Monday, August 02, 2010

Sunrise boat trip to Flowerpot Island

Many great photo locations are most accessible by water. Though I have been paddling canoes and kayaks since I was a kid, it can be a heck lot of work - and logistically challenging - to get to places when the light is best. I finally broke down and bought a small boat last week (16' aluminum with a 50HP engine) to open up a new world of photo possibilities. My first photo shoot with the boat was out to nearby Flowerpot Island:
 

Photo 1 (above): Self-portrait at sunrise, Flowerpot Island, Fathom Five National Marine Park, Tobermory, Ontario. Canon EOS 5d mark II, EF 17-40mm lens, Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer & 3 stop soft edge ND grad, ISO 200, 1/6s @ f/14


Photo 2 (above): Getting air next to the flowerpot, Flowerpot Island, Fathom Five National Marine Park, Tobermory, Ontario. Canon EOS 1Ds mark III, 24mm TSE II tilt shift lens, ISO 800, 1/500s @ f/4.5.

The great sunrise was short-lived because of overcast skies, so I decided to mess around with my tilt-shift lens. One of the great benefits of the lens is the ability to achieve depth of field at fairly wide-open apertures. By tilting the lens I was able to shoot this at f/4.5 yet have plenty of depth-of-field and a fast enough shutter speed to stop motion in air. That's me jumping... my friend Cainan machine-gunned the the shutter release for me.
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5 comments:

  1. Florin1:04 AM

    Hi Ethan,
    Nice shot and it's nice you have your own boat to move around. I got a shot like that a week ago, I camped on the island and took few shots in the early morning.
    The one I like is here;
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/46214006@N07/4855497473/

    Florin

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  2. Ethan Meleg6:40 AM

    Hey Florin, awesome shot... the classic composition. You hit a better sunrise than I did !
    cheers,
    Ethan

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  3. claura2:28 AM

    Anyway, it all looks just too fun. Big Roo loved the pics at an old Arizona ghost town we visited. So funny!


    current

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  4. Mark Brown9:12 PM

    Some striking photos you got there, Ethan. I admire photographers who are willing to explore all the possibilities in their field. That's kinda like what my cousin did: import a boat and go to an uncommonly visited place to take pictures. He got the boat from the US so he had to abide by global boat shipping laws, but he didn't have a problem with that. I hope I get to visit a photo gallery of yours, Ethan.

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  5. Mike2:51 PM

    Amazing! How did you get the jumping shot? That seems awfully high.

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