Sunlight In The Ravine Of 'The Forty', Grimsby - Hybrid HDR

(Click on the image for a larger view)

One of my 'Go To' places for photography is right here in Grimsby - the ravine down which the creek named 'The Forty' cascades from the waterfalls at the top of the Niagara Escarpment, down through the downtown and North to the shore of Lake Ontario some 1.5 km (1 mile) downstream. It is on my 'Go To' list because it is a short walk from the house and is right in the core of Grimsby,

The ravine is fairly narrow and deep, winter sunlight only enters it at a suitable angle for a short time in the afternoon. Any earlier or later and the angle is too low to illuminate the creek-bed. In this image, the large slabs of dolostone that have fallen into the bed of the creek as it has eroded the ravine out of the face of the Niagara Escarpment. and a recent cold temperatures coupled with a nice snowfall, have frozen the creek and blanketed the area in white, creating this classic scene.

I have been here often and will continue to wander here. - JW

The image is a hybrid HDR (High Dynamic Range) image, i.e. made of a combination of an HDR image and elements of the conventional images used to create the HDR. This has been done to clean up any artifacts of the HDR (and associated tone-mapping) process.

The original three images used to make the HDR were taken using a Nikon D5000, tripod mounted, with an 55-200mm VR lense set to 102mm, f/6.3, ISO200.+/-2EV auto bracket with a EV+1/3 bias (to compensate for the brightness of the snow and keep it white). The three images were processed using Luminance/Qtpfsgui using the setup information embedded in the file name and as detailed below. Then, in GIMP, the base HDR image as well as the 3 source images were set up as layers. The base HDR was combined with the EV+0 image using 40% transparency to form the working image. After that elements of the other layers were selectively combined by using a soft edge eraser to integrate areas impacted by HDR/tone mapping artifacts and to improve detail in some locations. Some tonal adjustment was then performed using curves, saturation was increased to compensate for the relatively flat output from the Mantiuk operator in the tone-mapping stage, sharpening, add border and scale to 1024 wide for posting here.

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DSC_3336_forty01v01multlayadjx1024_pregamma_1_mantiuk_contrast_mapping_0.1_saturation_factor_1.2_detail_factor_6
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Qtpfsgui 1.9.3 tonemapping parameters:
Operator: Mantiuk
Parameters:
Contrast Mapping factor: 0.1
Saturation Factor: 1.2
Detail Factor: 6
------
PreGamma: 1

For more photos in a new tab, visit my flicker phtotostream at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwvraets/ )

Or visit my Eyefetch posts at:

http://www.eyefetch.com/profile.aspx?user=jwvraets/ )

Red Leaf In The Snow

 From looking at this image you might be tempted to believe this is a black and while image rather than another sample of my colour work. Bear with me...

This photo was taken about halfway between the base of the Niagara Escarpment and Beamer's Falls along "The Forty" the lovely creek flowing down the Escarpment through the town of Grimsby, on its way to Lake Ontario about 1.5 km (1 mile) North of here. The bed of the creek lies in a steep-walled, heavily wooded ravine and, as a result of the thousands of years of erosion, is littered with huge slabs of dolostone that fell into the bed as the creek cut through the Escarpment face. With the recent heavy snowfall and cold temperatures, the waterway is largely frozen over and everything is pretty much snow covered. In places like this, a small amount of water has run over the top of the large rock slab and formed a border of icicles.

If you think this is a Black & White image, look again. Amidst all the white snow cover, a lone maple leaf, still in its full red glory, has somehow found its way onto the snow surface and sits there in lonely glory near the top centre of the image.

The image was taken using a tripod mounted Nikon D5000 fitted with an 18-55mm VR kit lense, at 55mm, f/6.3, 1/250 sec, ISO200. Minimal PP was done using GIMP: tonal range expansion to recover full range, slight saturation boost, sharpen, add border, scale to 1024 wide for posting. - JW

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For more photos in a new tab, visit my flicker phtotostream at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwvraets/ )

Or visit my Eyefetch posts at:

http://www.eyefetch.com/profile.aspx?user=jwvraets/ )

Sittin' On The Dock By The Bay - Molson Coors Beer Vat Move, January 2011

This is a shot showing 3 (actually you can make out a bit of the fourth) of the 6 beer fermentation tanks as they sit on the Hamilton Ontario docks ready to begin what had been originally planned as a 4 -day convoy by tractor-trailer move to the Molson Coors facility in Toronto, Ontario, some 108 km (about 65 miles) away. This was taken from the publicly accessible border of the docks area on the Southwest of the facility. The whole area was illuminated by some serious lighting set up for the occasion and fortunately, made photography much easier. One result of the scale of the tanks and the convoy in conjunction with the dramatic lighting was to give the whole area the appearance of a number of rocket boosters being prepared for launch rather than the more mundane reality.

For a further description of the tanks and the event, see my other photos posted here.

The ship in the backgound is the Algolake, a Great Lakes cargo vessel not related to the move.

For more photos in a new tab, visit my flicker phtotostream at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwvraets/ )
 

Or visit my Eyefetch posts at:

http://www.eyefetch.com/profile.aspx?user=jwvraets/ )

Shooting Info: While posted across a street bordering the docks area, the image was taken with a tripod mounted Nikon D5000 (ISO400, f/5.6, 1/3 sec, aperture preferred mode with a EV-2/3 bias to compensate for general nighttime darkness), 55-200mm VR kit lense at 165mm, processed with GIMP (very minimal - sharpen, add border and scale to 1024 wide for posting).

