Canada Day Fireworks

I always enjoy photographing fireworks. A great shot requires more than simply shooting the burst. It needs scale, context, and an interesting setting.

On this occasion, I managed to speak to the technicians before the show to see from where they were firing from and to gather any orther information that might help inform me on where to set up and what to expect.

I choose an area where the foreground water is protected to capture the reflections. The exposures were approximately 3 seconds long and there was a some very slight movement in the water, which helped produce reflections that appear to have been painted. It gives the images a surreal or dreamlike feeling. These photos have not been altered or munipulated and the reflections in the water are real.

Niagara Falls

Spent Saturday in Niagara Falls; something I have wanted to photograph for a while. Niagara Falls is, as they say, a target-rich environment.  It really is a spectacular site, no matter how many times you’ve seen it. Seems no matter where you turn, there is an amazing scene worth capturing, and A fireworks show is a bonus.

The tall buildings and the clouds behind the of the America Falls were lit bright by the setting sun.

The fireworks show started suddenly, and I had to make quick adjustments to my camera settings.  I was fortunate because from where I was located, the fireworks complemented the American Falls and did not interfere with it. Sometines you’re just lucky.

It was very busy, which made capturing the images more challenging. But if you have patience and are willing to put up with the crowds, eventually you get the shot you want.

The final photo was taken where the viewing area is immediatley adjacent to the edge of Horseshoe Falls. It was about 11:00 pm and dark, and the blue spotlights created an image that looks almost surreal. From this vantage point, you get a sense of just how much water goes over the edge every second - over 1,834 cubic metres per second. Niagara Falls is the world’s most famous attracting over 12 million visitors every year. 

Train on the Trestle

Sometimes capturing a great or interesting image comes down to timing - being at the right place at the right time. Sometimes it happens the first time you visit a location, but usually it requires many trips back, and sometimes it just never comes together.

Last evening I went to my semi-secret place to shoot the sunset, and while the early evening sky looked promising with plenty of cumulus clouds, they all but disappeared when the sun set.

The evening was not lost; however, when a fast-moving freight train appeared suddenly from the east. There were four teenage boys crossing the bridge at the time and they had to hustle. Fortunately, they had time to run to the end and get off. It reminded me of a very similay scene in the movie Stand by Me.

It gave me a chance to play with the exposure time to create these images. Normally we want our images to be as sharp as possible, but sometimes some blur helps tell the story.

Unfortunately, it does not always end well. Almost exactly 8 years ago, and man was stuck and killed by a train on the trestle.

Heritage Park, Barrie

I spent last evening photographing in Heritage Park, which is located between downtown Barrie and Kempenfelt Bay. I really like shooting in the evening. The sun is low causing shadows which make the image look more three dimensional. In addition the light is softer and warmer in colour.

I used a neutral density filter to blur the water and sky, which helps to soften these elements while the stationary objects remain sharp.

This photo of the tree along the shoreline was shot while looking east away from the sunset.

The final photo of Meridian Place and the downtown was taken during the “blue hour”, which occurs towards the end of twilight.

Legacy Lenses

Nikon’s Ai and Ais series of lenses from the late 1970s and early 1980’s are a beautiful combination of simple, manual mechanical build quality and beautiful vintage glass. Nikon’s reputation as a great camera company was built in part on the quality of these lenses and the incredibly beautiful images they produced.

When autofocus lenses were introduced, these mechanical focus lenses were soon replaced and largely forgotten for these digital wonders that made focusing so much easier and promised that every image would be in perfect focus. While it is certainly possible to still take photos out of focus, there is no questions that it is much easier to photograph a fast-moving subject with an autofocus lens.

Barrie Marina taken with a 35 year old manual focus 50mm Nikon lens.

Despite the improvements of these newer lenses, some of the best built and sharpest lenses Nikon ever made are some of these metal-bodied manual focus lenses.  The Nikon 85mm f1.4 Ais is considered by many to be the most precise, optically superior, and well built 85mm lenses ever made by anyone, and a mint condition one can sell for over $1,000 on eBay.

