Rainier

September trip · Rainier + Seattle Rev. 3

Rainier

Sept · a7 IV + 24-70

What to actually carry

The Sigma 24-70 is the hiking lens. It is 835g and you have already done this and decided the pictures were worth it. 24mm is what a ridgeline needs, and no amount of stitching fully replaces it.

Add the 35mm only for a night. A stop and a third is the difference between ISO 3200 and ISO 8000 under stars. For daylight it earns its weight only if you are covering serious distance.

One filter matters: a circular polarizer. It cuts atmospheric haze, deepens the sky, and kills glare on wet rock, and none of that can be faked in post. 82mm for the Sigma. The wet rock is what earns its weight, not the sky.

Using the polarizer. It costs 1 to 1.5 stops. Daylight at f/8 absorbs that; forest does not, so take it off under trees and for anything at night, where it buys nothing. At 24mm it polarizes the sky unevenly, one side navy and the other pale, which is obvious in a ridgeline frame and hard to fix later. Rotate to a partial effect when wide, and save the full crank for 50 to 70mm.

Decide on the tripod before you pack. Alpenglow bracketing and anything at night need one. Without it, skip those two recipes and shoot daylight only.

Mountain — Daylight

On trail, handheld, peak and ridgelines.

Shutterautofloat
Aperturef/8hold
ISO100hold
Lens
Sigma 24-70. 24mm for the ridge, 70mm to compress the peak.
Mode
A
Focus
AF-S on the mid-ground. Do not focus on the peak — it is at infinity and everything nearer falls off.
Meter
Highlight whenever snow or glacier is in frame
Exp comp
+0.7 to +1.0 EV on snowfields
  • Snow reads gray to the meter, same problem as rink ice. Left alone the camera will underexpose every glacier shot you take.
  • A polarizer at 24mm goes uneven across the sky on full frame — one side darkens more than the other. Use it from 35mm up, or rotate off full strength.
  • Put a person on the trail for scale. Rainier photographs flat and small without something human in the frame.
  • Cold eats batteries. Three, and keep the spares in an inside pocket.
  • September is wildfire haze season in the Cascades. Haze flattens contrast on distant peaks in a way a polarizer only partly fixes. If it is bad, stop fighting the vista and shoot the near stuff — meadow color, trail detail, people.

Alpenglow

Last and first light on the peak. The reason to be there.

Shutter±2 EVbrackets
Aperturef/8hold
ISO100hold
Lens
Sigma 24-70
Mode
M, Cont. Bracket 3 frames at 2.0 EV
Focus
AF-S once, then MF. Light fades faster than AF can keep up.
WB
Fixed Daylight. AWB will neutralize the exact color you came for.
Stabilizer
SteadyShot off on the tripod
  • The good light lasts about ten minutes and the best of it is often after the sun is off the foreground. Do not pack up early.
  • Be set up thirty minutes ahead. Composing in fading light is how the shot gets missed.
  • The mountain being out is never guaranteed. September is typically one of the clearer months, but plan more than one window rather than betting the trip on a single evening.

Night Sky

Clear night, tripod, away from the lot lights.

Shutter13shold
Aperturef/1.8hold
ISO3200start
Lens
Sony 35mm f/1.8 — this is what it is for
Mode
M
Focus
MF. Magnify on a bright star and nail it. Tape the ring if it creeps.
Drive
2-sec timer
Stabilizer
SteadyShot off
  • 13s is the ceiling at 35mm before stars trail. Longer and they smear, so buy light with ISO instead.
  • Infinity on the focus ring is not infinity. Always confirm on a magnified star.
  • Check the geometry before committing to a drive. By September the Milky Way core sits low in the southwest early in the evening, which means only some viewpoints put it anywhere near the peak. Verify in an app rather than assuming.

Trip notes

No timed-entry reservation in 2026. Parking is the constraint now, so early or midweek at Paradise and Sunrise. Verify Sunrise Road is still open — it closes for the season before the rest of the park.

Wildflowers are done by September. What you get instead is heather and huckleberry turning red across the subalpine, which is arguably the better foreground.

Leave the GR behind on wet or dusty days. It has no weather sealing and a well-known appetite for dust in the sensor chamber. A trail camera it is not.

Seattle

city days · both cameras

Overcast Street — GR IIIx

Marine-layer gray. Pike Place, Pioneer Square, the waterfront.

Min shutter1/250hold
Apertureautofloat
ISOautocap 6400
Mode
P, Auto ISO, min shutter 1/250 (walking pace, not the running floor)
Focus
Snap Focus 2.5m, full-press snap on
Meter
Multi
Exp comp
+0.3 to +0.7 EV whenever the sky is in frame
WB
Auto is fine under overcast. Fixed Daylight if you want to keep the cool cast as a look.
  • The gray sky is a giant softbox. Even light, no hard shadows, saturated color on everything below the horizon. This is the good version of Seattle weather, not the compromise.
  • The sky itself is a white nothing. Keep it out of the frame or accept it blown. Half a frame of overcast also drags Multi metering down and muddies faces, which is what the +EV is for.
  • Pike Place before 9am is vendors setting up and no crowd. The neon signs read best in drizzle and at dusk.
  • Post Alley and the market interior run dim — ISO will sit at 3200 to 6400 and that is fine on this sensor at web sizes.
  • Actual rain is a problem. No weather sealing. Shoot from under awnings, keep it inside the jacket between frames, and wipe the lens ring before it creeps inside.

Skyline — Blue Hour — a7 IV

Kerry Park, tripod, 20 to 40 minutes after sunset.

Shutterautofloat
Aperturef/8hold
ISO100hold
Lens
Sigma 24-70. 35mm is the classic frame; 70mm plus APS-C crop compresses the Space Needle against Rainier on a clear evening.
Mode
A, or M once the light settles. Bracket 3 frames at 2.0 EV if the sky is much brighter than the city.
Focus
AF-S on the skyline, then MF to lock it
WB
Fixed Kelvin around 4000K so the set matches. AWB drifts as the sky fades.
Drive
2-sec timer
Stabilizer
SteadyShot off on the tripod
  • The window is 20 to 40 minutes after sunset, when building lights are on and the sky still holds deep blue. Earlier is flat, later is a black hole behind the towers.
  • Rainier sits to the left of the skyline from Kerry Park and only on a clear evening. If it is out, the long-end compressed shot is the one you cannot get anywhere else.
  • The railing fills up well before sunset in good weather. Arrive early to claim tripod room, or shoot handheld at ISO 800 and lean on IBIS.
  • Bring the GR anyway — the walk back down Queen Anne through lit streets is its kind of shot.