Ride'm Cowboy

One of the contestants at a Camp Rodeo. The shutter speed was slowed down and the camera panned to follow the horse. I liked the result.

One might ask, why ISO 400 and why f/25? Although it was five years ago I can piece together what happened. When I look at my catalog of images I can see that I took 21 pictures over the course of 7 minutes, many of which I have deleted. They were of many different subjects as there was a lot going on. One of the other shots just before this was of Cowpoke (posted previously). Since Cowpoke one was in need of a large depth of field, I suspect I had been working that composition when I saw this and grabbed it quick. Aperture priority would have been the camera mode, so I must have stopped down to slow the shutter.

There was a lot of light variation at that venue and some very fast action, so I suspect I had bumped the ISO to 400 to get action in a darker corner.

If I had moved ISO to 100 there would have been less noise, although it doesn't appear to be much of a problem. The 300D was pretty good at 400. The better advantage would be that I could have had an f-stop of f/11 which would have been, in theory, a sharper image. The big question would be given it was a shutter-dragged, panned image of a moving subject, would you have been able to tell the difference? Doubt it.

1/20 f/25 ISO 400 75.0-300.0 mm @ 130 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Boissevain,Manitoba

Time for a Switch

Just outside of Saskatoon there is a railway museum. If you like trains, it is a great place to visit. Inside the switch tower I found this row of switch handles. Bright colours and repetition made for an interesting subject.

I would have preferred a simpler background , but the space constraints made that very challenging. In retrospect I might have been able to get lower which would have cleaned up the bottom part.

1/10 f/8 ISO 100 @ 55 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Railway Museum,Saskatoon,Saskatchewan

Blue and Yellow

Blue fields of flax or yellow fields of canola are both very pretty. In this case two fields were side by side and the two intermixed where they met - a nice combination.

1/60 f/20 ISO 100 @ 205 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

1/60 f/22 ISO 100 @ 255 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Lighthouse on Grand Island

This is the East Channel lighthouse on Grand Island, Lake Superior. Since this picture was taken in 2004, restoration efforts have repaired the siding and rebuilt the Lantern Room.

The image was taken from a moving boat, the normal rule of thumb for handheld is that your shutter speed should be faster than one-over-focal-length. In this case my focal length is 75mm, so my shutter speed should be faster than 1/75th. But that is just to compensate for hand-held shake. Image stabilization would allow for slower shutter speeds. Since I was on a moving boat, the shutter speed has to be much faster to compensate for the rock and roll of the boat as well as its forward movement. 1/320th was fast enough in this case.

1/320 f/4 ISO 100 @ 75 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Munising,Michigan

Fishin'

Ah, the lazy days of summer when we were kids down at the river with our buddies and our fishing poles.

Shot at a small aperture f/22 so I could capture a silhouette.

1/640 f/22 ISO 100 @ 75 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Yellow and Green

I love the colours that Finches can display. This little one has some really interesting shades of yellow mixed with browns. The are nicely set out against the background of green.

If I could change anything it would be to get more a blanket of green in the background. The white splashes are a little too prominent.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who made comments in the various places these pictures are posted about "Seagulls on Rock" from yesterday. I also made a print of that image and displayed it at work where it was well appreciated.

1/200 f/5.6 ISO 100 75.0-300.0 mm @ 300 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Quill Lake, Saskatchewan

Seagulls On Rock

Obviously not a straight-from-the-camera photograph. This image was taken on the north shore of Lake Superior, near Terrace Bay.

The image was then processed using Topaz Simplify to give it a watercolour feel. The oranges and blues play well with each other. I very much like the result.

1/800 f/5.6 ISO 100 @ 300 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Terrace Bay, Ontario

As The World Turns

This is my first successful attempt at producing a star-trail image. Since it was shot in rural Saskatchewan the sky was good and dark. This is an image I could not create at home.

The total exposure time is over 22 minutes. This is a composite of two images that one that was about 9 minutes and the other at 13 minutes. The two images were layered in Photoshop with a multiply blend mode.

22.6 minutes f/8 ISO 400 18.0-55.0 mm @ 18 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

The Knuckles

This is what is used to connect two railway cars. Very big chunks of steel - each car has half of this at each end. Since they are symmetric, any end can be connected to any other.

There was a strong shadow cutting diagonally the image and there was not much I could do about it. I could not move the sun or the cars, nor did I have a flash or other modifiers with me. Fortunately Lightroom was able to balance out the two sides nicely.

1/125 f/6.3 ISO 100 @ 35 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Railway Museum,Saskatoon,Saskatchewan

Hummer

Hummingbirds are challenging to catch. They are very fast moving. In this case I set up my camera on a tripod where I knew one would come and visit eventually. I focused to the spot and then switched to manual focus. The shutter was release with a remote cable.

This image was processed with Topaz Denoise, see my post from yesterday where I compared four different noise reduction programs.

