Ropes and cameras?

Well, I leave a rope in my backpack now, just in case I need to climb down a snowy slope, which is what I did last Saturday. Bring it along anywhere you go in the winter. It is useful.

Close up and up close

Get up close for the close up shot when your lens is not powerful enough to stand a few metres away to get a close up shot. Swans are the perfect subjects for these photos. This swan was just a couple of feet from my camera.

It was too bad the sun was not to my right. Otherwise, I would have been able to capture the glimmer in their eyes.

These photos were taken today in a park in Toronto.

Hiking through the snow, part 2

My battle with snow continues. Yesterday, I decided to use my leather casual shoes that I weat to work for my hike. It has a thicker sole than my winter boots and is probably warmer too. The only downside I figured was that I would get plenty of snow in my socks if I were to walk in deep snow. Well, I did not have to walk in deep snow fortunately, except for a couple of times. While no snow got into my shoes or socks, I was standing in the snow long enough that my shoes started to get wet. Lo and behold, I started feeling the dampness of it.

It makes a world of a difference when your feet are dry and warm versus wet and cold. You would enjoy the hike and taking photographs much more.

So, I do not have any footwear suitable for hiking in a wet environment but before my next excursion, I will get a new pair of winter hiking boots, possibly those ones below from Sears.

LCD, bright, but not bright enough

The Nikon D80 LCD is wide and bright. It is absolutely a delight to be able to review a photo on a big LCD display. Brightness is also good -- the brighter it is, the clearer the image will be on a bright sunny day. However, when it comes to sun and snow, there is little to overpower the reflective power of snow. I could barely see anything when shooting photos this morning at Webster's Falls or I would have seen the sun glare in the photo in the previous article. Well, it could also be that the snow blinded me.

Another thing to check

Well, here is another thing to check for before taking a picture.

First, there are the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO speed. The combination of these three settings define your exposure in a given light condition.

Then, there is the composition or framing of your photo. Your artistic sense will define this.

And then, there is the front lens element or the filter. I was shooting the waterfall from 20-30 metres away and at times you can get a fair amount of the sprinkles on you, and therefore, on the camera as well. After some sprinkling, I forgot to wipe my filter dry before taking some more shots. I wasted a number of shots, just like this one here.

Here the sun is to my upper left. I did not fit the lens hood on so there is a bit of a sun glare, but with the water droplets on my lens filter, the glare was ever more apparent.

Darn it. Another thing to check.

Get up close

Sometimes, it's about getting up close, and not getting the close-up shots, to give the perspective of its real size. I was about 30-35m from the fall. This is Webster's Fall in Hamilton, ON. It is tiny compared to Niagara Falls but standing beside it, you can feel the full force of nature.

For this shot, I set the aperture to f/16 to get enough depth for me to appear somewhat sharp in the picture, and set the shutter release delay to 20 seconds, just enough time for me to gingerly trot over to that place I stood.

Always shoot with the best lens?

I should take a look at the lens specifications of the Tokina 80-400mm lens. I took a picture of the lunar eclipse last night but it was a little fuzzy. I wondered how the picture would turn out had I used my 18-200mm lens. The moon would be a quarter the size of this picture but if it were zoomed in, would the details be sharper or just as fuzzy.

For this shot, I mounted the lens on the tripod and used a 2-sec shutter release delay. I forgot to use the other 0.45-sec capture delay mode. The ISO speed was set at 800 (mistake I made), aperture set at f/5.6 at 400mm, and shutter speed at 1/3 secs.

Compare the photo above with the full moon I shot in Frisco, TX over the xmas holidays: moon from Texas