Temptation!

...musings

Danger, Will Robinson. Danger.

Michael at Red Umbrella Inn across the road from me just got a brand new drone. He was showing it to me then the phone rang and he handed me the controller. Argh!

Damn. You can even tell it where "home" is and it will land itself right there. You can set it to follow you as you drive or ride in a boat. It climbs up to 150m in a few seconds. We couldn't even find it in the sky up there. Take hands off the controls and it hovers motionless. You can rotate it. You can tilt it. You can look through its camera on your iPhone. You can send it to map coordinates or just to a spot you choose on a map.

Thou shalt not give in to temptation. Thou shalt not give in. Thou shalt not...

I didn't. I handed it back to him two minutes later.

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Trends?

It's interesting that every now and then something pops up in the photography community – especially on Facebook – as a trend. I suppose that has something to do with the groups you hang out in, but lately, everywhere I look, people are posting images of the Milky Way.

Some of them are quite spectacular, or they would be if I wasn't seeing dozens, if not hundreds of them. Digitally enhanced pictures of the galaxy with a well-composed, dramatically lit foreground. They set a standard that I sometimes can't reach, since I don't have desert rock arches or fabulous sea formations in range, but they do set some goals.

Hopefully the Weather Gods will cooperate and we'll be able to shoot some star fields up in Wawa during the Gales of November workshops! (Still some space on the second weekend! Visit www.photography.to/gales for details).

Other trends? 360° SmartPhone shots. Long exposure shots of waterfalls and rapids. Fox kits in Algonquin Park and elsewhere. Focus stacked macro shots. And in my case (I'm guilty as well), images altered with plugins like Topaz Impression.

Back to the basics

It's time to get back to the basics. That's really easy to say — when going off in the artistic direction is as easy as clicking the mouse. But it's that time. I'm going to try!

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Last week, I spent a pleasant couple of days with Bruce Peters, a Mississauga photographer friend of Hilary McNeil-Smith. We shot various venues around the Highlands. His presence inspired me to get out and take a fresh look at some places and times I've shot before. 

One of those places was Horseshoe Lake at Dawn. We didn't get a spectacular morning, but the mist on the water and the subtle pastels of the sky were interesting as usual. Here are three images before, during and after sunrise.  I'm never disappointed when I make the effort to get out early!

We visited another spot I like, where Highway 118 crosses Boshkong Lake. I gave into my desire to turn a photo into a piece of digital art...

Topaz Impression 2, Impasto preset (modified). I'm going to try to reproduce this in oil on canvas. Wish me luck! 

We went to some other spots I favour, including, of course, the Minden Wildwater. Then we went to Ritchie Falls. In both places, I mounted my 10-stop ND filter to smooth the water...

Here again I admit to doing a "little" post-processing!

The following morning my attraction to basic landscapes continued and I got up early to shoot this image behind the Red Umbrella Inn. I had actually shot a series of brackets intending to merge them as an HDR but I liked this one on its own, so there's very little processing done here. 

Back to the basics.

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The Highland Yard, 2016 edition

I don't know the actual count, but I'm guessing there were about 150 participants at most, although it looked like there were as many as 50 runners in the 10K race. And that total included a whole bunch of smaller kids in the 2K. Still, it was a nice event and there were some photo ops! I hoped to do some different shots from previous years... at the start, I shot the runners coming at me with a telephoto lens, hoping to catch some good body positions and bright colours. When they returned to the finish line, I shot two ways: wide angle shots from a low point of view, then I switched to a long telephoto to capture faces and expressions. Here are a few images.

 I'm addicted to Topaz Impression among others... here's an image from yesterday's Highland Yard 10K event. However the plugins are so popular now that using them might make you part of the crowd as opposed to showing your individuality. Sort of like Harley Davidson riders who want to be different but they all look alike! 

I want to use my Impression-generated images for inspiration. Maybe I can express myself that way. However, I suck at painting.Harvey has said to be patient... when I have 50 years painting experience, like I do in photography... only problem is, I'll be 120 years old! 

