Walk to the Marina - Ricoh GRII

After my workout at the gym, I decided to enjoy some of the remaining days of summer by walking to the Marina. Since I just had my gym bag with me, I packed my Ricoh GRII in it. Little did I know, the battery inside of it was almost dead, and the extra one, was also quite low too. Regardless, I just made sure to conserve power as much as I could.

I don’t use this camera enough, because each time I do, I’m amazed (not surprised) by the pure fun and image quality it produces. Admittedly, the focal length of 28mm isn’t my favourite, but it forces me out of my comfort zone. Actually, I just invested in a used medium format camera and the first lens I got is around a 28mm equivalent in 35mm so there you go.

Overall, it was a great walk, and I just took my time and captured whatever caught me eye. I ended up at the Marina just before sunset. There was some beautiful lighting and even after the sun set, I came away with a few keepers. I’m very much looking forward to using this little powerhouse of a camera more soon.

Chippewa Park with the Canon EOS R

I woke up this morning, looked out the window, and saw fog. Lots and lots of fog. I then proceeded to get dressed and washed up as fast as I could and catch it before it went away. I really wish I got up earlier but what can you do. As a photographer, I don’t think I’m alone in saying that foggy weather is among the best types of days to get out and explore. So I grabbed my somewhat new Canon EOS R and 85mm 1.8 along with a little Manfrotto tripod and nifty 50 lens and set off for the day.

I have actually been meaning to do a review of the Canon R but I just haven’t had time to do so. I already have at least 5 or 6 blog posts in queue prior to today, so hopefully I can catch up on those soon. Regardless, I’ll just say that it is such an extremely fun camera to use. Not just for personal photography like you see here, but also professional work which I will be sharing in the coming weeks.

The challenge with foggy days is actually deciding where to go, and rather quickly. Fog can go away at any moment so I didn’t know how much time I had. My first destination was obviously Starbucks to get some nourishment and coffee. Then it was off to Kam Park, which will follow this post. The second stop was Chippewa Park. I was just going there to see how the lake looked and maybe walk out to the boardwalk and some of the trails. I was so happy to see that all the rides were set up, although not functioning yet. That included the merry go round which is still looking for community support to keep going.

I spent about 20 minutes just walking around the very small amusement park capturing some of the details . The Canon R and it’s lovely flipout screen are just so perfect to use. I was able to get angles that I just simply couldn’t get before. My Nikon D750 has one, but it’s a bit slow and only goes up and down. Luckily, it was still extremely foggy there so the lighting was absolutely perfect.

For the entire day I actually used the 85mm lens which is one of my all time favourites. It’s relatively compact and beautifully separates the background. Unless doing landscapes, I’m always between 1.8 and 2.2 aperture. Once I was done in the amusement park, I headed down towards the lake and along the trail that goes out to the lookout point. At the end of the path there are a bunch of rocks which I have walked out onto many times. Well, today, I slipped and fell through two rocks and banged up my shin. It all happened an instant and what amazed me was that I held my camera high up above me and only managed to slightly bang it on the rock. I was embarrassed that I fell but proud that I managed to save the camera!

As I stumbled back down the path in quite a bit of pain I continued to take photos as the pain slightly went away. If anyone was listening to me they would have laughed. In between swear words and audible grunts, I was still commenting on compositions as I photographed.

As I saw the fog dissipating, I made my way towards the cabins and managed to capture a few more photos. It was such a fun and spontaneous day and I’m glad I was able to take some photos in my favourite type of weather. Thanks for stopping by!

Thunder Bay Marina in the Evening with the Fuji X100F

I have a few cameras, probably more then I really need but that is normal for a lot of photographers I think. It doesn't help that I constantly look at new cameras online and dream and contemplate. This means that certain cameras might not get used as much as others. Up until a few days ago, this was the case with my Fuji X100F. It kind of got pushed to the side for a while because of my Sony A6300 which I have been doing a lot of video with and also because I have been working full time which has eaten into my personal photography time. 

I had the original X100, then the X100S and now the X100F which is such an amazing little camera. Actually, looking back at some of my favourite photos over the years, and a lot of them have come from one of those cameras. So, over the past week I have been carrying it with me more and I soon remembered why I love this camera so much. It's fun to use. Oh, and it still has the best colours and tones, even on par with my pro Nikons. 

