Camping with Mountain Lions

Back to back posts! Weeeee! I went camping with Dad right after Mom and I got back from Bakersfield. It was just one night, so I don't have much to write about. Just a couple minor adventures and some star pictures. The main reason I wanted to go camping again was to have another shot at night photography, now that I've done a little more reading. This time I put my camera in super-light-collecting mode (ISO 6400 and f/2.8). At about 3:30 am, the moon was out of the sky, and we had an incredible view of the Milky Way arcing across the sky. Another thing I tried this time is called "light painting". Basically, you take a 20-30 second exposure of the sky with some foreground object, like that tree in the picture on the right. Then, while the shutter is open, take a flash light and "paint" it over the foreground object. Since my camera was so light-sensitive, it was hard to get the amount of light right--I had to be very quick with my light painting. I think the one above came out the best--most of my other pictures are over-exposed. Also, in the picture on the left, I caught a shooting star!! Didn't even see while I was taking the shot. You'll have to blow it up to see it.


This one is really cool because, if you blow it up, you can see the Andromeda Galaxy. I knew the galaxy was in the sky that night, but I forgot to pay attention to where it was supposed to be. When you just look into the sky, you can't really see it, but my camera managed to pick up the vague elliptical shape of the galaxy. Look for the bright slightly blurred yellow spot in the upper right hand corner if you can't spot it.


I also did some processing in Photoshop. I took my pictures the right way this time--I took them in RAW format. RAW pictures are huge--usually around 15-20 MB--and you have a LOT more control over adjustments in Photoshop. Above, the image on the left is the original RAW straight from my camera. On the right is my processed image. I was having trouble getting my focus sharp in this one, but I like it because I caught another shooting star.

Now for the adventure part. At the beginning of this trip, I was all ready to go charging out in the dead of night to capture the perfect shot of the Milky Way. I even scoped out the best place to stand--up the trail between the campsite and the truck, with a hillside covered in sagebrush as my light-painted foreground. But then Uncle Howard followed us up to the campsite on his motorcycle, so he could remember how to get there. Once we all arrived, Howard told us a mountain lion had crossed the road right in front of him a mile or so back. He said it was pure muscle.

...

I didn't realize there were mountain lions around. And the thought of potentially meeting a mountain lion--day or night--really freaked me out. So much, in fact, that most of my night sky shots were taken from inside my tent. I was inside with my camera on a tripod with the lens sticking out the door. Probably why I had so much trouble with the focus--it was really awkward to bend down and then twist my head up to see out the view finder. At around 3:30 Dad came out of his tent to look at the stars, so I joined him and got some better shots. But I did not go charging up the trail like I'd originally planned.

And actually, I WAS going to go do that--I was going to get Dad to come with me. But then some time between midnight and 1am, when I was on the very edge of sleep--in a stupor listening to relaxing music on my iPod--I heard a very loud crash come from the campsite. I didn't hear any other loud, obvious animal-noises after that, but I didn't really sleep any more. And I lost the rest of my courage. Gah! In the morning I found the source of the noise-making: The box with our heavy frying pan and various other cooking supplies had fallen over. I don't know if it fell over on its own with the wind aiding it, or if some night time intruder did it. But it sure freaked me out.

After breakfast that morning, Dad and I went on a hike. I was doing alright until we heard some crashing in the woods across a small ravine. I immediately panicked and shouted at Dad to see if he heard it too. He said it was probably a cow, because mountain lions wouldn't make any noise at all (thanks, Dad, that made me feel a lot better!). Then a few steps later we spotted this guy:


Not a cow, but not a threat either. Too bad I didn't have the right lens on my camera--I could've taken a cool closer-up shot if my telephoto lens had been ready. Oh well.

So, we didn't get eaten by mountain lions. I did some reading when I got home, and I'm not really scared anymore (sort of). Mountain lions are really reclusive, territorial (so there might only be one lion in a 200 mile area), and they like easy targets, like lone joggers or children. If you look big (think hyenas from The Gods Might be Crazy 2), make lots of noise, or throw rocks at them if you see one, they'll likely just run away. Although they are more active from dusk to dawn, so maybe charging out alone at night isn't such a great idea.

Next time, I think we might try camping on one of the knolls that you can drive up on--we'd have a perfect, unobstructed view of the entire sky. I might try borrowing a fisheye lens from borrowlenses.com for that trip. Like this guy used in this time lapse video:

Leonid and Zodiacal Light from Stephane Vetter on Vimeo.