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Fantastic ice on Lake Michigan in Benzie county and Leelanau county at Point Betsie Lighthouse and Sleeping Bear Dunes

The ice forming on the western shores of Lake Michigan here in Benzie and Leelanau counties has been quite spectacular this year. It extends offshore as far as I can see with no open water in view. I never feel confident how thick it is but at least off of Point Betsie I’m not uncomfortable venturing out 100-200 yards. It’s not and easy trek because of the rows of ice shelves that have been pushed up and can be quite treacherous with the ice boulders frozen on the surface and the general unevenness. Not to mention some very slippery ice under the snow.

Both of these photos were made Monday February 3rd with my Nikon D800E. The first is with my 14-24 f2.8 lens @14mm, f/4.5, 30 sec, iso 640 and tripod mounted. Processed in Bridge and edited in Photoshop CC and Nik software.

Dawn From The Ice

This second composition is later in the day on Sleeping Bear Dunes after hiking in from just west of Glen Haven. It was a bit of a hike but not too bad. I didn’t even need snowshoes because enough others had been out before me to compress a path that was easy to negotiate. As you can see it was a lovely day with some very rare blue sky. Even with some sunshine it still wasn’t very warm and there was enough of a breeze on the dunes to add to the chill.
The setup was with my 24-70 f2.8 @ 24mm, f/13, 1/100 sec, iso 400. It is an 11 frame 180 degree handheld stitch. Trying a stitch of this size handheld is risky and doesn’t always work but this came together reasonably well with some minor corrective adjustments for some alignment issues. The usual suspects were used in processing and editing.
sbd winter pano 1-1