Above, a railroad track crossing the Cap-Tourmente National Wildlife Area in Quebec. Autumn is well underway and red is no longer part of the scene. However, the colors remain attractive. At the time of our visit, only 26,000 of the 600,000 geese migrating south remained.
Trees in the Montcalm dictrict in Québec City during Autumn 2024.
The Montcalm sector of Quebec City is brimming with majestic trees that change colour in autumn. Those photographed above are located right next to the Battlefields Park, owned by the Government of Canada.
Trees of the Grande-Allée in Quebec City in Autumn.
The tree above is on Grande-Allée, in the direction of Old Quebec. I shot it using a Canon EF 11–24 mm f/4 USM wide-angle lens. All I had to do was wait until 10:00 AM for the sun to strike the foliage from the side. Earlier than that, the brightness is a little lacking, and later the sun rises too high and hits the foliage from above with a violent light that detracts from the overall effect.
Trees in a Sillery street in Québec City during Autumn 2024.
Above are a few trees in the Sillery area of Quebec City. It’s not often that red leaves cover several tree trunks. You have to be there at the right time, because the effect doesn’t last long. We also need to be able to count on the wisdom of homeowners who have seen fit to let nature do its job, rather than cleaning everything up to make it look “nicer,” as we sometimes see.
Umbrellas cover part of Rue du Cul-de-Sac in Quebec City. Most tourists are unaware of this installation when they set foot in the Petit Champlain area. Surprised, they whip out their cell phones and capture the moment as best they can. Since they’re just passing through, most don’t have the luxury of choosing the most appropriate light for their multiple shots.
The situation is different for someone who has easy and frequent access to the location. They can wait for the “blue hour” on a fine summer evening, and at the same time capture the golden hue of the lights in front of the many restaurants lining the alleyway.
The main challenge in taking the above shot, however, is the sharp contrasts in light.
For example, the tourists in the foreground are standing in the half-light, but the viewer still wants to see the details. Just above the people, the lighting contrasts sharply with the shaded area at the bottom of the photo. It’s hard for the camera to decide which brightness to prefer.
To top it all off, the soft blue light of late evening illuminates the umbrellas from above, while the restaurant lights illuminate the installation from below.
Image processing software is used to optimize the information contained in the RAW file of the photo, helping to highlight the different areas of brightness in the scene while avoiding areas that are too light or too dark.
Corner of Saint-Stanilas and Saint-Jean streets in Old Québec in the evening Summer 2024.
The photo above shows an evening view of the intersection between rue Saint-Stanislas and rue Saint-Jean in Old Quebec. For several months a year, a section of rue Saint-Jean is reserved for pedestrians only. This attracts many tourists. Just behind this popular street is McWilliam Street, with a radically different feel, especially late at night.
The McWilliam street behind the Cochon Dingue restaurant in Québec City.
To produce an HDR effect of the location, I plan to stack five photos. I set up the tripod and begin the session. Just as I’m about to finish, a door suddenly opens. A man steps out and lights a cigarette.
I need to capture this very brief moment when the individual is just a stealthy shadow in motion with the intense fluorescent lighting in the background. In this rather dark alleyway, this could generate an interesting effect.
The smoker asks me what I’m doing. It’s an employee on break working for the popular Cochon Dingue restaurant on Rue St-Jean. What a contrast between the modern façade and the back of the same building on McWilliam Street.
At home, HDR processing begins. But it’s impossible to use all five shots together as planned initially. The software combines a closed and an open door at the same time. The result is a kind of butchered wicket door, with almost no light filtering through.
I abandon the idea of an HDR montage and fall back on the single photo where the man is standing in front of the door. I wasn’t counting on this presence, but it adds a touch of humanity to a scene that’s still not very inviting.
Life often presents photography enthusiasts with unexpected opportunities. It’s all about being flexible and capturing the moment, even if it’s not part of the initial planning. Click on the link for more photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans in Summer on my blog.
The curb in the lower left corner of the photo serves as a prompt to integrate the scene. The door covers the first right-hand third of the photographic composition, preventing the observer from moving too quickly into the background. The rounded shape of the door and the old stones manage to occupy almost 50% of the image, while the rest shows an entire artery, mountains and a portion of the sky.
To energize the scene, I waited for an automobile to drive down the street.
The Basilique-cathédrale Notre-Dame de Québec and the Price building in Old Québec.
Dating back to 1647, this Basilica-Cathedral has been renovated on several occasions and includes a historic crypt and holy door, attracting believers from all over the world.
Note that in this shot, the close-up of the tower does not prevent us from obtaining perfectly vertical lines, which are usually difficult to achieve in photography. This result is due to the use of a Canon EF 11–24 mm F/4L USM ultra-wide-angle lens, the only one on the market that allows such results without correction and without the fisheye effect taking over.
The Basilique-cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Québec in Old Quebec.
Above is the Basilica-Cathedral seen from another angle.
The full harvest moon rises in the Matane sky in September 2024.
The photo above was taken in Matane, Quebec, in September 2024. It’s more a matter of chance than planning. I was on the beach photographing the sunset, and when the sky got too dark, I turned around to see if there was anything interesting left to capture. And I came across this full harvest moon rising in the firmament.