I was a little disappointed this year. With one or two exceptions, there was nobody who had dug deep to run this race. No sweat-stained shirts, no agonized expressions, no ecstatic arm-pumps crossing the finish line. Just a bunch of people jogging in, checking their iPhones or their wrist-mounted stopwatches for their times, smiling and waving to their friends. I'm not sure what that means. Anyway, here are some more images:

Another "artsy" shot that just spoke to me. Candidate for a book cover?

Old man's leg, young man's shoe! 

There were some exceptions. Someone who was proud of her achievement and wanted to shout it out to the world! 

Another exception. This guy crossed the finish line, took one step and collapsed. Race staff hydrated him and he was OK later. 

File this lady under "Perseverance". She should be on a poster with that as the title. She came into the finish line running, not walking and with a look of commitment as you can see. Kudo's, lady. I couldn't do what you did. 

 

I just thought these two ladies made interesting photo subjects. Remember, you can click on any picture to blow it up.

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Focus Pyramid

I bought this "Focus Pyramid" for the club and spent some time micro-aligning my lenses. The 70-200 Nikkor was the closest to zero and the Tamron 150-600 showed the most deviation. Interestingly it was different when I set it to 600mm and part way, around 400mm. I chose the 600mm alignment adjustment because that's the most critical point.

As you can see, you have to look very carefully to see where the lens is actually focusing. This shot was at a setting of +10 and I finally chose +8 as the setting (the range was -20 to +20). HHCC club members are welcome to borrow this focusing target to align their lenses. Contact Gord... 

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Speaking of exercise...

Dr. Ron & Rob K came up for the day on Friday with the intent of bicycling the Rail Trail from Haliburton to Kinmount. I dropped them off in Haliburton (nice car, Rob. Embarrassing how long it took me to figure out that you need to press the brake to start it!), then went home to take a nap while they sweated their way down the trail. When I picked them up about 3 hours later, I didn't join them in their celebratory milkshake/icecream because I felt I didn't deserve it!

The intrepid road warriors, leaving Haliburton. The weather cleared up and it was bright and sunny when I awoke from my nap a couple of hours later! 

Then we went back to Ritchie Falls. It's tough shooting in the bright sun, so I chose to do some abstracts using my neutral density filter. 

A tree at Ritchie Falls that will need a few more visits with camera and sketch pad in hand! 

So that ends another July in the Haliburton Highlands. Lots of stuff going on in August, so stay tuned. And if you're thinking of booking the Gales of November workshop (www.photography.to/gales) better get going, only 4 spots left!

PS: A whole blog post and not one bird picture! Don't get used to it!

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Fall Colours and other exciting stuff

I've lived up here in the Haliburton Highlands for 4 years now. You would think I'd be getting bored with and tired of the scenery up here. Think again. Every year there are new and exciting things to capture. This year in particular, now that my eyes are open in a different way, there are some awesome images out there.
First of all, the colours this year are outstanding. I don't think I've ever seen reds as rich and vibrant. And it's early! Still another week to go before the colour peaks. I feel sorry for those who live in places with less variable seasons, they don't get to see this:

This was at Wren Lake just south of Dorset on Highway 35. This is an HDR, but only to enhance the sky! This is how it really looked.

I did use HDR for this shot (same place) but believe it or not, to TONE DOWN the bright colours. They make your eyes hurt!

Janie's dock up on Kushog Lake. at sunset.

At the Minden Wildwater Preserve. I will admit to manipulating this one, I applied the "Indian Summer" filter in Nik Color Efex Pro to enhance the golden glow

This is an extra special photo. It was magic. This is NOT MANIPULATED, it was the way we saw it. Driving by on 35 enroute to Toronto around 9am, I looked left and there it was. As the car rolled 30 feet more, it was gone. You had to be looking directly up-sun to see the rimlighting on the trees.