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Molson Coors Beer Fermentation Tank Move , Hamilton, Ontario Docks- January 7, 2011

On Friday night, January 7, 2011, a convoy of some 50 vehicles began to transport six huge beer fermentation tanks from the Hamilton, Ontario docks area to the Molson Coors brewery at Carlingview drive in Toronto, Ontario, a distance of approximately 108 Km (65 miles). Each tank is a monster: 45 meters (110 feet) long, 7 meters (22 feet) in diameter and capable of holding the equivalent of approximately 1.4 million bottles of beer (feeling thirsty?). By the time you account for the height of the flatbeds, the total height of the load is about 8.7 meters (27 feet). The sheer size meant the convoy had to move at walking speed, and along with the need to temporarily take down power lines, traffic lights, street lights, etc., as they moved forward as well as restore them after passing by (about 1,200 power lines alone, I was told by a crew member), and the restriction that they move only between 21:00 and 06:00, meant a 4-day journey as initially planned, and, as of Monday January 10, 2011, expected to take double that time due to weather-related delays. Hamilton was chosen as the port of landing for the tanks since route from the Toronto docks to the brewery did not permit loads of that size to pass.

These show one of the Challenger Motor Freight tractors and some of the 6 tanks (one per tractor). What you do not see are the power line crew vehicles, the police vehicles, the various support crews, etc. This was taken in the dock area where the convoy was staged and shows the site shortly before departure. The tanks have the appearance of rocket boosters as opposed to their more mundane purpose. (For more photos in a new tab, visit my flicker phtotostream at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwvraets/ )

These images were each created from a 3 shot auto bracket (+/-2EV ISO400) using a tripod-mounted Nikon D5000. The Nikon was fitted with an 18-55mm VR lense set at 18mm for the tractor close-up and 26mm for the panoramic view of the tanks, f/5.6. The resulting images were processed with Luminance/Qtpfsgui to produce the base HDR image using the setup information embedded in the file name and as shown below. The base HDR image was then loaded into GIMP along with the 3 images used to make the base HDR, and by selective deletion using a soft brush, various parts of the base HDR image were replaced by corresponding elements of the original images. This was done to repair the artifacts arising from HDR processing and tone-mapping, as well as to get a more natural look in certain areas. Once done, the resulting multi-layer adjusted image was flattened, border added, and, scaled to 1024 high for posting.

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Qtpfsgui 1.9.3 tonemapping parameters:
Operator: Mantiuk
Parameters:
Contrast Mapping factor: 0.1
Saturation Factor: 1.2
Detail Factor: 3
------
PreGamma: 1

The Vasco Da Gama Soccer Club, James Street North – Hybrid HDR

The James Street North area of Hamilton, Ontario has a rich Portuguese cultural history. This can be seen today in the Portuguese influenced restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores and, in the cultural clubs. The Vasco Da Gama Soccer Club is one of the most visibly prominent buildings in the area, in part due to its architecture but, at the Christmas period, the lighting. - JW

The image was created from a 3 shot auto bracket (+/-2EV ISO320) using a tripod-mounted Nikon D5000. The Nikon was fitted with an 18-55mm VR lense set at 24mm, f/5.6. The resulting images were processed with Luminance/Qtpfsgui to produce the base HDR image using the setup information embedded in the file name and as shown below. The base HDR image was then loaded into GIMP along with the 3 images used to make the base HDR, and by selective deletion using a soft brush, various parts of the base HDR image were replaced by corresponding elements of the original images. This was done to repair the artifacts arising from HDR processing and tone-mapping, as well as to get a more natural look in certain areas. Once done, the resulting multi-layer adjusted image was flattened, border added, and, scaled to 1024 high for posting.

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DSC_2997_jamesvascoclub01v02multlayadjcropbordx1024_pregamma_1_mantiuk_contrast_mapping_0.1_saturation_factor_1.2_detail_factor_2
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Qtpfsgui 1.9.3 tonemapping parameters:
Operator: Mantiuk
Parameters:
Contrast Mapping factor: 0.1
Saturation Factor: 1.2
Detail Factor: 2
------
PreGamma: 1

Toronto Skyline - Looking South Down Bay Street

Over the past couple of months, I have become more and more involved in night photography and HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, somewhat as a result of acquiring a new toy, a Nikon D5000 DSLR. Over the next while I am going to post some of these images, and hopefully others, and get a bit more active in this blog again. Hope you enjoy them.

This is the view looking South from one of the office and apartment towers in downtown Toronto. The street running up diagonally from roughly the lower left frame corner to the frame centre is Bay Street, North of the financial district (which is the complex of tall buildings in the background). The large tower-like structure in the foreground rising right through the frame is a smokestack for a large heating plant serving many of the towers in the downtown core. The CN tower is the blue spike-like tower in the upper right of the frame

The whole thing looks rather festive and if you have to live in TO, then this is a pretty fine view. Best wishes to all of you in the New Year. - JW

This is NOT an HDR image but is rather a manual blend of two conventional images with a little bit of shadow area supplemental detail also manually blended in from an 2-image HDR (Mantiuk operator using Luminance/Qtpfsgui). All PP done with GIMP. Taken using a Nikon D5000, 2 images, +0EV and -2EV, ISO 640, f/4.0 with an 18-55mm VR kit lense at 18mm. And, of course, a tall building.
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Warner Bay Sunrise #3

This is yet another in the series from that one special morning. Colours in the sky changed rapidly and it was simply a matter of moving the tripod to recompose and shooting as fast as possible.