In comments on the previous post, Fred Levitan asks:
Wasn’t it just an outstandingly crystal clear transparent lower atmosphere yesterday?
Here’s one way of answering:
The photo was taken yesterday, around noon, from Briones Regional Park.
Those windmills in the middle-ground are just north of the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, 20 miles east by northeast.
The white peak at the right end of that distant range in the background is Pyramid Peak in the Desolation Wilderness, 125 miles from the camera. Pyramid isn’t a 10,000-footer. But if you stood on the summit and held your trekking pole by the end and stuck it straight up in the air, the other end would be at around 10,000 feet just as the lightning hit you.
Vicki was asking me this weekend about depth of field. I think this picture proves there is no substitute for brilliant sunshine and clear air for giving you great photos - you get a small apeture *and* a fast shutter.
Funny season, isn’t it, with that silvery five-o’clock shadow across the grass and the oaks looking all lively and the alternating days of sharp clear air and milky haze. Seriously bipolar, it is.
I grew up with a dog, a greyhound, who got up and went outside in response to a whispered ‘Briones’ in the last weeks of his life.
He had lived in Ohio for 13 years since his puppyhood in Hayward, but he never forgot those hills.