Wildlife at the Vischer Ferry Nature and Historic Preserve

This morning, I went back up to Clifton Park with the EOS 70D and EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM lens looking for some wildlife. I duplicated my walk from Tuesday but extended along the bike trail (and back) that goes all the way to Interstate 87 and beyond.

It ended up being a 3.5 mile walk with scenes of the following wildlife.

Great Blue Heron

River Otter

Turtle

Wood Ducks

Egret and Heron

Heron Taking Flight

Vischer Ferry Nature and Historic Preserve

I have two pages on this blog of scenes from the Vischer Ferry Nature and Historic Preserve in Clifton Park. There is one from this past March and one from this past May.

Today I walked around with my EOS 70D and EF-S 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM lens. It wasn't so much the macro feature I was interested in but the image stabilization. I was in the mood to use a normal prime lens but wanted to be able to hand hold bracketed shots and Canon does not make a 50mm stabilized lens for full frame bodies so this lens with it's 56mm equivalent field of view on a crop sensor body is about as close as it gets.

To be honest, if I had carried the 5D Mark III with the 24-105mm lens and the 70D with the 70-300mm lens I could have gotten better scenics as well as some nice portraits of Great Blue and Green Herons. Perhaps later in the week.

Here are some of the shots from this morning. And, yes, I know Purple Loosestrife is an invasive species and we'd be better off without it. But you just can't ignore color like that.

Cohoes Falls Again

It's always nice to go on road trips and shoot places you're not around all the time. It's also nice to have favorite locations close to home.

I had an urge to visit Cohoes Falls today since it's been raining up the Mohawk Valley and there is a bit more water than usual this time of year. There were no rainbows due to the calm wind and lack of spray.

I did, however, walk down and up the stairway from hell and the path down to the lower level. Riverbed access can be had only on weekends during midday and only when there's almost no water coming over the falls.

Here are a bunch of shots, all with the 5D Mark III and 24-105mm lens. Also, all are HDR composites although I did restrict myself to realistic settings.

Nova Scotia Trip Gallery

I remember long ago when anyone would go on a road trip there would be a gathering later on to view their slides from the trip. That just isn't done any more and this gallery on Zenfolio, with it's slide show feature, is about as close as it gets these days. You can view the 146 photo gallery at https://trulandphoto.zenfolio.com/novascotiatrip.

I noted previously that I shot 1,804 files on the trip. I used all three bodies and all six lenses I brought with me.

Here are some photos I'm just processing today as, while on the trip, I looked for six to eight shots that could describe each day.

Nova Scotia Trip Day 7 - The Final Chapter

I'm ending the daily posts today. Tomorrow is the five and a half hour ferry trip followed by a four plus hour drive home. I'm planning on a break from photography.

Between my three camera bodies, I shot 1,804 files, mostly bracketed images with the 5D Mark III. Of course, it's not the camera work, it's the computer work that gets tiring. Sometime when I haven't had a chance to get out with the camera I'll enjoy working with some of the files I'm not dealing with at this point.

Today's trip included three lighthouses, another colonial fort, and some decent scenes of the Bay of Fundy's gigantic tides. There a lot more I could include but here is a decent representative sample.

Annapolis Royal shipyard

Annapolis Royal warf

Annapolis Royal waterfront

Annapolis Royal waterfront

Annapolis Royal Fort Anne Site

Prim Point Lighthouse location, Digby

Prim Point Lighthouse location, Digby

Gilbert's Cove Lighthouse

Gilbert's Cove Lighthouse location

Nova Scotia Trip Day 6

Today's journey was from Halifax across to Wolfville, a community located along the shores of the Minas Basin which is part of the Bay of Fundy, home to the world's highest tides. There are lots of trails right from town along the shore and on the top of dykes which protect farm land from the ocean water.

Low tide was at 2:38 PM Atlantic time and high tide was at 9:00 PM. I've organized these photos to show some low(ish) tide photos and some high(ish) tide photos of the same general scene. Captions will show the time.

11:56AM

7:23PM

12:00PM

7:19PM

1:20PM

7:08PM

Nova Scotia Trip Day 5

Today is the only "stay put" day of the trip. The weather is in and out sun and rain. There was a slightly over a mile walk uphill to attend services at an ELCIC congregation in the morning followed by some time spent at the Halifax Citadel on the way back down 9and up and down again) the hill.

Later, there was a trip to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. The Acadia is "the only surviving ship to have served the Royal Canadian Navy during both world wars. [...] She received minor damage in the Halifax Explosion in 1917 while acting as a guard ship in Bedford Basin, making her the only vessel still afloat today to have survived the Halifax Explosion."

One floor above the room is an outdoor terrace and the stairway is right across the hall. I saw some good lighting and ran up to grad the shot of George's Island (not open to the public) with colorful buildings in the foreground and rain in the background.

Photos at the Citadel were made with the EOS M and EF-M 18-55mm lens, the Acadia with the EOS 70D and EF-S 24mm f.2.8 STM pancake lens and George's Island with the 5D Mark III and EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM.

Nova Scotia Trip Day 4

I don't know if it's just lighthouses or what but the drive from Lunenburg up toward Halifax was in full sunshine until within a couple of miles of the side trip to Peggy's Cove when all of a sudden there was fog. It was nicely photogenic but jam packed with people.

Apparently this weekend is a big summer holiday in Nova Scotia as the amusement rides and fireworks below the hotel room evince. Tomorrow is a stay put day so some photos of the festivities will wait until then.

Here are some scenes from Peggy's Cove. Equipment for all of these is the 5D Mark III and EF 17-40mm f/4L.