Waterford Harbor and the Drained Canal

Some nice scenes on this morning's walk over to Waterford this morning. The harbor was nice and calm with enough clouds for some interesting reflections. The canal is still drained which creates some interesting scenes.

All of these are five file HDR composites except for the train image which is a single file.

Morning Walk Up the Champlain Canal Trail

For this morning's walk I decided to head from home and up the old Champlain Canal trail north of the village of Waterford. This trip includes a weighlock, which I've included, and a lock, which I haven't, as it now contains the remnants of someone's campsite gear and looks awful.

I carried the EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM lens on one of the EOS RP bodies. It's nice to see some green things starting to pop up. There was also an interesting cloud as I started out.

Here are some of the results.

Happy Easter

I took a quick walk over to Peebles Island this morning for some Easter sunrise shots. Sunrise comes late here due to some hills to the east of the Hudson River. Today, the sun came up just to the north of Bald Mountain. I carried an EOS RP and EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM lens.

Deep Blue Skies

I was out twice today, trying to take advantage of some nice mostly clear weather. I carried the 70-200mm lens with me on my five mile walk early in the morning. As usual when I'm out early enough, I didn't have to worry at all about physical distancing. Here are some shots from that session.

Mohawk River - 127mm

Ontario Street, Cohoes - 121mm

Waterford Museum - 70mm

Waterford Waterfront, Hudson River - 70mm

A few hours, and a 40 minute drive, later I used the 17-40mm lens to photograph the Saratoga Monument in Schuylerville, which is now a part of the National Park Service. You can read about the monument at https://www.nps.gov/sara/planyourvisit/saratoga-monument.htm.

28mm

21mm

30mm

The Same Early Morning Stroll With a Longer Lens

This morning to walked pretty much the same route as yesterday but this time carried the EF 70-200mm lens on one of the EOS RP bodies. Here some snapshots.

70mm

121mm

70mm

116mm

70mm

70mm

Early Morning Stroll Through Three Counties

Lately, mostly due to weather, I haven't been bringing a camera along on my three mile walk across the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers and back. This morning, however, it looked like there might be some decent scenes so I brought one of the RP bodies and the EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM lens along.

Physical distancing is not a problem when I get out early enough as I rarely run into anyone who isn't in a vehicle of some kind. Here are some of the scenes from this morning.

Continuing Lens Evaluations with the EOS RP

As I wait for Canon to fill in the RF lens lineup with lenses that cost less than $2,300 I'm considering using EF lenses with adapters. For instance, the EF 24-70mm f/4L IS lens is currently $850 while the RF 24-70mm f/2.8L IS lens is $2,300. There is no f/4 RF version available, and I wasn't excited about the RF 24-105mm f.4L IS lens I rented over the holidays.

Likewise, the EF 70-200mm f/4L IS II lens is $1,200 while the RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens is $2,700. Even the new EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III lens is only $1,800. And, I currently own the EF 70-200mm f/4L IS version I although it's an older copy with some issues.

An option that I'm considering down the road is the EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS lens which would be great for daytime outdoor usage and is a shorter lens than the 70-200mm lenses. Using EF lenses on the RP requires the addition of the adapter which adds about an inch to the lens length. This lens is currently $1,350.

Another factor is that while I'm selling my 5D Mark III and plan on having a pair of EOS RP bodies, I will keep my crop sensor 7D Mark II. The EF lenses, particularly the 70-300mm lens, will be useful with that body for daytime sports and wildlife. RF lenses can not be used with any EOS DSLR.

For now, lenses I own can give me an idea of using EF lenses with the adapter. Today, with morning temperatures in the 60's, I walked around Waterford with the EF 17-40mm f/4L and EF 70-200mm f/4L IS lenses. Here are four shots showing the extremes of these two lenses.

17mm

40mm

70mm

200mm

Here are some shots, all with the EF 17-40mm f/4L lens and the EOS RP.

23mm

36mm

17mm

24mm cropped to 4:3

Christmas Morning Walk

I took a walk this morning over to and around Waterford with the EOS RP and RF 24-105mm lens. These are familiar scenes and the results aren't really distinguishable from the Canon DSLR bodies and lenses. But, five file hand held HDR images would have a tendency to even out the end product regardless of the equipment used. And not being able to run Canon's DPP software on my current MacBook Air leaves me without a lot of processing options.

50mm

24mm

24mm

37mm

58mm