Photographing a full moon is a good challenge. We often capture only an almost white, very bright disk, losing the nuances of colour and the details of the lunar geography.
The advice available on the Internet on how to successfully shoot a full moon with a normal camera goes in all directions. But one thing’s for sure: to improve your chances of success, it’s best not to wait until nightfall, because then the very high luminosity of the star becomes impossible to attenuate while still retaining a view of the planetary topography.
Most of the time, the choice is between an excellent photo of a full moon, but a very dark surrounding earth relief where nothing is discernible, or a visible earth relief of acceptable quality, but a moon that represents nothing more than a large, white circle of light.
The method that works for the photo above is as follows: you have to be on the spot at the right time, i.e., during the blue hour and not the whole night. So, in my case, I was lucky because it wasn’t planned.
You need a tripod and an extension cable. There are two reasons to avoid long exposures: firstly, the moon is a moving object. The longer the exposure, the more the disk moves. You end up with an oval rather than a round moon. A long exposure also picks up more light, and the moon’s disk turns completely white.
Full harvest moon rising in Matane, Québec 2024
Compromises become necessary. Trying to get a perfect moon and foreground at exactly the right brightness is quite a challenge. By the time every attempt has been made to achieve a flawless result, the moon is already too high in the sky. We have to act quickly.
We’re advised to lower the ISO to 200, but if I do that, I’m increasing the exposure time and introducing too much light into the camera. Instead, I use a higher ISO to reduce exposure, and use all the camera functions likely to reduce the amount of light entering the camera: higher shutter speed, if necessary, strong negative exposure compensation, and so on.
By not overdoing the settings and using RAW files, there’s still enough flexibility to bring out the foreground, in this case the houses lining Matane’s beaches and the surrounding lights.
In short, shoot during the blue hour, act quickly, accept compromises, limit exposure time in every way possible and use RAW files to facilitate post-production work.
The HDR photo of the Dauphine Redoubt above comprises seven pictures with different apertures. The Photomatix software stacks them one on top of the other to create a single shot. This allows the darker regions to stand out, while controlling the lighter areas as much as possible.
For a successful effect, the following factors need to be taken into account: type of camera (ideally full frame), use of an appropriate wide-angle lens, focus, time of day, cloud types, tripod, extension cable, camera mirror vibrations, wind, visibility, photographic grain, depth of field, moving obstacles in front of the camera and photographic composition.
I use a Canon 5 DSr with a Canon EF 11–24 mm F/4L super-wide-angle lens. Focusing with the camera’s backlit screen improves accuracy. It is better to avoid nighttime and take advantage of the blue hour. The clouds don’t prevent the capture of a distant background, and allow the city lights to be reflected in the sky.
I opt for a sturdy tripod. Its extra weight cancels out minor jolts and supports fairly heavy photographic equipment. The extension cable prevents the photographer from touching the camera when taking seven photos.
For mirror-equipped cameras like the Canon 5 DSr, it is important to activate the mirror lock function. This means that vibrations caused by the mirror rotation will have two seconds to fade before the actual picture is taken. A light wind also reduces the chance of vibrations.
Moderate visibility allows better graduation of colours and reflections. Tonight, the mist plays its part well. By using a tripod, I greatly limit the photographic grain. ISO is therefore set at 200. Depth of field is not a problem, as the tripod will prevent movement caused by long exposure.
As many people visit the site in the evening, I try to take each of the seven photos between two crosswalks. This isn’t always possible, but Photomatix can remove “ghosts” when compiling the shots. There is, however, a limit to this function.
The final point concerns photographic composition. The photo above is divided into three roughly equal horizontal zones. Oblique lines on either side at the bottom of the photo direct the eye towards the centre of the image. The five lights of the Dauphine Redoubt and those of the city capture the attention. All the shots have visible details and are not lost in the darkness. For better balance, the composition ignores another imposing building at the right of the scene.
These are just some of the precautions taken when capturing the scene in HDR night photography.
In photography, it’s not just planning that makes for interesting results. Luck also plays an important role. But you need to get out frequently, in all kinds of light and weather conditions. The photo above is a good example of it.
I’m in a district of Old Quebec that is shunned by tourists late at night, because it’s less well lit. The location is close to Rue St-Jean, a popular thoroughfare lined with restaurants and other businesses. The contrast in traffic is striking.
I visited the area to try my luck with HDR photography. The photo session being over, I am preparing to head home quietly as nighttime falls.
Suddenly, a woman on a bicycle stops under a lamppost. The scene, with its plants, old bricks, neon sign and play of shadows, looks promising. But a quick reaction is needed, because with so little light, even the slightest movement will result in a blurred picture. Fortunately, the woman consults her cell phone, which immobilizes her for a few seconds.
HDR photography is out of the question here. She’ll never be still long enough in this subdued light for me to take multiple pics with different apertures. I snap twice, quickly. The young woman puts her phone away and disappears from the scene. There’s only one quality shot, the other being too blurred.
This photo session shows me once again the importance of getting out frequently to try one’s luck. Combined with an acceptable reaction time and the right equipment for working in low light, you’re likely to come home with one of life’s unexpected gifts.
