In my previous post, I wondered what role seagulls and bugs would play in Nik Wallenda's tight rope walk over the Horseshoe Falls. The night before, there must have been a hundred of them patrolling the path over the able in constant fly overs. I am not sure what they did with them for this night, but all but a few disappeared. The area under the Horseshoe Falls where hundreds sit was all of a sudden empty, and I saw only a handful in the air. I will have to do some more research into that since it makes me curious.

The bugs remained but I guess with the lights being right over the land, maybe the rope was clear off them. Nothing seemed to bother Nik during his walk, the 30 minutes went by quick and he even managed a kneeling bow and a thank you and then a run to the finish line!

As far as crowds go, it was a very good experience. Yes, both sides of the gorge filled up to the brim but everybody was very nice, no pushing and shoving or yelling. People also managed to give up some of the room they;ve guarded for hours to kids so that they could see. And while it took about 4 hours for the area to gradually fill up, the crowds magically dissipated in less than half an hour.

WIth the show over and the extra blast of white light gone, I guess the lighting scheme will go back to normal and colors return to the Falls. At least the last two nights were in white only.

From a photographic point of view, the enormous amount of white light the rope and the falls were bathed in did not provide as much light as it looked to the naked eye. My camera does not handle anything above ISO 800 too well and newer models would have been a huge advantage. My 80 - 400 is also not the fastest lens being f/5.6 at 400mm. As a result, even at ISO 800 fully open I could only pull off shutter speeds of around 1/20 to 1/30 sec. While not shooting handheld but from a folded tripod serving as a monopod, I doubt I will have too many sharp keepers. An f/4 lens and ISO 3200 would have provided 3 extra stops giving me 1/250 sec which would have been really nice.

Have fun and don't let the bugs bite you!