On Saturday I was supposed to participate take a field trip to lower Manhattan. I feel like a broken record, but my Nikon broke over the winter, and a friend loaned me her father’s Canon camera and 70-200mm lens. It’s a good camera and lens but not ideal for cityscape photography. For that, I needed a wider lens. I rented a Canon 24-70mm f/4L IS. I was excited for the opportunity to capture some city scenes that I had on my list and play around with night time photography.
Unfortunately, the weather turned sour, and the field trip was postponed to next weekend. I tried to make the best of it, but it rained on Saturday morning. The rain stopped later in the afternoon for a few hours. My wife saw my disappointment and encouraged me to go out to one of my favourite spots along the Rock Brook. I’ve visited and photographed this location multiple times. I thought it might be boring, but I do enjoy walking along the rocks and listening to the wind in the trees.
However, when we arrived, the water level was shallow. I guess we’ve had very little rainfall this summer, but I hadn’t noticed. There was very little water flowing, but I was able to access areas of the Rock Brook that I had never accessed before.
Bhavna encouraged me to play around with what I had. I moved around, setting up the tripod in different locations. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the Canon menus and struggled to get the camera set up for long exposure photography. I played around on various menus trying to get the camera to do what I wanted.
Unlike my broken baby Nikon DSLR, the Canon EOS 5D Mark III has no flip screen. I think a flip screen is something that is a must for landscape photography. Well …. maybe not a must. But it definitely makes things easier when the camera is mounted low on the tripod. To get the compositions I wanted, I had to contort my body to see down to the level of the viewfinder.
I didn’t get much time at Rock Brook. About thirty minutes after we arrived, Bhavna felt rains drops and gave me a verbal warning. I snapped a few more shots, and we returned to the car just as a drizzle started.
