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Deploying a longer lens enables one to convey just how dramatically Etna towers over and dominates its vicinity.
This post’s photo involved a 200mm lens; the previous post’s was taken with a 30mm.
(it is generally reckoned that a “regular” 50mm lens delivers the closest approximation to a naked-eyed human’s field of view and sense of scale)
The building common to both images is Taormina’s San Domenico Palace, which is now a hotel.
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Even from some distance – and via a wide-angle, short lens – Mt Etna is very obviously big.
South of the Alps, Europe-proper has no higher mountain.
Etna is circa 1.5 times higher than Australia-proper’s highest mountain.
Unlike Kosciusko’s, from some vantage points, Etna’s full height is easily viewed, from sea to summit.
Comments closedMadagascar-bound, flying from Australia?
Lucky you!
You’ll be even luckier if you spend some days on Réunion Island, en route; if the natural world is more your world than “resort world”, Réunion and Madagascar are infinitely more rewarding Indian Ocean island destinations than is Mauritius.
Comments closedOne of the world’s most spectacular volcanic creations, Réunion is young, geologically; the island emerged around three million years ago.
Territorially part of France, Réunion is geographically much closer to Africa.
At 3,069 metres above sea level, Réunion’s Piton Des Neiges is the Indian Ocean’s highest mountain.
One CommentWe are in France for our first time.
However, this bit of France is very much closer to Madagascar than to Paris!
Reunion is a spectacular volcanic island; its (and the entire Indian Ocean’s) highest peak soars more than 3,000 metres above the sea…and rather more than half of the whole mountain is below the sea’s surface.
Comments closed…and many other glorious things and places, including this beautiful lake. It is a “drowned” caldera.
One CommentCherry Blossom time is all over in Tokyo, but in cooler Hokkaido Spring is still unfolding, not all trees are yet in leaf, and it is prime time for Cherry Blossoms.
Comments closedThe shortest of the “big three” that dominate the central plateau on New Zealand’s North Island is Tongariro. The more “perfect” Ngauruhoe deserves an Academy Award – not just for its role as “Mt Doom” in The Lord of the Rings, but for so convincingly presenting itself as an independent entity, when it is in fact Tongariro’s “parasitic”, secondary cone. Ruapehu is the North Island’s highest peak and only currently glaciated mountain.
Comments closedThanks to Sir Peter Jackson, many millions more human eyes have looked at this active volcano than have human feet walked anywhere near it. Most who “know” it via The Lord of the Rings trilogy do not even know its real name.
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