Dear all,

It is still a bit of a work in progress, but please find below a link pointing to some of the many images shot during a 3+ weeks trek in the Kumbhu area of Nepal.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlangui...57604790836498/

The 3 weeks trek took us from the Gokyo valley to the Everest base camp and Kala Pathar through the high pass called Chola at 5350 m. The highest point we walked was Kala Pathar at 5630 m (above 18.000 feet) but we went above 5000 m 5 or 6 days during the trek.

We had hired a guide and porters through a local Nepali company called Trekking Team and were very happy with the quality of the organization.

Overall we found the trek to be easier than the treks we typically do in Japan. Altitude should however not be taken lightly as many of the other groups we met had a few members who had to give up half through with severe altitude sickness symptoms. We were lucky and had not problems at all besides a few passing light headaches a few times on the way down from higher locales.

All these images were captures with a Nikon D3 using a 17-35 f2.8, the new 60 mm f2.8 AF-S macro and the excellent light zoom 70-300 VR. All the gear performed flawlessly including the many 32GB Transcent CF cards I used as only storage media (using the backup mode of the D3). I had a D2x as backup but it fortunately never had to leave its immersion proof stuff sack.

Most of the conversions of the raw files were done with C-1 4.01 with a few done using DxO V5 beta Mac and Raw Developper 1.72.

Many of those are panoramic images assembled with either PTgui Pro 7.8 or Autopano Pro 1.4. They are made up of anywhere between 3 and 70 images with an average around 16 or so.

Enjoy,

Regards,
Bernard

Beautiful work (as usual). Thanks for sharing...

Mike.

Fantastic.
The images of Ama Dablam with yellow clouds and the sunset on Cholatse and Taboche are very powerfull.

Cheers,
J

Bernard,
Interesting shots! Nepal is certainly a great place for photography. I like the fact that porters are so affordable so all one has to carry is one's camera.

When the upgrade to the 5D becomes available I might use that as an excuse to return to Nepal to test the camera.

Yep... all in all my day pack was about 14-15 kg though, about the same weight as the pack carried by the porter if not heavier.

The included about 7 kg of camera gear (D3 + spare battery + 3 lenses + tripod + pano kit + CF cases + ...), 3 liters of water, spare clothes, fleece, rain gear, some food, first aid kit,...

But yes, overall the trip was far less demanding physically than we had anticipated. This enabled me to really focus on photography instead of thinking about how to go back down alive.

Cheers,
Bernard

Thanks, those were handsome light situations indeed!

Cheers,
Bernard

Many thanks Mike.

Cheers,
Bernard

What a fantastic collection of photos! I wish I could see them in an exposition.

Very nice shots - you seem to have had good luck with the weather.

I was wondering a bit about the panorama 'Everest' with the sun visible. It seems to show a perfectly smooth sky - just like the others. Do you have any trouble achieving this when the sun is shining on the lens? The 17-35 is doing a good job apparently, does this suffice to stitch the images like in any other case or do you need to take special care in views including the sun?

Greetings,
Christoph

Thank you Francois, very kind of you.

I am working on an exhibition, but it is still months away at best and you'll probably have to fly to Tokyo...

Cheers,
Bernard

Yep, we were amazingly lucky with the weather. The skies in April are normally not that clear.

We had late October weather wthout the hassle of the crowd...



Well, there are a few things you can do to help with this. Since the shade is took short on that lens, I typically provide additonal shading with my hand for those images where the sun is not directly in the image.

For the images where the sun is in the image, besides not using filters which is the obvious basic advice, I normally proceed by taking 2 images that I overlay in PS. The first image has the sun, in the second image I hide the sun with my hand in order to avoid flare in the non sky parts of the image. This does of course pre-req the use of a tripod.

That's easy to do, the main thing really is to think of doing it at 5600 m when your guide is telling you in a very insisting tone that it is now time to go back down to civilization.

Cheers,
Bernard

Beautiful images, it looks like you had spectacular weather while there. I trekked to Kala Patar back in 1987, starting from Jiri at the end of the road. I count it as one of my premier life experiences.
I wonder if there are many changes in Khumbu due to the recent political and social problems in Nepal.

Thanks.

