Sunrise at Abraham Lake

During my trip to David Thompson country in Alberta, west of Rocky Mountain House, I got up early in the morning and drove to Windy Point, on Abraham Lake. I have photographed at this location several times, usually with a strong wind at my back. This location is called Windy Point for a reason, and it is not unusual to have to brave a 50 - 60 km/hr west wind, as it funnels down the lake. But this morning it was very still, although the first sign of a ripple was evident in the water. I shot this on a tripod, with my Leica M9, through my 90 mm Summarit lens. This lens doesn't get much publicity, and it can be challenging to shoot with wide open, due to its narrow in focus range at f2.5, but it is extremely sharp. Here I shot it at f16, giving me a greater depth of field, but necessitating a slower shutter speed, and the use of a tripod. The sun had not yet risen above the horizon, but the sky was illuminated nicely with golden rays. Images like this can only be taken early in the day, or later in the evening. Some of the nicest shots can be taken well after the sun sets, or well before it rises.

This week I made a quick trip to David Thompson country, near Abraham Lake in Alberta, Canada. I hadn't been there with my camera for some time. I arrived early in the evening, just as the sun was setting, and made my way to the Bighorn River, above Crescent waterfall. I took this shot just after the sun was below the horizon, with my new Summicron 25 mm lens on my Leica M9. There was quite a bit of contrast between the trees and the sky, and I was a bit worried that I would not be able to capture the complete spectrum of light, but my histogram on the camera showed that I did capture it all. The picture that resulted straight out of the camera did display the sharp contrast that the LCD  showed. I used a very useful tool in Photoshop called Shadows/highlights, and it allowed my to cut down the contrast very nicely, yet still maintain the complete spectrum of tones available. The shot was taken as a DNG file, and this kind of file captures much more information than a jpeg does. As a result, the file is quite large, but that is manageable. A few other adjustments brought out the wonderful colours that were captured, and the result is what we see here. I hadn't taken a colour landscape for some time, and thoroughly enjoyed getting back into it again. I will post some more images from the same trip in the coming days.

28 mm Summicron F2

Got a new Leica lens: a 28 mm Summicron F2. The shot above was taken late in the evening during a full moon. This doesn't really highlight the great characteristics of this lens, but I couldn't wait to put it up. The shot exhibits a kind of sinister feeling that is determined by the pose of my dog Max. Night shots give quite different feelings that those taken during daylight, and I think it might be fun to explore this a bit.

The 28 mm Summicron  has a very good reputation as a reportage lens. It is a favourite of street photographers and journalist photographers as well. This is an area that I have not explored in any great detail, but I do like to photograph the streets in major cities like Toronto, and recently in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia shots were taken with my 50 mm Summicron.