Arizona

In March we were invited to a wedding in Phoenix. So we went a little early and started our "vacation" by driving up to Sedona on Friday to see the Red Mountains around the city there.

On Saturday, we met some friends at the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately it was a little hazy and some of the longer distance pictures aren't as crisp as I would like. It's amazing how the clarity changes as the distance in the long shots increases.

As you can tell from the pictures below, I started playing with taking multiple pictures and stitching them together to create some large views. Remember, these pictures on the web page are scaled down to reduce the load time for on-line users. Several of the pictures are approximately 30 Mega-pixel pictures at full resolution. Be sure to use the scroll bars to view the full width of the pictures.

Obviously I have a lot to work on with these larger pictures. I didn't lock the white balance (like Dale told me to) so color isn't totally consistent across the wide angles. And I didn't have a tripod (like Dale told me to) so there's some curvature required to stitch some pictures. And I need a newer, better camera & lens ... which Mary agreed to. Even so, these are great reminders of just how vast the views can be. I took over 600 pictures so these are only a few of the first ones that I played with.

One of the best parts of the grand canyon was spotting the bighorn ewe and lamb on the edge of canyon. Several people coming from the other way drove them toward us. So I was able to get ahead and set up for the ewe just before she came over the edge. Ergo, one really nice close up of a wild bighorn.

Click on any thumbnail below for a bigger picture or use the Slide Show viewer.

         

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