"09 Nov 11.  About 20 minutes prior to taking the shot I shared yesterday this was how the hillsides appeared near the summit of Stevens Pass. The fresh morning dusting of snow gave a mold like appearance to the ground cover, and the color reminded me of the hills I used to pass on my daily drive to MCAS El Toro in S. CA as well as some of the mountains between CA and AZ. Of course the vegetation was very different in both those places, but the colors quite similar. The addition of the snow appears to have affected the behavior of the camera as all the photos I took that have the snow turned out quite sharp, both hand held and tripod mounted, but in the shots I took with just the very brightly colored ground cover none came out razor sharp. I've experienced this problem with all of my digital bodies and multiple lenses, both on and off tripod, and still have not determined what is causing this problem  One of these days I will get it figured out, and when I do, I'll share the answer. In the interim, I'll just have to do the best I can with what I got, such as last week's ""fire and ice."" By the time we returned to this spot in the afternoon on the return trip home all the snow was gone and it looked very different from what we see here in this 1000 photo. The morning view was one that had me wanting to climb to the top; the feeling in the afternoon was that it probably wasn't such a good idea. Must have been the combined effect of sun and snow.  ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 9."
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