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Below I’ve posted another photo of Mount Kinabalu’s Shadow. Taken a short while after the one I posted a few days ago and with a landscape versus portrait orientation, the combination of view and time difference render this an overall lighter image. The weathered granodiorite of the summit can be more easily seen.
This is the only photo of the sunrise on Mount Kinabalu that includes the sun in the shot! As you can see, that morning there was a cloud bank to the east and the peaks on the eastern side of Low’s Gully actually obscure the horizon so from the summit you can’t actually see the sun breaking over the horizon. There’s a lot of flare in this image. I could have brushed most of it out but I think it actually adds something to this image – a leading diagonal line for one and a visual artifact on the lower left quadrant that would otherwise be a black hole. The flare below the sun is primarily due to a dirty filter. For many years I placed a skylight or UV filter on the front of my lenses to ‘protect’ them. Having since traded up to Canon’s ‘L’ series lenses I not longer do that (most of the time). I put ‘most of the time’ in brackets because there are occasions where the protection factor does come into play. In most situations, the lens hood provides protection against minor bumps and knocks so a filter is not necessary. Situations where a filter can come in hand is when photographing rallying on a gravel surface or other occasions when pieces of rock or other debris might be hurtling towards you. There, the investment in a filter might protect the front element if a rock crashes into your lens, but if it has enough force to penetrate the filter then it’ll likely damage the front element anyway. I’m not talking here about artistic filters like neutral density filters, grads, polarizers, etc. I’m talking about the skylight/UV filters that many people use just as I used to. If you decide you do want to use a skylight or UV filter to give yourself peace of mind, make sure you invest in the best quality you can afford. There’s little point in investing hundreds if not thousands on a lens only to destroy the image quality by placing a cheap filter between that lens and your subject. Get a 15% discount on your purchase or upgrade of any Topaz product when you enter discount code rdavisphoto at checkout. Click on the banner below for this offer. Having taken photos to the south and to the south-west it was time to turn my camera to the west, and there I saw the shadow of Mount Kinabalu cast upon the early morning haze. To me it was such a remarkable sight. I’ve not seen anything like it before or since. This isn’t the shadow of the mountain cast upon the ground, it’s a shadow cast upon a layer of the atmosphere. The horizon line in this photo is the South China Sea. The coast, some 37 miles (60 km) away runs pretty close to the highest bump on the rock outcrop just right of center.
[...] Below I’ve posted another photo of Mount Kinabalu’s Shadow. [...] Today’s photo is a view to the south-west from the summit of Mount Kinabalu, taken shortly after sunrise. With the sun continuing to climb in the sky it’s rays were becoming stronger and the high cloud was starting to burn off. You can see the base of this peak on the right of yesterday’s frame and you can also see how the high cloud has evaporated. With a digital camera I’d know the time difference between the two shots but as these were recorded on film, I’ve no idea really. Clearly the sun’s rays are stronger and you can see the sunlight stroking the tops of the clouds filling the valleys of the Crocker Range to the left of the peak and the wisp of cloud hanging in the air to the right. There’s enough light now for just the faintest hint of the green of the rainforest canopy to be visible on the right. As I stood there, freezing, I thought of all the creatures in the rainforest below and particularly the noise of the insects as the dawn heralded the start of a new day. There were no insects up on the summit, just the wind and the occasional spoken word. Most of us were too busy soaking up the experience to talk.
