Tiny plane juxtaposed against Mt McKinley's north and south summits. Panorama blend from three images taken hand held from my car window. Canon 1Ds Mark III, 500mm f/4L IS, 1/160 sec @ f/8, ISO 100.
I watched the summit of Mt McKinley (Denali) slowly clear off one evening in Denali National Park, while the lower portion was still enshrouded in clouds. So I set my telephoto lens up on a tripod and thought I’d shoot the summits. Many are not aware that there are two summits to the mountain, the north summit, 19,470 feet (5,934 m) and the south summit, which is the highest one, 20,320 feet (6,194 m)–on the left in this picture. I found the clouds intriguing as they slowly dissipated, and watched it for a while, took my camera off the tripod and got ready to move on when I noticed the tiny flightseeing plane approaching the mountain. I grabbed my camera, quickly composed and shot a series of the plane moving across the peak. I had been on manual mode so I knew the exposure was dead on, but my shutter speed was on the low side at 1/160 sec. Fortunately, that was enough to stop the plane at that distance. I have flown around that mountain with the doors off doing aerials in the past, but this perspective of flightseeing is a new view to me. Below is a single frame from the panorama series. What a sense of scale!!
Tiny plane juxtaposed against Mt McKinley's north and south summits. Canon 1Ds Mark III, 500mm f/4L IS, 1/160 sec @ f/8, ISO 100. Tripod
That really puts the scale in perspective!
Great shot Patrick. That really shows how massive Denali really is. I received my Alaska magazine in the mail today and seen one of your bull moose shots on the cover. Congratulations. Thats a great shot.
Tad,
Thanks for that tip, I was unaware. I’ll have to check and see which image.
This is a great shot… I also received the Alaska mag and saw your bull moose…. Yet, another amazing shot!!!
Hey Thanks Carmen,
Is this the photo on the cover of Alaska Magazine? I have not seen it yet: http://tinyurl.com/2amldu4
Yes Patrick, that is the photo.
Thanks Tad,
I’ll check it out. That shot was back in the film days, quite some time ago. I spent a lot of time with moose back then and hope to increase some of my coverage now in the digital age, perhaps a bit this autumn.