Devil's Punch Bowl

Seriously - You can't have someone tell you of a place with a name like that, and not be intrigued.

You can? Okay, you're dead to me.  Leave my site and never come back.

Oh! You're just kidding.  I thought so.  Alright, fine.  Stay.

So on with the story.  I'd been interested in finding this place for a month or so after my last adventure into waterfalls of Hamilton, Ontario.  A friend at work mentioned this spot and I knew after a Google search that it was just a matter of time.  That time came a couple of days ago.  It was late afternoon, a little cloudy - Perfect.  I wasn't prepared for the site when I got there though.

The photo doesn't do it justice, but this place is massive.  I can only imagine what it was hundreds of years ago! Anyway, the odd thing about this is, I've ridden on my motorcycle past this place probably 30 times and never knew it was there.  That's probably because I was far more focused on the roads and the turns coming up than on being aware of the scenery around me.  Pretty sad when I think of it!

This shot is a panorama of the falls.  It is 5 shots glued together. I'll do it again (perhaps after a night shift) when the sun is just coming up.  When it comes to water falls, I like at least a 2 or 3 second exposure to get the water just right but in late afternoon, it just isn't going to happen without being way over exposed.  (Mental note, buy a ND filter!)

A few feet away is another cliff that overlooks the city of Hamilton and is really quite breathtaking (even if it is Hamilton ;) ).  I wasn't about to do any pictures there.  It was freezing and the wind was howling.  Even with the protection of the surrounding walls, you can see how much the water was being pushed here.

On heading back from this short adventure, I couldn't help but notice the sky was looking a bit angry to the south.  This shot shows an extremely localized snowstorm.

I couldn't help but stop the car and take a few shots.  Not much I can say about this that the picture doesn't say for itself.

More to come when I find something entertaining to shoot!

Aurororora Borealis!

With a title like that, I bet you're hoping or even expecting a breathtaking shot full of  stunning colours  along with a captivating story. Sorry, this isn't the blog you're looking for.

The other night I was at work when my phone rang.  My friend quickly cut to the chase and asked if I had been watching the numbers which relate to Coronal Mass Ejections which ultimately create The Northern Lights - Something I've never seen, but want to... Desperately.

A bit of chat, and plans were made to head north.  (Thank god for a good shift and lots of vac!)

A few hours of driving later, we found our spot at Torrance Barrens - An official Dark Sky Preserve as recognized by the Ontario Government.  The sun had just about disappeared over the horizon and we decided to relax there and see what was going to happen.  (Besides the Northern Lights, I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of Comet PANSTARRS but that was a bust due to tallish trees in our vicinity)  Now came the wait.  Followed by more wait, and then some waiting.  We decided early that we were going to hike inside the Barrens, set up a couple of chairs and relax, but it was pretty cold, we'd both foolishly elected to wear running shoes rather than boots and the ground was snow-covered.  Despite both of us wearing 2 pairs of socks, it was clearly inadequate.

We made a couple of trips back to the car to warm up and wait for the magic in the sky, but after a couple of hours, it wasn't to be.

We drove a little to see if we could score a better view from closer to the car, but that will take more researching.  We did manage to find another place on the side of the road and decided to give it more time.  Patience after all.

Time passed and some of the wind was starting to leave our sails.  The quarter moon seemed impossibly bright.  Stars in this clear sky seemed less bright than usual, but feeling like I had to talk away with something, I decided I would give a star trail a shot.  For anyone who doesn't know, a star trail is what you get when you point your camera somewhere in the sky and leave the shutter open.  Unless your camera is calibrated to take the earth's rotation into account, the stars will move in your photo as you see here.  I like the effect.

I set up my camera behind the car, set to BULB and activated the shutter before getting in the car.  I was hoping to capture lots of light so I set the ISO high.  Very high.  Too high.  Note to self - Why did you set it to 32,000 when 800 would have been plenty.  In the car we chatted, listened to some youtube (I'm amazed we still had coverage up there!) inuit throat singers and kept watching the Aurororora numbers.  Yes, I say it like that.  It's more fun, try it!  Numbers gradually diminished and it became clear it wasn't going to happen for us.

