Some people were curious how much post processing I spent in Photoshop on the photos I took at Banff. It's hard to quantify, but in a nut shell: a lot. I probably spent around 30 hours on this set. A quarter of that time was probably spent sifting through the close to 2000 pictures, and the other three quarters spent editing the 255 keepers.
There's just no other way to get the pictures to look so vibrant straight out of the camera (although with some of the recent Nikon DSLRs, I've seen some impressive colors.. but that's besides the point). Even great film photographers like Ansel Adams spent many hours in the darkroom dodging and burning.
So how "accurate" are the pictures in depicting reality if they've been touched up? Have you ever had that feeling of, "wow this scenery is so amazing but too bad it will never look as good on camera"? A lot of the touch ups were done to bridge that gap between the dullness of the photograph and the vibrancy of what my eyes saw when I was standing there. So although in one sense, the camera is more "accurate" in recording the the number of photons that hit the sensor, the retouched version is more accurate in capturing the emotion of what I experienced in person.
But then, there are a couple photos that look better than reality. Those were done with artistic license, I guess =) When the lighting is gorgeous, I can usually tell that it will look amazing with a little bit of pixel massaging.
Here is a handful of comparisons of those straight out of camera and the final result:
Here, the retouched version more closely resembles what we saw in person. It really was a beautiful scene.
This picture is a perfect example of, "Photography is not about the scenery. It's about the light." The mountains here were not a prominent part of the scene at all.I just spotted a range off in the distance where the light was warm and beautiful, grabbed my telephoto and zoomed in on it.
I'd say the retouched version is an example where the final version looks better than reality. Mostly because there can't be this much contrast unless it was dusk or dawn. But that's why I took the shot in the first place -I knew that as it was, it probably wasn't strong enough to be a good photo, but it had strong potential as a starting point.
There's a lot more detail in the sky and snow. The dynamic range of cameras simply can't capture this much contrast well without some help
You can still tell from the original that the scene was pretty darn amazing
I'm pretty sure no field in the world looks as flat and dull as the original shot, hahaha. It's a little underexposed to preserve the highlight details in the clouds. Another example of working within the dynamic range of the sensor
I threw this in here so you can see that the lake wasn't like crazy artificially enhanced to look super blue.
Some artistic license here ;) The scene was gorgeous but the sky was really dull. So I made the picture almost monochrome to make it so that the sky looks okay being white. Maybe a little over the top Korean-drama-ish hahaha, but I think done fairly well...
In fact, we didn't really see any goats or any of those bears, coyotes, big-horned sheep, etc. Those were all Photoshopped in =P
Here you can see combining pictures to get rid of ugly background. Get out of my shot, buddy!
Banff National Park - Home of the Canadian Rockies
I've been wanting to go to Banff and so I was surprised when my parents said we were going to take a family vacation there. We were there for a week between the days of June 9-14 and the scenery there is just ridiculous. Unfortunately for us, the weather was cloudy & rainy almost every single day. Although the grandeur of the mountain is undeniable, the dull, flat lighting and white sky made it hard to fully appreciate the beauty of the place. I couldn't get a single sunrise or sunset picture due to the weather.
BTW, sunrise was at 5:30AM and sunset at 10:00PM.. that's 16 and a half hours of daylight! Which meant, we usually stayed out late and Brian and I ended up sleeping around 1 or 2AM. Needless to say, it was pretty darn hard waking up at 4:30 to get ready and drive out to find a shot or the dawn sky. We didn't get anything other than a blue cloudy sky and never did it again since betting against the weather forecast didn't seem to be worth the lost sleep =)
The things I love most about national parks are multiday backpacking trips and pictures during the golden hours close to sunrise and sunset. Since neither of those happened, I have to say the highlight of this trip was the wildlife. We saw a good variety and even had a few pleasant close encounters.
I'll start off with some pictures of the animals and then move on to pictures of mother nature. There's tons of images and some videos and sometimes it gets displayed all funky. Whatever. Try refreshing if you see something weird and.. Enjoy!
(Not all pics are from Banff; some are from neighboring parks like Kootenay & Jasper) For the full collection of pics, check out my Flickr set For just my favorite pics, go here =)
The Wildlife
Deer feeding at dawn. We found them at the end of our sunrise excursion, taken at 6AM
Elk chilling alongside the Bow Valley Parkway
Hoary marmot, Batman! "Hoary marmot" is what it's called although it sounds like an exclamation or something bad...
Look at its pudgy cheeks!
Some eggs that Brian was sharp enough to notice at the side of the trail we were on
Pika pika! Sometimes I wonder if this animal is what Pikachu is based off of... I really wanted to see a pika before the end of the trip and they're so hard to spot if it weren't for their shrill noises they make. It literally called out to me -I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise haha
Even though it's relatively easy to spot it in these close up pics, you can see how it would blend into these huge piles of rocks
It's like an over-weight rabbit. Nice and plump =D
The lake really is this blue. You'll see more out-of-this-world blue lakes later in this post
Big Horned Sheep
I didn't capture it very well here, but it's actually fairly up high
I really wanted to get some dramatic close shots of it at a wide angle... but was afraid it would attack me if I got any closer
Not really sure what this is.. Pretty sure it's not a wolf.. wolves are way too elusive and travel in packs.. Uh, I'm gonna guess that it's a fox.Nope, it's a coyote! Thanks beanya!
I like the subtle criss cross lines in this pic. Too bad the fox is facing away
It's a squirrel. Okay, fine, we see squirrels everywhere all the time. But I had a ball playing with these little guys
For one thing, they always seem so clueless
Why did the mountain goat cross the road? I'm not clever enough to think of a witty answer.. And apparently neither is Google
"Oh, Hi!"
They're literally eating dirt..
