Two great skies in a row

It's Sunday morning and I have just finished processing the pictures I took around sunrise. I looked out first about three quarters of an hour before dawn and the sky looked great so I grabbed a couple of shots from my front door and then got ready and headed out.

It was a couple of degrees below zero which is not cold if you are walking around but it gets to me a little when I am standing around taking pictures so I dress warmly.

The colours in the morning are best before sunrise when the sun is still below the horizon.

There is a bit of ice, nothing that is going to stop a boat but enough to remind me that we are living on borrowed times when it comes to open water.

Last night was great too. I noticed the sky when I was leaving the store (Moosonee is a small enough place that when you say "store" people know you mean Northern). A very kind person, Sharon Ross, saw me waiting with my groceries and gave me a ride home. That meant that I had time to grab a few shots of the sunset up the river.

I have been keeping my exposures down a bit when shooting sunrise and sunset. I have always tended to "shoot to the right", to make sure that my pictures have elements that show up at the right edge of the histogram. This means that the image, as recorded by the camera, should have bright things in it, even if the actual scene was not that bright. Things can always be darkened later. Sometimes I ended up with the nasty spike of overexposure. Yes, it can often be saved in Photoshop but I am finding that the colours are much better when I avoid that spike.

Making maps and since when is Moose Factory not on an island

There was a great article in the New York Times about the ways in which ordinary people are getting involved in making maps of their communities.
On line maps are very important and useful. They can be up to date and can let you choose between road maps and satellite views. Some now incorporate Bird's Eye views that can make me believe I am flying around in a low altitude aircraft. Traditionally they have been made by businesses who have people who go and check things out or rely on previously published materials.
Now, more and more people are getting involved in gathering the data needed to make maps.
The New York times article mentions how a couple of hundred volunteers set out in Atlanta last month to get information missing from current maps.There is hope for a worldwide collaboration to produce accurate and current maps of everywhere.
For some people involved in producing maps, it is important that what they produce will be available to anyone instead of being owned by a corporation and used for commercial purposes or kept hidden from the public.
 OpenStreetMap is a user generated street map of the world. It has a lot of fascinating stuff such as traces of people's travels from their GPS's and diaries written by the kinds of fussy, careful people so vital to the generation of accurate maps.
I look at online maps from the point of view of someone in a small place that is out of the way. Right from the start I have noticed that online maps of where I live tend to have interesting errors.
For example, according to Google Maps, there is a place called Killarney in the part of Moosonee that used to be Canadian Forces Station Moosonee and that everybody here calls "the base". There is a place called Killarney and a Provincial Park but those are on Georgian Bay in Southern Ontario.
Also on the Google map: various Moosonee roads are labeled "Local Services Board of Mooson". There is no such body; Moosonee is a town now and was a Development Area before and was always spelled "Moosonee".. There is a Local Services Board in Moose Factory so perhaps that accounts for the confusion.
Still, the Google map is pretty good and the satellite photos let you see your own house in Moosonee.
If you choose to search with Microsoft's search engine, Bing, you did a different picture of this area.  You will see that Moosonee is clearly on the mainland and on the north shore of the Moose River. Moose Factory is moved off its island in the middle of the river and shows up on the south shore. That's on the map version, if you check out the aerial shots it is in the right place although you cannot zoom in as far as you can with Google.
Being a coward and a respecter of copyrights, I have not reproduced the map errors in images but provided links to them. I hope that at some point in the future, somebody will correct the errors. And yes, as you probably guessed, I already sent in corrections, years ago.

As someone alive to importance of visuals, I decided I would include an aerial shot of Moosonee. Here are some more aerial shots taken from a helicopter including a few of "the base"; perhaps somebody can find Killarney on one of them. In the interests of being fussy and accurate I should and will mention that they were taken on October 1st, 2005 from the right rear seat of a helicopter being used to transport people out to look for gravel up the Moose River.

What a great day outside

Today was unbelievably nice, clear skies mostly, not cold (got up to 13C or 55F). I spent a lot of time outside with a camera.

First went earlier in the morning down the river bank towards the Moose River. This whole area was the subject of a stabilization project over the last couple of years.

Last year they shot 1700 soil nails into the ground and placed a lot of very nice granite from a quarry near Peterborough along the water's edge.

This year they got rid of the vegetation and shaped the bank. The result is a quagmire. You have to be very careful where you walk or you will sink in. Poor drainage, I suppose. Probably an expected consequence of getting rid of the plant life and spreading dirt around. I sink in once in a while, usually not that bad and I have learned to wear rubber boots. Today a little worse, almost over the tops of my boots. Ok, remember the drill. Put the camera in the plastic bag that is always carried (to deal with condensation in cold weather, rain or situations such as this). Put two hands on the ground to get the weight off the feet and struggle out and hope nobody is watching (laughing). Go home and wash the clothes.

Then, change cameras. I went out with a Canon 40D with 100-400mm lens. With crop factor of the 40D this is the equivalent of 640mm on a 35mm film camera. Did not have a lot of luck. The combination is not really quick focusing enough. But, got a few shots of ravens coming for eggs and one smart one deciding why bother with the ones on the ground when you can get more from the carton.

When I came back out I decided to stay on the grass as much as possible and brought out my Canon 1DIIN with the 300mmf2.8. While the camera is a few years old this is a much faster focusing combination for birds in flight. It is a heavier setup but tolerable.

Birds are flight are a tough group of subjects for me. I find that I throw away the vast majority of my shots but I imagine that is true for many people. The 300mm lens with the 1D is the same as a 390mm lens on a 35mm camera. This is not very long but my expectation was that I would be mostly photographing ravens. They are big birds and they come pretty close. Sometimes, in fact, too close for effective focusing or useful depth of field.

First thing I noticed was the flock of geese on the sandbar. Naturally taking pictures of them was shooting into the sun. So no great results and the geese did not have the common courtesy to come and fly over to the shoreline and perhaps give me a chance at some beautiful shots of birds lit up by the morning sun. Did a few shots but nothing spectacular.

Spent more time with the ravens. They come for eggs, not my personality. Today I went through a lot but got a few good shots of the ravens in flight and on the ground. One of them grabbed an egg and flew off and then somehow dropped it on the road so got a few shots of it and then, after I threw out a fresh egg and that bird took off with it, a more timid raven finishing it up.

I love the shapes the ravens assume when they fly especially when they are landing or turning or flying close to the ground or buildings. I try to focus on the eyes/head because once the birds get really close there is not way that the whole bird is going to be in focus with a 300mm lens. I turn exposure compensation way up, usually plus 2. Ravens are dark birds and I want to get details in them more than in the landscape.

Noticed myself in the eye of a raven in one shot so blew that up a little.

I posted a bunch of pictures from today on http://www.paullantz.com/ under Ravens and Birds - General