Waterfalls – A Hike up Purgatory Brook

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Purgatory Brook

There are several nice little hikes close to my (New Hampshire) house.  I’m talking within 2 or 3 miles (under 5 km).  There are some more mountainous hikes within 10 miles (15 km).  I don’t take advantage of these trails as much as I used to or as much as I should.  I’m going to try to change that…

One of them is a trail up Purgatory Brook (Milford and Mt. Vernon, NH) that hits three larger (not huge) waterfalls and a handful of smaller falls, including, in the wet weather, a stream that cascades down the steep valley into the brook.  This is a very pretty hike.  Last autumn I rediscovered it when my brother came to visit.  I used photos of the hike in several posts, including this one.  In early February I did another short hike (not seeing the upper two waterfalls) and posted about it here.

A little over a week ago I revisited it.  One of the reasons I wanted to go was that I had just picked up a new camera and wanted to field test it.

Braided stream

There are several features that this camera has that I was very interested in trying out.  Of course I always get weather sealed cameras, since I do so much kayaking.  I also like things that are rough, because my cameras seem to hit more granite boulders than you might expect.  This camera also has a very good in-body Image Stabilization system.  This allows you to handhold the camera at times that you would normally want a tripod.  It doesn’t replace a tripod, but I was surprised at how good I got handholding photos with very slow shutter speeds.

Another feature that I didn’t know it had is the ability to go down to ISO 56.  Without getting technical, ISO determines how sensitive the image-sensor is.  The bigger the number, the more sensitive and the less light is needed.  This is great for long telephoto shots and shots in lower light.  Most modern cameras have ISO 200 as their base and go up from there.  So what if you want to slow down the shutter speed instead of make it faster?  This camera goes to ISO 56.  I did a few shots with small aperture (big F-number and so slower shutter) at both ISO 200 and ISO 56.  The ISO 56 was much, much better for the braided streams of water type shots I was after.  So I took a lot of them.

Upper Purgatory Falls

 

I also did many other shots, but the slow shutter speed shots were my favorite.

I took around 450 shots, spent some time editing 45 of them and then narrowed it down to my favorite 14.

I hope you enjoy the photos!  As always, click on a photo to see it in more detail.  You can then use the arrows to scroll through them.

24 thoughts on “Waterfalls – A Hike up Purgatory Brook”

  1. Pingback: “New” Waterfall | Trent's World (the Blog)

  2. coolxkid89

    Great read!!! Love the hiking tale :) I gave ya a follow. I have a few hiking tales myself you might enjoy, would appreciate the follow back. But otherwise thanks for the tips and story :)

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      I did a search to try to figure out why they named the brook “Purgatory”, but nobody seems to know. It is a very pretty little hike and a bit more like heaven to me ;)

      Thanks!

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Yes, it’s been great. One reason I got it is for its much better autofocus, but haven’t had a lot of reason to use it (osprey, my normal “prey”, are being shy), but so far I find it much better.

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        1. trentpmcd Post author

          Looking back at photos from the last couple of years, I started to get a lot in April. But then, the weather has been super wet and cold, so maybe there will be more of them the next time I am down.

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  9. ~M

    Thanks for the camera info. I can never figure out how to use the camera we have. Last time I tried to take photos of waterfalls, there weren’t too many that turned out. Beautiful pictures indeed! 😉

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks! There are, in my opinion, two main philosophies with waterfalls – you can do very fast shutter and try to capture every little droplet or you can use a very slow shutter speed and get the flow, like most of these photos. If you look at the other posts I pointed to, I did mostly the fast shutter speeds on those ones.

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      1. ~M

        Well, I like the effect of what you chose to do with these. Funny your comment should just post now, as I just finished your poem for my Midnight Madness tonight. I hope you like it. 😉

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          1. ~M

            I think we should. It’s memorable… and I really think it could catch on. Start using it when you can’t think of a comment. The more you use it, the more people will be forced to ask you about it. Then in turn, maybe they’ll use it too! Lol…. I’ll try to use it too! Let’s see if we can get it to take off. 😉

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