Goat fight. Of all the animals we saw.. goats don't seem to get along very well haha.. They're like respect-me's or something (Nothing wrong with being a respect-me.. just saying..)
A black bear!! I've never seen a wild bear before until now =) For such a massive animal, it was having the time of its life feeding on these dainty little daisies. So much for its image as a fearsome animal... =P
Since this was our first encounter, we were pretty excited. Here's a video my brother took when we first spotted it.. you can hear mom & pops chiming "We see da bear~!"
Hey buddy, you got a plank in your eye =P
It looks sooo happy eating
FAT squirrel. It looks like a chipmunk, but it's a gold-mantled ground squirrel. (chipmunks have stripes across their faces)
This picture is animated.. Check out how close this guy gets to my lens!! See below for a video of how it happened =)
Strangely, this is one of the highlights of my trip haha Notice that riiiight before it gets frightened and runs away, it drops a little pebble of a doo doo around 0:17 seconds Um, and please excuse my brother talking like Paris Hilton
Ever since my trip to Yellowstone where I saw a tiny red squirrel bark its head off at me (because I was intruding), I have so much fun watching squirrels chirp.
I guess I find it somewhat oxymoronic that a tiny creature would be "fiercely territorial." These guys aren't nearly as "fierce" as their red brethren, but still cute & funny
On to scenery & pics of our trip!
The first hotel we stayed at: Juniper. It's just outside the town of Banff and had pretty nice views
The town of Banff. For being inside a national park, it's pretty commercialized..even has a Louis Vuitton store...!??
Moss on rocks
The next couple water pics are from Johnston Canyon
Water droplets
Here, Brian and I go on a three hour hike up Stanley Glacier Trail. Up and up we go (a 350 meter ascent)
I really like the texture of the mountain face
My lonely model
Exhausted. It's hard hiking on time constraints. I love going on long hikes. Mom doesn't like it when we're gone for too long. Neither of us are willing to compromise, so we end up going on long hikes as fast as we can which usually involves us running down mountains haha
Bow Lake is one of those intensely blue lakes. It's hard to see the color from this low angle
I really like how the waves look like they're swirling away from the center
There's still ice on some portions of the lake. They make a cool jingling noise (kinda like wind chimes) due to the waves that make them bump against each other. Here's a close up of the texture of the ice
mmmm... this is probably one of my favorite pics
Peyto Lake. Another intensely blue lake
Here's a panoramic shot I took of it. The shade of blue looks slightly different.. I think it's because the clouds are blocking the sun. This is actually 46 images stitched together.. resulting in a 161 megapixel image. See the full sized version here (WARNING: 54MB! It's too big for browsers to handle, so right click and Save As)
You can see the how it was put together below =)
Every rectangle image you see is 12 megapixels! Yea, it's probably overkill. Probably.
We also got to go on a glacier & icefield!
Layers of dirt & snow
Athabasca Glacier on the right
A stream of glacier melt.
I forget why the stream looks so blue. Something about the ice being very dense and absorbing certain wavelengths of light. Not the same reason the lakes are blue (which are due to mineral deposits) In any case, the streams were a cool lookin blue
Drinking pure water straight from the source =)
Here's me drinking too
Brian etches the Chinese character of our last name into the snow
Snow graffiti
Warm light on a distant mountain range
Pioneers of a new frontier..
"All By Myself" A lone hiker on the Columbia Icefield
After a long day, we're driving to our next hotel. At 7PM the sun is just beginning to lower from the sky giving a wonderful side light to the pine trees. It looks like they're glowing. I try my best to nab a shot from our car window as we whizz by
Hoping I wouldn't drop my camera haha
At the town of Jasper, we found this little gem of a Japanese restaurant called Denjiro. The place ain't cheap (not even close), but outside of Japan this was the best Japanese food I've had. Period. Everything is flown in fresh from Vancouver. Even the tea was surprisingly good!
Hehe, notice how I'm only eating nigiri sushi =) Quality over quantity for me!
On our third night we stayed at Patricia Lake Bungalow
Vanity shot of yours truly at a nearby lake
Yellow daisies and the big blue sky
I feel like I could just lie down in this field all day. Unless if there's bugs.. I hate bugs
Athabasca Falls
Sunwapta Falls
Tangle Falls
meet Brian, master of Tangle Falls
Lake Louis from ground level. I plan on climbing that little round bump you see on the right known as the Big Beehive View of Big Beehive from Mirror Lake, the first landmark of our 5.5 hour hike
Rest stop at a teahouse on top of the mountain
Don't stop til the top. That's my motto
Gotta love the getup ;)
Across Lake Agnes, you can see the zig zagging switchbacks to the summit. Doesn't look too bad from here... Actually our parents turn back due to the snow. We told them it's no big deal, but as Brian and I would soon discover, it's a good thing they didn't listen to us!
Hmmm.. the slope looks a lot steeper when you're walking on it..
The snow didn't melt on the switch back so we found ourselves off trail climbing on all fours. Three words come to mind: Slippery, steep, and tiring.
Okay, it was a little scary too since the footpath was so narrow and slippery due to the snow.
View from the summit! It was actually pretty miserable sludging through piles of snow to get here. I don't think I'm afraid of heights, but I definitely got vertigo when standing close to the edge.
Too bad it's cloudy..
Here's a video my brother took from the top. You can somewhat get a sense of how high it is, although it's not nearly as scary seeing it in a 2D video.You can see me taking the panoramic shot after I climb closer to the edge
The resulting panoramic Get the original 112 megapixel image here (50MB!)
Check out the pre-edited stitch job =)
You can get an idea of how large the image is here haha Here's a 100% crop of the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louis Hotel
Lake Moraine is less crowded than Lake Louise but just as beautiful. We didn't have time (or the energy) to explore the area though.. just snapped a few photos
