I had planned this photo shoot for a while, but we just couldn’t get it off the ground. It being the holidays didn’t make it any easier. Sunday the 2nd seemed to be the last chance before it started to get colder, so we gave it a shot. I went out with a friend of mine who has the same camera, and the plan was to start on one side and walk threw the port – then turn around and come back. We had another friend that might have joined us, but he was lucky enough to be in Boston (miss that city)
I packed my standard kit lens as well as my manual lens from an old Exakta camera I got from my father (Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f2.8). I also had my new tripod that I was really excited to use. It being a carbon fiber with a ball head, it was going to be the tripod I would lug around France in September.
The Tripod was fantastic. Super light to carry around, which was very important, and really easy to get into position with the ball head. One lever to handle pan, tilt and everything else. I do however have to get used to using a ball head. Every once and awhile, the lever was in the wrong place, or I had the camera release in the front instead of back.
It was a nice 3 hr photo shoot. The wind had died down so it wasn’t all that cold. It was also a Sunday, a few days after New Years, so Old Montreal was pretty quite.
A Few Comments from the Shoot:
- Having snow on the ground, but not fresh, made it impossible to photograph. It was dirty and had too many footprints.
- One of my favorite shots (glass windows) was while I was waiting for my friend. Goes to show that you have to keep looking around or you might miss the shot.
- Ball Head tripods actually make life so much easier.
- Think about changing positions. The first picture I took of the city really didn’t sit right, so we walked up a level in a parking garage and got the shot you see above.
- Long exposures can make things disappear. I have some shots of a skating ring where all but a few people are visible as they moved to fast for the longer exposure time.
- Get closer … then closer still.
- Take a quick shot to see how composition is looking, then set up your tripod to take the stead shot – There is no film cost to it.
- Play with ND filters to make even longer exposures. My shots didn’t turn out, I needed to go even longer than 8 minutes.
- I remembered to turn off Image Stabilization, but my friend didn’t … guess it is universal.
Images from the Shoot:
