Iron Mountain

View of Mount Woodson (with the plethora of antennae) from Iron Mountain. In the hazy distance Palomar Mountain. Iron Mountain, Poway, California. May 2011.

Photos from another partly-sunny-with-haze and partly-cloudy hike, thanks to the marine layer. This time I tackled one of San Diego’s most popular peaks in north county, Iron Mountain. On the 100 Peaks list, this is peak number 88.

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Color Noise Reduction eats details in Lightroom

Western Grebes at Lake Hodges

For a while now I notice that Lightroom’s Color Noise Reduction, at the default setting of “25”, unnecessarily eats some details, especially at lower ISO setting. For the D700 (which has, thanks to its low pixel pitch, incredibly low noise overall), I changed the default to something like “3” for that reason. I adjust it manually only for higher ISO and when doing extreme black/white edits (where it does make a huge difference). The defaults for my Fuji S5pro were still at “25” because I just didn’t remember to adjust them, and because I’m not using the S5pro too much anymore.

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Garnet Peak

Transition from the green ridges of the Pacific Crest at Laguna Mountains to the desert peaks of Anza Borrego, with Granite Mountain on the right.

Garnet Peak is #59 on the Sierra Club’s list of 100 peaks in San Diego County. The hike is rather short, and the only challenge is the sheer drop down into the desert on its eastern side, if you’re easily feeling vertigo. It is probably one of the most impressive drops in the Laguna Mountains and well worth going there.

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Mount Woodson West Approach

View of Rancho Bernardo from the Mount Woodson Trail, Poway, California. February 2011.

Ten photos from a hike to Mount Woodson. I took the west approach, beginning the hike at Lake Poway. This is a longer, but much nicer route than the east approach from Highway 67. Once past the recreational areas of Lake Poway, it’s a pretty good ascend and the trail is really beautiful higher up, winding through low-growing chaparral, which is still recovering from the massive 2007 wildfire in the area. On the 100 Peaks list, this is peak number 48.

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