Samantha and I have a new article up on the Singh-Ray blog about using ND filters to “Paint with Time“. Check it out if you are interested in creating images with swirls and blurs of motion. Click on the photo to see a larger version of the image.
©Darwin Wiggett
Samantha and I are headed to Assiniboia, Saskatchewan on Saturday April 30th to give a 2-hour seminar on The Complete Photo for the Group of 10 Camera Club. For a complete listing of the event and to register click this link. We are also giving some hands on field sessions on Sunday May 1 for interested photographers. Take a road trip to a really cool spot in Saskatchewan and let the prairie light inspire you!
©Darwin Wiggett
Samantha and I just finished a Blurb Book using Blurb’s new Blurbify process to create Extreme Saskatchewan. This is a book showcasing the photography of the participant’s photos taken during the infamous Saskatchewan flood of 2010. Check out the preview of our book.
©Graham Budd
©Darwin Wiggett - Canon EOS-1ds Mark III
Here is another photo from the Extreme Saskatchewan Tour in June. This photo was taken just as the sun sunk below the horizon. The car was close to a shed and I needed a wide angle lens to get the front of the car totally in the photo. I used my Canon 24mm TSE lens on my Canon EOS-1ds Mark III camera. I placed a Singh-Ray P-sized sprocketed Gold-N-Blue polarizer into the Cokin P-Series Filter Holder on my lens and rotated it to give me the gold-n-blue reflections you see on the on the windshield and the hood. I also tilted the lens into the plane of the car hood to get great depth-of-field. I then chose an aperture of F14 so that I would get a longer exposure time (8 seconds) so that I would have time to light the headlights of the car with my pocket flashlight. The single exposure was processed in Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop CS-5. Click on the photo for a larger view.
Graham Budd
©Graham Budd
The image was taken in an abandoned one room schoolhouse just outside Leader, Saskatchewan. Although dilapidated, the building contents including old desks, chairs and tattered books provided lots of evidence that it once housed children, long since gone. The dreary rainy weather and the grey somber skies added to the mood. As I looked out the window, I felt myself being carried back to a time when life was much simpler so I composed the shot accordingly. I had to decide whether to focus on the raindrops or the building, so I chose the former so as better to convey the feeling of being trapped inside. The original was shot in colour and converted to B&W using Nik Silver FX.
©Darwin Wiggett
This photo is from Saskatchewan. Here I used the shift feature on my Canon 90mm tilt-shift Lens. First I set the lens to the zero shift position and took a photo to determine proper exposure. Then I set my camera to manual at that exposure (10 seconds at f14). The reason I went to manual exposure is that when you shift the lens left and right shifting causes the light meter in the camera to give improper exposure (underexposed in one direction, overexposed in the other). Then I simply shifted the lens to the left until I got what I wanted on the left side of the photo, then I shifted the lens to the right to get what I wanted in the right side of the composition. The result was blended together in Photoshop’s “Photo Merge” using “reposition”. The two overlapping images fell perfectly into place without any parallax problems. I love using my tilt-shift lens to make panoramic photos and the 90mm lens is great for intimate panos. Click on the photo to see a larger version. The neat thing here is how calm it was. In the 10 second exposure (in dusk light), not a blade of grass moved.
Despite torrential rains, pandemic flus and biblical flooding, the participants on the Extreme Saskatchewan Tour deliverd the goods! Head over to Samantha’s blog to check out the talent of these photographers who persevered despite the instructors delivering on their promise of an extreme tour. Starting tomorrow, Sam will post a set of images provided by each participant each day for the next seven days. To kick off the series, make sure you watch my demonstration of light painting in full rain gear — it’ll knock your rubber boots off!
©Darwin Wiggett - Canon EOS-1ds Mark III
Because of the holiday long weekend I forgot to post a weekly photo for last week so here it is this week a few days late! You know, photographer’s should get vacations like everyone else but we always seem to be processing images or sending out invoices or doing taxes or fighting to get our six month overdue invoices paid… we seem less and less to be able to actually make photos but I digress.
The photo below was made on the Extreme Saskatchewan tour. I used a Rebel T2i (test camera) with the new Sigma 8-16mm. This image was made by blending 5 different exposures using Exposure Fusion in Photomatix.To read more about how exposure fusion differs from HDR read this.
©Darwin Wiggett
©Darwin Wiggett - Canon G11
Near Leader, Saskatchewan taken with the Canon G11 and a Singh-Ray LB Warming polarizer, converted to B+W in Nik Silver Efex Pro.
©Darwin Wiggett - Canon G11
It was raining outside and we decided to photograph the interior of the Commercial Hotel in Maple Creek Saskatchewan and than have lunch at the Star Cafe and Grill. We all had fun with our point-n-shoot cameras in the cafe while we waited for the great food. Below are a few snaps I took during our lunch. Little did we know about the burst dam and the potential disaster to befall this quaint little town! To find out more I’ll let Royce take up the story….
©Darwin Wiggett - Canon G11
©Darwin Wiggett - Canon G11
©Darwin Wiggett - Canon G11
Photographer's Guide to the Canadian Rockies now available
Darwin Wiggett 