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Trip to Arizona

About two weeks ago, I used up my last week of vacation time this year, and took a trip to Arizona. We visited Sedona, Grand Canyon, Page, and Monument Valley. I've always wanted to visit the southwest. The desert, sand, red rocks are all foreign to me, completely different from the tropical island I grew up in, the rainy forests of the pacific northwest, or the lush mountains in north Georgia. 

Choosing which cameras to bring is always a headache for big trips like this. I really wanted to shoot a lot of medium format film, but still have a digital backup for difficult lighting conditions. Balancing weight and the amount of camera gear I wanted to carry with me is an eternal struggle I face. I ended up bringing my Pentax 67, Zeiss Ikon ZM, and a Canon R6 as a backup. In total I shot 12 rolls of 120, and 3 rolls of 35mm film.

Our itinerary looked like this: Phoenix --> Sedona --> Grand Canyon --> Antelope Canyon / Horseshoe Bend --> Monument Valley -- > Sedona --> Phoenix. I enjoyed Monument Valley the most, the vast landscape is breath taking, and while still touristy, it never felt overcrowded or disconnected from nature. Sedona on the other hand has much more options for food / shopping / activities but at times felt way to crowded and tourist-trappy. 

1. Taken with the Pentax 67 at dusk. I over-exposed this image accidentally, so the scan quality is not the best, needed lots of post-processing to make it semi-presentable.


2. A hand-held inside Monument Valley on a photography tour with the Pentax 67. I really liked the textures of the sand although I feel like the bushes distracted the image a little bit. 


3. Sunset at Monument Valley with the Pentax 67. I wanted to have a little bit of foreground blur to show the vastness of the landscape, so I ended up shooting this wide open at f2.4 with the famed 105mm / f2.4 lens.  


4. Sunrise silhouette shot inside the Monument Valley Park, taken with a Canon R6 because I am not super confident at metering these high contrast scenes with a fast rising sun while shooting medium format. Definitely need some more practice!


5. Sunrise inside the Monument Valley Park, taken with the Canon R6. In the haste of shooting the sunrise, I forgot my aperture is stopped all the way down at f22. This image is not sharp when looked at full resolution. I'm unsure if there were some motion blur or the EF 24-105mm f4L simply just don't do well at f22. 

6. Lower Antelope Canyon, taken with Canon R6 & EF 24-105 f4L. I decided to brought my digital camera down for the canyon tour because the dark canyons needed higher ISO than the film I had plus modern cameras are weather sealed. I mostly metered for the highlights and recovered the shadows in Lightroom. 

7. Sedona, taken with Zeiss Ikon ZM & Color-Skopar 35mm f2.5 on Superia 400. 



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