Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/04/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Everyone who goes to Namibia goes to Sossusvlei. It has some of the largest and most impressive sand dunes anywhere in the world. I normally avoid places like this like the plague, but we went along anyway. The dunes were really magnificent: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/Africa+2009/Namibia/img368a.jpg.html Anything that dies just petrifies; it doesn't rot. There is insufficient moisture 99% of the time for fungal growth or for the sorts of insects that break down flesh or wood in other environments: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/Africa+2009/Namibia/img646a.jpg.html The wind blows the sand into amazing shapes: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/Africa+2009/Namibia/img731a.jpg.html and the sky reciprocates with amazing cloudscapes: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/Africa+2009/Namibia/img952a.jpg.html But if you think we were really alone in a wilderness: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/Africa+2009/Namibia/img641a.jpg.html we were not. To save the dunes, you're only allowed to clim (= wreck, really) one dune. It was fairly uninteresting, being in a majestic place before dawn with several hundred other yabbering foreigners admiring the "majesty" of it all. I could have stayed in Cape Town and felt that crowded. The sand here was very fine. I took my M8 out once and afterwards the sensor looked like it was ice cream with sprinkles on it. I hadn't changed the lens. The Arctic Butterfly does not do that great a job of removing fine particles of silica; they just don't charge up that well. I carefully cleaned the sensor - somehow I managed to remove the vast majority of the very fine sand without scratching the sensor. I cleaned the sensor frequently and with less overall concern after that. Comments etc welcome as always. More soon, Marty