In the photo above, a Red-winged blackbird is stalking bugs in flight. But it’s about 100 metres from the shore. A shot at this distance and on a small, fast-moving subject poses a problem. I try my luck with a Canon 5dsr equipped with a Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS II USM lens.
The bird has just spotted its meal. It swoops down on two dragonflies, braking at the last second to adjust to the insect’s changing trajectory. The agility of the little creatures presents a colossal challenge to the predator.
Once the photo session is over, it’s time to process the Canon 5dsr’s 50.6 megapixel RAW files to correct and bring the bird as close as possible. At this stage, I note the two dragonflies that were difficult to see as I concentrated on following the bird in flight.
For this kind of scene, the photographic technique always remains the same: we prioritize shutter speed while lowering the ISO, because we’ll have to enlarge the main subject considerably during digital processing. We want to avoid enormous graininess on the final print.
The last processing phase for this photo of a small, distant and fast-moving bird is the use of artificial intelligence software. This will enable the focus to be improved slightly if the need arises.
But even with AI, there are no miracles. You can’t turn a bad initial photo into an excellent one unless you completely recompose it. That’s when you step out of the world of photography and choose digital creation.
Green heron at the Marais-Léon-Provancher 2024
Above, a shot of a green heron caught at the end of a photography session. But it seems to me that I’d call it more of a blue heron when the plumage is captured from this angle.
Female Red-winged Blackbird at the Marais-Léon-Provancher in 2024
This year, the Grands Feux Loto-Québec are lit from a barge in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, between Lévis and Quebec City. A tugboat from the Ocean Group company secures the barge with a cable for the duration of the event.
I took the above shot with a Canon 5DSr full-frame camera equipped with a remote shutter release and a tripod-mounted Canon EF 11-24 mm F/4L lens. The super-wide-angle lens can capture both the Château Frontenac and the lights and city of Lévis across the river.
The BULB mode lets you set your own exposure time and take creative initiatives. The brilliant path from launch to explosion is captured in a single photo.
As soon as the bursts begin, you try a five-second exposure and observe the result. Then adjust by stretching the exposure time until good effects are achieved.
One mistake to avoid is leaving the shutter open for too long. When this happens, flashes of light build up on top of each other, and all you see in the final photo is blurry, glowing white.
Working with a RAW file offers much greater flexibility than with a JPEG file when processing the image on the computer.
ISO 200 seems the best option here for several reasons: even if the activity takes place in full darkness, we want to avoid significant digital noise. A low ISO will also lengthen the exposure time and allow us to capture beautiful streaks at the moment of the explosions.
What’s more, the lights will illuminate the scene, reducing exposure time to a reasonable length. Finally, a layer of altocumulus cloud above the Château Frontenac serves today as an artificial light reflector in the photo above.
Grands Feux Loto-Québec, August 2024
A depth of field between 8 and 13 ensures sufficiently accurate light at a reasonable distance.
Whether to focus manually or automatically remains a matter of taste. It should be noted that darkness can cause problems for autofocus. However, trial and error can sometimes produce interesting effects.
If you’re using manual focus, use the camera’s backlit screen to magnify the scene as much as possible and adjust the focus as required. You then return to the normal size display for the duration of the fireworks, taking care not to inadvertently touch the focus adjustment ring when changing the zoom.
Fireworks at the Grands Feux Loto-Québec 2024
Consider using a heavy tripod. In windy conditions, it will better resist vibrations during long exposures.
A final word of advice: fireworks attract a lot of people, some of whom are content with a fairly limited personal space, if they have one at all. Protecting your photographic area becomes an important objective, to avoid the tripod getting snagged or someone moving in front of you when enthusiasm takes over. So, arrive well in advance to choose the best location for you to work in, while protecting your work area.
For example, for the photos above, I had set up between a ramp fixed on a steep slope in front of me and a bush at the rear. No one could stand in front of me and no one could pass behind me because of the bush. I thus had only the sides to worry about. It sounds like an unnecessary concern, but these days everyone is filming fireworks and continually repositioning themselves without regard to their neighbors. Make life easier for yourself by making the necessary arrangements before the show.
Cooper’s hawk in flight in British Columbia, Canada.
At first glance, you don’t know what to look for. Nature’s mimicry has done its work. Then the Cooper’s hawk appears, wings outstretched, flying in our direction.
I took the photo in a British Columbia park. The RAW file makes it possible to correct areas that are too light or really dark, but you still have to respect the bird’s ability to blend in with the landscape. By over-lightening the bird, we take it out of the environment where it hides to watch its prey.
The fact that the hawk is advancing rapidly towards the camera makes it difficult to focus, especially through high light contrasts. The result is a slight blurring of the head, which is easily corrected by artificial intelligence.
A Cooper’s hawk is airborne in Oak Bay, British Columbia.
Several companies sell a product capable or claiming to be capable of correcting blurred areas. As far as I’m concerned, I use Topaz AI. All you have to do is position the cursor on the spot where a slight improvement is desired and you’re done.
However, don’t expect miracles with such software. The photo has to be good enough for the program to make a tiny improvement.
