Desert Dancer is Dancing in the Desert

[nfoto]

This is the IR version of the Roadrunner ... indeed from Death Valley.

 

[Bill De Jager]

Bjørn, that's a really nice shot of a roadrunner, which is a far more interesting creature than the silly cartoon version

[nfoto]

The Roadrunner was very easy to capture. He was hopping around in a grass field stopping here and there, apparently listening for worm presence. Each time the creature halted, just fire away ... (D200, AFS 28-300 Nikkor which incidentally has perfect AF for IR, thus further facilitating the task of recording the Roadrunner).

[Andrea B.]

Petroglyphs in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, USA

25 February 2016

 

Valley of Fire has spectacularly eroded red sandstone formations. There are also petrified logs, lizards, petroglyphs, hiking trails and soon lots of desert flowers. If you are ever near Las Vegas (!) this park is not to be missed. Wonderful shooting opportunities either in the usual Visual mode or with multispectral filters.

 

D600-broadband + Coastal Optics 60/4.0 + Sunlight

 

 

Visible with Baader UV/IR-Cut Filter

The blue sky and red-orange rock colours are not pumped up. This is what it looked like. By a funny thing - by the time we had walked a mile through the red-orange Petroglyph canyon, all the sage plants were looking remarkably, vibrantly blue-green and the green leaves all became a startlingly saturated green. That was fun.

(Oh, poo, I forgot to remove the D600 dust bunnies. Will get to it later when I return home.) ((Done.))

 

 

Ultraviolet with BaaderU UV-Pass Filter

Although UV typically reveals lots of surface textures, it did little for the petroglyphs.

 

 

Infrared with B+W 093 IR-Pass Filter (830nm)

Most rocks where petroglyphs were drawn were covered with the dark 'desert patina'. This is nicely obvious in both Visible and in Infrared which worked wonderfully well for petroglyphs.

 

 

Composite: UV + VIS + IR using Difference Layers

Doesn't this look like US-Southwestern colours? Turquoise & coral. Yum!

Interestingly, even though there was no refocus between filter changes, the frames did not perfectly match when stacked. So I chose to align in the petroglyph area to the detriment of the lower left and upper right where you can see misalignment.

[Andrea B.]

unresized excerpts

 

visible

 

 

visible

 

 

infrared

[Alex H]

I found that pictographs show almost opposite results in UV and IR.

[nfoto]

Andrea, despite claims to the contrary, the Coastal Optics is not perfectly identical in its image magnification for UV - Vis - IR. There is about 0.3% change in magnification that has to be adjusted in the later processing.

[Alex H]

Differences in filter thickness and refractive index will affect focus shift too.

[Cadmium]

Andrea, I find your first three "Petroglyphs in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, USA" very interesting shots!

Reminds me of UV and IR art / painting restoration shots, exposing details not seen to our visible range.

I have been enjoying your photos from Death Valley. Thank you.

[Bill De Jager]

Most rocks where petroglyphs were drawn were covered with the dark 'desert patina'. This is nicely obvious in both Visible and in Infrared which worked wonderfully well for petroglyphs.

 

That's desert varnish (https://en.wikipedia.../Desert_varnish) which is really cool stuff that takes thousands of years to form on exposed surfaces. There's quite a bit in Death Valley also, once you get out of the mud hills and into places where the rocks are hard and durable. In such places, even small rock fragments on geologically inactive surfaces on alluvial fans will commonly have desert varnish.

 

Valley of Fire State Park is well worth visiting. I finally made it a couple of years ago for a brief visit.

 

It looks like I won't be getting out to the desert this winter or spring. IMO the best months for the region are January-March, except in the higher mountains. Next year...

[Andrea B.]

Bjørn - yes, interesting about the magnification factor. Although once I stop to think for a moment, not surprising.

 

Alex - yes, many factors at play there. :)

 

Steve - thank you! I really enjoyed escaping winter and seeing the desert all flowering and green. Well, "green". It's subtle. More like sage, pastel-cyan-grey, deep lime.

 

Bill - Valley of Fire is now definitely on my repeat visit list. There were some features I did not get to see this time.

I hope you are able to get out soon and get in some shooting somewhere! It can be very refreshing to get out under those big Western skies.

 

******************

 

And so I am returned from my Desert Dance back to my East Coast base. I will be catching up to recent posts and new members soon!!

[Bill De Jager]

Bill - Valley of Fire is now definitely on my repeat visit list. There were some features I did not get to see this time. I hope you are able to get out soon and get in some shooting somewhere! It can be very refreshing to get out under those big Western skies.

 

I should get back there too, though there's also plenty to see just a little farther up the road in southwestern Utah. Anyway, on my visit in 2013 I looped back across Nevada on US 93 (right past the Bundy ranch a year before things blew up there) and state highway 375, the so-called Extraterrestrial Highway which runs near (in western terms) Area 51. This has led to efforts to capitalize on the associated fame:

 

http://pic100.picturetrail.com/VOL437/1642984/24174024/412262386.jpg

 

Nevermind the UFO hype; the latter road has got to be one of the best wide-open-spaces highway in the west. This next photo is not the greatest but gives some of the feeling for the place - no significant human habitatation for 150 km. This is what biogeographers call cold desert, quite different from Death Valley or Valley of Fire.

 

http://pic100.picturetrail.com/VOL437/1642984/24174024/412262387.jpg

 

Sorry - no IR or UV that day!

 

Just as an aside, there are persistent efforts to remove most or all such places in the west from federal and eventually any sort of public ownership, and it wouldn't be too surprising to see this start to happen on a big scale next year.

[Andrea B.]

I hope to get to Utah later this year. Lots of things going on, so I don't know when I'll find the time. But I'm trying!

 

As for the land, I hope these places stay under federal ownership so that we can all visit them. And I would like to see the habitat preserved. I recently saw some scraped areas near Lucerne Valley which were absolutely horrible. Totally destroyed the microcrust biome. All all kinds of dust in the air because creosote roots (and others) gone. I think they are going to put in wind engines. That's fine. I just don't see the need to wreck everything when they could just as easily build stuff and leave the surrounding habitat intact.

 

Love the big metal alien !! Ya know, I have yet to see that groups of people or governments can keep secrets for long. Eventually stuff leaks out. It is just human nature. So I'd have to say that I'm not a big believer in the alien spacecraft thing. ;) B) :lol:

[Bill De Jager]

Andrea, you went to Death Valley just in time. The flowers are already withering in the best areas: http://diglloyd.com/...owerStatus.html. There will still be more flowers than usual for some time at somewhat higher elevations, but probably not in great profusion.

 

This bloom was unusual in that typically the peak on the valley floor (in years when it happens) is in late March, while this time the bloom started and declined much earlier. I've never heard of this happening before.

[Andrea B.]

Back in 2012 when Bjørn, Carolyn and I met up with Lloyd in Death Valley, he said that the bloom was happening earlier there each year. Could be normal changes or could be the big Climate Change thing.

 

But yes - I'm so thrilled I got to see another big desert superbloom. It was quite amazing!!

 

I saw a fairly amazing bloom in Anza-Borrego one time. Back then I was not yet shooting serious UV, so I missed a chance to record in UV some of those gazillion caterpillars which were nomming away on the Brown-eyed Primroses in Anza.

[Bill De Jager]

Another desert place that can have outstanding bloom in occasional years is the Carrizo Plain in California. This year has been good but the blooms will be gone soon. Report: http://diglloyd.com/blog/2016/20160323_1915-CarrizoPlainFlowerStatus.html

[Andrea B.]

Thanks, Bill.

I've added Carrizo Plain to the itinerary for next year's trip!