As the sun continued is rise into the morning sky, the light levels were rapidly increasing and I took this shot in a southerly direction from the summit of Mount Kinabalu. You’ll see it’s quite similar to the shot I posted a couple of days back, but you can see the surface now and the sign I alluded to in the lower left corner. The sign and the white tape serve to inform and guard against a casual but rapid inadvertent descent into Low’s Gully, at the end of which, you’d likely be a casualty! Certainly the morning is chasing out the remnants of the night as the granodiorite plateau comes more fully into view. As I recall, I waited until there were no wayward trekkers in sight to take this shot. Pretty much in the center of the frame you can see a dark line heading across the plateau to what is seemingly the edge of the mountain. This is the trail back to Laban Rata. If I recall correctly, there were some people already descending and others not yet arrived hidden in the shadow of the boulders in the foreground. While it was cold, I still couldn’t then and can’t now understand why people were leaving so quickly. Six to nine hours of climbing over two days for less than 30 minutes at the top? Perhaps they had altitude sickness – not unheard of on this mountain – and they needed to head down to ease the headaches. Altitude sickness generally occurs at elevations above 2,400 m (8,000 ft) so at 4,095 m (13,435 ft) the summit of Mount Kinabalu qualifies near the lower bound of Very High Altitude. Because of the decreasing density of the air, the amount of oxygen in the arterial blood falls below the 90% of saturation level which gives rise to the symptoms. Since most people start off at sea level only 36 hours before reaching the summit the ascent can be pretty rapid with no real time for acclimatisation. Still, I wasn’t so affected and I determined with two other climbers to spend some time exploring the plateau before heading back. As I mentioned before, this was in the age before guides were obligatory. Get a 15% discount on your purchase or upgrade of any Topaz product when you enter discount code rdavisphoto at checkout. Click on the banner below for this offer.
[...] and the high cloud was starting to burn off. You can see the base of this peak on the right of yesterday’s frame and you can also see how the high cloud has evaporated. With a digital camera I’d know the [...]
[...] taken photos to the south and to the south-west it was time to turn my camera to the west, and there I saw the shadow of [...] In the cold morning air on the summit of Mount Kinabalu we watched the sun rise and the colors of morning change all around us. Two photos today. In the first, a fellow hiker looks at the scene to the south, illuminated by the soft rays of the recently risen sun. In the second photo, I’m holding a sign we found at the summit. In the spirit of ‘take only photographs, leave only footprints’ this was my souvenir of the climb. On the right side of the photo is the steep drop into Low’s Gully. This photo is taken looking north and the coast of Sabah is clearly visible some 30 miles (50 km) away. Like the guy in the first photo, I’m wearing a pair of socks on my hands, in lieu of gloves. I can tell I was wearing a T-shirt under a Polo shirt, under a sweatshirt under a rain jacket. The piece of yellow rag on my head previously and later served as a neckerchief and general purpose rag but in this instance, tied over my ears it served to keep my ears warm. Climbing to the summit of Mount Kinabalu had been a relative spur-of-the-moment thing so I hadn’t planned for it. Indeed, apart from time spent on the mountain, you wouldn’t need gloves or a hat (other than a sun hat) when traveling in this region. If memory serves, this was about the coldest point because by now we’d been hanging around on the summit for about an hour. Some had already left on their way back down the mountain while others who’d missed making the peak for sunrise had decided to turn around and go back down. I’m not sure what I’d have done had I missed the sunrise. I would probably have continued on just to say I made it. In our modern GPS, satellite mapped word, Low’s Peak (the summit of Mount Kinabalu) is now classified at 4,095 meters (13,435 ft) – 6 meters (20 ft) lower than during the analogue days when this photo was taken. I wondered then who had carried this sign up the mountain. I wonder now if there’s a new one with the digital height or not. And, like the ‘Slow Down’ sign on the Tutoh River some 200 miles (320 Km) away in Sarawak, I wonder why the admonition was only in English!
[...] like to say today’s photo is looking back to the summit of Mount Kinabalu but I can’t be sure it [...]
[...] the chilly start to the day watching the sun rise from the summit of Mount Kinabalu at an altitude of 13,435 ft (4,095 m) to watching the sunset at sea level about 12 hours later, [...]
[...] summit of Mount Kinabalu had been cold but dry. My first day in Hong Kong was cold and wet, but I resolved to make the most [...] As the sun’s rays broke through the distant cloud bank I turned my camera to the south for this shot from the summit of Mount Kinabalu. The weak early morning rays are just starting to clearly illuminate the east facing rocks while most of the upper realm remains in shadow. I like this shot because while the left side of the frame shows the advancing dawn, the right side shows the receding night. In the distance, the ridges of the Crocker Range peak through the carpet of early morning lowland cloud that fills the valleys. In the lower left corner you can make out a sign. I’ll post a photo in a few days from about 30 minutes to an hour later than shows the sign more clearly. It shows the contours of the top of the mountain and with the very steep drop off into Low’s Gully just to our left. I remember just feeling cold up there on the summit but the scene was so wondrous that I didn’t want to miss a second of it. With a digital camera I’d have taken a lot more shots since the light was constantly changing but since I was using film I was more conservative and shot only a few frames.
