Sequoia National Park: Worth the Weight

This past weekend, my buddies Mark and Dov and I hiked six miles to Heather Lake in Sequoia National Park. The trail was much steeper than we expected. My normal pack weight is under 20 pounds, but my camera equipment added nearly another 15 pounds. This was much heavier than my back was accustomed to. Add the fact that I haven't hiked, run, nor seriously exerted myself in more than three months, and you can imagine how dreadful the hike was for me. I packed my DSLR, flash, flash remote trigger, tripod, and other miscellaneous gear, and it was definitely worth the pain. Mark and I took a lot of cool pictures using off-camera flash techniques to illuminate us without overexposing the moody environment around us. In the above picture of Dov and Mark (holding flash), I was able to underexpose the lake and mountain in the background while properly lighting their face with the flash. This gave the photo a dark and misty look which is close to what it looked like to our naked eyes. Here's a picture of Mark shooting a very animated Dov. Notice the bare flash on a tripod at 5:00 Mark's camera right. Lugging the tripod up the trail and back was actually worth it. You can see some of our photos here. More posts about this trip to come.