Hi,
My second foray into medium format digital began in 2020 when I suddenly found myself with extra time on my hands. So I decided to take some trips to the coast of North Carolina and get a new series of Lighthouse shots. I had done this several times before each time with a newer and higher resolution digital camera. Nikon D1 to Canon 1D to Kodak DCS 660c to Canon 1Ds to Nikon Df. And a few with a Contax 645 with a Kodak Pro Back Plus.
This time was really upping the game to a whopping 40 MP. The Pro Back and the Df are both 16 MP. Different 16 MP to be sure, but 40 MP has those beat. I decided to re-do these seven lighthouses once I bought an Epson SC-P5000 which can print 16x20s which is significantly larger than the 11x14s I had been printing previously. The older printer had hit end of life, so I upped my printing game.
I originally thought about a Nikon D850 or a Z7, but the used prices of Pentax 645D cameras was a lot lower. And, yes, I needed different lenses but the P645 lenses were so low priced at that time to be almost free. And I was predisposed to medium format for making larger prints from the film days when I had a Mamiya 645 system.
Of course, now I get to go back since I just picked up a 100 MP MF, but that's another story for later in the year.
I will list these in order from North to South along the coastline. They were not taken in that order, though. Some hopping about was involved.
Anyway, these are done in several trips. Usually with a stay-over for one night for each trip. I took the first two going out and back in the same day, but that was a tad too many hours and so I decided to not try that trick again.
The first one is Currituck, in Corolla NC which is the Northernmost one. The second one to the South is Bodie Island. I arrived at Currituck about Noontime that day, and so the lighting was right as there is but one spot to stand and shoot this one. After Currituck was in the can, I headed to Bodie Island. After that, I went to Hatteras but the lighting was all wrong. It was late afternoon and Hatteras needs morning light.
I should have stayed overnight and then gone back to Hatteras. But, no. I went home and got there dog tired. Lesson learned!
Currituck Lighthouse
Bodie Island
The next trip out was a bust. I intended to shoot Hatteras and Ocracoke Island. But the Atlantic Ocean and North Carolina Route 12 conspired, as they so often do, to block access between Bodie and Hatteras. There is a spot several miles long where Route 12 runs alongside the ocean and she likes to take all this sand and pile it up on the road. I knew that was a risk, of course. And I got there to find they had the usual problem. It was estimated to be cleared off by morning, but the Atlantic just laughed and piled up more sand. So, home I went.
The next trip to try was successful. I shot Hatteras OK early morning, but the clouds began rolling in while I was sitting several hour at the ferry terminal before getting to Ocracoke. That requires a fairly long ferry ride on top of the wait for the ferry. Turns out that was a good thing. I never knew this, but Ocracoke has a stucco finish. I'd never seen that in anyone else's shots of it. The cloud cover helped me not blow out that detail.
Hatteras
Ocracoke
This area, Hatteras, is The Graveyard Of The Atlantic. More wrecked ships on the bottom here than anywhere. The lighthouses along the NC coast are there precisely because the outer banks are such a hazard to navigation. There is a museum dedicated to this right where one sits and waits their turn to get onboard a ferry to head to Ocracoke.
The next lighthouse in the chain is Cape Lookout. You can go from Ocracoke to Lookout on another ferry that takes six hours for the trip. Actually, a little longer as you then have to drive another 45 minutes from the ferry terminal to where you get a boat to go out to the Cape. So, that means I went back home from Ocracoke and Cape Lookout was another trip. One by itself, including staying overnight.
One heads for Harker's Island and picks up a boat that runs the five or so miles out to Cape Lookout.
Cape Lookout
Lookout is the only lighthouse which has a paint job that shows direction. The black diamonds are North/South and the white diamonds are East/West.
There is more water gap to bridge between Lookout and the next lighthouse, Bald Head Island. And, no ferry or boat this time. One has to head back the way they came and drive around the marshes and head for Oak Island. So, this was to be yet another trip at another time.
There is another ferry to get from Oak Island to Bald Head Island, but its passengers only and not a vehicle ferry like the ones for Ocracoke are. One rents a golf cart on Bald Head Island to get around. Oh, and no one calls the Bald Head Island lighthouse by it's real name. It's referred to as Old Baldy.
Now, in other areas along the coast where all these lighthouses are, there used to be older versions. Most looked rather like Old Baldy here as we can still see at Ocracoke. They were found to be a bit too short in those other areas and so taller ones were constructed to replace the old ones.
This happened at Oak Island as well, the newest of the NC Lighthouses. But, this time, no one took down the old one, which is Old Baldy. And, one can see Oak Island Lighthouse from Old Baldy and vice versa. This is the only place where another lighthouse can be seen from the one you are at. And you can see one from the other on the ground, you don't have to climb up either one to do so.
Oak Island
So, there we are. The seven North Carolina lighthouses. I thought I might also post a map or three - it's a lot to show on only one map - but there are plenty of websites out there that cover that sort of thing.
Stan