During our trip to Quebec city we also hopped on a great bus tour which took outside the city, to the Ile d’Orleans, Montmorency waterfall and the Basilica Sainte Anne de Beaupre. Here are a few shots from the Basilica.
The first is a 3 shot HDR, you can see some of the great fall colours off to the left of the Basilica
The 2nd is a look inside, also a 3 shot HDR. As you can see its quite a stunning building.
These are a couple of shots from inside the Cathedral Notre Dame in Quebec City, which is the head of the Catholic Church across all of Canada. You can read some of the Cathedral’s history here on wikipedia
It is a very unassuming building from the outside, but the inside is quite spectacular. We ended up visiting here a couple of times. We happened by it ourselves whilst wandering the streets, and the following day we did a guided walking tour which also stopped in at the Cathedral. Take note of the lovely sky painted on the ceiling. It was very overcast and rainy both times we were inside so it was good to see a little blue sky somewhere.
Both shots here were done handheld with my Pentax K200D and Sigma 10-20mm, at ISO1600 (highest my old body goes!) and are 3 exposure HDR’s taken at +/- 2.0 EV. The noise reduction in Photomatix, which I used for blending, seems to have done a great job on the noise. The noise is still quite noticeable in the full size images though. I used Tone Mapping with the Enhancer method in both cases to generate the final image.
This was taken on one of my first walks home after work in September after we moved from High Park into downtown. It was a great evening, the clouds were amazing so I stopped and took a few shots. This is Toronto City hall with Nathan Phillips in front.
There was a group laying on the ground covered in bread trying to get the birds to eat it off them (they seemed quite worried about the birds though!). I’m not sure what the point of it all was though.
Both shots are 3 exposure HDR’s taken at +/- 2.0 EV with my Pentax K200D and Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6 lens. Blended using Photomatix with final editing in Lightroom.
This photo shows Osgoode Hall and was taken during Doors Open Toronto. Osgoode Hall is found on the corner of University Av and Queen St West in downtown Toronto. This previous post is from inside the Great Library of this building.
Colour or Black & White?
I originally posted this shot to Flickr in colour, but looking at later I realized it would probably work even better in black & white. I think it does, what do you think? Black & White or Colour?
Photo Details
The photo is a single exposure, taken with my Pentax K200D and Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6 lens at full wide 10mm. The only editing was levels and cropping in Lightroom.
This was taken from our hotel room when we spent the Victoria Day weekend down at Niagara Falls.
Skylon Tower is an observation tower built overlooking both the falls at Niagara. It is quite a sight all lit up at night.
I took this one handheld (I have no tripod anymore – see here for why) but it came out very sharp anyway. I pushed the ISO to 1600 (the highest my old K200D goes) and kept the lens as wide as I dared. The camera’s inbuilt Shake Reduction function also helped a lot for this shot. The exposure was 0.1s @ f4.0. Unfortunately I forgot to remove my Kenko Protection filter, so there are a few slight reflections doubling up in the shot. This happens with night shots as light reflects off the front lens element, then off the inside of the filter and back into the camera.
I edited this single exposure in Lightroom 3. I made use of the Noise Reduction, which is much improved from Lightroom 2. I also played with the levels and gave the shot a slight crop.
This is another shot of Osgoode Hall. This one is a Memorial in the Great Library of the building.
This is a bit of an unusual shot for me, because it is a black and white HDR. Not something I usually would do, but I have been craving some black and white, so here some is!
Again this is 3 shots taken at +/- 2.0 EV, with the Pentax K200D and Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6. I blended the exposures using Photomatix (in colour) then made the final edits and black & white conversion in Lightroom.
This war memorial can be found at University Avenue and Queen Street West in Toronto. It is a memorial to all those who fought for Canada in the Boer War. The memorial was commissioned in 1910 and was designed by Walter Seymour Allward.
This is a HDR composed of 3 exposures, taken at +/- 2.0 EV using my Pentax K200D and Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens. I blended them using Photomatix, then made some adjustments to the final image in Lightroom.
Here is another quick capture from Saturday evening down at Niagara Falls. There are some really beautiful gardens in the parks by the Falls. This building with its garden and the tripod setup caught my attention for a nice image.
This is another HDR combined from 3 exposures taken at +/- 2.0 EV using Photomatix, and some minor tweaks in Lightroom. I took this using my Pentax K200D and Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens.
I am having some trouble with this lens at the moment, it is back focusing quite a lot, you can only notice it when using wider apertures and longer focal lengths, but I will need to do a bit of testing to see if it is just this lens, or my body. One or both may need some repair.
This is another of the main tourist attractions in Toronto. The ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) is quite large! We were expected a 2hr or so tour of the museum, however it turned into an all day trek through the place, we walked through for over 6 hours!
The museum is huge, and has a great collection of pieces and displays. I highly recommend a visit to anyone in the area.
This is a single exposure, with quite a bit of Lightroom tweaking to bring out the detail.
A Blog of my Photographic Journeys, Equipment, Techniques and Images.
