Wiarton, Ontario (Bruce Peninsula Workshop)
Last week we started our drive to Bruce National Park at 2:30am. Although we have been there numerous times, we wanted to ensure ourselves of where the light would be in the morning for our workshop (plug: We have two spaces available for Monday July 9).
Of course we knew that we would not make it for sunrise - that would have required us to leave an hour earlier - we were hoping for a lucky shot somewhere along the way. We got it, barely: as we approached Wiarton the sky took on magnificent shades of red and orange. We knew there was a marina in the area drove to it. No time for pondering or any other thoughtful process. Just get the camera out, set the ISO, fstop, focus and shoot (and pray the focus was good enough, shutter speed was high enough for a decently sharp exposure). Thirty seconds later, the light was gone...the clouds covered the sun..and that was that.
Tech:
Camera: D800E; lens: Nikkor 24 PCE; ISO 400; Hand held 1/30s @ f5.6. Yes, it's too low, especially on D800 but it worked out good enough for a 19" print :)
-Vin Singh
Iceland - Weather Unknown
All good things come to those who wait...and wait...and wait. That's what it felt like for the first 4 days in Iceland. We landed Monday morning to great skies with some nice clouds. By the time we reached Vik, we had 80-100km/h winds and pouring rain. The next day was to be better, but the same results. Each day, the weather forecast would be calling for partly cloudy or cloudy skies with maybe a hint of rain but we got drenched.
So what did we do? Like troopers, even though it was constantly raining, we we out there shooting. The wind made it really tough. Every day back at the hotel, we would spend a half an hour drying our equipment. All in all, we got some interesting shots (will post later). Thanks to some decent weather sealing in our equipment, I did not worry much about equipment failure...I did not even use any rain gear for it. Just kept a few cloths in the bag and wiped occasionally (the lens after each shot as it was constantly wet).
What equipment? There were three of us shooting. We had an array of Nikon equipment: D3X, D800, D700, D300 and a couple of D3000 IR converted bodies. For lenses we had: 14-24 2.8, 17-35 2.8, 24-70 2.8, 70-200 2.8, 24 PC-E and 45 PC-E all Nikkor Lenses. All in all, zero equipment failure but my brothers Roots Sport Watch called it quits in the rain!
On the 5th day, we saw our first rain free sunrise. This picture was shot at Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon. This was taken around 3:00am. Nikon 24-70 on D3X body. A fantastic place with hundreds of house sized glaciers. You can shoot for hours and find all kinds of shapes and colours to work with.
It's been a challenging few weeks so bear with me while I work on a few images to write about.
-Vin Singh
More Badlands
I just came back from a trip to Iceland. While I would have liked to have shown a few pics from there, I don't think that's going to happen as soon as I would have liked. To start with, one of my cards went kaput in the middle of a download to the PC. I was lucky that I had backed up that specific card. However, this could also have happened when I was initially making the backup and I could have potentially have lost many hundreds of pics (yes I know there are recovery software tools out there...tried a few but only managed to get 15% of the pics). The better way is to use the second slot (if you have one) on your camera as a duplicate storage. Learned my lesson...will do next time.
Now the pic in hand. This was taken in the same location as my previous post. However, for this pic, I wanted to show some stars. I was in luck as shooting in the opposite direction gave me some clouds and some clearing which is a little more dramatic. Processed in a similar manner as the previous photo, I wanted the red and magenta colours to come out for a more dramatic presentation.
Due to the fact that I used an ultra-wide lens, I was able to get away with a 80sec exposure without showing star trails.
For my next post, I will discuss what worked and what didn't work during the Iceland trip as we had many challenges (weather being the main barrier). Check back in a weeks time (or follow my space).
Notes on pic:
Nikon D3X using 14-24f2.8 lens, 80second exposure ISO 400.
-Vin Singh
The Badlands, Cheltenham Ontario
It may look like a sunset or sunrise photograph, but it is not. This was actually taken around midnight with the moon glowing behind some clouds. Combined with the light pollution from the city of Brampton and a nice long exposure, some interesting things happen. Yes, the choice of white balance when I was processing the image (from RAW) also helps :)
-Vin Singh
Bruce Peninsula Photography Workshop
International award winning photographers Alexander Rocco, Harjit Singh and myself (Vin Singh) are providing a landscape photography workshop in beautiful Bruce Peninsula. This area of Ontario is only a three hour drive from Toronto and has some beautiful waterfalls, coastlines and rock formations to photograph. We have been working hard in developing a truly unique workshop experience with a 4 to 1 student to teacher ratio. We will be providing continuous hands on training (as required) throughout the morning and evening shoots. In addition, there will be an evaluative discussion period for photographs taken on the first two shooting locations.
Some of the topics covered:
-Short and long exposure techniques
-Tilt and shift lens shooting
-Effects of ISO; Aperture and Shutter speed on images
-Wide angle photography
For more information or to register go to: http//visceral.eventbrite.com