We were there just a the moment of the recent elections targeting a change of the constitution.

So it is definitely changing from a political standpoint, but Nepali seem to have overall a very laid back approach to politics. We didn't feel any tension although it was clear that people were involved and interested in the results of the elections.

As far as the trek goes, we did clearly prefer the Gokyo valley compared to the Everest one. Less people and more opportunities to discuss.

Nepali veterans we met told us that the amount of trekkers and the size of the groups had increased significantly over the last 10 years. Lodges are also more comfortable.

Trekking that part of Nepal is clearly less of wilderness experience than I am used to in Japan, but the scenery more than compensates for this. And yes, we had a once every 10 years kind of month of April with fantastic weather most of the trek. The last few days were more typical April with a lot of haze and we could feel how lucky we had been up there.

Cheers,
Bernard

Bernard,
I think you meant to write, 'some lodges are almost comfortable'.

The number of trekkers in Nepal has increased enormously in recent years, or recent decades. When I first visited Nepal over 40 years ago, I was able to wander around at will. No permits required, no guides, and because I was young and strong, I had no need of porters.

I saw almost no tourists during my trekking, I slept in no hotels or lodges, just the standard Nepalese house in the village I happened to reach at the end of the day. I relied upon the hospitality of the very friendly villagers, some of whom had never met a Caucasion before. I was a curiosity for many and some villagers would run away when I attempted to take a photo of them.

Now they tend to hold out there hand for money when they see a photo is being taken. A bit sad, but understandable considering the dire poverty of many Nepalese peasants.

There is something rather bizarre about a situation where hordes of well-heeled tourists carrying cheap cameras which are (nevertheless) far beyond the means of the average Nepalese villager, snapping away at unusual, exotic and therefore interesting scenes.

It's almost like a Ray Bradbury science fiction novel, where visitors from the future, having mastered time travel, go on holiday to earlier centuries to have a look at the quaint way of life of communities from the past.

Last time I was there, in October/November 2006, there was a lot of consternation amongst backpackers about the new law stating that no tourist could go trekking without hiring a guide. This is obviously a significant cost burden on those who are travelling on a budget. It's also an impediment to those whose prime interest is photography.

My own experience is, my guide and porter get extremely bored whilst I wander around looking for interesting angles. I'm not the slightest bit interested in arriving at the planned destination at the end of the day.I just want to explore the scenery and see what I can make of it. However, I feel thwarted in this goal under the current regulations,

The way I see it the guide and porters are the employees of a company of which you are the CEO. The same mgt rules apply than in a real company in terms of coomnication, motivation of the team, etc...

I defined from scratch the schedule of our trek this time and scheduled the trip so as to have mostly reasonnably short walking days. I found that a lot of interesting photography can be done at day time, especially before lunch and the current schedule was overall a success, even if there are always things to improve.

I am very used to having time constraints when taking pictures in the wild, that is always the case when trekking remote areas within a group (and trekking in remote areas has to be done in a group for safety reasons).

I did not find that the presence of the guide was very impacting from that standpoint. As far as the porters is concerned, they don't need to way for the guide and trekkers, they mostly walked ahead of us and couldn't care less whether I was arriving late for lunch.

In the end, efficiency in using the gear and the ability to identify reasonnably quickly interesting scene was this time also an important aspect of shooting, but it always is as far as I am concerned.

Cheers,
Bernard

Yes, that is usually a good approach when using a tripod. And having a closer look again it seems like the subtle lens flares visible do not all originate from the same shot.



I guess at 5600m that's better than stumbling back in the dark wishing you have had a guide telling you exactly that a few hours ago...

Greetings,
Christoph

That's true, but a CEO should consider the concerns of his employees or other members of the group. I think having other members in the group is an even greater impediment to a truly free creative experience in a foreign land where it's almost impossible to plan or schedule for good photographic opportunities.

There were so many occasions, last time I was in Nepal, when I felt I would like to hang around for an extra day or two, or three, or return to a spot at a different time of day, which would have meant backtracking.

Next time, I'll try to arrange things differently. No deadlines to meet. No return flights to catch at a set date. Completely flexible.

Sure, that's indeed the best if can have that kind of freedom, but I personnally cannot anyway...

