Category Archives: Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6

Montmorency Falls

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.

Basilica Sainte Anne de Beaupre

Basilica Sainte Anne de Beaupre, originally uploaded by jezza323.

During our trip to Quebec city we also hopped on a great bus tour which took outside the city, to the Ile d’Orleans, Montmorency waterfall and the Basilica Sainte Anne de Beaupre. Here are a few shots from the Basilica.

The first is a 3 shot HDR, you can see some of the great fall colours off to the left of the Basilica

The 2nd is a look inside, also a 3 shot HDR. As you can see its quite a stunning building.

Basilica Sainte Anne de Beaupre, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Cathedral Notre Dame, Quebec City

Cathedral Notre Dame, Quebec City, originally uploaded by jezza323.

These are a couple of shots from inside the Cathedral Notre Dame in Quebec City, which is the head of the Catholic Church across all of Canada. You can read some of the Cathedral’s history here on wikipedia

It is a very unassuming building from the outside, but the inside is quite spectacular. We ended up visiting here a couple of times. We happened by it ourselves whilst wandering the streets, and the following day we did a guided walking tour which also stopped in at the Cathedral. Take note of the lovely sky painted on the ceiling. It was very overcast and rainy both times we were inside so it was good to see a little blue sky somewhere.

Cathedral Notre Dame Quebec, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Both shots here were done handheld with my Pentax K200D and Sigma 10-20mm, at ISO1600 (highest my old body goes!) and are 3 exposure HDR’s taken at +/- 2.0 EV. The noise reduction in Photomatix, which I used for blending, seems to have done a great job on the noise. The noise is still quite noticeable in the full size images though. I used Tone Mapping with the Enhancer method in both cases to generate the final image.

Enjoy!

Welcome to Old Quebec City

Quebec City Gate, originally uploaded by jezza323.

In October I was lucky enough to take a trip to Quebec city. The old city is amazing, and totally worth a visit.

I spent 4 days there, but could have happily stayed for longer. The food was good, the people friendly, and the city was beautiful.

This is 1 of the remaining gates in the old city wall. It was opened up for the roadway in the 1800′s.

I will be posting more shots from the city over the next few days. For now, here is 1 more!

Quebec City, Canada, originally uploaded by jezza323.

City Hall, Toronto

City Hall, Toronto, originally uploaded by jezza323.

This was taken on one of my first walks home after work in September after we moved from High Park into downtown. It was a great evening, the clouds were amazing so I stopped and took a few shots. This is Toronto City hall with Nathan Phillips in front.

There was a group laying on the ground covered in bread trying to get the birds to eat it off them (they seemed quite worried about the birds though!). I’m not sure what the point of it all was though.

City Hall, Toronto, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Both shots are 3 exposure HDR’s taken at +/- 2.0 EV with my Pentax K200D and Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6 lens. Blended using Photomatix with final editing in Lightroom.

Porsche GT3 RS

Porsche GT3 RS, originally uploaded by jezza323.

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Another nice car from the Yorkville Exotic Car Show on Sunday. This Porsche GT3 RS certainly was eye catching, the Ice White combined with the bright orange/red of the highlights made it easy to spot. It also had an interesting numberplate, as you seen in another shot I took here. Makes you wonder if the owner has taken the car there?

NRDSCHLF, originally uploaded by jezza323.

As per the previous shot posted, the lighting was harsh, and the crowds were immense. The best way I found to get around the crowds was to get right up against the barriers with the wide angle lens to capture the cars without people all over the shot. To help with the lighting I used lightroom and bumped up the fill light quite a lot to bring out the detail in the shadows.

Enjoy!

Porsche 356 Carrera

 

Porsche 356 Carrera, originally uploaded by jezza323.

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Yorkville Exotic Car Show

I went for a wander down to the Yorkville Exotic Car show yesterday, and the Porsche club had this beautiful Porsche 356 on display. It is clearly very well looked after, but not babied, with a number of historic rally participation stickers adorning its window and front bumper. The only things this car was missing are chrome bumpers and the chrome hubcaps. I am pretty confident that the owner would have these parts tucked away safely, they wouldn’t be worth risking in motorsport events.

Hard to Get a Good Angle in Good Light

It was so busy, with so many people there to see the cars. The only way I could get reasonable shots of the cars without people in the way was to get right up against the ropes, and use my wide angle Sigma 10-20mm lens at the wider zooms. It was also very bright, which made for some harsh lighting and shadows, but a big bump in “Fill Light” in Lightroom has helped balance out the lighting without introducing too much noise.

Thanks!

Big thanks to the owner of this car for putting it on show, it was great to see it. And congratulations on a magnificent Porsche as well!

Yonge St, Toronto

Yonge St, Toronto, originally uploaded by jezza323.

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Seeing Toronto

This is from when I first arrived in Toronto. My wife and I got ourselves a CityPass which allows you entry into the most popular attractions in the city at a reduced cost. I can highly recommend the CityPass, as you save an awful lot over paying the individual entry fees. One of the places a Toronto CityPass will get you into is CN Tower. The viewing area there gives an amazing outlook over the city, Lake Ontario and the islands.

The View

This is a shot looking North from the tower over the Toronto Entertainment District, with the Financial District on the right, and the line of building’s stretching towards the horizon is Yonge St. I had originally posted this shot to flickr in colour, but about 3 weeks later I was reviewing all the photos I had taken since we arrived, and decided to give black and white a try. I made a virtual copy in Lightroom, converted to black and white then adjusted the levels somewhat to come up with this image. I think it works much better than the colour version.

In Colour

Yonge St from above

Osgoode Hall

Osgoode Hall B&W, originally uploaded by jezza323.

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Doors Open

This photo shows Osgoode Hall and was taken during Doors Open Toronto. Osgoode Hall is found on the corner of University Av and Queen St West in downtown Toronto. This previous post is from inside the Great Library of this building.

Colour or Black & White?

I originally posted this shot to Flickr in colour, but looking at later I realized it would probably work even better in black & white. I think it does, what do you think? Black & White or Colour?

Photo Details

The photo is a single exposure, taken with my Pentax K200D and Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6 lens at full wide 10mm. The only editing was levels and cropping in Lightroom.

Horseshoe falls, Niagara

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.