St. Lawrence and Union

Today was a 'I'll take my camera to work today because I have errands to run and I might have some time to shoot' that turned into 'I don't have time to run errands because I have to shoot' day. I had fun, but I missed having a tripod on hand for some shots.

I went to the St. Lawrence to take photos, but the priority was lunch! Half and half ravioli with meat sauce and cheese, $8-ish.

When I realized my 35mm (52-ish mm on my DX camera), wasn't wide enough to do the kinds of shots I had in my head, I focused on smaller subjects instead. And in the case of this stack of bacon, by 'small' I mean 'really freaking huge and super awesome looking'.

I basically drool constantly while in the market.

Good inspiration for color photos!

Some random people, doing random market things...

Picnic symmetry.

This is one of the many narrow, rabbit warren hallways where I work.

An old and foreboding-looking church I didn't shoot due to the foreboding locals.

I've been wanting to take photographs inside union station for years, and while the 35mm wasn't wide enough for most of what I wanted to do, I had some success focusing on the details.

The roof is a fantastic display of artistic brickwork.

/Salute.

The sign from the Royal York peaked through one of the windows (and if you look really carefully at this incredibly small photo, you can one of the panes is partially open).

The skyway (?) on the way to the CN Tower.

I was getting a little distracted at this point. Just some lines and tones... nothing to see here, move along.

It was really hard to get this shot, not because it is a hard shot to get, but because I'd turned my lens to manual focus a few steps back and forgot. Golly gee, I couldn't shoot a focused image to save my life! I actually left in disgust, got about 300 feet, remembered I switched it, and went back for this shot.

Some clear direction on the way back to... Well, you get it.

On the platform where I caught the train to Richmond Hill almost every night for 2.5 years. Can't say I miss the experience very much.

Back in the day we didn't have these fancy locomotives, either. A rushed shot due to GO staff avoidance techniques in action.

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.

New Lens, Dry Run

It's a rare thing when I buy something that makes me feel like an idiot for doing so. It's even more rare when I buy something and it makes me feel like an idiot for not having done so sooner. This post represents my first day out with my 70-200 f/2.8, and it's a fantastic lens. If you ever read that 'it's not the camera, it's the lens, and it's not the lens, it's the photographer', I can vouch for the truth in it. This lens makes me want to be better just so I can see what awesomeness I can unleash.

Anyway, today was incredibly grey and overcast, as will 99% of the days between now and Spring, which can't come soon enough. It was not, however, overly cold. And that means I had a great time wandering around shooting and getting to know the lens.

This pic demonstrates a few things. The first is depth of field at f/2.8. It becomes tricky to manage focus on shots where you're close enough to your subject to have parts of your pictures at varying distances from the lens. This creates some areas that are in perfect focus and others that really aren't. If done right, it's great. If not, it creates an image that just doesn't make sense to your eye. This image also demonstrates that the standard corrective profile for this lens in Lightroom does some weird things to light in the bottom corners. Finally, remember not to turnip and leave your camera at -1 exposure compensation when you don't need it.

In this shot I got the depth of field right; look at the blur on the tree in the bottom left corner. I can replicate that effect in photoshop, but never to that level of perfection. This picture was taken with an unnecessary -1 exposure compensation. But look at the detail. It's almost as good as my 105mm Micro Nikkor and miles beyond what I came to expect from my 18-200mm.

The following shots are all taken at 200mm wide open at f/2.8. I couldn't move around much, and to be honest, the lens isn't long enough for these shots so I had to crop heavily. However, the detail is really good given the constraints and that if I moved forward, I would have fallen in the pond.

This shot is taken at 1/400th of a second, and I was almost able to freeze their movement as they landed. At 5.6 on my 18-200mm, they would be a grey smear.

It's too bad I'm so far away for this shot... I would like to print out the screaming goose but there's not enough resolution to do it. Anyway, a decent moment captured thanks to the Continuous Low shooting setting on the camera.

I thought it cool that there was enough light to cast shadows underneath the birds as they flew, when at this time day with a cloudless sky their shadows should have been behind them considerably. The cloud cover diffused the early morning light almost perfectly.

This is simultaneously the worst picture I took today, and the best. Taken at 1/60th of a second at f/2.8 while panning to follow the duck's rapid decent, I managed to catch its feathers spread for maximum braking, and great motion in the background. It works, even though it was taken at a shutter speed far slower than the minimum 1/1000th of a second required to freeze the duck's motion.

