Around 5pm one Saturday night, I found myself dropping the kids off at their grandparents’ house. I had packed my camera in the car since the sky looked like it might provide a good sunset. Since I had my new Tokina 11-16mm with me, I was eager to try it out at Cap Saint Jacques. I had succeeded in getting one decent sunset there, and was interested in using the new wide angle to get a better one.
When I got to my usual location, I wasn’t to impressed with the composition. The location is fine, just nothing spectacular. I looked on my iphone and found a location a little deeper that seemed to be better. I got back in my car and drove deeper into the park. I had never been in the park before, so I didnt know what to expect. When I got there, it looked promising, so I got my gear and headed to the shore.
As soon as I got there I new it would be fantastic. The location was perfect, the river was still and very reflective, and the snow was pretty untouched. I set up my camera, got out my GND and got ready to go. I didn’t have a mount for the GND filter, so I had to hold it to the lens. It really came in handy when shooting the sunset. The first (my favorite shot) was fantastic.
I used the snowy shore and a small branch as the foreground of the shot. The clouds were fantastic, and the detail in the snow came out perfectly. I love this new lens.
I started taking shots as the sun moved slowly down the horizon. A got some pretty good shots, with three being the perfect number. The image at the top of the page, called ‘The Main Event’, was at the highlight point of the sunset. I had moved my camera a little to get more of the island in this shot.
It was really tricky to find snow that didn’t have any footprints, and I was very careful not to step in front of where I might shoot.
I was wearing jeans during this shoot, and found that my camera was almost always close to the ground. I had to drop my hat on the ground so that I could protect my knee from getting soaked. It would have been a better idea to have some sort of plastic bag with me to kneel on.
Several times during the shoot, I tried to use my Canon EFÂ 17-40 L . This is a fantastically sharp lens, but the wide-angle really did a better job at getting the scene. I finished off the evening with the Tokina. You can really see the Tokina’s star pattern in the final sunset image. I love the star like rays from the sun, and the great red cast on the snow in the foreground.
This was a very calming shoot. It was perfectly still and quite, and very relaxing. I wish all shoots were this pleasant.
A Few Comments from the Shoot:
- Bring your camera everywhere
- Bring something to kneel on if the ground it going to be wet
- Remote is key
- Tokina 11-16mm is a fantastic lens
- Be careful where you walk, you want to keep the foreground free of footprints.
- Every few minutes, the light changes in a sunset
- I was able to successfully hold the GND to the camera without a mount, but once I had it to far away from the lens and it gave me a weird reflection