Lake Ontario

[Andrew McLachlan]

On Friday I drove down to Toronto to search for Snowy Owls along the shoreline of Lake Ontario. I did not find any, but I did stop and photograph a few icy scenes along the lake. In total I drove roughly 200 km in my search for the owls and came up empty. When I returned home and picked up my daughter from school we encountered one a mere 5km from the house...shoulda stayed home and looked

Applied a bit of Tonal Contrast to give a bit of detail to the smooth, icy shoreline which was quite slippery and extreme caution was needed to prevent slipping into the water. A low ISO was selected and the lens stopped all the way down to lengthen the exposure as much as possible, because I forgot my ND filters at home.

Nikon D800
Nikon 24-85mm lens @ 45mm
ISO 64
f29 @ 1.6 seconds
Polarizing filter

Look forward to comments.

[Dvir Barkay]

Nice shot, I like the slow shutter speed and how it creates a very nice texture with the lake. Its probably my bad screen, but the whites seem just a smidgen to much or at least overpowering in the ice in the foreground. Also there seems to be a halo on the horizon, although since it stops midway through the horizon it might not be a halo?

[Diane Miller]

Wonderful scene with just the right amount of blur for me. One trick to get more blur is to shoot several exposures and combine than as multiple exposures. (I'm also inclined to forget accessories.)

Very scary to think about slipping there. I always mean to carry a climber's rope, but never seem to manage.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andrew - I like this a lot with nice blur, comp and colors. The whites look ok to me with some good detail in the ice too. The reason you couldn't find the snowies, was you needed your daughter as a good luck charm.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Impressive Andrew, why don't you apply an ND filter in PP?

Something like this Andrew always best to have another person near by, falling in that sea I would give you minutes, glad you made it back safely so we can enjoy your experience, and the image.

TFS
Steve

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks folks for the comments, much appreciated.
Dvir - halo you are seeing is actually a clearing starting to form in the clouds on the horizon.
Diane - I'll have to remember to try the multiple trick next time I forget my filters
Rachel - you could be right as my daughter was with me for my post in Avian
Steve - I'll experiment with your ND suggestion to see what I can come up with

Cheers

[Hilary Hann]

I love the mood you've captured with this image Andrew, the amount of blur through the water increases the atmosphere very nicely.

I find it a stronger composition with the foreground cropped up to where the pool of water in the ice starts to flow through the cracks in the ice, if that description makes sense. Other than that, not much else I'd change.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks very much Hilary, much appreciated...I'll explore your crop suggestion