Cheers,
Bernard

Even without be able to capture such wonderful photos, such a trip would be more than a good experience.

Hopefully I would able to see this part off world myself.

Thanks for sharing,
Daniel

Bernard,

Thanks for sharing the as-usual-magnificent images so that old geezers like me can enjoy your treks vicariously.

I do wish I'd had the initiative to do some treking in that part of the world some thirty or forty years ago.

Regards,

Eric

Eric,
I didn't realise you are that old . When I was there, I was quite surprised to meet the occasional 70-75 year old American lady walking along the same track using 2 walking sticks.

Ray,

I'm not quite that old yet, but I do use two walking sticks when hiking on difficult terrain.

When I was young, and the dinosaurs and I roamed the land . . .

-Eric

Ah! Difficult to take a photo with a walking stick in each hand. Could be a disadvantage. I refuse to use walking sticks. Some folks have trouble with their knees walking downhill. I have trouble carrying my overweight frame uphill. I much prefer walking downhill.

Actually, when I'm expecting to do photography, I generally carry just one stick. Or, if I'm using both, I'll drop them to take the picture and then go hunting for them again.

And I'm still looking for a nice, interesting loop circuit that is downhill all the way. And if I lost about 50 pounds I'd have an easier time. But I still probably wouldn't get to the neat places you and Bernard get to for photography.

Thank you for the kind words Eric.

Cheers,
Bernard

Eric, you can do it! Take inspiration from this chap. (Somewhere between Kalopani and Sikha). Dull day unfortunately.

Click to view attachment

Original picture replaced due to oversight. Wrong WB and oversharpened.

If I were as lean as that guy, I could go trekking.

Actually, how about a head-mounted camera (sort of like a miner's headlamp), with a cable release operated by mouth. Then I wouldn't need to let go of the two sticks with my hands.

Believe me. If you went trekking, you'd soon become as lean as that guy. The mild altitude sickness combined with the rather unappetising meals, plus the constant exercise day after day is the most effective way of losing weight I can think of. I lost around 10 kgs during the few weeks I was in Nepal. After returning to Australia, I gradually put it back on. I'm looking forward to my next trip so I can take it off again .

Thanks for sharing those Bernard, brought back great memories of Nepal. I trekked the first half of the Annapurna trail in 2000.

----

Also Bernard, what type of pano equipment to you use? I.e. RRS, nodal ninja, etc. I am looking for something very stable and I know how the wind can blow in Nepal so I was wondering what you used. Also for the pano's did you tend to use the 60mm macro?

Thanks for the kind words. The Anapurna trek is on my short list for future treks.

I have been using a RRS ultimate spherical pano kit for a few years now. It works OK in moderate wind with gear up to about 2 kg.

I used mostly both the 60 mm macro and the 70-300 for stitching.

Cheers,
Bernard

Bernard,
When I was last in Nepal, shooting mostly with my Canon 5D and 20D, I was not aware of the future capabilities of stitching programs like CS3's Photomerge and Autopano Pro. There were occasions when the wind was strong and I thought it a waste of time getting out my lightweight tripod. I was also carrying my Canon TS-E 24mm on that trip, but hardly used it.

However, I did take a few handheld shots for stitching purposes on a few occasions (very few unfortunately) when any tripod would have been too unstable. Those shots have stitched marvelously well with either CS3 or Autopano Pro.

I wonder if there is really any need for a tripod and pano head for panoramas in the difficult situations of trekking where weight and convenience are major issues.

Ray,

Well, I feel that although Nepal offers somewhat more day time shooting opportunities than other locales, there is still value in shooting sunrise and sunset images where a tripod is mandatory. So for me that was not an option really.

As far as panoramas goes, I shot a few handheld for a variety of reasons and got overall good results. The fact remains though that subjects with a strong front rear dimension do not stitch well because of parallalax when the lens is not located around its nodal point. For me this makes the pano head mandatory also.

This being said I agree that tripod/no tripod is a difficult call to make in windy situations where hand held and VR/IS can result in better sharpness than shots on a tripo + pano head.

Cheers,
Bernard

Stunning photos
I think they would be even more stunning if we could view them with tools such as DevalVR or Zoomifyer. Then we could really see the detail that you obviously have in the photos.

