Yukon, BC, and Alaska in August

Posted on December 27, 2018 by owencherry

This past August I took a trip. A trip to the Great White North to visit Emily (and Brad and Leika). A trip of a lifetime, really. How often does one buy a flight to Whitehorse on a whim for 10 days of road tripping, camping and hiking?

I brought along with me the Fujifilm X100s with the WCL adaptor and the Nikon D750 with AF-S 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5, AF-S 70-200mm f/4, and AF-S 85mm f/1.8. Choosing what to pack for an extended trip is always a challenge but this combination has treated me very well in the past. For the most part on this trip, the X100s went up the mountains and the D750 did everything else.

On the first leg of the trip, we stuck around the Whitehorse area with a day trip to Carcross and climb up Caribou Mountain, a day trip to the Yukon Wildlife Preserve and Gunnar Nilsson & Mikey Lammers Research Forest, a visit to Miles Canyon and putting around downtown.

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Emily, the dog and I then started our road trip with a night camping at Paint Mountain (on Pine Lake near Haines Junction). I got some great shots of the lake and mountain at both sunrise and sunset.

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We then headed south into BC, camping at Million Dollar Falls and taking by far the best hike I’ve been on, to Samuel Glacier. Middle of nowhere, 10km out to the glacier and 10km back. The views were spectacular, but what really struck me was the dead silence once we got away from the highway.

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After the long hike we continues south into Alaska, camping at Chilkat State Park in Haines. I’ve never been to such a good looking campsite. The mountain views were beautiful and the mossy rainforest nook where we set up our tent was totally secluded.

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The next morning we caught the ferry from Haines to Skagway and after exploring the tourist town (while navigating the ridiculous crowd of tourists) we made our way back up to Conrad, Yukon to meet up with Brad and the trailer. The mountain right across the Windy Arm lake had been on fire for a while but luckily the wind was blowing all of the smoke away from us. I got some spectacular fire shots and my new favourite Milky Way.

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We hiked up the Sam McGee trail the next morning and got some great views of the lake and forest fire.

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And that’s pretty much it. An amazing trip and one I’d happily do again!

A Week in Toulouse

Posted on December 18, 2017 by owencherry

For the second time, my job sent me to Toulouse, France to speak at an image sensor conference. I had a few days off after and was able to explore the city.. For the most part I used the X100s, shooting only in JPG. I had the D750 as well, with AF-S 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 G, AF-S 50mm f/1.8 G and AF-S 85mm f/1.8G.

Photos of the Month – June 2016

Posted on July 1, 2016 by owencherry

Well, I haven’t posted in forever. To get myself back on the path to regularly blogging I’m going to try doing a few ‘Photos of the Month’ posts to recap the best images from the month. Most of these were taken with my pretty new Nikon D750 (I’m sure I’ll be writing about it soon) and the rest were with the X100s.

Enjoy!

Trip to Arizona Part II – The Grand Canyon

Posted on August 31, 2015 by owencherry

Well, I crossed off another item on the bucket list in April with my visit to the Grand Canyon. I woke up at 5AM at the hotel in Flagstaff and hit the road before the sun rose so that I’d get to the canyon in the early morning light. I probably don’t need to say a lot about the place. It was epic and vast. I was there early enough that I was totally alone in some spots, without a person in site. That all changed a few hours later when it was teeming.

I walked down the Kaibob trail about 1200 feet and experienced a 15-20 degree (Celsius) temperature change compared to the top. The hike down was easy. The hike up was strenuous and parching.

I stayed past dark and parked myself at Lipan Point for the sunset and night sky shots. Unfortunately I ran the batteries out in the D700 but the X100s was up to the task! The night sky shot here is a panorama of X100s shots. Here are my 22 favourites spanning 7AM to 10PM. D700 and X100s, AF-S 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G and Sigma 35mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.8G.

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Trip to Arizona Part I – Everything but The Grand Canyon

Posted on August 31, 2015 by owencherry

In April one of my best friends, Mike, married Laura in Scottsdale, Arizona and I was lucky enough to get to fly down and shoot the wedding. After the wedding I hung around Arizona for another few days and headed north into the desert in a white Corolla. While the highlight of the trip was the Grand Canyon, the drive there and back was awesome as well! Here are my photos of Phoenix, Sedona and Flagstaff plus a few more from along the highway. Shot with the D700 and X100s.

Kitchener-Waterloo Fujifilm X100 Club Meets

Posted on April 14, 2015 by owencherry

As it turns out, two of my friends also own X100 bodies (Tibra with the original X100 and Carolyn with a brand spankin new X100t). We decided to get together this past weekend for some small body fixed 35mm rangefinder shooting in downtown Kitchener, and so began the Kitchener-Waterloo Fujifilm X100 Club. Here are my highlights from the day, all shot with the X100s except for the first (which was taken with my phone). For the most part these are straight out of camera, with just a few tweaks for brightness and colour.

First Weekend with the Fuji X100S

Posted on March 2, 2015 by owencherry

As you can see from my last blog posts (here and here), I’ve really enjoyed the simplicity of traveling with a 35mm lens or at least a 35mm field of view. The problem is that the D700 and Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART make for a seriously heavy and bulky combination, not to mention something that screams “I’m a photographer!” What I’ve needed is a small, reasonably lightweight camera what won’t make me miss the D700 + Sigma 35mm combo while on a trip.

Well, as a birthday present to myself I picked up a Fujifilm X100S. It’s much smaller and a lot lighter than the big FX body. It has a fixed 23mm f/2 lens and an APS sensor, giving the field of view of the D700/35mm. It has a brilliant hybrid viewfinder that combines an optical rangefinder-style finder with a LCD via a beam splitter.

I’m really looking forward to getting to know this quirky camera and I’m sure I’ll put together a more complete review sometime in the near future. For now, here are some photos from my first weekend with the X100S (including a couple of in-camera panoramas). All were shot as JPG with various in-camera film simulations.