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waterfall

Location Scouting for Fall 2019 Workshop

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This past Monday my workshop partner David Sokol and I made a trip up to the Franconia area of New Hampshire to scout out locations for our October 2019 workshop. We visited the Inn at Sunset Hill where our workshop is located. What a great place! Judy was a welcoming face at the front desk and Dick the owner gave us a tour of this wonderful facility. We are looking forward to visiting here in the spring and fall for many years to come.

Fall Foliage Sugar Hill
The Episcopal Church in Sugar Hill, NH has a very colorful tree out front.
Turning leaves
Leaves turning color Sugar Hill NH
Foliage, hills and mist
Clouds and mist fell over the hills in Sugar Hill NH
Fall Foliage and barn
The fall foliage springs up behind a barn in Sugar Hill NH

 

After scouting around Sugar Hill we headed to Topsham Vermont. The reds and oranges were not as prominent as the yellows but they were still very vibrant. The mist and light rain put a damper on things but allowed us to shoot most of the day.

Church steeple and foliage
Groton VT church steeple during foliage season
Foliage and fence
Foliage and fence Topsham VT.

Next we shot down 302 to the Kancamagus Highway to shoot a Sabbaday waterfall which was running at a good pace. Dave had his circular polarizer and I had my 6 stop cpl dark from Breakthrough Photography. This was a bit to much for water falls at 2-3 sec of exposure but I made it work. Sabbaday Falls is a short walk from the parking lot and when the water is flowing and the leaves have turned and are lying on the rocks it can make for some great photography.

Fall foliage and waterfalls
Water rushes by fall foliage on rocks at Sabbaday Falls in NH.
Fall foliage at Sabbaday Falls
Water rushes past rocks covered in colorful leaves Sabbaday Falls, NH
Sabbaday Falls, NH
Sabbaday Falls, NH
Sabbaday Falls, NH
Sabbaday Falls, NH
Sabbaday Falls, NH
Sabbaday Falls, NH looking down the falls from up top.

All of the waterfall shots were done in the 2-3 sec range with the Breakthrough Photography new magnetic holder system which I will be doing a review on when I have used it more. It was pretty easy to use and the results were great. The color is spot on and the circular polarizer (CPL) worked great. Taking the sheen off the rocks was just enough to make these images special. Please join David and I next year for our Fall Foliage and Waterfall Workshop in Sugar Hill, NH.

 

 

 

 

 

Canon G15 for Travel

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So you think you can’t make great travel photos with a point and shoot! You are dead wrong. I have an older Canon P&S the G15. I love it. Yes the sensor is small and it’s only 12 mp but it sure does a great job. Here is the story behind this photo. I was having my car worked on in Ipswich so I decided to go for a little hike down to the Ipswich River to see if there was any water in it. Along the way I made some shots with the G15 and a circular polarizer that I have for it. Instead of using the Canon filter adapter for the G15 I use the Mag Filter adapter which allows me to easily attach the polarizer. When I got to the river and discovered the gorgeous morning light cast the waterfall area in complete shadow, I was a little disappointed. But being a photographer, I know I must be able to solve problems. The EBSCO building was in beautiful sunlight and was throwing a great reflection on the river with some nice warm light. I wanted to capture that but I also wanted the foreground and the small waterfall. A nice blue sky would help but it was kind of a weak blue.

ebsco-1

The difference between the foreground and the background was at least four stops. So I had to compromise. I overexposed the background by about a half a stop without blowing out the highlights. This would make the file workable in Lightroom. The next problem was the waterfall. I wanted it to have a more silky look to it than the exposure was calling for. At 1/25th of a sec it looks kind of weird. I really wanted something around 5 sec. but I didn’t have an ND filter with me. Lucky that the camera has one built in! So I was able to slow the water down to 1/4 sec which is much better. Then I needed to make the sky nice and dark blue so I put the polarizer on which also takes a stop worth of light away. So the exposure is now down to 1/4 sec @ f 8 @ ISO 80. This is workable – well kind of. The problem now is that it’s a slow shutter speed that I can’t hand hold even resting it on something. I brought my little Gorilla Pod with me to steady it up just a bit by wrapping it around the top of the safety fence on the bridge. Oops I forgot my cable release, now what do I do. I searched for a bit in the function set menu and found the timer function and set it to 10 sec. This was to account for the vibrations of me pushing the shutter button. With all the problems solved I was able to get a nice image I can work with since it was made in raw format in adobe rgb. When I pulled it into Lightroom I had a nice easy file to work with. I used the gradient tool to lighten the foreground and warm it up a little and that was about it. Another successful photo with the Canon G15!