King of the CastleAside from tearing around on motorcycles in Ontario, I traveled to Fernie, BC. where I was presenting some LiDAR research at the Spatial Knowledge and Information Canada conference. Fernie, for those who may not know, is a small town pretty much in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. The view in all directions is simply stunning.
HomeI arrived a few days early so that I could learn how to snowboard (when in Rome....) and so that I could get a chance to snap a few images here and there (the snowboarding was good. I got covered in bruises but triumphed in the end).
All of my images from the trip I took from three basic outings. One, the drive into fernie from Calgary. Two, out and about the town (to and fro getting beer). Lastly, I borrowed a friend's 4x4 Pathfinder and went about getting lost.
The Road to Paradise
Reeling in the Beauty
The drive in yielded a few images that I'm happy with, however shooting through chipped windshields is no way to conduct landscape photography, thus few good results. Still, it was a good way to get the "take a picture of everything you see" bug out of me. I think I shot close to 200 photos in three hours.... that's just over two photos a minute, on average.
However if you must take pictures through a car window, here is some advice. Either you can use a high depth of field to make sure that the landscape is in good focus and then clone/heal the crap out of the image or you can use a decently low f-stop (f/5 maybe) and focus carefully. One problem using a low f-stop is that the camera will have trouble knowing whether to focus on the windshield or the landscape in the distance. I'm becoming a really big fan of using single point focus lately, so if this is how you are planning on focusing just make sure that you try and get AF working correctly in a car you pre-focus away from any spots on the windscreen. You will get some spots in your pictures, but hopefully not too many, and they should be easily cloned.
Goodnight, Fernie
Out and about the Town.
When visiting Fernie, its pretty hard to believe that those who live there can take the mountains for granted. Looking around and seeing houses with mountains in the backyard it kind of boggles the mind. I wish I could live in that paradise. The town itself is very simple, one highway with a few hotels along it and tucked away off the main highway is the historic town and main street. I recommend trying out some of the local flavors, such as the wonderful bakery Freshies (good coffee, and fatastic foods).
Mundane Shopping Trip
One of the best parts of visiting the rockies is the ability to search out little known roads, and climb high into the picturesque scenery. My first attempt to find these roads was to reach out to the Luminous Landscape forums, a place where landscape photographers all around the world come together. Secondly, I went to Google Maps to try and find some good looking roads. Finding the Hatley Trail Road I went for it.
Hatley Trail Road is marked as a through road, however I would caution that this road is not a winter destination. At the apparent top of the hill (when I say hill... I mean mountain), there was a parking lot where it appeared that the non off road vehicles were parked. Being in a 4x4 Pathfinder with super-low drive for uber traction, I decided to go onwards. Bad Idea.
Stuck!
Being stuck halfway up a mountain with no cell service (poor planning!), I decided to trek back down the road to wherever I could get service and a tow. On my way back down, I spotted a cabin that looked as if it had had traffic in and out of it recently, so I decided to try my luck and see if anyone was home.
I couldn't have found a more helpful person. I met a wonderful New Zealander who had moved to Canada to ski a few years ago and was having a baby soon. She invited me in, fed me home made cookies and specialty tea and called me a tow truck! I can't say enough about the hospitality out in the Rockies, everyone I met was completely friendly and trusting. After a while of chatting, I figured that the tow truck had arrived and I went off to see if we were going to be able to get out of the muck.
TJ's Towing had arrived on the scene before I arrived and TJ himself had already hooked up the pathfinder and was preparing to get me out. I gave him a hand with his winch and before too long the truck was free and I followed him back down the trail and paid him. All-in-all it was an expensive misadventrure, but I managed to talk with some very nice people becasue of it. I asked TJ if there were any better roads to explore and he told me about the River Road Extension, which turned out to be the most productive location that I visited.
Golden Light
Fernie River Road Extension.
Following TJ's advice, I went up to the river road extension, which is an active logging road, and was greeted by this magnificent sign.
Extreme Caution
After driving a fair way up the mountain, I got to a point where TJ had told me the road falls apart at and after the previous expense I decided to take his advice to park the car and hike the rest of the way up the mountain.
Red Cabin
Boy was I glad that I did, I had the most productive photography session of the trip there. I took a number of photos there that I am quite happy with. As the light started to fade, however, I took a look around and realized that I was on top of a mountain that I didn't know anything about in adverse conditions and on a dangerous road. Unfortunately, I had to make the choice to leave during the best light of the day. Next time I go out, I will bring a friend and plan a bit further ahead.
Green Valley Skylight
Equipment
To capture the amazing scenery and light available to me I chose to use everything that I had available. My 30D had either my EF 28-135 (stopped down, this lens is great) or my EF 70-200L with a Circular Polarizer. I used my super light tripod, and this adventure showed me that for serious landscape work, I need to use a much heavier tripod. the legs of the tripod would bend and bow out as I plunged it into the snow, and it was quite ineffective for this use. Next time I will bring a better tripod. The large scene images that I made there made me wish I had the new 5DMkII, with its blinding resolution, wide dynamic range and fantastic ISO performance.
My Setup
The Group Shot
One of the last tasks I had for the week was to take a picture of the group that presented at the conference. The shot was taken in the conference room and the lighting was a mix of incadescent and flourescent lights. I used my widest lens, and bounced some flash sight (580EXII) into the crowd with my bounce card out to add more fill to the image. To fix the issues of lighting I white balanced the image in post. since there was only one lighting zone in the image, the mixed lighting sources were not an issue.
Spatial Knowledge and Information Canada, 2008
Final Thoughts (thanks Jerry...)