1/2500 f/4.5 ISO 200 75.0-300.0 mm @ 95 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Cutting Through the Noise - Comparing Four Noise Reduction Programs

Special Edition: I am breaking away from my normal "Daily Photo" posting pattern to bring to you the results of some work I am doing in preparing tomorrow's photo. This photo was taken with my original Digital Rebel at ISO 200 which did have some noticeable noise, espically in this case where I forced the shutter speed higher to try to freeze the action, and then boosted the exposure in Lightroom. The original was JPG, RAW would have helped, but that was before I converted. Want to learn more about RAW? Check out Rick "Raw Rules" Sammon's Top Ten video.

I processed the photo using four different noise reduction techniques. I am not an expert in Noise Reduction Software. Are you? If you are not, then perhaps my results are more useful than what somebody who is an expert with these tools might be able to produce. I spent about five minutes with each one trying to get the best results. One thing you will notice the varies across the sample images is the degree of sharpening. The default presented by each program was used. No further output sharpening was applied. All images are 100% crops.

First up, and the result I like best is the image from DeNoise from Topaz Labs. Easy to use and they have a fully functional 30-day trial. I like the program, but it does not work with Lightroom, so I need to jump into Photoshop. I might buy Denoise, perhaps part of their Plug-in bundle. (I have been playing with the Simplify plugin and like some of the results from it as well.)

The next best result came from using the built-in Lightroom noise reduction. The result is pretty good and is a much easier workflow since I can do it right in the develop module. It is the combination of simplicity of use and the quality of the result that might prevent me from buying the Topaz product.

The next contestant is Noise Ninja from PictureCode. This product has what the call sidekick mode which allows for easy use with Lightroom (and others). For this particular case I used the Photoshop plug-in since I wanted to try to keep as much the same across each test case as I could. The result is still pretty good, but noticeable more noisy than the previous two.

The last test case is the built-in "Reduce Noise" filter in Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Here is the original un-noise-processed image for comparison.

As I suggested in the opening, perhaps an expert could have made a different program produce the best result, but for me it is a toss up between Topaz and Lightroom. One other factor, I already own NoiseNinja, perhaps they will release a new version that beats them all! One thing we do know for sure is that software is getting smarter about these sorts of things all of the time, so whatever comes out next year is likely going to be better than what you bought last year.

Hope you found this useful. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks for visiting.

Broken Down

It saddens me to see old barns broken down. To me it marks a passing of an agricultural era. Smaller family farms disappearing and being replaced by larger commercial operations.

I like the textures of the wood shingle roof. Unfortunately, there are some highlights along the top of the roof that are blown out.

1/400 f/7.1 ISO 100 @ 300 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Barrel

It was the textures and range of tones in this old barrel that caught my eye.

In order to emphasize these characteristics I boosted the contrast in Lightroom by a modest amount.

1/80 f/4 ISO 100 @ 80 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Saskatoon,Saskatchewan

Depth of Field

Yes, it is a field, a field of flax actually. They have a delicate blue colour.

So what is the depth bit about? In photography we always have to consider that things that are too close won't be in focus and likewise things too far away might not be in focus either. This is controlled by the aperture of the lens. In this particular case the field has some rolling hills which has emphasized the Depth of Field effect.

From 2009-06 Blog Images

1/160 f/10 ISO 100 @ 300 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Quill Lake, Saskatchewan

Nobody Home

There is something I find intriguing about abandoned buildings. It is like they are a ghost with a thousands stories to tell, but no voice to speak. So when I see a building like this I wonder what tales it has locked up inside that it cannot tell.

I don't know what happened, but this image was severely underexposed by about 2 stops. Also it was shot in the midday sun. I'd like to re-shoot it in the sunrise light which would add some warmth to it.

1/800 f/4.5 ISO 100 @ 130 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Quill Lake, Saskatchewan

Surfs Up!

For a mouse that is - check out the link. A stroll along the north shore of Lake Superior near Terrace Bay. A nice place.

I originally decided on a diagonal composition just because I wanted to capture the most of the wave as I could. Afterward I decided that I actually liked the off-kilter composition. I also like the counter balance between the blue water and the earth tones.

1/500 f/5.6 ISO 100 @ 85 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Terrace Bay,Ontario

A Rumble in the Jungle

A northern jungle that is. This is in Pattison State Park, Wisconsin on the western tip of Lake Superior. The water is naturally quite brown, which gives the water more texture than pure white. A good place for a hike.

A little later in the day might have provided a softer light. I did not have a tripod or ND filters with me, so couldn't have done a 'cotton ball' effect with a slow shutter.

1/100 f/13 ISO 100 @ 38 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Pattison State Park,,Wisconsin

LOOK OUT FOR THAT BUFFALO!

"We had gotten the news that the mine claims in California were rapidly being sold off. So we had picked up our pace and were pushing hard to reach the end of our journey by September. And then out of a clump of trees came a lone Buffalo, right in our path. Disaster followed. In a moment 'Birdie' the horses was gored, the wagon was upset and two wheels broken. Despite the chaos of the day, we had fresh Buffalo steaks that night."

