Great Opportunity on Georgian Bay (stay in an amazing photo location!)

The Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory, through its Monitoring Station near the Cabot Head Lightstation, tracks the migration of birds on the Bruce Peninsula. I was a founding board member and the organization has now been operating for 10 years.

For 8 weeks from June 12th to August 7th, when banding and monitoring are not taking place, the non-profit organization invites conservation-minded people "stewards" to stay at Wingfield Cottage for weekly sessions. This helps to pay for the spring and fall migration bird banding activities. At this time, the weeks open are: June 12-19 (ideal for wildflowers), June 26-July 3, July 3-10, Aug 7-14.

The one-week visits, Saturday to Friday, cost $550.

Stewards usually do small maintenance projects and have a wonderful experience.

The location is majestic and the rustic cottage has Georgian Bay on one side and Wingfield Basin on the other. It's a dream spot for landscape and wildlife photography!

The Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory is located in a provincial nature reserve on the edge of Wingfield Basin on the side opposite the Cabot Head Lightstation. Cabot Head is on the northeast side of the Bruce Peninsula just past the cottage village of Dyers Bay.

Check out the website http://www.bpbo.ca/  and if you are interested call or email Ron Baker at (519) 795-7652 or ronbakerbpbo@sympatico.ca

Enjoy a spectacular location on Georgian Bay and support conservation at the same time.

Photographing waterfalls & moving water

It's an in-between season right now where I live in central Ontario..... the snow has melted but the lush green vegetation is still a month or so away.  It can be difficult to find inspiring  scenes to shoot so I look for great light or  smaller details to focus on. When my friend and I went out to photograph the other day, I knew this small waterfall would be perfect in the overcast conditions.

These are some of my first photos with the Canon 70-200 f/4 IS L lens that I recently picked up. I finally traded in the f/2.8 version to save considerable weight and space in my camera pack. Since I'm almost always shooting on a tripod, the faster f/2.8 lens isn't really necessary. And the f/4 lens is reputedly sharper. Sounds good to me!

It's a breeze to shoot blurred water scenes like this. Compose your scene, use a tripod and slow the shutter speed down to 1/15s or slower. Really simple, eh! There are many ways to achieve a slow shutter speed: use a small aperture (which I like for the depth-of-field anyway), set your ISO speed lower, shoot in low light or use an ND filter (I have the Singh-Ray Vari- N-Duo). Of course, a tripod is needed to keep everything steady during the slow exposure. And be sure to check the histogram to make sure the white water is not blown out.

For this series of photos, all I had to do was use low ISO, dial in a small aperture... and voila, perfect shutter speeds for blurred water. I shot these with a Canon EOS 5D mark II, EF 70-200 f/4 L lens at ISO 100; Exposure was 1/4s at f/32.

Happy spring!
Ethan-