I have no intention of selling off my newest high quality autofocus lenses. They are amazing lenses that are convenient and produce incredibly sharp images. I do keep my eyes open for good deals on mint condition Ais lenses and won’t hesitate to use them under the right circumstances.

Sunset at Huronia Lookout

It appeared that last night’s sunset might be epic, so once again I took my camera equipment to Huronia Lookout.

These pictures are in order and show the progression of the sunset over a period of about one and a half hours. It’s too bad the large cloud bank in pictures 1 and 2 had not been in place later in the evening when the sun had dipped below the horizon. The clouds would have been lit up by the sun and the sky would have been spectacular. Nevertheless, the sunset was still amazing.

Moon Over Huronia Lookout

While photographing the wild skies at Huronia Lookout Thursday evening, I turned my camera south and captured a shot of the moon during a break in the clouds.

Crazy Skies at Huronia Lookout

Climbed Huronia Lookout to capture images of the wild skies following a day of heavy rain. Was hoping to catch a dramatic sunset, but the clouds did not cooperate. However, the sky was dramatic and worth photographing.

The lookout provides a 180 degree, 40 km radius view to the north and west and includes views of the Niagara Escarpment and Georgian Bay and overlooks the Minesing Swamp, the site of Fort Willow and a portion of the Nine Mile Portage that connects Kempenfeldt Bay to Lake Huron by way of the Willow Creek and the Nottawasaga River.

The Nine Mile Portage was used for centuries by First Nation peoples, traders, and explorers as part of a major transportation route to Western Canada.

Fort Willow was used as a supply depot by the British during the War of 1812, and was particularly important to the defence of Fort Michilimackinac after the Americans had seized naval control of the Upper Great Lakes.

Train Trestle Sunset

Last night’s sunset was not spectacular, but it was nice enough.  So, I grabbed my camera bag and tripod and captured this photo at a site that shall remain unnamed. It would have been great had a train come while taking this shot.

Photographing Rho Ophiuchi

While shooting the Milky Way in Algonquin Park, I took the opprtunity to put a longer lens on my camera and shoot other things to see in the night sky. The system of stars located in the upper right portion of the photo is known as the Rho Ophiuchi.  It is imbedded in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, a nebula of gas and dust. The yellow star is Antares, a supergiant star, and the fifteenth brightest star seen from earth. The blue stars are classified as subgiants.

The brightest light in this photo is Jupiter. Over the next few nights the distance between Jupiter and Earth will be approximately 80% of the average distance, making Jupiter the second brightest planet in the sky next to Venus.

Milky Way in Algonquin Park

Spent Saturday night in Algonquin Park shooting the Milky Way.  I started around midnight and after about three hours, I forced myself to call it quits and get some sleep. The conditions were ideal: no clouds, no moon, low humidity, and I was in an area where there is little to no light pollution.

When most people talk about “seeing the Milky Way”, they are talking about the core of the galaxy. Located in the constellation Sagittarius, this is the brightest part of the Milky Way. Dust lanes, nebulas, and star clusters are all more concentrated in this area. It is located just above the horizon in my photo.

This image was captured around 2:30 in the morning, taken at the Lake of Two Rivers.  I used an equatorial mount, which allows me to extend the exposure to 5 minutes.  This gives me pinpoint sharp stars and more time to capture light while using a lower ISO setting reducing the level of background noise (or graininess) in the photo. (BTW, the brightest light in the photo is the planet Jupiter.)

A long exposure from a camera will pick up more stars and colors than the human eye can.  However, many of the pictures you see on the internet have been subject to a significant amount of post camera processing, making the Milky Way look much brighter and much more colorful than what the camera records.  I have chosen to keep my photos true to the original and apply only very small adjustments to sharpness and contrast.