Thanks. Yep, I'll think of that but such a capability isn't built-in into flickr. Besides I am a little bit afraid of making indirectly full res images available on line, would it be piece by pice...

I have been thinking of adding some form of that to my own site but haven't found the time yet.

Regards,
Bernard

Bernard,
I admit there will always be the odd occasion where a tripod is essential for best results. If the slowest shutter speed of a series of bracketed shots to increase DR is simply too slow for a sharp result without tripod, then use of a higher ISO may not produce the best tonality. It would also be impossible to take a waterfall shot without a tripod if one wanted the traditional silky smooth blur, or a shot at night without flash or where flash was not appropriate.

However, in view of the increased functionality of software such as CS3E with regard to stacking of images and auto-alignment, and the much improved parallax correction of stitching programs like Autopano Pro, as well as CS3's Photomerge, I wonder if the need for a tripod is exaggerated.

Sunsets and sunrises can be considered as stationary, like still lifes, can't they? The Nikon D3 has a fast frame rate and a base ISO of 200. My experience with stacking images in CS3E for noise removal suggests one can get as much as a 2 stop improvement. Instead of using a tripod for shots at 1/15th or 1/30th sec at ISO 200, how about 6 or 9 hand-held shots at ISO 800 and at 1/60th or 1/125th second?

If shutter speed is not an issue but dynamic range is, then CS3's auto-alignment of images is excellent for merging hand-held bracketed shots to HDR, although I admit there's a danger of the resulting sharpness being limited to the sharpness of the image with the slowest shutter speed.

It's a concern for me because whenever I travel I always seem to take too much stuff just in case I might find the need of something, a particular lens or a tripod.

Bernard:

Wonderful shots and it makes me want to go back to Nepal soon. I'm using the D3 as well.

Look out for the d3x... that will make us happy.

BC
bobcarmichael.com

Bernard
I understand your concern but with images the size of yours you still need to resize and compress. This gives a degree of protection, since what you put on the web, while higher than "normal" web images is still not really high enough for good prints.
Incorporating the code into your web site is not difficult. If you can succesfully stitch 70 odd photos it will be an easy learning experiance for you. One of those spare moments you have between trips.
BTW I also love a number of your other photo sets, particularly New Zealand and the macros.
Keep taking photos, keep posting.

Thanks Bob,

The D3x is tempting, but I might skip it. I would be very surprised if Nikon had managed to equal the amazing DR and file quality of the D3, and since I stitch a lot, the difference would not be that great in the end.

The next upgrade might be higher end medium format if I can afford it then.

Cheers,
Bernard

Bernard,

Fantastic set, as we have come to consistently expect from you. It did start feeling a bit repetitive with some what barren mountainscapes towards the end, but that is a somewhat minor quibble.

Thanks a lot. It is fair comment, but this set isn't really intended do be a portfolio per se.

Cheers,
Bernard

Very nice work indeed. I am especially taken by the quality of light that you have captured - best defined (IMO) with your images of prayer flags and the temples. Nicely done!

Sorry for the late answer and thanks a lot for the comment!

Regards,
Bernard

Dear all,

Thanks again for your encouraging comments!

I have now selected a sub-set of these photographs and uploaded them to my own site.

http://www.light-of-earths.com/Set-Asia-Nepal/E/Host.html

This should make these images a bit easier to see than on flickr.

Regards,
Bernard

Thanks Bernard,
Your wonderful photos deserved better than Flickr!

Very nice Bernard.

Fred

Hi Bernard, don't know why, but this seems to be the first time I see this set of images - excellent as usual. I also like your personal web-site presentation much better. Another option which works really well is to create Flash galleries in Lightroom.

Cheers,

Mark

Hello Mark,

Thanks for the kind words.

I considered flash as well, but decided to stay away from it for now.

Regards,
Bernard

Ah nice to see a photographer of substance. I've read you posts for some time but never knew who you were. I'll pay a bit more attention to what you have to say from now on.

quote=BernardLanguillier,Jul 14 2008, 05:30 PM]
Hello Mark,

Thanks for the kind words.

I considered flash as well, but decided to stay away from it for now.

Regards,
Bernard

[/quote]