It may be obvious that I am no Carleton Watkins, but her also traveled to California for the gold rush. Perhaps he would not have overexposed the skull like I did. Since every photo he took was a major investment in time, he would have had much more patience to make sure everything was right before he made the exposure. One thing we as modern digital photographers must learn is to take the same degree of case every time we push the shutter button.

1/250 f/8 ISO 100 @ 230 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

The Open Door

All over the prairies you can find abandoned buildings such as these old granaries. Once an important part of a farm operation they have been replaced by large steel bins, or direct trucking to the elevator.

I like the composition. The single open door seems to invite me in. As captured, the sky was a little pale so it was given some vibrancy. Overall the image would have benefited from some golden hour light rather than the harsh mid-day light as we see here.

1/1000 f/7.1 ISO 200 @ 300 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

A Tall Tail

Cattails are always interesting to look at - so my wife says, and I agree. Getting close might mean you get your boots full of water.

I particularly like the background bokeh of this image - the wash of green textures in the background. If I were to try again I wouldn't want the blade of green that is in-front of the cattail, perhaps at the time I thought it added, but now I think it distracts. One the positive side, the two blades in the foreground do help to lead the eye through the image. I have flipped the image horizontally to better leverage those leading lines.

1/400 f/5 ISO 100 @ 140 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Too Big to Lift

Back when I was on the farm we had little rectangular bales that only weighed 20 Kgs or so. They got heavier as the day got longer ;-) Modern farming is different. These large bales can weigh in at 500 Kgs.

I am generally pleased with the composition. The long focal length compresses the space between the bales making it tighter. My uncle quipped, "I wish the field was like the picture - the crop would be worth much more!". Although he doesn't know about focal lengths, he certainly noticed the space compression.

If I could do it over again I would have changed my perspective; there is a fourth bale in the background that I could have eliminated by using an angle closer to the ground. What do you think of the bird in the background? I can't decide. Does it add more interest, or complicate the image?

1/500 f/16 ISO 800 75.0-300.0 mm @ 210 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Desbarats,Ontario

Despite Adversity

Along the south shore of Lake Superior, a place with very harsh conditions, stands this tree on a little spit of sand and rock. You can tell from its broken and twisted branches that it has no had an easy life. Yet it stands despite those adversities.

There were some photographic adversities as well. I was on a moving boat in harsh mid-day sun. Nonetheless the character of this tree was worth capturing.


1/500 f/5.6 ISO 100 @ 300 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL
Munising,Michigan

P.S. The title link is to the wikipedia article for the song Mercy, Mercy, Mercy. I recommend listening to Canonball's version so that you can hear is introduction about adversities.

For The Birds

The Agassiz NWR is a great place for bird shots, as usual timing matters. Being there at the right time of year and being prepared to spend some time. I didn't even know it existed until we were driving through the state and discovered it. Mid-summer isn't the greatest time, and we couldn't stay long. I like the concept of this shot, but the execution leaves a bit to be desired. I would have liked to been higher, but wasn't possible to get higher. A little more height would have put the foreground grass a little lower in the frame to give a clearer view of the birds.

1/640 f/5.6 ISO 100 75.0-300.0 mm @ 300 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Agassiz NWR,Minnesota

Wheel and Flowers

There is a farm on the south side of Saskatoon that features Saskatoon berries. Just about any food you can think of, they have made with those berries. That are very good - somewhat like large blueberries. But this farm is also a tourist attraction with colourful gardens and antiques on display.
If I were to shoot this again, I might like to have tried two things. The sky is completely blown out, maybe an HDR technique might allow me to retain sky detail or perhaps choose a composition that removed the problem. The other tings I might try - which wasn't an option at the time - would be a much larger aperture. An f/2.8 would have turned the flowers into a wash of colour.


1/125 f/4.5 ISO 100 @ 75 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Saskatoon,Saskatchewan

Cranes In Flight

These are Sandhill cranes near Sault St Marie. They don't like it when you get too close. Although taken a few hours after sunrise, the light was not yet harsh and still had some nice tones to it.


1/1000 f/5 ISO 100 @ 180 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Desbrates,Ontario

On The Boardwalk

Looking out onto the Great Gitchigume on a summer evening. A stroll with the family on the boardwalk, and of course my camera. Off to the left teens dive into the water from an abandoned concrete structure. Ideally perhaps I should have hung around for the sun to set and picked up more colour in the sky, but this was vacation.


1/400 f/5.6 ISO 100 18.0-55.0 mm @ 43 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Boardwalk,Duluth,Minnesota

Cowpoke

Today starts a new series focusing on our journey along the south shore of Lake Superior up though Minnesota and into Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.This row of cowpoke are watching a rodeo at a summer camp in Manitoba. The small aperture of f/11 helps create an extended depth of field.


1/125 f/11 ISO 400 75.0-300.0 mm @ 130 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Boissevain,Manitoba