If you're a photographer and you want to know how to do this kind of pictures in the middle of a sunny day, click here to go to my technical blog and learn how. If you're NOT a photographer, click there anyway: there are some more interesting images for you to see!

This weekend, we're going to Algonquin Park. Look for more georgeous fall photos next week!

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Wawa Wow!

So much to say, so little time...

We had a fabulous weekend up in Wawa. Due in no small way to Rob Stimpson and the crew at Rock Island Lodge who not only organized all the logistics, but who ordered up superb weather conditions for our visit as well. Rob is a laid-back mentor. He gently pushed me out of my rut and I'm sure, made me a better photographer. I will be back next year, unless my body (especially my knees) gives up on me. Go to Rob's site or the Rock Island Lodge website to see what it's about.

There were a dozen talented photographers on this weekend. I learned something from each and every one of them. I can't tell you how many times I said to myself, "I wish I could shoot pictures like him (or her)". I feel humble.

Now as I told Dr. Ron, if this had been a comnmercial shoot, I'd have considered it a failure. I'm used to having more images that I like come out of my 1500 shutter clicks. As it stands as I write this, there are less than half a dozen images that I would consider "print material", another 30 or so that I considered selected keepers, and a total of less than 100 images that I would use in a slide show or other presentation. Maybe enough for a Blurb book...

Here's one:

The Michipicoten River Light at dawn. I slowed the shutter down by shooting before it got too bright. I have about 3 or 4 other images of the same light but this is arguably the one I like best. It's a 30 second exposure at f/8 with the wide angle lens, ISO 200. This is cropped only slightly, just to straighten it up, and believe it or not, kiddies, NO PHOTOSHOP.  

Speaking of Neutral Density Filters (we were, right?):
If you're going to shoot water, you need them. I had a 2x (one stop), a 4x (two stops) and an 8x (3 stops) and I stacked the latter two for several shots. It happens they're 72mm in diameter so I couldn't use them for this shot (my wide angle is a 77mm diameter). Adding a stack of neutral density filters on the front of the lens works but it's cumbersome and hard to focus through it. There are a couple of solutions.

Lee makes a filter holder you can mount on your lens. It comes with several diameters of mounting hardware and you slide in whatever filter you want. Dr. Ron had a Lee set with a graduated filter for skies and among others, a 500x filter that gave him 10 stops adustment. If your normal exposure would have been 1/4sec at f/8, you could open your shutter for 4 minutes for the same shot. However I found the Lee set clumsy, and watched Dr. Ron drop it on the rocks once... it's about $500 for the set..

There's another concept: made by SinghRay and also in that price range -- a screw-in filter that's variable! I think the way it works is that there are two polarizing filters and as you rotate them relative to one another, the ND attenuation changes: from 1 stop to 9 stops, continuously variable. I like that concept and I'll be keeping my eyes open for one of those. Downside is, it only works for whatever diameter you order (although you can probably use step-down rings for different lenses). Brian Barker, one of the other photographers on the weekend had one.

Harris Creek Waterfall. Here's an 8 second exposure taken in bright sunlight using the stacked ND filter method. Harris Creek is off Rte. 17 along the North Channel of Lake Huron. A local fellow I met there told me there used to be a grist mill about where the highway is now, used by the pioneers to grind their grain, and later a water powered logging mill driven by the same water. Amazing what you can learn by talking to people!

I'll share one more image with you from the trip (for now). Eventually, I'll get them up on my Smugmug Gallery, but you're going to have to wait for it!

Indian Beach Surf. This shot was taken on Saturday afternoon after the wind picked up, as arranged by Rob with the Man Upstairs. The power of Lake Gitchigumi (Lake Superior. We listened to Gord Lightfoot all weekend. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald has the phrase "The Gales of November" in it. Did you know that?). No Photoshop. Some minor editing in Lightroom, that's all.

Visit my Smugmug site in a few days to see more images. I haven't even put the November Gallery up yet, so take your time!