSee software for all my resizing. I scan at high res...and then just resize using the medium compression setting. That usually gets me under 100Kb for a 600 pixel wide photo which is manageable for web display.
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ericZ
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Post by ericZ »

telkwa, you just need to learn how to use the software and camera. they can be tricky sometimes. it's not hard to resize/sample an image down to under 100k. i'm only replying because you mentioned going to a higher MP camera may have contributed to the problem. are you compressing and saving as a jpeg, then compressing again, then saving again? that would lead to jpeg artifacting. i think i was shooting 7mp for a few years until recetly, now having moved up to 11mp i think. you do not have to shoot at the highest jpeg setting to get great results. of course, it's all relative and dependent on what your final output will be. of course a touch of unsharp masking can't hurt if done correctly. sometimes a camera's software wil lead to some softening.

what is it which leads to you calling them horrid results?

eric
fresno, ca.
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mountaineer
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Post by mountaineer »

In my case, if I am being REALLY picky, I do all my alterations in TIFF and the final save in JPEG. That seems to help. The only thing I do is a resize and minor adjustments to make the scan exactly match the original slide.
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oldranger
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Reducing photos

Post by oldranger »

We were really close in the Eaglecap. As soon as I got home I downloaded my 7 meg photos into iphoto. When you email from iphoto it gives you several options for reducing the file size. So I immediately e-mailed my photos of the Matterhorn in Eaglecap Wilderness, after the friday night storm ended, to my kids as I was talking on the phone to one of them, he couldn't believe the unreal colors.

Anyhow short of getting a mac I bet there are some people in the photography forum that could help you out.

You are right about the numbers of people. I saw more people on sunday of laborday weekend than I did in 9 days in southern yosemite in July.

While I didn't appreciate the numbers of people I was intrigued by the number of possible loop trips in the area.

mike
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