First 1Ds Landscapes
On August 13, 2003 I hiked in the dark up to Stewart Falls on the east side of Mt. Timpanogos. It's just next to the Sundance ski resort. It's only about a two mile hike, but I still had to get up at 4:00 am in order to be there by sunrise. The main goal was to shoot some landscapes with the new Canon EOS 1Ds. This is an 11 megapixel digital SLR that has made me decide to quit using my medium format equipment. For further info about this camera see the equipment section and my article comparing it's output to that of the Canon EOS 10D and my Bronica medium format system.
Even though I live only about 15 miles from Sundance and have skiied there many times, this was my first time to Stewart Falls. We are in the 5th year of a drought, so there wasn't a lot of water. I really didn't know what to expect and didn't have time for any scouting, so I don't think these are spectacular landscapes, so I've put them here in an article instead of a gallery as I do with my better pictures. I plotted the coordinates of the trail from the map generated by my Delorme Topo 3D Quad mapping program into my GPS which turned out to be very helpful when hiking an unfamiliar trail in the dark. I arrived at the falls just as the sun was lighting up the few clouds in the east.
Overall, I was very happy with both the handling of the camera and the resulting images. If anyone wants a Bronica ETRSi system, I've got one for sale.
Click on Images to see larger version.
Canon 1Ds, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L @ 70mm, ISO 100
When I left home it looked pretty cloudy, but fortunately there were just enough clouds for a nice sunrise.
Canon 1Ds, Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L @ 17mm, ISO 100
This sunrise shot demonstrates another advantage of shooting digitally. Instead of using a split neutral density filter and wondering where to place the gradient line, I made two exposures; one for the clouds and one for the foreground. When shooting from a tripod where the framing doesn't change between shots the two exposures can be easily blended in Photoshop giving you a similar result to the time honored split ND, but it actually turns out better.
Canon 1Ds, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L @ 70mm, ISO 50
As I mentioned above, there wasn't a whole lot of water. I had the choice of trying to include the whole falls, or just details of it. This is the upper part of the falls. This is a panorama of four horizontally framed shots stacked vertically and stitched together with Max Lyon's PTAssembler (a graphical front end for Panorama Tools). This was my first attempt at image stitching. It went surprisingly well. A tribute to the quality of the software.
Canon 1Ds, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4-5.6L IS@ 220mm, ISO 50
Detail of the top of the falls.
Canon 1Ds, Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L @ 26mm, ISO 200
This is the best shot I could get of the whole falls. By now, the sun was high enough to lose the "golden light", but it does make the rainbow stand out a bit more.
Canon 1Ds, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4-5.6L IS@ 250mm, ISO 50
This is a detail from the middle of the lower falls.
Canon 1Ds, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L @ 42mm, ISO 50
Lower falls with rainbow. Yet another advantage of shooting digitally is the ability to change film speeds (ISO) at will. No more changing film, or carrying two bodies, to get different effects. By shooting at a slow ISO I was able to blur the water even more. Compare this to the image of the entire falls (two above) which was shot at ISO 200 and therefore a higher shutter speed.
For a complete catalog of all images from this trip check the image catalog.