Tittabawassee River Scene

Here is a shot I took from my new canoe last Saturday. I was reminded of it by Toni's Muskegon River Scene. Late color and mostly yellow, but nice, anyway. I am always pleasantly surprised when I get a landscape scene in Saginaw County that is "nice."

Looks like a great place to take the canoe, Andy. I've been Gladwin and have seen the Tittabawassee River there, but have never been on it. You gotta love the trees hanging over the river like this as it always makes for some nice scenes. I'm surprised there was still some color in that area. The St. Joseph River in southern MI still had quite a bit last weekend too when I came back from Cincinnati.

Andy, you must be more confident in a canoe that I am -- I'm afraid I would end up with a drowned camera. Plus it's really hard to set up a tripod.

I like the flow of the branches here, and the color. But the bright sunlight is working against you, especially on the log in the LLC.

Chuck: Photo was taken in the "worst" light of the day, between 2 and 3 pm. Polarizer helps a little, as does the time of year (a summer shot at this time would not even be possible, IMO) but clearly, if I would be there either earlier or later, I would have much better conditions. I continue to be amazed by the ability of ACR to work with exposure. In CS3, I was able to "recover" all but a couple of small "hot" spots on the log, so that there is actually a fair amount of detail in it in my higher res file.

This was my first time ever in this canoe (we have a two person Old Town Camper which is very stable) and I spent most of my time getting used to it. The camera stayed in a drybag except when I (carefully ) took it out to shoot. I was using a VR lens and even so, I don't know that the photo would pass everyone's critical sharpness test. It was more than I expected. I have seen tripods set up in canoes and do plan to try that at some point with mine.

Toni: We have a confluence of several rivers here in Saginaw County, including the Tittabawassee, The Flint, The Shiawassee and The Cass. The smaller rivers all combine into the Saginaw in the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge. The Tittawbassee and The Saginaw always seem to get left out of the "Paddling Michigan" type books. I am not sure why, with the Tittabawassee (The Saginaw is maybe just too big). All of these rivers are what most would classify as "stillwater" with very slow currents (except during heavy rain and flood stages). Interestingly, (or maybe "boringly" ) and the state with many lakes, Saginaw County has these rivers, but not a single natural lake.

One negative about the Tittabawassee where I was paddling is that it is south of Midland and Dow Chemical Company, and most certainly contains DIOXIN at some level. South from where I was, there is a public park with a small boat launch and at the launch is a "washing station" with recommendations to wash yourself and equipment with soap and water when taking out. Kind of sad.

Andy, I'm surprised that Saginaw County doesn't have any natural inland lakes...also the fact that the state is letting Dow get away with releasing Dioxins. Sounds like our DNR needs to do better in that area!