[...] photos today. In the first, a fellow hiker looks at the scene to the south, illuminated by the soft rays of the recently risen sun. In the second photo, I’m holding a [...]
[...] see it’s quite similar to the shot I posted a couple of days back, but you can see the surface now and the sign I alluded to in the lower left [...] I think I left Laban Rata at 3:30 a.m. to head up to the summit of Mount Kinabalu. There was already a string of flashlights on the trail ahead of me and more behind me. I guess today the LED headlamp is de rigueur, and they certainly leaves your hands free but in 1989 they didn’t exist. I recall that when I was moving it was fine and when I stopped it was cold. I wasn’t well prepared for the cold but figured I could manage for a few hours. I did not have a hat which was my biggest omission, followed closely by not having any gloves with me. Some of the slicker parts of the path across the granodiorite upper reaches of Mount Kinabalu had ropes pinned to the rock so you could stabilize yourself. On the plateau at the top, white tape led the way to the summit. We mostly shuffled in silence putting one foot in front of the other and hoping it would be worthwhile. Whenever I looked ahead or behind I could see the pinpricks of flashlights swinging back and forth as their owners climbed on. As I neared the summit the sky to the east was growing lighter and that helped propel me forward such that I was nestled at the summit with a crowd of other hikers as the dark blue of night gave way to the reds, oranges and yellows preceding the sunrise. From my perch at the summit it became evident from watching the string of flashlights that quite a few of the hikers would not make the summit before sunrise, either because they left Laban Rata too late or couldn’t keep the pace at altitude. In the photo below, two of my fellow climbers rest against the rocks at the peak as the tell-tale signs of the sunrise color the sky to the east. Get a 15% discount on your purchase or upgrade of any Topaz product when you enter discount code rdavisphoto at checkout. Click on the banner below for this offer.
[...] the sun’s rays broke through the distant cloud bank I turned my camera to the south for this shot from the summit of Mount [...] So here’s the last of the Mount Kinabalu sunset series. The sun has now slipped below the horizon, it’s passing marked by the display of yellow, orange and red in the sky. Running pretty much through the middle of the photo is the coast of Sabah with the city of Kota Kinabalu in the center, invisible through the haze. You can make out the islands of Pulau Gaya and the three smaller islands including Pulau Manukan on the right half of the image and the hills of the Crocker Range between Mount Kinabalu and the coast. The sun would have set a little after 6:00 pm. After observing that spectacle there was little point in hanging around outside. It was time to head back inside the resthouse at Laban Rata, grab a drink, get everything arranged for the next morning and go to sleep. The aim for most people hiking to the summit is to be on the summit to watch the sun rise which is a little after 6:00 am. This means leaving the resthouse at around 3:00 am and climbing through the dark. After hiking from the Park HQ to the Timpohon Gate and then climbing the staircase to Laban Rata, I had little difficulty falling asleep. onOne Software is having a two day sale offering Perfect Effects 4 Premium and Perfect B&W Premium for only $99.55. That’s a saving of $100! The sale runs from now through March 8th. Click on the image below for this amazing offer!
Here’s the third in my series of four sunset images from Laban Rata, Mount Kinabalu, taken during my trek up the mountain in August 1989. What struck me as the sun descended was the it seemed to set twice – as though there were parallel horizons. That’s most evident in the photo below. My only guess here is that I’m above some form of atmospheric boundary. If you look at the two previous photos, here and here, you can clearly see an atmospheric haze below me. My thought here is that the top horizon is that atmospheric boundary and the lower horizon, the one providing the flat line beneath the sun is the ocean. The reds, yellows and oranges are reflected off the clouds higher in the atmosphere. It’s as though the lower layer of the atmosphere is acting as a wave guide. onOne Software is having a two day sale offering Perfect Effects 4 Premium and Perfect B&W Premium for only $99.55. That’s a saving of $100! The sale runs from now through March 8th. Click on the image below for this amazing offer!
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by Richard Davis