Adventures on eastern Georgian Bay

Photo 1 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay at sunset. EOS 5D mark II; 17-40mm lens; Singh-Ray LB ColorCombo polarizer & 3 stop reverse ND grad; ISO 200; 3.2s @ f/20

This was an adventurous week! I spent a few days photographing and exploring remote islands in eastern Georgian Bay with my friend Ian "nikonIAN" Brooks (http://www.ianbrooks.net/). We loaded my boat with gear and set out to camp on a remote chain of small islands sporting amazing granite folds that form elaborate patterns. I'd first spied these geologic formations in a tv documentary and they have been on my mind ever since!

The great challenge/stress of our trip was navigating the boat through a rocky labyrinth of shoals. The combonation of Ian's advanced GPS navigating skills and my inability to follow instructions, landed us on our first shoal within hours. I hit it hard enough to break the skeg of the bottom of the boat motor, but thankfully there was minimal damage to the prop. Onward we cruised (although much slower).

We managed to make a couple trips to the best islands for magic hour light, but couldn't stay as long as we wanted because of the danger in boating back in forth in low light (you can't see the shoals). Next trip I'm going to drag a kayak out with me.

The most expensive part of the weekend was when I dropped my almost brand new 70-200mm f/4 IS lens on the bedrock and literally snapped the lens body in half. I took it into Canon yesterday and they tell me it will be fixed in 4 days (and a reasonable price). This will be my first test of the new CPS program!

Here are a few shots from the trip. More to follow as I catch up on processing the raw files. 


Photo 2 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay. EOS 5D mark II; 24mmTSE II tilt shift lens; Singh-Ray LB Warming polarizer & 2 hard edge ND grad; ISO 200; 1/13s @ f/20


Photo 3 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay. EOS 5D mark II; 17-40mm lens; Singh-Ray LB Warming polarizer & 2 stop hard edge ND grad; ISO 200; 0.4s @ f/18



Photo 4 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay at sunset. EOS 5D mark II; 17-40mm lens; Singh-Ray LB ColorCombo polarizer & 3 stop reverse ND grad; ISO 200; 6s @ f/20


Photo 5 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay. EOS 5D mark II; 17-40mm lens; Singh-Ray LB polarizer; ISO 100; 1/30s @ f/18


Photo 6 (above): Northern Watersnake eating fish (Round Goby?); Canon G11 point & shoot
It pays to have a point & shoot camera handy for unexpected moments like when this watersnake came up with dinner! I didn't have time to grab my SLR system.