A new toy and a giant playground

In what is fast becoming a bi-annual occurrence, I recently purchased a new camera. Fueled partly by a desire to be able to do more with my photographs and partly by envy at some of the really nice cameras some friends and family were starting to use, I decided that it was time to jump on the DSLR bandwagon.

After a whole slew of research I decided to stick with Cannon and picked up a Digital Rebel xti. Clocking in with an impressive 10.1 megapixels, this camera is actually one of Cannon’s lower end offerings in the DSLR range, but also one of the most popular. I also decided to skip buying the camera with its default starter lens and picked up a more impressive 28-105 mm general use lens (good for shooting objects from about one yard away or more).

With the camera arriving right before the Thanksgiving holiday I was eager for a chance to get out and start shooting. My dad suggested going for a hike and knocking off another New Hampshire 4000 footer in the process (4 down, 44 to go) and surprisingly enough my mom decided to come along as well (although several ice strewn miles later I think she regretted that particular decision). So we set out for the summit of Mt. Passaconoway.

From a viewpoint near the summit you could see the backside of the Franconia Ridge trail that I had hiked a month ago (Mt. Lafayette is the snow capped peak on the right). One of the best things about hiking in the White Mountains is that you can always see somewhere you’ve been, and somewhere you would like to go next.

The trees were covered in frost and snow at the higher elevations. It never broke 30 degrees, so it definitely felt like winter.



In the distance you could see Mount Washington in all of its snow-covered glory. Better to see it from afar though, the wind chill was well below 0 degrees up on that summit.

Taking longer than anticipated to make our way back down the icy trail we soon found ourselves running out of daylight. Fortunately we were well prepared with headlamps and had no difficulty making our way down the trail in the dusk and then with the artificial light.


The lack of light gave me the opportunity to try taking very low light pictures. By sitting on the ground and shooting upwards I was able to hold still enough to make some pretty cool shots. When the moon disappeared behind the clouds I had to turn off the auto-focus because the camera wouldn’t attempt such a low-light shot otherwise. I was very pleased that they came out at all without a tripod.

All in all a very fun hike and an amazing new toy. Coming soon to a mountain near you.

Full gallery available here.