If I was the kind of photographer that names my photos, I would call this one 'Christmas Decorations'.

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.

Mill Pond, First Snow

My day started trying to shoot this photo that I see every morning when I catch the GO bus downtown. Unfortunately, I catch the bus about 15 minutes earlier than when I got there today, and I missed the good light. These rushes practically glow gold when the sun hits them.

When I turned to swear at the sun (because that makes more sense than me getting up 15 minutes earlier, right?), I saw this flock of geese flying in front of it.

There was enough light to make cool reflections on some nearby condos.

A parking lot dusted with snow and recent tire tracks made for some cool texture.

A rare positive point about shooting in winter: You can wander around the empty playground with a camera and telephoto lens and no one calls the cops. A giant turquoise tongue.

Slide curve with fake bokeh.

Rings with real bokeh.

Where the net meets the line, and small mounds of snow.

Sara Conner's recurring nightmare, dusted with nuclear ash. Or snow. No skulls to be seen.

The old bell at the fire station.

I was certainly taking my time getting to the Mill Pond. Here's a blue door that caught my eye as I walked.

We have to be very detailed with our instructions in Richmond Hill.

My overexposed swan friends, caught here swimming in the Mill Pond's last remaining open water, when the sun made a brief appearance.

One day I'll figure out how to shoot shots like this. Today was not that day.

Radical snow grain and rock.

Fat bastard with big claws. Someone else fed it; I don't because I know eventually they'll be mugging people for peanuts.

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.

Stolen Sunshine Day

Today I checked out the shooting locations in my neighborhood to see how they were being influenced by the advancing season. The sun was shining brightly in the morning but as soon as I stepped outside the day became overcast, with the sun breaking through only once the entire time I was out. The Millpond is used for skating in winter, but now it's caught in a limbo between Fall and freezing temperatures. The local cemetery has green grass and many fallen leaves, rendering it in orange, brown and marble red, black and grey.

The day was so overcast I was able to shoot a swan without over exposing it; usually the sun reflects too brightly from their white feathers.

Creepy bokeh.

A mutant, but very pretty, duck.

The fungus seems to still be doing well this time of year.

Creepy old tree. It had a raccoon sleeping in it. Or it was dead. Let's say sleeping.

I stopped briefly to check out the nearby cemetery. I didn't shoot much but I thought the natural wear on this headstone created a neat effect on the last name.

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.

Boys Cottage Weekend

This past weekend was host to an annual outing to a friend's family's cottage to close it and do clean up. It's a beautiful spot and always a great place to shoot Fall colors. We might have been a bit late for the peak of the season, but it was still a fine display. We arrived Friday night and left Sunday morning.

On Friday night I took some night shots using the light from the cottage as many ways as I could. The Tungsten lights and Fall colors mixed well.

Using lights from a source like this at night is the closest I'll get to a proper outdoor shoot with spot lighting I'll likely ever get.

The directional light worked well in black and white, too.

The next day after a terrible blackberry alarm incident I went outside to shoot what turned out to be a very dreary dawn. It let me do some long exposure shots on the shoreline, smoothing the water and giving it a smokey feel.

The rich colors popped in the soft ambient light.

As the day wore on, the clouds cleared and it became sunny.

A triangle and a reflection; this was a teaser for the reflections that came later.

I went out to shoot for sunset after a refreshing nap. The water was calm, and the sky showed promise for an interesting sunset.

Spot color amongst the evergreens.

The lake, to coin a phrase, turned to glass as the sun went down. The cloud reflections were so clear they looked photoshopped.

It was all natural.

The clouds themselves had a bit of character. I found my lens not quite wide enough to do the broad shots I needed to properly frame the clouds and reflections. I needed something wider than 18mm (27mm DX).

Regardless, I had some luck.

This driftwood looks close-cropped out of an original photo, but it's just the incredibly smooth water in the background that makes it look so.

As the sunset drew to a conclusion, the reflections began to blur as I used longer exposures to capture the images.

On Sunday I stalked the bird feeder for a bit, sitting on the picnic table about six feet away. The Jays were too wary to approach, but the Chickadees went for breakfast.

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.