Weekend getaway in the Missouri Ozarks: Part II

After dinner, we grabbed the gear and headed down to the creek.  

The Milky Way wasn't quite yet over the creek and the lodge patios were lit, so we tried to incorporate the lodge itself.  This picture took a lot of time to edit.  It is a composite of two photos: one about 20 seconds long to capture the Milky Way and one about 4 seconds long (and at lowest sensitivity) to capture the lodge without it just appearing like a supernova.  Then I essentially painted the two pictures together in photoshop.  

By the time we sorted the lodge shot out, the Milky Way had risen over the creek.  There are several wing-dams in the creek that channelize the river, creating some nice ripples. We had thought we'd have to wait for the moon to light the rocks and trees, but the lodge did a nice job of casting soft light on the scene.  This photo is actually a stack of several (5-10) photographs, each 20 seconds long.  Stacking allows the computer to differentiate the real stars from camera "noise", allowing me to enhance the depth of the Milky Way.  I merged the sky shots together and then painted that sky into one of the foreground shots.  The advantage of stacking is clear when comparing this picture to the others from that night.

We brought along some of our scuba diving lights and tried a little "light painting".  We put the lights in the water and shot them toward the riffle.  Because they have narrow beams, we sort of waved them across the scene.  We found that any more than 1 second of light in the river made it too bright, so we tried this about a dozen times before we got a result that we were satisfied.  I tuned the colors in the sky to a bit more green to match the river.  I may revisit this photograph at a later date, possibly painting in the sky from the shot above for depth and then tuning the colors to match. 

Let me know what you think: should I keep it as is, merge the two, or do you prefer the water in the top one anyway?

The draw wasn't the creek, it was the bluff.  After toying with the lights in the creek, it was time to shift our position and include the bluff in the shot.  Even with our widest-angle lens, I wasn't able to capture the whole scene.  Instead, I shot several 20-second pictures, shifting the camera upward a bit each time.  I later stitched these together in Photoshop to create a panorama.   

We were riding high.  The new lens was capturing so much more light from the Milky Way.  The conditions were ideal: mild temperatures, no mosquitoes, bats flying overhead, frogs singing, and cool water rushing over our waders.  The night had gone very well.  We planned to shift maybe three more times to capture a few different angles and maybe a bit of moonlight when the moon rose around 2 am.  

And then it happened.  Apparently the screw that held the ballmount (angle-adjustment thingy) to the tripod had been working its way farther up into the ballmount until it had nary a thread to grab the tripod.  One small shift and plop!  I caught the camera before it even sank to the bottom, but it was too late. We almost immediately removed the battery and disassembled the camera, but there was water in the lens and in the camera.  We rushed to the room and spent the next hour trying to dry anything we could see and researching all the internet remedies.  We put it in a tupperware with silica packs and tried to go to sleep.  After a decade of talking about getting a manual camera, we'd ruined this one in just a few months.  (***Update at end of post)

We slept in until just before check-out.  We pledged to not let the camera incident ruin this new day.  Laura's rockhounding-in-the-dark got cut short the night before, so we headed down to the creek to kick rocks.  I found a nice spot in the shade, let the water run over my feet, and enjoyed the view (Laura included).

We headed to Johnson Shut-Ins, the original motivation for the trip.  We had been talking about going for years.  The place is a popular swimming hole, so we scheduled our trip so we would be there on Monday.  We are glad we did because there were still plenty of people there and I can't imagine what the weekend was like.  It was a cool place with lots of cascades and pools to sit in and relax, rocks to jump from for excitement, and deeper pools to float in.  We did a little of each and also played with our other camera that is, ironically, waterproof!

Laura was looking a doll with her fancy new hat that she bought with Ali in Italy!

There were even some critters to keep us company!

***Camera update: Sony sent the camera back and said a repair was cost-prohibitive.  It turns on, but won't take a picture.  We will keep an eye out on Black Friday.  One thing is for certain; if we get a new camera, we'll be paying the $32 per year to insure it with a rider on our rental policy (or similar).  We learned about that option in a meeting with our insurance one day after "the drop".