The Garret Tree
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Photography: Shooting a volcano
In late March and April, 2007, I went to Montserrat to shoot the Soufriere Hills volcano. A photo galley is now up on CBC.ca (supplemented with wire pix to tell the back story).
The growing lava dome looms over abandoned homes outside the town of Plymouth.
Most of the pictures were shot from a dive boat 2,000 metres off shore.
Since the dome collapse in January, 2007, you cannot enter the
exclusion zone, even with a police escort. This may change if the
volcano settles down.
I have been interested in volcanoes since I was kid, so these are in
some ways vacation pix.
I met Vicky Hard, the director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory
and she gave me some good advice which I thought I would pass on in case
anyone ever gets an assignment to shoot a volcano.
Her most important advice was that the fine (sometimes microscopic)
volcanic ash can be deadly to cameras and computer equipment, the
observatory has to replace its equipment frequently because the ash
shortens its working life.
Every morning when I got up, I had to clean a very fine layer of ash
from the top of my (closed) laptop even though the volcano was
relatively quiet.
She said ash can destroy an SLR when changing lens (this has happened
to photographers in the past)
So if you are ever assigned to shoot a volcano, take a high quality
fixed lens camera or an SLR that is at the end of its useful life or be
prepared to pay for a thorough cleaning and overhaul when you get back.
On Vicky’s advice I did not take my SLR on the dive boat for the
shots I took from the west side of Montserrat. I used my Panasonic
Lumix FZ50, which has 450 mm equivalent optical zoom. There was some
chop and a little spray, but not that much, but I had to clean the UV
filter on the camera every few minutes. The tiny grains of ash combined
with the spray meant the UV filter quickly looked as if it had been
sitting uncovered on a shelf for about a decade.
I did use my SLR for the pictures I took on the east side of the island
from Jackboy Hill, the weather was fine, there was little wind and I was
shooting on land, with no danger of sea spray.
Technorati tags
volcano, Montserrat, photography,
6:58 PM posted by Robin Rowland
Permanent Link
Links to this post
In late March and April, 2007, I went to Montserrat to shoot the Soufriere Hills volcano. A photo galley is now up on CBC.ca (supplemented with wire pix to tell the back story).The growing lava dome looms over abandoned homes outside the town of Plymouth.
Most of the pictures were shot from a dive boat 2,000 metres off shore.
Since the dome collapse in January, 2007, you cannot enter the
exclusion zone, even with a police escort. This may change if the
volcano settles down.
I have been interested in volcanoes since I was kid, so these are in
some ways vacation pix.
I met Vicky Hard, the director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory
and she gave me some good advice which I thought I would pass on in case
anyone ever gets an assignment to shoot a volcano.
Her most important advice was that the fine (sometimes microscopic)
volcanic ash can be deadly to cameras and computer equipment, the
observatory has to replace its equipment frequently because the ash
shortens its working life.
Every morning when I got up, I had to clean a very fine layer of ash
from the top of my (closed) laptop even though the volcano was
relatively quiet.
She said ash can destroy an SLR when changing lens (this has happened
to photographers in the past)
So if you are ever assigned to shoot a volcano, take a high quality
fixed lens camera or an SLR that is at the end of its useful life or be
prepared to pay for a thorough cleaning and overhaul when you get back.
On Vicky’s advice I did not take my SLR on the dive boat for the
shots I took from the west side of Montserrat. I used my Panasonic
Lumix FZ50, which has 450 mm equivalent optical zoom. There was some
chop and a little spray, but not that much, but I had to clean the UV
filter on the camera every few minutes. The tiny grains of ash combined
with the spray meant the UV filter quickly looked as if it had been
sitting uncovered on a shelf for about a decade.
I did use my SLR for the pictures I took on the east side of the island
from Jackboy Hill, the weather was fine, there was little wind and I was
shooting on land, with no danger of sea spray.
Technorati tags
volcano, Montserrat, photography,
Labels: Montserrat, photography, volcano
6:58 PM posted by Robin Rowland
Permanent Link
