Craigdarroch Castle - Fuji X-Pro1 in low light

Craigdarroch Castle

Coming back from the other side of the Vancouver Island, we decided for a short trip to Victoria.  Unfortunately with highway construction that trip was long, and gave us a limited time in this beautiful city.  So we decided to forgo most of it, and concentrate on the Craigdarroch Castle.  As my wife described in her post, it's a beautiful house built in the 19th century.  Since Canada is a fairly young country, compared to the world standards, I would call this house a landmark of our history, yet it is not being looked after by any of the government agencies.  It's all done through volunteers.  The passion of these people to preserve this place is amazing.  We talked to one of the guides for more than 30 min about how the house was built, the attention to detail that went into design and construction of the house.  It was quite an eye opener.  You could feel the pride in the craft.  I will echo my wife's words... if you are ever in Victoria, you have to visit this gem.

Fuji X-Pro1 and low light

Photographing the Craigdarroch Castle on the inside proved to be a bit challenging.  The Fuji X-Pro1 does not have an on board flash, so I had to bump up the ISO on most of the inside images because of the dark interior.  Most of the following images were done an ISO 1000 and higher, and I think the camera performed very well.  Also the contrasts of very bright windows combined with darker interiors, created very high contrasts.  I could have used HDR, but I did not have a tripod handy, and the shutter speeds were already dangerously low for hand held photography.  Plus there were a lot of humans milling around.  So I opted for single image, and no bracketing.  I was very impressed how the X-Pro1 performed in such challenging situation.  So enough of the ramblings from me... here are the photos of the inside of the beautiful Craigdarroch Castle. Enjoy!

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Craigdarroch Castle,victoria,bc,architechture photography 01

Abandoned Farm - Part 2

Since Mac has mentioned his back log of pictures to process I've decided to post some more of my images. There were a few of us, crazy people, shooting and it's not a surprise that some of us made for an interesting subject of a picture as well ;) It's hard to describe how beautiful the world looked that morning. But since a picture is worth a thousands words... Enjoy! Kasia

Falling..

Dedicated Photographers

Painted by time

Where the road leads us..

Still standing

Waiting for the light

A prairie morning...

A while back I did a little tour of the Alberta back roads.  I like those little tours.  A little music on the radio, and beautiful scenery all around.  Here is what came out of the trip.  Enjoy!

Abandoned Alberta in Black and White

These pictures are from one of my trips around the country side.  This is the one I got completely lost.  Took too many turns, and wasn't really paying too much attention where I was going.  You can find a lot of these abandoned buildings and houses all over.  Some are accessible, some are in the middle of a farmer's field, with no access what so ever.  It's quite interesting, and most are great subject for photography.  One particular house, had a very eerie feel to it.  Middle of the day, and I had really bad feeling about it.  Spooky.  I marked that one on the map for a later visit, once the snow melts.  Enjoy.

Gloomy End of Summer

So despite being in denial about the end of summer here in Edmonton, I do have to finally acknowledge that it is ending.  Usually the end of summer is one of my favourite times of the year.  It's usually an explosion of nature colours, wonderful time of morning mists, and cold blue skies.  Technically we are still in the summer months, but it wasn't it like this last monday.  The beginning of the week woke up cold and gloomy.  Like this.

I think I should find some happier pictures.

Haunted House Project

I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping for a little better results, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Canon 5D, ISO 50, 1/160 sec, f/4.5, 17mm

A friend of mine and me went out to check out two abandoned farms he found during his travels. The first one was in the middle of field, and we did ask a farmer for permission to enter. The second farm was in a little better shape, but the house wasn't as dramatic as the first one. Still I marked it on a map, for a possible shoot location. So we decided to go back to the first farm. The sun was getting low on the horizon and it was getting dark. I tried a couple of shots, but was only satisfied with a couple of them, so I decided to wait for real dark. It started getting cold. The house looked spooky, and my friend disappeared in a grove of trees. My imagination started to wander. Then out of no where my flashes started going off one by one. It wasn't dark enough yet for time lapse photos, but I knew the batteries were going to run out if I didn't turn off these strobes. I came to the house, it was dark inside and all I could think of is cold clammy hands grabbing me when I entered. I got really spooked. I managed to turn the strobes off.... We waited for darker conditions, but it was getting really cold, bone chilling cold. I faced my fear and went back to the house and turned the strobes back on. After a few minutes they started to go off by themselves again. I tried a couple of shots with longer shutter speeds, but I maybe because the batteries were cold and used, they weren't firing properly. So no shots came out. I did vow one thing though, to return again when the weather is warmer, and try it again. Right now all I have to show is mediocre shots of the Haunted House. Enjoy.

Canon 5D, ISO 50, 1/160 sec, f/4.5, 17mm