Acadia Set

Been busy the last few months, so not a lot of posts here, but made a trip to Acadia NP in Maine over the 4th of July. This is going to kinda be a location/photo thread, so I am willing to answer any questions for those interested in going up there in the future. I'll get EXIF up on these in a bit when I get home from work.

I'll start with a link, so you can read a bit about the place.

http://www.nps.gov/ACAD

Here is a link to the NPS map for Acadia:

http://www.nps.gov/acad/planyourvisit/upload/ACADmap2005.pdf

Anyway, I went up over the 4th of July weekend, and tried my hand at capturing some of the glory of this place. I'll say the weather didn't cooperate with my dreams, but I got some stuff.

I stayed at Bass Harbor Campground, which is convienently about a 10 minute walk from Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. (The place is a icon in the realm of lighthouses to photograph.) I have some shots of it, but mostly when I went down there the weather sucked everytime. So I'll post up what went well.

Cadillac Mountain:
Here is one from my first night in the park. Weather sucked all day, rained, foggy the whole day. Then I went up above the tree line on Cadillac, just exploring. This changed my day. I was up above all the fog, and I just hung out on the mountain until sunset. So if you end up with a crappy day down by the shore, Cadillac might save the day. Look at the link I posted above, there is something about Cadillac Mountain Rd being closed to new traffic after 8pm, so get up there early. Not sure why this is, but make sure you check for stuff like this at "Welcome" center at the beginning of the park loop road near Cadillac Mountain.

Pentax K10D, SMC-DA* 16-50mm f/2.8, 3 Stop GND, 3stop ND, Tripod, Release
20sec, f/22, ISO100, 16mm



The day before I left to come home this was the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain. (BTW this is supposedly the first place the sunrise can be seen in the US).

Pentax K10D, SMC-DA* 16-50mm f/2.8, Tripod, 3stop GND, cable release.
8sec, f/18, ISO100, 16mm



Monument Cove and Otter Cliffs were where I spent my last sunset in the park.

Monument Cove and Otter Cliffs are literally 5 minutes apart by trail that runs right along the loop road. Monument Cove is easy to miss. Park at the Gorham Mountain Trailhead parking lot, cross the loop road, and Monument will be right below you on the trail. There is a rock slide down onto the "beach" that makes access the easiest, otherwise you are climbing down cliffs with your gear to shoot. But Monument Cove has the nice big round granite boulders. The four shots below are from Monument. With the right sky this place could be awesome. I had a decent sky, but the full moon was a nice touch, but I wish it had been bigger on the horizon.

Pentax K10D, SMC-DA* 16-50mm f/2.8, 3 Stop GND, Tripod, Release
5sec, f/10, ISO100, 16mm


Pentax K10D, SMC-DA* 16-50mm f/2.8, 3 Stop GND, Tripod, Release
3sec, f/22, ISO100, 16mm


Pentax K10D, SMC-DA* 16-50mm f/2.8, 3 Stop GND, Tripod, Release
4sec, f/22, ISO100, 16mm


Pentax K10D, SMC-DA* 16-50mm f/2.8, 3 Stop GND, Tripod, Release
2.5sec, f/22, ISO100, 16mm


The one below is looking towards Otter Cliffs. Just a few minutes down the trail from Monument Cove.

Pentax K10D, SMC-DA* 16-50mm f/2.8, 3 Stop GND, Tripod, Release
30sec, f/7.1, ISO100, 16mm


This last shot is from a small pond near Pretty Marsh on the west side of Mount Desert. I was waiting for sunset, so I went for a drive around the rest of the island to see what else was about.

Pentax K10D, SMC-DA* 300mm f/4, Tripod, Release
1/400sec, f/4, ISO100, 300mm


Read up:

-Go get the AMC guide for Acadia NP, and read it. (If you aren't a huge hiker, if anything it supplies a good AMC topo map).
-Acadia: The Complete Guide by James Kaiser. (Good book, with good basic write ups on locations, and everything else from hiking to Bar Harbor)
-The Falcon Guide to Hiking in Acadia NP by Delores Kong and Dan Ring
-Also, National Audubon has a good National Park Photography book out, by Tim Fitzharris, which gave me some ideas for the icon shots of Acadia.
-There are also numerous resources on-line, just do a search.

If you have a long lens (500mm or better, or a long lens with a TC), check out Precipice. The Perigrine Falcons are there, and I got a ton of shots of them, but I only had a 300mm on a crop body. So a 500 on a crop, with a TC would probably give you much better results than I got. The stuff I got, you would have to crop down into probably less than 100 pixels, to fill the frame with the bird, so yeah, pretty crappy.

Get your Park Pass at the first station right after the bridge onto Mount Desert Island. It is usually not busy, and will save you time once you get into the park, and not have to buy one at the park enterace points. It is $20 a car, and good for a week (This is a great deal BTW to see so much stuff, you can't take the family to a movie for that cheap).

They say get off the loop road and get on the carriage roads. I didn't have the desire this time. Next time. I'm sure they are very picturesque during the fall with the leaves in full color.

Bar Harbor.... Just a word or two about Bar Harbor.... Tourist Trap! There is a lot of shops, there is the Bar Harbor Brewery store, where you can get all their beer, but for the most part, overpriced stuff, the night life can be fun, but I tried to stay out of the place. The first night I had too many beers.

I've got some other stuff I will probably finish and get into the thread, but like I said, I had some crummy weather the first two days there, so mostly fog pictures.

I think maybe I will try again for another trip up here around Labor Day.

Also, go later in the summer, early fall. I heard the park is almost abandoned at this time of year. I was there over the 4th. Probably the most croweded.

-Andy

Also, other options I wanted to explore and didn't due to financial and time constraints were photographing the Puffin's which can be found on only a few of the islands around the area.

Here are some of the charter boats going out to the islands.

http://www.boldcoast.com/

http://www.machiassealisland.com/ ( I was gonna use these guys, but $100 for a trip out there)

http://www.barharborwhales.com/rates-schedules.php (These guys seem to have good rates, but I don't think they can get as close, or land like the previous link can.