After 45 minutes of exposure, I went back to the camera and closed the shutter.  Sadly, as you can imagine if you're a camera person, the shot was way over exposed.  From the preview window I was convinced it was ruined completely.  Enter Photoshop!  After reducing here, adding there, tinkering a little, I was able to salvage this image.  It's far from perfect, but I'm glad I was able to come home with something at least.  This image was at 10mm pointed directly up to the sky.

On another clear night, I will try with a slightly longer lens with hood from home and do much better, but I see here that a 45 minute exposure made for a pretty acceptable length of trail.

As far as the night goes with chasing an Aurora Borealis, I have now learned that patience along with luck are critical to catching it.

The night was still fun and it was nice to have company this time.  I will be keeping watch on numbers from now on and when it's possible, I will be hopping in the car and trying again.  This time, I hope there is no moon!

Overwhelmed

  Today I took a few minutes to do a little inventory of my photos.

The same thing happens with my memory cards for the T2I.  I have two 16gig cards, and one 32gig card that I swap between, and it really doesn't take a long time for them to add up.  I back them up occasionally to the computer and tonight I came to the realization that tonight's backup of all 3 cards came to over 1,100 photos.  That's a daunting task to organize (and more importantly, PURGE!).  As I write this, I just double checked and it looks like I have about 20 more gigs that need attention.To date, when my iPhone filled up (or just became a huge mess of pictures) I just downloaded them to the computer and deleted them from the phone.  I'd done that a couple of times and knew that they were starting to pile up, and sure, there were some dupes.

Well, in the various workshops and seminars I've attended (not to mention the hours of reading online), one common thread appeared.  Lightroom.

I picked it up this afternoon but honestly, the idea of installing it and getting to work makes my stomach churn.  I know I'll do it in the next day or two, but honestly, I hope it's at least somewhat pain free to purge what I don't want, and organize what I do.

I'll post an update when I've gotten started.

Friday Morning Hike

My job has me working rotating shifts which include days, afternoons and nights.  This time around I decided to take my final night shift off, and as luck would have it, after finishing my final shift, I slept the entire day instead of getting up a bit early.  While I felt awake and refreshed, it meant I was going to have a rough time switching back to a normal sleep pattern.  I crawled into bed around midnight, and slept like the dead until about 3 or 3:30am when I swear I heard my phone buzz.  This irreversibly woke me up. The night before I had found myself on Youtube and had seen some waterfalls near home.  Near being a relative term of course.  By 4:30am I decided today would be a good day to shoot a couple that were close at first light.

Little did I know that my shoot would result in the money-shot right out of the gate, and the following hike would be little more than an adventure in carrying gear in difficult conditions.  It turns out that right at the parking lot, maybe 50 feet away is a lookout perch.  A few moments setting up the tripod, affixing my 200mm lens and I had my shot, and I'm pretty happy with it.  Sure it would be much more beautiful on a summer morning, but I like the cool tone of this shot of Albion Falls.

From here I headed south towards what is known as Buttermilk Falls.  This waterfall is located maybe 1km away so I packed up my gear, shouldered my tripod and bag and set out down a snow and ice-covered winding path through the tree-lined path.  Numerous paw prints could also be seen along the way which made clear that this area was popular for the view.  It's unfortunate then that when I did reach this waterfall, it was little more than a trickle of water, no doubt affected by the time of year.  No shots taken.  Following the map, I made my way along the trail to the end where I see a note indicating a crossing of the creek roughly 80 feet below where I standing.

Back and forth I went trying to locate a path down to the waters edge where there was a bridge crossing, but I gave up.  It was at this point where I found a spot that I thought would be safe to make the trip down.  Tentatively I inched my way towards the edge and carefully went step by step, lowering myself down, holding a rock here, a branch there, anything that seemed solid enough to hold me.  I don't mind admitting I was nervous on the wet, snow-covered ground as I made each step lower.  When I did reach a point where I could safely unpack my camera again, I felt it was necessary to take a picture of what I had just decended.  The wide angle lens doesn't really do it justice, but I can assure you, it was not an easy trek.  With open hands, sure.  Not with gear!

