It's All Optics

This is a view of Mount Baker from my balcony today. A hill in Surrey, BC stands between it and me. I can only see the top, so it is snow-clad nearly year round.


I took this a few minutes ago with my little Nikon S9900. Our apartment faces south, south-east but there are no local mountains in this direction!

In fact, Mt. Baker is in the State of Washington. It's probably almost 100 kilometers (60 miles) away as the crow flies. So, I should probably not use the 30x optical zoom.


If I use my camera's wide angle, you'd be hard pressed to see the mountain at all. The reality of the view, as in most things, lies somewhere in the middle.