Mirror Lake
Mounts Tasman and Cook, from Lake Matheson at dawn, West Coast South Island of New Zealand
Mounts Tasman and Cook, from Lake Matheson at dawn, West Coast South Island of New Zealand
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May, 2016Views
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occasionalclimber
May 30, 2016
Thanks Adrian. The lake has a peat bottom, which creates a really vivid reflection - hence the name "Mirror Lake"
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Behind The Lens
Location
At Lake Matheson, on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island.Time
Dawn.Lighting
Lake Matheson is famous for its crystal clear mirror reflections of New Zealand’s highest peak, Aoraki Mount Cook. The reflections are so clear in calm conditions because the lake bed is covered in black peat. The dawn can be particularly spectacular, as my shot demonstrates. I’ve been to Lake Matheson on several occasions, but this particular morning was the best I’ve seen.Equipment
A Nikon F801S with a 28-70 lens. Details not recorded - it was more than 25 years ago.Inspiration
Mirror reflections are always fun. Having a country’s highest mountain in the scene adds some x factor. Then if you can combine that with a stunning sunrise then you can’t ask for much more – inspiration a plenty.Editing
25 years ago I was shooting mostly Velvia slide film. So this image resulted from a scan and then some work in Photoshop to bring back some of the detail in the shadows; some sharpening and work on colour saturation.In my camera bag
I love the mountains, so as little as possible - at present a Nikon D7000 camera body, an 18-105 small zoom and the 55-300 bigger zoom, a spare battery and beaten up lightweight tripod - good for hiking. If I'm going for a summit then it's even less - a compact Nikon P7800 with mirrorless through the lens digital view finder, full manual operation and RAW file capture - absolutely great when you still want to control your photography but need to keep moving and can't afford to have stuff hanging off you.Feedback
Keep your camera handy and go to great places. Dawn is almost always worth losing some sleep over.