This evening, after I dropped my wife Anne off at her friends house, I decided to burn off those dinner calories with a walk around part of the marina and downtown. The sun was on it's way down so the lighting was perfect. As I do with most of my personal photography, I simply captured anything that caught my eye. There is no real theme to these photos, I save that for my professional work. Instead, these are simply little moments in time that I saw and captured during my random walk. 

They were all taken with the X100F and processed in Lightroom. The black and white images were edited further in Silver Effex Pro 2, which is my favourite program for converting black and white. It's hard not to just do every photo in black and white.... 

If anyone actually reads these posts, thanks for stopping by!

Looking for Deers at Mission Marsh

I decided to make a trip down to one of my favourite places to take photos, the Mission Marsh. My ultimate goal was to try and get some photos of the deers that frequent the area. I did end up getting a couple keepers but I also had the chance to explore and capture some other great images as well.

On my way to the marsh, I drove down the usual dirt road that the deers can you usually be found, but didn't really see any initially. So I headed directly to the marsh and as soon as I arrived I focused on photos of the Sleeping Giant. It was a slightly overcast day which meant for some nice even lighting. The Giant was a nice deep blue colour and Lake Superior was almost all thawed, with small sections of ice. After I got the usual shot from the parking lot, I noticed some geese more towards the Mount McKay view so I trekked through the bush and managed to get a good vantage point.

I ended up bringing along my Fuji X-Pro2 and the 90mm 2.0. Because I had a long reach with the end, I was able to capture a decently close up shot of the two geese perched on the ice. From there, walked around the marsh a bit, and eventually made my way back towards where the deer hopefully were. I made a few stops along the way and took photos of things that caught my eye. 

Once I got back to the dirt roads where the deer were, I found a bunch grazing on the side of the road. I parked slowly on the side of the road and cautiously approached a younger deer, hoping not to scare it away. I was able to get a couple really good shots of him alone before he ran back to his parents. After that, they hid back in the forest and that was that. 

I decided to walk around the area a bit and see what I could find. There are actually lots of hidden gems in the area if you are willing to look. There is a couple old cars, and a lot of great textures. Before heading back to town, I decided to park my car and explore the train bridge a bit, something I had never done before. 

I figured I should start making my way back, but as usually, I stopped a couple more times along the way. I spotted a couple vocal geese on the train tracks. I couldn't get too close but I did get one photo I liked of the two them. There were also some pretty over grown stairs that caught my eye too.

After a few more photos on the edge of east end and one of a single grain elevator, I was done. 

Mission Marsh in November

This will just be a short post but I wanted to share some photos I took on a cold November morning out at Mission Marsh. I noticed while driving how the lake looked so I immediately grabbed my camera and headed out to a good open area with a good view of the Sleeping Giant and Lake Superior. For these photos I used my Fuji X-T1 and my wide angle 16mm lens. 

I also stopped on the way back to see if there were any deer lurking around and there were about 7 of them. I didn't have my zoom lens so I made due with what I had. I included one of the photos here. Then I finished off with a couple photos of the city from the bridge leading back to Fort William Road. 

View from Hillcrest at Sunset

It has a been a very long time since I have been able to get up to Hillcrest Park and get some sunset photos. Well, I finally got a chance to spend some time doing that very thing. I arrived at Hillcrest Park about 30 minutes before sunset. I absolutely love this time of day as everything gets a nice orange glow, and there are still some soft shadows among the buildings in this case. 

Admittedly, there aren't too many views from Hillcrest, with only a few being completely unobstructed. I managed to get a bit creative with some of the photos using the foreground to lead into the composition. I also converted some to black and white, well, because I love black and white. 

As usual I used the Nikon D610 paired with the 85mm 1.8. I find that lens gives that nice compression and offers a fairly wide enough angle for what I needed. I will eventually go back and see how it looks using my old 20mm 2.8. 

I am by no means an expert landscape photographer but the way I take photos like this is by focusing about 1/3 of the way into the scene and using an aperture of about F8 - F10. These are all handheld too, as I didn't feel like lugging around my tripod. As for processing, I used some VSCO filters with my own flair, then brought them all in my RAW sharpener program. Then, for the colour images I used Nik Vivesa to add just a bit warmth and Nik SilverEffex Pro 2 to enhance the black and white images.

As you can see they are all still kind a bit of muted and not too saturated. This is just personal preference. My next project is to actually get out and do a time lapse with the setting (or maybe rising) sun. Until then.