Montmorency Falls, originally uploaded by jezza323.
This shot was taken from a bridge over the Montmorency Falls near Quebec City in Canada.
In the distance you can see the bridge to the Ile d’Orleans. There is a neat little cable car to get up the cliff, rather than making the walk up the stairs you can see in the photo.
These shots are both 3 shot HDR’s taken at +/- 2.0EV and blended using Photomatix tone mapping
Montmorency Falls, originally uploaded by jezza323.
Here is a very old shot. I took this on my Lake Moogerah camping trip, early morning, mist rising off the lake, a few clouds about…
What more could you ask for?
This is quite harsh HDR processing, it has brought out a bit of noise, and makes the clouds seem a bit dark and threatening. Normally I don’t go for this more extreme processing, but it just seemed to work best for this image.
The shot was blended from 3 exposures taken at +/- 2.0 EV using my Pentax K200D and the old kit lens Pentax DA 18-55mm AL II (I sold this lens a while back now). The blending was done using Photomatix, tone mapping was done using the Details Enhancer method and final editing was done in Lightroom.
Niagara Falls, originally uploaded by jezza323.
A close up shot of the Horseshoe (Canadian) Falls at Niagara Falls. You can really see the power of the water here!
I went for an early morning walk on our last day (Victoria Day) while there were not too many people about. It was a beautiful clear sunny morning, but the spray was quite intense, and the harsh light made for difficult shooting conditions. I walked up to the falls, then took this shot on the way back.
This was a single exposure, taken with my Pentax K200D and Tamron 17-50mm len with a Kenko Pro-Digital CPL filter fitted. All editing (levels and tiny straighten) were done in Lightoom 3.
American Falls, originally uploaded by jezza323.
This is the American Falls at Niagara Falls, viewed from the Canadian side of the border. I took this one quite late in the evening, on an after dinner walk. I was so stuffed full of food I had to walk some of it off.
This is a 3 shot HDR, taken at +/- 2.0 EV with the Pentax K200D and Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens.
I blended the shots with Photomatix and made some final adjusts in Lightroom.
Time for a Merlot, originally uploaded by jezza323.
I took this one in the rain, on a nice Sunday spent on a Niagara Wine Tour. The tour was great, it was a small group. We visited 4 wineries, and got an accidental (free) 3 wine tasting at lunch as well!
This shot was taken at the 2nd winery we visited, Reif Estate Winery in Niagara. They had there rows neatly labelled, which compelled me to take a photo. This is a single shot, taken with my Pentax K200D and Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens at 50mm and f3.5
As you can see it was early spring and the vines were just starting to shoot for the new season. I am looking forward to going back to the Niagara On The Lake area, maybe on a bicycle and having more of a look around.
This is a shot back from my Fog chasing morning in Brisbane. I only just realised I hadn’t posted it up here!
This was my favourite photo of the day, I hope you enjoy it too.
This was taken with my Pentax K200D body, Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens. I took the shot with the exposure bias set to +2.0 EV, then took 3 exposures at +/- 2.0 EV, which meant I ended up with 0, +2 and +4 EV shots based on the camera’s inbuilt metering.
The reason for increasing the bias for this shot was because the shot was taken towards the sun, meaning the camera’s metering system would severely underexpose the foreground of the image, in an attempt to prevent the sun from blowing out too much. By altering the bias, I was able to get the detail in the foreground that I required.
I then used the LR/Enfuse plugin to Lightroom to blend the 3 exposures into the image you see here, along with a few final tweaks to the levels and cropping.
Horseshoe falls, Niagara, originally uploaded by jezza323.
I was lucky enough to be able to spend the Victoria Day long weekend down at Niagara. The weather for the weekend was great! And the falls and the parkland around them was beautiful. On Sunday I did a wine tour, and had my first ever taste of Ice Wine, followed by quite a few more tastes of Ice Wine soon after.
This shot is the Canadian Falls (Horseshoe Falls) taken from the Canadian side of the river. I took this one early on Monday morning (Victoria Day) before there were too many people around.
The amount of spray coming off the falls makes it very hard to get a good photo of it, but I think the spray in itself is a good subject, as seen here.
This is a single shot, taken with a Pentax K200D and a Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6 with a Kenko 77mm CPL filter fitted. I cropped and adjusted the levels of the image in Lightroom.
Sir Isaac Brock Memorial, originally uploaded by jezza323.
This is a memorial at Niagara for Sir Isaac Brock, killed fighting in the war of 1812 between the British (Canada) and America.
We visited here over the Victoria Day long weekend for lunch at the adjacent restaurant whilst on a Niagara region wine tour. The wines were great! Definitely try some icewine if you haven’t already.
The scenery and buildings in the area were also amazing to see. We will definitely be returning to the area soon to visit all those areas we missed this time around.
This shot is a HDR composed of 3 exposures taken at +/- 2.0 EV with the Pentax K200D and Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens. The HDR was composed using Photomatix and minor adjustments made using Lightroom 3. I took this just after finishing lunch, after a small rainstorm passed through, leaving lovely wet paths which add to the effect.
Early Morning Fog, originally uploaded by jezza323.
This is another foggy morning shot, not as much colour in this, but at least a bit of an object of interest to draw the eye.
This one was also taken with the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens on a tripod. It is 3 shots taken at +/- 2.0 EV and blended using the LR/Enfuse plugin, which is a great plugin, highly recommend you try it out. You can try it for free, but only create 500px blends, and you can get yourself a key to unlock the plugin by donating to the project.
Foggy Morning, originally uploaded by jezza323.
A while back I went for an early morning fog chase. I have been meaning to do this for some time, but generally I find myself too asleep to get to it! On this particular morning though I was keen and ready to roll bright and early. It was a great fun morning driving around taking pics all over the place. Definitely worth doing if you can find the motivation.
This shot was the first stop once the light was good enough to actually see what was around. I quickly got out the tripod, set it up and took this shot with the Tamron 17-50mm lens mounted. After this I kept the camera mounted to the tripod, and tripod legs extended, and just popped it in/out of the car at each stop.
