Fall shots – IV
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I wanted to show you this 4 image panorama I made from this location. Kind of gives you a nice view from the vantage point under the highway bridge. Gorgeous place. I hope to find time to go there again one morning and to find more mist on the water. Of course, this time of year, it’s a totally different image. Colors and leaves are gone, so it’s a bit sad to look at right now to be honest, but i think with the right light and a bit fog, it can be quite interesting. A reminder for next time, a slightly longer lens (this is shot with a 35mm), and perhaps shooting the panorama with the camera vertical. It is a wee bit narrow… 
Enjoy.
Fall shots – III
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One more from the Hwy 17 over pass. Same location as this shot, but this vantage point is from under one of the bridges looking south, as you can see on the google map. It’s definitively an area ill will revisit again.
Fall shots – II
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I got a few more fall shots I would like to share. (My first Fall shots post is here). Still on Hwy 17 west of Sudbury in Northern Ontario. It’s always a treat when the water is calm, and the reflections is like mirrored perfectly.
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Fall shots – I
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Fall in Northern Ontario lasts approximately 3-4 weeks by my understanding – if we are lucky. This year it started a wee bit early too, probably due to lack of moisture, so the trees started to turn even before the summer was over. Yes, fall time is nice, but as soon as the colors are gone from the trees, it only becomes a reminder whats coming. -Yes, the white stuff….uggggg. The ‘S’ word is a bad word in this house.
Anyway, fall time – time to get out and get some colors at my regular locations. So here we go. First shot is from the Hwy17 bypass. I drive on this highway quite frequently, and I have been witness to the amazing color change during a period of a couple of weeks, so it was a must have shot. Shot on a chilly and cloudy morning around 8 am.
Harris Creek
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 82mm, f/13, 1/6 sec, ISO200
I found this shot while going through some shots from 2009. I thought it would be alright for a post here.
The shot is from Harris Creek, which is running under Hwy 17 East of Blind River, Ontario. It’s a nice little spot where it’s easy to get to the tiny falls.
P & R – West Branch
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200, 18mm, f/8 , 1/125s, ISO200
Second round of my “post & run” week.
The shot above is from an outing up the West Branch behind Webwood, Ontario last year I believe, with my good buddy, Ken Bennison who is an exceptional and award-winning landscape shooter.
By the way, the flower from my last post was just a common lily. Pretty amazing huh? (well, not the photo, the flower of course )
Thumbnail below.
Enjoy.
Chutes
The fall colors has peaked up here and are starting to look a bit faded, some trees are bare and getting ready for next year.
Its Thanksgiving weekend and the weather the last week has been absolutely outstanding. Currently its 23°C outside which is pretty good for Northern Ontario in the month of October.
I went for a quick drive down the highway to Chutes Prov. Park to capture some tight shots of the falls there. The sun was out so it was perfect conditions to play with my new variable ND filter. (I still can’t believe I didn’t get around to buy one before now…) It is so cool to slow down the shutter speed and get the silky feeling of running water even in direct sunlight without the blinkies.
The shot above was a complete surprise when I looked on the LCD screen on the camera, it looked like gold was running down stream.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-300, 70 mm, f/22, 1/8 sec ISO200
A nice spot
Nikon D300, Nikkor 16-35mm f4, 27mm, f/22, ISO200, 7 exposures
One of the spots I like to go shoot is about 1 hour drive from my house. I drive by this place just about once a week as part of my daytime job, so I can kind of keep an eye on whats going on there. It’s the Duchesney Falls in North Bay, Ontario. Being visible from the highway, it’s fairly easy to determine if there’s too much water going down or too little. Too much water, and you wont get the small interesting trickles or mini falls over or between the rocks – those are the ones I like to shot, it’s also a bit tougher and of course very dangerous to get to close to the falls. Too little water is just as bad.
Nevertheless, it’s still a great place to practice photographing water falls all year round.
The shot above could be an example on why it’s not such a good idea shooting water falls in direct sunlight. The foaming white water, the wet highlights are instant blinkies even at fast shutter speeds, and remember fast shutter speeds will not give you the silky look. This is shot with my new Nikkor 16-35 mm f/4 lens, and I did not have a 77 mm polarizer or ND filter to put on, so I decided to try some bracketing on this location. In Photomatix, I made 2 tone maps. 1 for the overall scene and then a shadow map for some contrast (see Rob Hanson’s blog for this very cool technique ). In Photoshop I combined the overall tone map with the shadow map, and masked in the water from exposure that looked the best.
Watch your step…
Nikon D300, Nikkor 16-35mm f4, 29mm @f8, ISO200, 9 frames
I think this will be the last one in this mini series from the old farm-house on Hwy 17. The other two posts are here and here. I have had a ton of fun processing these, trying different techniques and methods.
This image was inspired by Rob Hanson’s newest, amazing and in-depth hour-long HDR Processing Technique tutorial. Link to it here. I can’t wait to try it on some landscape brackets.
As always, feel free to leave a comment or a critique.
Come on in…
Nikon D300, Nikkor 16-35mm f4, 16mm, f/8, ISO200, 9 frames
Quick post today with the second shot from the abandoned farm-house of Hwy 17, just outside Blind River, Ontario. Here is a quick link the earlier post from this place.
Every time I look at this image, I’m amazed how trashed it is. Can you tell I haven’t done a lot of UrbanEx? I do know when I go by there again, I’m going to spend a bit more time shooting. There are so many details in this house that I missed last time.
Time to step it up…
- Nikon D300, 30mm, f6.7, ISO200 9 brackets
Its time for some HDR on this site. It was one of the reasons I started this blog. – to get better at tonemapping. I have watched guys like Mike Olbinski, Brian Matiash, Bob Lussier, and Jacques Gude for a while now. Since I started this “blog” my list of sites to visit has grown quite large and new ones are added all the time. There are some really amazing photography on all those sites. I will have an updated my blog roll list to show that very soon.
On to todays RuralEx image. Ghost towns or abandoned factories are hard to come by in and around my town. But on Highway 17, just outside Blind River, Ontario, is a couple of candidates. 2 abandoned farm houses, just about 100 feet from the Hwy, a couple of miles apart. The image above is the stairs to the second floor just inside the front door of one of them. I have wanted to shot that place for a long time, so a few weeks ago, I finally had a chance to do something about it. The next couple of posts will be brackets from this house.
I would appreciate any comments or hints about how I can improve. My tool box is Photomatix Pro, OnOne suite 5.5, LR 3 and PS CS 4.
