Photo of the Week 2020-08-24

Another weekend, another weekend hike with Jordan. This time, we hiked in Forks of the Credit Provincial Park and headed for the mill ruins at Cataract Falls.

Unfortunately, the trail past the ruins and viewing platform have been closed and well fenced-off while replacement of the platform is under consideration. Not to be thwarted in our attempts to get a view of the ruins and falls, we followed the trail to the north side of the river and turned onto the Elora-Cataract Trailway and found a path down the upper slope of the gorge to the rail line and crossed to a fenced location where we could overlook the ruins and river with a view upstream.

 

Credit River Upstream at Cataract Falls

 

 

 

Canon EOS M - Kolari Dual Spectrum (IR & vis) Conversion

Canon EF-M 11-22 f/4-5.6 IS STM @ f/8

Kolari 590nm Filter

1/100 s, ISO 100

 

It was 5 years since I had last visited and 10 or 15 since I first visited. Sadly, the increased foot traffic and use of the park over that time has changed it's character ... not for the better. Like many parks and trails that see overuse, footpaths are well worn but the infuriating signs of disrespectful visitors, ignorant of their impact, were far too numerous. Discarded used diapers, food containers, dozens of empty water bottles, tissue and toilet paper were to be found in the trailside bushes ... without having to look very hard :-(

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-08-17

 

 

A trip to Silvercreek Conservation Area for a weekend outing had me reaching for my infrared modified camera and hoping that the lush green of the forest would provide suitable scenery.

A short way into the hike I noticed a small sapling bending over the downstream watercourse and thought to make it the main focus of a composition. I found a route down to the creek from the adjacent trail and started framing up the scene. Realizing that the 11-22mm lens I had would require me to get closer to the subject tree, I started working my way along. When I next experimented with a composition, I was still too far away to emphasize that tree ... but ... a larger serpentine trunk made for a perfect additional point of interest and the main focus of the image.

Shot with my EOS-M dual-spectrum modified camera with 590 nm Kolari infrared filter. Custom white balance set to green foliage with reds desaturated in post.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2014-12-01

It was BLAH weather at the cottage this weekend and I needed something a little different to stir the creative juices. I've been thinking about converting my Canon EOS M for infrared (IR) photography and decided to give it a whirl with some IR filters to see how it handled. Dull overcast days are not a good time to work with IR but hey, I needed to play around.

There's this little scene at the side of our cottage road that speaks to me every time I pass by so I decided to set up there for this little trial.

The first thing I experienced was extraordinarily long shutter speeds. I already know that using a non-converted camera with IR filters on the lens will require long shutter speeds in the range of 15-30 seconds to overcome the internal IR cut filter. But wow ... with the dull, overcast day and starting first with an 850nm filter I was 4 minutes f/5.6 ISO 3200 and I found lack sharpness to be an issue. I think it was mostly a focus shift issue and not being able to determine how much focus shift adjustment was required or at least not taking enough 4 minute exposures to get the right focus by trial and error. Now the 850nm filter really blocks a lot of light only allowing the longer wavelength IR to pass so I dropped down to the 720nm filter which would let in a smidgen more light overall.

With the 720nm filter, I still required a 2 minute exposure with f/5.6, ISO 1600 so the blustery wind played havoc with my subject, moving the spruce and cedar branches causing them to blur, but it can be an nice effect so I carried on and ended up with something interesting ... I think.

I R Spruce Out of Rock

Working with an IR converted camera can be a lot more convenient depending on the particular camera type and features. A converted EOS M will show me the IR image on it's live view screen and should be able to focus without a recalibration since it uses the actual imaging sensor to focus, unlike my DSLR's which use a separate focus sensor. The "M" is also a nice compact package that will be easy to include in my kit along with the adapter that allows it to use all my EF mount lenses :-D

Now the only questions are which IR range to I get it converted to and which conversion service do I use .... hmmmmmm

DJE