Anyway, I finished my trek downward to the water and made my way along the stream to the bridge, eager to find this third waterfall.  I couldn't help take a couple of shots of the water below my feet.  Nothing particularly spectacular really, but there was something striking about standing down in this canyon and the calm water passing by.

Looking upstream was just as nice.  Again, nothing particularly spectacular, but calming just the same.

The rest of the hike was fairly uneventful.  I never did find that third fall.  The climb back up the icy hill was enough to remind me that I was probably lucky to have not taken any falls yet.  The climb was fairly steep and footing was unsure at best, so I decided to err on the side of caution and let the third one go.

Unfortunately as I made my way closer to my car again, and from the other side of Albion Falls, I set up my camera to get a shot from the other side.  I didn't notice at the time, but a couple of drops of snow/rain landed on my lens, ruining the few photos I did take.  A short walk to my car later, and a quick shot through my iphone, and my morning was finished.

My hope is that while I enjoy my week off, I will have clear skies to shoot, and my next blog entry will contain something along those lines.  Stay tuned!

Night Work

A few days ago on my last entry I promised to post some pictures of my first attempt at something new to me. Google (being the beautiful thing that it is) introduced me to light painting, light art, and classes taught me the fun things you can do with a long exposure at night.  Combining the two gave me some inspiration to play with fire.  Literally.

I learned recently that steel wool is actually flammable.  It doesn't burst into flame, but under certain conditions, you can make a pretty impressive show with its sparks.

Well of course, me being me, I was instantly interested and this was the result of one of the attempts.  Standing in the center of this was me, hoping to not get burnt too badly by this shower of sparks as I swung this ball of steel wool around my head.  This particular shot also had a couple of small MagLites also attached (that you can see as the smaller lines in the center.  The wind obviously was a factor in pushing the result to your right somewhat.

Without a doubt though, this shot is my favourite of my two attempts.  The ground strikes are pretty eye-pleasing, but the ball of light in the center is the winner in my books.

These shots were taken in my parents sprawling yard a few million miles from my place, but I'm already trying to come up with some new locations that may provide interesting backgrounds, while not getting me arrested.

I'm not exactly sure how I'll pull that off, but darn it, I'm going to try!

Oh, and if you followed my last post, I just found out my photo has made it to the final round of a contest.  I don't expect it to win, but I'm thrilled it made it this far.

Light Art

I had my first glance at light art, light painting, whatever you'd like to call it at a photography course recently. The premise is to use a light source and a long exposure to create designs by moving it around in patterns or anything eye-pleasing.

That in mind, I experimented with it for fun in my living room after the sun went down and came up with this.  Nothing fantastic, and in fact, quite crude, but for me, when I saw that it was rather simple to do, I have to admit I was pretty excited.  A little time in Photoshop to make the light bulb tungsten colour more pleasing, and I think I may have become hooked on yet another facet of photography.  For anyone who may not know, the camera is on a tripod, an exposure time of 10 seconds, and I (wearing black) stand directly in front of the lens.  With a remote in my hand to activate the shutter, I turn on a pair of flashlights which are hanging from a couple of 2 foot black wires.  The flashlights are swung side to side in front of me in circles, the shutter activated and I repeat it until the shutter closes.  That forms the image you see.  As the shutter is only detecting the light from the flashlight, anywhere the bulb is in the frame is recorded.  What a concept.

Now that's all well and good and very simple, but quite by accident, and in doing more research, I stumbled on this guy who has taken light art to an exciting level.  Please check out his site and look at some of his photos.  (http://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherrenfrophotography) I don't know of a place where I could try some of these things without the fire department becoming involved, but when I do, you can bet I will.

Inspiration can come from the most unlikely places.  Google, YouTube, and even just a simple course can really open your eyes to new things, and I'm pretty excited about it.

Macro

So for a little fun I thought I'd play with the long lens.  The damn thing was expensive, so I should get some value out of it, especially when it's far too cold outside to go play.

It's no secret that I have some interest in macro photography, but with no macro lens, I have no choice but to play with (what I like to refer to as) "The Beast".  500mm of zoomy goodness.

I have no display case or prop holder to place items on to, so it was the back of a Christmas card with a couple of crumpled bits of cardboard to elevate the back of the coin slightly, then up on the tripod the camera, Beast and flash went.