The trip was fantastic - I went out west, climbed a few mountains, learned how to snowboard took a few pictures... oh yeah and I went to a conference :) I learned the value of gaining local knowledge and the role that caring and giving people can play. Sometimes we need to guard ourselves, and other times we need to trust perfect strangers (but don't go teaching that to the young-uns!).
Thanks Fernie!
All of my images from the trip I took from three basic outings. One, the drive into fernie from Calgary. Two, out and about the town (to and fro getting beer). Lastly, I borrowed a friend's 4x4 Pathfinder and went about getting lost.
The Road to Paradise
Reeling in the BeautyThe drive in yielded a few images that I'm happy with, however shooting through chipped windshields is no way to conduct landscape photography, thus few good results. Still, it was a good way to get the "take a picture of everything you see" bug out of me. I think I shot close to 200 photos in three hours.... that's just over two photos a minute, on average.
However if you must take pictures through a car window, here is some advice. Either you can use a high depth of field to make sure that the landscape is in good focus and then clone/heal the crap out of the image or you can use a decently low f-stop (f/5 maybe) and focus carefully. One problem using a low f-stop is that the camera will have trouble knowing whether to focus on the windshield or the landscape in the distance. I'm becoming a really big fan of using single point focus lately, so if this is how you are planning on focusing just make sure that you try and get AF working correctly in a car you pre-focus away from any spots on the windscreen. You will get some spots in your pictures, but hopefully not too many, and they should be easily cloned.
Goodnight, FernieOut and about the Town.
When visiting Fernie, its pretty hard to believe that those who live there can take the mountains for granted. Looking around and seeing houses with mountains in the backyard it kind of boggles the mind. I wish I could live in that paradise. The town itself is very simple, one highway with a few hotels along it and tucked away off the main highway is the historic town and main street. I recommend trying out some of the local flavors, such as the wonderful bakery Freshies (good coffee, and fatastic foods).
Mundane Shopping TripOne of the best parts of visiting the rockies is the ability to search out little known roads, and climb high into the picturesque scenery. My first attempt to find these roads was to reach out to the Luminous Landscape forums, a place where landscape photographers all around the world come together. Secondly, I went to Google Maps to try and find some good looking roads. Finding the Hatley Trail Road I went for it.
Hatley Trail Road is marked as a through road, however I would caution that this road is not a winter destination. At the apparent top of the hill (when I say hill... I mean mountain), there was a parking lot where it appeared that the non off road vehicles were parked. Being in a 4x4 Pathfinder with super-low drive for uber traction, I decided to go onwards. Bad Idea.
Stuck!Being stuck halfway up a mountain with no cell service (poor planning!), I decided to trek back down the road to wherever I could get service and a tow. On my way back down, I spotted a cabin that looked as if it had had traffic in and out of it recently, so I decided to try my luck and see if anyone was home.
I couldn't have found a more helpful person. I met a wonderful New Zealander who had moved to Canada to ski a few years ago and was having a baby soon. She invited me in, fed me home made cookies and specialty tea and called me a tow truck! I can't say enough about the hospitality out in the Rockies, everyone I met was completely friendly and trusting. After a while of chatting, I figured that the tow truck had arrived and I went off to see if we were going to be able to get out of the muck.
TJ's Towing had arrived on the scene before I arrived and TJ himself had already hooked up the pathfinder and was preparing to get me out. I gave him a hand with his winch and before too long the truck was free and I followed him back down the trail and paid him. All-in-all it was an expensive misadventrure, but I managed to talk with some very nice people becasue of it. I asked TJ if there were any better roads to explore and he told me about the River Road Extension, which turned out to be the most productive location that I visited.
Golden LightFernie River Road Extension.
Following TJ's advice, I went up to the river road extension, which is an active logging road, and was greeted by this magnificent sign.
Extreme CautionAfter driving a fair way up the mountain, I got to a point where TJ had told me the road falls apart at and after the previous expense I decided to take his advice to park the car and hike the rest of the way up the mountain.
Red CabinBoy was I glad that I did, I had the most productive photography session of the trip there. I took a number of photos there that I am quite happy with. As the light started to fade, however, I took a look around and realized that I was on top of a mountain that I didn't know anything about in adverse conditions and on a dangerous road. Unfortunately, I had to make the choice to leave during the best light of the day. Next time I go out, I will bring a friend and plan a bit further ahead.
Green Valley SkylightEquipment
To capture the amazing scenery and light available to me I chose to use everything that I had available. My 30D had either my EF 28-135 (stopped down, this lens is great) or my EF 70-200L with a Circular Polarizer. I used my super light tripod, and this adventure showed me that for serious landscape work, I need to use a much heavier tripod. the legs of the tripod would bend and bow out as I plunged it into the snow, and it was quite ineffective for this use. Next time I will bring a better tripod. The large scene images that I made there made me wish I had the new 5DMkII, with its blinding resolution, wide dynamic range and fantastic ISO performance.
My SetupThe Group Shot
One of the last tasks I had for the week was to take a picture of the group that presented at the conference. The shot was taken in the conference room and the lighting was a mix of incadescent and flourescent lights. I used my widest lens, and bounced some flash sight (580EXII) into the crowd with my bounce card out to add more fill to the image. To fix the issues of lighting I white balanced the image in post. since there was only one lighting zone in the image, the mixed lighting sources were not an issue.
Spatial Knowledge and Information Canada, 2008Final Thoughts (thanks Jerry...)
The trip was fantastic - I went out west, climbed a few mountains, learned how to snowboard took a few pictures... oh yeah and I went to a conference :) I learned the value of gaining local knowledge and the role that caring and giving people can play. Sometimes we need to guard ourselves, and other times we need to trust perfect strangers (but don't go teaching that to the young-uns!).
Thanks Fernie!
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