Way Off Topic, but...

[Deleted]

Been extremely busy shooting lately. In certain areas our autumn colours are reaching their peak. With an absolutely perfect weekend weather wise, I went up north to catch some of what nature had to offer. Now these are waaayyy off topic, but if Don doesn't mind too much, I'll give you a really quick sample of what we have here in part of Ontario right now (if only Orbx could reproduce this!). These are just grabs from over 1300 images shot this weekend, but it will give you an idea:































Don - sorry - these are a little large. I'll remove them in a couple of days (may have new ones processed by then anyway <LOL>).

[Bushpounder]

They sure are. They are all little red x's. I didn't know they were out already.

BP;)

[Deleted]

Weird. They show fine here. They are 1280 instead of 1024, so not sure why that would kill them. I'll take them down and resize them when I get time. Might take a few days though. Sorry about that.

[pivo11]

Did it snow?    All I see is a blank page. 

[Deleted]

LOL - No Fritz, anything but! It was +23 to 25 C all weekend! Amazing weather for the end of September. I even got chewed on by mosquitoes, which is a first for this late in the season.

Anyway, since these are oversized, maybe I'll just link them then anyone who wants can go have a look. See below:

Haliburton Weekend 1

Haliburton Weekend 2

Haliburton Weekend 3

Haliburton Weekend 4

Haliburton Weekend 5

Haliburton Weekend 6

Haliburton Weekend 7

Haliburton Weekend 8

Haliburton Weekend 9

Haliburton Weekend 10

[pivo11]

All of 'em are very nice.    

[Deleted]

Great stuff Glenn. Having spent many summers and Autumns in that area, that scenery looks familiar. It became traditional that we as a family flew up there around Thanksgiving, just to see the colours, from the air. Usually magnificent.
PS. where were you in Haliburton for those shots ?
Carm.

[Deleted]

Thanks guys, appreciate it .

Carm, I was up Livingstone Road, a small backroad that runs north northeast from Dorset. It's only about 20km long, but so full of scenery (and the leaves were peaking there this past weekend) that as I say, I shot over 1300 frames up there over 2 days. Now, I'll only keep 100 to 200 as per normal, but that's still a phenomenal rate of return for 2 days. It's absolutely gorgeous up there this year in terms of colour (well, in most ways actually, but it's too busy with tourists now). Like you, I've been up there before, but I went both by air and canoe. My earlier backcountry canoe trips up to Kimball Lake (started on the east end of Kawagama) and Rockaway Lakes were done long before any roads went anywhere near those places. Now there are roads everywhere, some strictly logging roads, but still... . It's a nice area.

[olderndirt]

Beautiful.

[Deleted]

Thanks Dave, appreciate that .

[Deleted]

Glenn; Yesterday I drove up to Hanover A/P for breakfast via Clifford and Neustadt. The scenery was georgous, each one of those forests through there seemed to be trying to outdo the other. To top off the morning--- there was a Poker run going through Hanover, lots of good looking A/C. My friend Gord was there with one of his Pacers. This one he recently finished 'modifying'---new wing tip cuffs curled downward. Three bladed prop--very slim and longer that usual.He lengthened the UC and a couple of other tweaks he didn't seem too eager to talk about. He had to register it in another category to fly it. No passengers. But what a neat looking machine. When he took off it was too short a distance and climbed like a homesick angel. Think I'll have to make a little jaunt up to his farm one of these days to get a closer look.
Carm.

[Deleted]

Sounds nice Carm. Not a lot of good colour around here. This doesn't seem to be the area for it for some reason. Apparently up near Duntroon is really good.

[Bushpounder]

All nice, but 9 is outstanding!

BP;)

[Sandy]

I concur with BP, I really like #9. Nice focus on all the vegetation, with a nice blurring/motion to the burbling brook. Beautiful colors, feels like I'm right there, and in fact I've been in some spots in the Blue Ridge Mountains that look very much like that. That photo did what it's supposed to do, it reached me; it reminded me of places I've been in the past and struck a chord of longing/wanting to be back in that spot and time.

[Deleted]

Thanks VERY much for the kind remarks folks. Really appreciate that.

It's funny how different scenes strike people differently. When we see an image that reminds us of someplace we've been before, especially as kids, it hits us very differently than do other images that we can't relate to as well. In an odd sort of way, this reminds me of the west coast scenery that Orbx does. It's extremely well done and all, but I've not spent an appreciable amount of time there, so I can't relate to it that well (and given the constraints of a computer simulation, that may be a good thing). For Don and Sandy, it's image #9 that gets them (more on that one in a minute ). You guys have "been there" - not the same creek, but this creek could be anywhere in the east. For me, having worked in the Boreal Forest for a good part of my life, this one and this one (even more) really get me. This region that I was shooting in, by the by, is on the transition from the northern Boreal forest and the southern mixed forest regions. Note the "spider condo village" in both of those shots . If this were further north, there would have been a moose in there somewhere (there were moose in this region but the population was low and I never saw one, although I did hear a couple the weekend previous).

There is some irony in the #9 shot. If I had shot that 3 or 4 years ago, it wouldn't have been useable. I couldn't get a tripod into that location due to the terrain, so that meant hand holding the camera. In order to keep from getting camera shake, I had to bump up the ISO to 1600. Now much of this might be Greek to most of you, but previous to the camera I got this Summer (the Nikon D4s), the image would have been so noisy that it would have looked very splotchy or "grainy" at ISO's that high. This camera is so incredibly good with higher ISO's that I didn't even apply any noise reduction to the final output! I still shot over two dozen frames to get this one (the rest had camera shake because I was still shooting at a fairly slow shutter speed, trying to blur the water as much as possible, as Sandy noted), but the fact I could get it at all blew me away. How technology has changed, and in this case, very much for the better.

Anyway, I ramble, but thanks again for the kind remarks. Most appreciated .