By Jenn Gidman
Images by Don Mammoser
Getting away from it all was Don Mammoser's goal; North Cascades National Park was his destination. Don and his wife, Anya, headed deep into the alpine landscape of the lush Washington park last August for a wilderness backpacking getaway, his Tamron 16-300mm VC PZD Macro lens at his side to document their venture into the wild. "I love the peace of a trip like this," he says. "We backpacked for three days in the park, and we barely saw anybody while we were there."
The focal-length range of the 16-300mm offered Don a true wide-angle perspective for the more expansive scenery, a versatile midrange for precise framing, and a telephoto end that allowed him to capture close-up detail photos of the wilderness around them. "When you're backpacking for multiple days, you have to carry everything you need on your back," he says. "With the 16-300, I needed just one lens. I hung my camera over my backpack so it was in front of me and I could simply reach down and grab my camera whenever I wanted to take some pictures."
Don and Anya stopped at the park ranger's station for campsite and hiking recommendations. "We wanted to be near a lake with beautiful scenery and not see too many people," Don says. "The ranger recommended Thornton Lakes, which can be accessed via a 'moderately strenuous' 5.2-mile trail. We could set up camp there and leave our tent, sleeping bags, and big backpacks behind during the day as we explored the area."
The true wide angle of the 16-300 was invaluable in helping Don capture the park's expansiveness. "That 16mm is a 22.4mm equivalent on my camera," he says. "We were in the woods on the trek to our campsite when we suddenly came over the top of the hill and saw a stunning view of lower Thornton Lake. It was awesome to realize that's where we'd be camping for a couple of nights, and the 16mm end of the lens allowed me to capture the entire scene."
The park is so named because of all of its cascading waterfalls, Don explains. "We had a water filter so we could get fresh drinking water as we hiked, and we had made a stop at a small stream when we spotted this unnamed waterfall," he says. "The true wide angle of the 16-300 came in handy once again because I was able to capture the entire waterfall in tight quarters; I was in a little area between some large trees and boulders and just didn't have a lot of space to work with. I put my camera on the small tripod I had packed and took the photo at 16mm."
The 16-300 also enabled Don to experiment with starbursts. "What I like to do on a perfect blue-sky day is use a small aperture and compose an image with the sun included," he says. "Most of the foreground will fall into a silhouette, so it's preferable to place a recognizable shape or form into the photo."
In this case, that shape was Anya standing on a hill with her walking stick. "I metered the image just below the sun, locked in my exposure, and recomposed the photo," he says. "There's a lot of trial and error with this kind of image, because if you change your angle just a tiny bit, you can get some really big sun flares. I took this photo at 17mm. The wide angle gives you a really distinct starburst with long rays, which I really like."
Don used the 16-300's midrange for precise framing in the park's often-steep environment. "I was in a spot where I couldn't go forward anymore because there was a cliff in front of me," he says. "Anya was a little bit ahead of me on the path when I noticed those really cool-looking peaks off in the distance. I zoomed in a little bit to about 70mm and asked her to stand still with her hiking stick. It was a neat visual effect, because it looked like she was higher than the mountains. The range of the 16-300 is priceless because I was able to frame it up exactly as I needed. If I had changed my position, it would've changed the overall look of the picture."
Don and Anya discovered sustenance in the forest in the form of a berry bonanza. "Blueberries and huckleberries were everywhere," he says. "We picked and ate many pounds of them every day. We found all kinds of ways to eat them—on sandwiches, in our cereal, as a snack, crushed up in the evenings for dessert. The 16-300 allowed me to take some close-up macro pictures of all this abundance."
Don used the full length of the lens at 300mm and the closest focusing distance (15.3 inches) to show the colorful berries on the bushes. "There were literally berry bushes everywhere we went, and each bush had four or five huge berries hanging off of it," he says. "It was a feast for any animal or any person walking there. The bushes turn all different colors throughout the year, and this bush in particular looked so pretty with all of the red and blue. I was impressed with the 16-300's ability to focus so close. I also wanted to show how many berries there actually were, so I had Anya pick a bunch and took a photo of all the berries in her hands at 44mm."
Although photographing wildlife wasn't Don's main goal on this backpacking adventure, he was lucky enough to encounter a few photo opps. "Wildlife is always a bonus for me, and with the 16-300 I have a lens I know can capture those photos," he says. "On my camera, the 16-300 can reach a full 480mm equivalent. I saw some squirrels and some grouse this time around, so the ability of the lens to reach out that far was ideal."
Don spotted a grouse perched on a tree branch and knew he had to act quickly. "It obviously saw us, since we weren't exactly trying to be quiet," he says. "I knew I wasn't going to have a lot of time, so I quickly pulled my camera up from in front of me and waited for the Vibration Compensation to slow down and stabilize the shake I had from being so excited to see it. I took the picture at 300mm and was able to gain between 2 and 3 stops more than what I could normally get handheld."
A sunset at camp capped off a particularly vigorous day in the wilderness. "The park wasn't allowing campfires at that time of year because they'd had a particularly dry season, but we had a stove we used to cook hot meals," he says. "We had prepared our evening meal, enjoyed some berries for dessert, and were just relaxing and resting our sore feet when Anya noticed the sky was starting to fill with color. I had my camera right there, so I turned around, framed the shot, and took the photo at 55mm. We had our stove and the sunset to provide us with some warmth at the end of a long day."
To see more of Don Mammoser's work, go to www.donmammoserphoto.com.