RIP Leonard Nimoy; 1931-2015, Renowned Actor; Fellow Photographer.

Morning With The Boundary Bay Eagles

Spent the morning of the twenty-sixth of February down at Boundary Bay communing with the bald eagles armed with my Nikon 600mm f/4. Considering that I only had a monopod to manage the 600mm, the shot to keeper ratio wasn't too great.

A New Tripod Competitor Emerges - Jobu Algonquin.

Like its namesake, the Algonquin emerges from the forest as a tough competitor in the tripod battle - I am looking at Jobu's offering: the TCF-36 Algonquin (a proudly Canadian name)

Judging from it's size, and load capacity, it can take a Nikon 600mm with no problem. It's load capacity is 55lbs or 22.3 kg which is the load capacity of the nearest competitor, the Gitzo GT5542LS. It allows me to pack on my 600mm f/4 and my D300s (with an MB-D10 battery grip) along with whatever else I need to load it up with including a preview monitor if I'm shooting long-distance wildlife video or a flash or mounting a panorama or video head. And considering its Canadian build, they know what sort of abuse it will go through during the course of shooting outdoors in the wild.

And considering that FalconRose Photography is going strictly Canadian and non-U.S. suppliers in our photography from hereon in, it makes sense to buy a made-in-Canada tripod and support our Canadian tripod/gimbal manufacturers. I apologize for the anti-American slant on this post, but I'm choosing to support Canadian and non-U.S. suppliers from now on.

A Move In The Works

Well...it appears that we may be considering a move in the near future - one that will dictate how the business develops. It's known that buying a house farther south in Surrey will affect the family in several ways. It'll require my wife needing to move from her current place of work, to another store that will give her more options to move up in the company. It's also going to mean uprooting the kids from their current school; sending them to a school in the same school district and it will mean that I move closer to my subject matter - wildlife and landscapes. However where we land in terms of housing is a completely different matter. Right now it's a plan that's up in the air. But any chance to land somewhere near where I am able to photograph my main subjects is a plus - it means less gas outlay and more time shooting.

My main locations are the following.

Serpentine Fen - mostly waterfowl and great blue herons

Boundary Bay - for eagles and other raptors as well as the occasional great blue heron

George C. Reifel Bird Sanctuary and Alaksen National Wildlife Reserve - all sorts of birds including sandhill cranes

Now I enjoy being able to get out there and photograph, but currently it puts wear and tear on the car and eats up a lot of gas, so the closer I am to the sites that I go shoot at, the better it is. I haven't had the opportunity to photograph sandhill cranes, but that's something that I plan to do one of these days. The cranes are resident at Reifel and it'll be worth the $5.00 admission fee to be able to go and photograph them but only when I have enough cash to do so. So for now, it's sticking to the sites that I know I can get in for free like Boundary Bay and Serpentine Fen.

Here's a shot from 2013 - time to go back out and shoot some more down at Serpentine.

Living closer will be good.

Night Structures - Central City, Whalley; Surrey, BC

Trying to get back into the swing of things after the post-Gibson's throat infection - tired and fatigued, but itching to get that camera in hand. Went up tonight to go take some photographs.

I think at ISO 100 they came out a lot sharper but the ISO 100 on the Nikon has less definition and has to be pumped up a bit in post. The Nikon ISO 100 is actually a base ISO 200 underexposed by 1 stop to simulate ISO 100, but unfortunately, the highlights tend to clip earlier and the sensor is less sensitive. I wanted to shoot at LO 1.0 because I still found that when I was shooting at night that if there was definition like clouds, there would be noise. So thus I went to LO 1.0 to remove what noise that was there. These images I shot in JPG. The next bunch I'll do in RAW.

What I am finding is that the 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 is not wide enough for what perspective of view I want. So it's either go with the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 or go with the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8. Or perhaps both. Well...my pocketbook is going to really not like me after this.

Fog on the Fraser River, Barnston Island, February 1st, 2015

I had hoped that my recovery would be quick, however it has been almost three weeks since I came down with this and I'm still coughing periodically. They say the cough lasts for about three weeks afterwards in terms of sinus infections post-recovery, so that pretty much puts the timeline pretty well about where it's at. Anyways, I got bored, picked up the D300s and the 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 lens and headed out to Fort Langley after dropping Chris off at the Langley Sportsplex for his hockey game. It was just a minor shoot and I wanted to get the fog on the river so that's what I did using up 1/16th of a tank of gas whilst doing so. ~sigh~ the money we spend getting the creative juices flowing.

The following photos were taken by the Barnston Island Bridge leading from Fort Langley thru Barnston Island heading to what used to be the old ferry landing from Barnston Island to Maple Ridge before the Golden Ears Bridge came into being.

I wanted to show the fog on the Fraser River south of Barnston Island. I think I succeeded somewhat.

Hopefully I can get myself out to do some more shooting over the next while.

Hockey Trip to Sechelt - The Ferry Ride Over (January 9-11th, 2015)

After coming back from Sechelt on the 11th of January, I ended up with a severe throat infection which pretty much sidelined me the rest of the month with regards to photo-shooting. So unfortunately nothing new...other than these three photos that I took during the course of the trip over to Sechelt.

This was from when we were at Horseshoe Bay waiting on the ferry to arrive so that we could board.

The following three photos were from the ferry ride; where I took a rather cold walk across the observation deck trying to see if I could find some photo opportunities.

This shot was from Cowrie Street in Sechelt close to the motel where we were staying for the weekend.