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I went for a wee walk up to Hartz Mountain Nat Park on Friday. I did not make it to the summit as the waist deep snow drifts made climbing difficult, nay, nigh impossible. I will revisit this area very soon as it's not far from home.

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en&ie ... 97318&z=12

It's actually been a while since I got my camera out and photographed something seriously as I have been transitioning my life quite significantly in the last few months. It felt good to shoot in anger again.

All these images are panos stitched in Microsoft ICE, utilising a Nikon D700 and 28-70mm lens with a polarising filter facing towards the South.

Click on the images for a large image

Frozen lake


From right to left, Hartz Peak, Snowy Mtn and Adamsons Peak (in the distance with the most snow on it) Each about 1200 metres high.


150 metres below and 1klm away from the summit.

What a beautiful place. So there's still some wilderness left.

Prime example of the way to use a CPL and do panos

I like the first the most, the even balance and nice leading line of the path make it lear winner. The final image looks a little strange purely on the fact that one side is darker than teh other, that quite well be the true representation of the scene but it looks a little strange, maybe PP ND rotated 90 degrees might help minimise that.

Matt. K wrote:So there's still some wilderness left.

yeah, I thought they would be done pretty soon

I hope your enjoying Tassie Steve, I notice your location is now fully tassie so i assume your transistion is complete

biggerry wrote: The final image looks a little strange purely on the fact that one side is darker than teh other, that quite well be the true representation of the scene but it looks a little strange, maybe PP ND rotated 90 degrees might help minimise that.

I hope your enjoying Tassie Steve, I notice your location is now fully tassie so i assume your transistion is complete

I did quite a bit of 'dodging' on the forest in the bottom image as it is. It was very dark compared to the white rocks. Good idea though using a bit of PP ND on it. I'll give that a go and see if it helps.

And yes, I am a completely Tasmanian now, rather than the hybrid I have been in recent years

MattK wrote:What a beautiful place. So there's still some wilderness left.

If you look closely in the forest of the third image, you might see the effects of extensive logging. I passed plenty of logging trucks on my drive up to the car park. The deforested hillsides look terrible.

Australia's 'largest' tree was once just off the side of the road to Hartz Mtn, but it was burned down by forestry workers after one of their fires got a little out of control. The big tree is now called the big stump.

Great locations. Looks like the boardwalks would come particularly in useful where the bogs would otherwise be half frozen. (Thirty years ago there were probably no board walks).

Killakoala wrote:It was very dark compared to the white rocks. Good idea though using a bit of PP ND on it. I'll give that a go and see if it helps.

what I meant was a GND not just a ND, only picked that up after the second read of it

anyway, I hope you don't mind Steve, I had a quick bash in CNX2 to even out the image, I reckon it looks quite good with an even exposure and I am sure you could do better with the full res one. If you want it removed just let me know.

I quite like #1 with it's leading path etc. What's the foamy substance on the lake??

What I would really love is to see some directional evening or morning light bathing these hills etc... how much of a hike is it?

surenj wrote: What's the foamy substance on the lake??

That would be ice. It's southern Tasmania in early spring so its quite cold at altitude. Any water on the walking track was also ice, which made the walk quite interesting at times.

surenj wrote:What I would really love is to see some directional evening or morning light bathing these hills etc... how much of a hike is it?

It is about 3-5 hours to the summit and back in 'good' conditions. It took me about 3 hours to get about 3/4 the way to the summit due to the ice and snow drifts I had to contend with. I did not make it to the top due to there being only 2 hours of daylight left and an oncoming cold front I could see on the horizon when I reached the higher parts of the track, which was a tricky scale up a 30 metre high snow/ice bank. Coming back down was just as interesting as going up.

There is supposed to be some more snowfalls next Monday so I might revisit the mountain later on in the day and get some nice afternoon light, if the sun is shining and weather permitting.

bigberry wrote:I hope you don't mind Steve, I had a quick bash in CNX2 to even out the image

No problem at all. I enjoy seeing how others would tackle a problem I created