Grand Canyon Grey Day

This is a favourite of mine, even though the light was not the greatest when I took the shot. The time was late afternoon, the sun was nearing the horizon, and it was windy and cold. The location was Lipan outlook, at the eastern end of Desert View Drive, Grand Canyon. It's a great viewpoint, and not very many tourists usually go here. The road entering the viewpoint climbs up to a high location. I was able to extract a lot of colour out of the grey cliffs and clouds, using photoshop. The original raw file was quite dark, and did not show a lot of colour. This is one benefit of using photoshop, and also of knowing how to use it. The raw file directly out of the camera would normally be discarded by the camera novice, due to its dark appearance. I prefer low light images over the bright sunny day images that some seem to prefer. Even though the image may appear dark at first glance, with a little effort and know how, a reasonable image may be extracted.

Mono Lake California

I recently took a trip to the US southwest, travelling between Arizona, Nevada, and California. I flew into Vegas, and drove through Death Valley to Lone Pine, California, Bishop California, and then to Lee Vining California, where the site of this photo was taken. This is Mono Lake, a very popular site for photography, as witnessed by the large number of photographers present. Mono Lake is a very interesting phenomena, as it is a saline soda lake, with no outlet to the Pacific Ocean. It is also believed to be one of the oldest lakes in the United Staes. Calcite deposits, called tufas,  are present at the shoreline, which create the interesting shapes that people like to photograph. The colours range from pure white, to grey, and depending on the light, yellow or red. In the late afternoon and evening, the colours tend to range in the reddish spectrum. The footing can be a little challenging, as the calcite deposits are very hard, and can be sharp as well. There are paths in and around the deposits, and it is discouraged to climb onto the tufas. Very interesting colours can be created by the setting sun, and one can take photos well after sunset. This shot was taken in late afternoon, shortly after I arrived.

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.

25 mm Zeiss on M9

I love shooting black and white with my Leica M9. I've almost given up shooting colour, but I guess its just a personal choice. Maybe it stems from my Monochrome days when I was still shooting film. Here I was shooting in the shadows on a very sunny day. So there naturally was a lot of contrast. Being a 25 mm wide angle lens, it naturally projects a fairly deep depth of field, even at wide open. The aperture was set at F4.0, so good depth resulted. But had I been shooting with say, a 50 mm lens, with the same aperture, the depth of field would have been shallower. And had I taken the picture with a 90 mm at F 4.0, the depth of field would have been even more shallow. This is the way lenses work. Many point and shoot cameras do not project nice Bokeh, which results from out of focus background when shooting wide open. These point and shoot cameras do not have the wide aperture option that a prime lens on a DSLR or rangefinder camera permits, nor the quality of glass. But they can take nice landscape pictures. The subject matter in the above shot needs a greater depth of field, and that is why wide angle lenses are a good choice for landscape photography.

My Favourite Camera and Lens

The Leica 50 mm Summicron-M lens and the Leica M9 camera are a wonderful combination. A pleasing characteristic of Leica lenses is the Bokeh, which is a pleasing out of focus background obtained when shooting with the lens wide open. This shot was taken at the Ontario Art Gallery, and the subject is my wife. One of my favourite photographers is Thorsten Overgaard, and he uses Leica cameras for most of his professional work, and usually with the M9. He always shoots with the aperture wide open. Leica lenses are designed to be used this way. I love this camera and have almost totally replaced my Nikon D700 with this camera. The M9 is light, it feels very comfortable in my hands, and is not overly obvious to unsuspecting subjects. My Nikon is quite a bit heavier than my Leica, and would be very obvious when shooting people in public places. I can take my Leica with me everywhere, without it becoming a burden. I have also started using it for my landscape work. Of course one drawback of the Leica cameras and lenses is affordability, since they are quite expensive. But once you own one, and get used to using it, you never want to go back.