A man, A plan, A canal - Panama

[sury]

The last leg of our trip. Panama City and the canal.
The two people in the small boat are capturing the cables from the cargo ship to be connected to the trains on the either side, called "mules". You can see on upper right 1/3rd below the top.


Ship entering the lock.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2dozuHC]

You can see the mule in action. There are typically 4 of them that maintain the ship in the middle by keeping the cables taut as the ship moves forward. Very tight fit. There is a new canal to the left that is wider and ships that fit that canal are called Panamax. Currently that is the widest a ship can be, to able traverse the canal.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2dozwY9]

[ValeryD]

WoW!

[david antony]

Very interesting and nicely captured Sury.

Thanks for sharing.

[jbtaylor]

Interesting.
I see that you were carrying the 70-400mm lens. Would you still use that lens if you had a second crack at this location?

[sury]

Thank you Valery, DA and JT.
JT, I would still use the lens, though I was switching between 24-70 and 70-400. The reason I would carry the lens is that the distance maintained between our boat and the ship.

For example the following one would not have been enjoyable without the 70-400. Not very often one gets to see two ships passing by so close. The FL was about 180mm. Though there is a bit of dead space to left, I felt providing a context made more sense and since I had 42MP, could easily crop.



A crop of the ship to the left. I doubt I would have gotten same quality with 24-70 heavily cropped.



Or a "mule" getting hitched up.



On the other hand, this would have been difficult without a wider angle lens. 24-70 at work here.

[aster]

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Nicely observed and nicely taken, Sury.
Panama Canal is definitely a feat of engineering.

Enjoyed the photos very much. Love what 70-400 mm can achieve, and definitely a good idea to leave some extra space to at least one side of the photo as it does improve the photo context. The natural environment surrounding the canal showing in the background makes more sense in my opinion....

Thanks for sharing,
Yildiz

[jbtaylor]

Well stated Sury. Having been up against the same challenges, I thought it would be helpful to get some detail on your thinking. Of course, there is always the possibility of carrying two cameras, which is how I solved the problem of travel photography. That brings it's own set of problems but for me the extra weight was worth it.

[sury]

Yildiz, thank you for your kind words.
JT, I debated the two body choice versus quick change of lens. Though the latter has the ever present risk of sensor dust, the weight, the photo down loads at the end of the made it a easier choice. Also, my other body would have been either a A900 or A77m2. Perhaps, I should think about buying another (used) A99m2.

The Gatun lake on which the locks are located is a fresh water lake and the locks are (re)filled with fresh water from river Chagres.

This is the bridge over river Chagres. This is perhaps the ONLY river in the world whose waters flow into BOTH Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.



The lock is getting filled.



Almost there....



There we are ...elevated about 30 feet and gates opening.

[jbtaylor]

Love the last one.
Will start another thread about the 2 camera theory.
JT

[ValeryD]

Cool! last three shots very good!

[sury]

Thank you Valery.

Sury

[sury]

Thank you JT.
Sury

[sury]

.


Panama Canal is definitely a feat of engineering.

Thanks for sharing,
Yildiz

Indeed, Yildiz. The climb is about 85' or 26M at Gatun Lake. The locks are filled with fresh water and pumped back into Gatun.
The fresh water is fed by river Chagres. So technically the Chagres flows into both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It took a while to
get my orientation but the canal runs north-south instead of assumed east-west direction. I had to study the map to figure out that
the Panama Isthmus was a piece of east-west running land mass and it was counter-intuitive to imagine Atlantic on top and Pacific on bottom of the this land.

Sury

[aster]

.

Getting the many details and information right for travel destinations must be a little hard, Sury, albeit interesting places. Travelling and grasping the facts are almost a task on their own, if not familiar with the subjects already.

Thanks for the observations and sharing with us. Nice photo-trip for us without leaving our spots… The beauty of photography: one image is worth a million words and maybe even miles.

Yildiz

[sury]

Yildiz, thank you. And yes, some of the fun is in the discovery as well, along with journey in addition to destination, sometimes
despite being familiar with the subjects.
It was my pleasure to share few memories captured during the trip. The enjoyable part was trying select few that carry a narrative (IMHO) to post. Some of the better photos as Valery rightly stated were in my Flickr account but I tried to post those where I can put in few words in addition to the images.

With best regards,
Sury