This is my third season of photographing the universe and I keep learning ways to make the images better. Capturing a good image requires more than just the technical skill of shooting the night sky. I am spending more time scouting out locations with attractive foregrounds that are interesting and provide a sense of scale and relativity to the size of the Milky Way. It is massive, stretching from one horizon to the other.

It is unfortunate that so many will never experience looking up into a dark sky to see the splendor of our galaxy.  

Light Trails on Highway 11

I have had an idea for a while to capture an image of light trails on a curvy road. So, I grabbed my equipment and went to the first place that came to mind; the Oro-Medonte Line 3 overpass of Highway 11, northeast of Barrie.

When I arrived, I saw that the bridge has been narrowed to one lane and the balance barricaded for maintenace. I climbed the barricade and planted my tripod next the exposed rebar, hoping that the authorities didn’t drive by. I used a neutral density filter to extend the shutter time and exposed the photos just short of 3 minutes.

I must have been quite noticable to the drivers as they passed under the overpass because quite a number honked their horns, perhaps out of fear that I might fall asleep and fall of the bridge.

Weekend on the Bruce Peninsula

Spent the weekend in Bruce Peninsula National Park.  Friday and Saturday were cool, overcast with brief periods of rain.  When it cleared Saturday evening, I shot the sunset in Tobermory where the ferry Chi-Cheemaun is docked.  Chi-Cheemaun, or “big canoe” in Ojibwe, ferries up to 648 people and 143 vehicles on its two-hour trip between Tobermory and Manitoulin Island.  

The four photos demonstrate the sunset’s progression from the “golden hour” to the “blue hour”. Blue hour occurs during the last stages of twilight when the sun is at a significant depth below the horizon and residual, indirect light takes on a blue shade that is different from the blue shade visible during most of the day. Most people think the opportunity to take pictures ends shortly after the sun sets and miss the opportunity to take unique and beautiful images during this time period.

The last two photos of the Chi-Cheemaun were shot using a ND (neutral density) filter which allowed extending the exposure to about 3 minutes and smoothing anything that was in motion, like the water.

I was tempted to stay up that night to shoot the Milky Way. The conditions were ideal with clear skies and next to no moonlight. I opted instead to go to bed and wake the next morning at 4:00 to shoot the sunrise at the Grotto on the eastern shore of Bruce Peninsula; something I have wanted to do for some time. The Grotto is a scenic sea cave containing a pool of blue water in the rocky and rugged Georgian Bay shoreline.

After about 30-minute hike through the dark, I arrived at the Grotto and set up my equipment. It was incredibly peaceful. The Grotto is a popular attraction and normally a very busy place, but I had it all to myself this early in the day.

On my hike back I stopped to photograph a small waterfall where Cyprus Lake drains into Head Lake. Two ducks swam just above the waterfall and stopped, and I saw an opportunity for a cool photograph.  Again, I used a ND filter extending the exposure to 5 seconds and after about 15 minutes and many failed attempts (the ducks kept moving!), I finally got a shot where the ducks remained relatively still during the 5 second period. They must have known because as soon as I got the shot, the two of them swam away.

Shooting landscapes and wildlife takes an incredible amount of patience. It is not unusual to spend hours, and even days, going the same spot waiting for the light and other conditions to be just right. If you are lucky, you might get that great shot the first time, but that is unusual. Usually it requires a multitude of failed attempts.

Arcade Ride at Night

Barrie held a waterfornt festival over the weekend, which included a small arcade with rides, etc. As I drove by, one ride caught my attention and I thought it might make a cool photo at night. I came back in the evening and captured this image.

Fog Over the Bay

It rained most of yesterday, and when it stopped late in the day, a fog settled over the bay. I grabbed my camera bag hoping there might be an opportunity to capture the moment.

At times the fog was heavy making visibility very difficult. I found a spot at the spit at the Barrie Marina to set up and waited for the fog to lift enough to take the photo.

I like how the fog makes the picture look like it at been painted. I find the scene almost surreal, and very peaceful.

Fog over the Barrie Marina