Focusing was much more challenging than I expected, but of course it just took a bit of play.  Auto was useless, so I played with bouncing the flash off the ceiling, off the wall behind, then then full on.  Off the ceiling was best, and that produced these images.  Nothing spectacular but somewhat interesting when you zoom right in.

I look forward to buying a macro lens at some point.  I would have liked to have pointed the camera directly at the floor, but with the tripod legs fully extended, and the lens at minimum magnification, it was still too close to focus.  Anyway, it was a learning experience.

I did learn a few things out of the experience; a) buy an eye-pleasing background b) make sure it is clean of any cat fluff, c) higher f-stop would have helped greatly to keep details crisp as you can clearly tell my focus point was on "dollar" in the loonie and therefore "Canada" is slightly blurred.  Lessons learned.  Onward.

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2013-01-31 Update

I bought a true macro lens (Canon 100mm 2.8 L) and played a bit more.  The one thing I learned is this however.  When taking shots at extremely close range, a macro light is required.  A flashlight and overhead spots are simply not up to the task as everything either casts a significant shadow, or additional lights create too much of an effect on the contours of the subject.

What is difficult to believe is these are the exact same two coins used in the original test.  The macro lens reveals far more detail and really displays all of the scratches and imperfections on the coins.

Research Continues

The research continues into astrophotography.  Ultimately I know I will be purchasing a telescope to push deeper into the sky, but before I do that, I'm reading what I can so I have some skills necessary to take some quality photos.  To that end, I've discovered a little gem for sale that should make stacking images much more pain-free.  This little gem http://www.henrys.com/70762-PIXEL-TW-282-E3-W-L-SHUTTER-CANON-EOS.aspx jumped out at me while I was on a date with Google.  Rather than standing next to my trusty Manfroto with a tiny remote in my hand counting my images and the seconds of exposure as they happen, this baby should do the work for me.  Love it.

In the meantime, here's a picture of the moon I took a few months back on my crappy Best Buy tripod (otherwise known as Shakey - May it rest in peace).  If we ever have a cloud-free evening, I'm looking forward to shooting again on a good tripod with my new 500mm lens.

Disappointed

After watching the weather forecast pretty much all day, it went from being a clear night, to partly cloudy.  As the day was already VERY overcast, it was going to be a gamble on when the sky would turn to only "a few clouds".  And this of course can still mean that there is a haze.

At 11pm I made the decision that I would take a chance and make the nearly 3 hour drive.  Every hour or so, I would pull over and take a good look up and make a decision to turn around or continue on.  Each time I continued on.

At 20km away, I was once again blown away by the beautiful starry night and my excitement peaked. I hurried on to my destination, eager to begin taking pictures, but as I pulled into the beautiful dark parking area, there were no stars to be seen anywhere.  I figured I must have gotten ahead of the cloud clearing so I wrapped myself up in a sleeping bag, reclined my seat and waited.  It was unexpectedly warm, a very nice surprise.  But as 2am turned to 3, and then 330, I decided it was time to give up waiting.  The wind may be blowing in the wrong direction, so I gave up.

About halfway back to the highway I took a gander upwards and saw the sky was pretty clear.  Not spectacular, but enough that I had to get out and salvage *something* out of what was going to be 6 hours of driving, and arriving home as the sun was soon to rise.  All I was able to get was this.  The ole Big Dipper.

As I snapped away at a few other things in an attempt to get some deep space, I was jolted back to reality by the sound of a wolf way off in the distance.  Moments later it was answered by a second, and then a third closer one.  And then a fourth even closer, and finally a fifth that was clearly very close.  At this point, I didn't even put the lens cap on.  I threw open the trunk, hurriedly placed my tripod, still with camera turned on inside and hopped in the car and rolled up the windows.  As my door was closing, I could hear at least a couple of them attacking something that howled aggressively.  I don't know who won that round as I got the hell out of Dodge and began my trip home.

Click the image above a couple of times for a larger version.

First Post!

At this point I'm not sure exactly what I'll be writing about.  I suspect it won't be limited to just one subject, and realistically, nobody will likely ever read it, so hey.  I may learn Latin and just start typing and nobody will ever be the wiser! Cheers!