Ok, I know I've posted this picture elsewhere, but it's one of my current favourites, and besides, I have one or two friends/family that have yet to see it.

The recent -40c weather has been teaching me even more about cold weather shooting since I last posted about it. The other day I went cruising for some wildlife, just me and the 600 sitting contently on the passenger seat. We have a decent population of Northern Hawk Owls up here in Altares, and I was scoping out some of the more common places to find them. Sure enough, One little fellow was where he should be, with some awesome late afternoon sun on him, and to boot, an angry Raven was giving him the what-for from the branch above him. I rolled down the window, threw up the bean bag and blazed away. To make a long story short, they sucked. Soft across the entire frame. Not just a little soft, either- Total garbage! I re-checked my settings, all good. Lots of shutter speed. I've shot with the 1DmkIII all day on the ski hill with amazing results, so I knew it wasn't the camera in cold weather. It slowly dawned on me that the Buick on the seat beside me masquerading as a lens was roughly 20 times bigger than any of my other glass, and probably has it's own atmosphere with the amount of space inside that lens body.

A quick internet search confirmed this, with many shooters lamenting their weekends of driving around with the heat off so that the gear is correctly acclimated. As much as it hurt to do so, I banished said Buick to the backseat of the truck to "chill" while I went back to work. Two hours later, I popped in a warm battery and CF card and proceeded to shoot. I came away from the experiment with two new lessons well learned. First, and most importantly-gotta let the big glass acclimate . Secondly, and almost equally as important, is that Lenscoat makes neoprene lens covers for a very good reason. On that note, I'm off to order one.

My wife has many favourite birds, among them Redpolls. (they were the cat's favourite, too until we re-arranged the yard furniture and took away her "hunting blind"). I will be setting up new feeders this year to take advantage of the light and plan to give the 600 a workout when it not out on rental.
Here's a host of a Redpoll from early this month. As stunning as the 600 is, I am really starting to see the need for fill flash. I'll post my progress in that area as(if!) it happens.

What with today's temperatures dropping to -30(without the wind) I thought I'd offer a picture of what winter can be like with the right conditions. Obviously, this was last year, when mid-january saw us up to our armpits in snow!
Winter shooting brings with it a host of extra problems, most of them cold related. Personally, I like to keep my gear outside for the duration of the shoot. I've not yet run into fogging problems as the equipment cools down to the ambient air temperature and unless you accidentally breathe on your glass while outside, it should stay that way. Keep a spare battery in an inside pocket, swap them out when they start to fail and you should be fine for the day. I find the Cotton Carrier to be a reliable and robust transport system year-round for any type of active shooting, and skiing/snowshoeing/snowmobiling are no exception.

A few months back, I read a blog about the blue hour-that time after sunset and before sunrise when our eyes perceive darkness but the camera sees otherwise. Now, I've inadvertently captured this look before without realizing it, but lately I've been putting more time into actively seeking out interesting shots during this time. Clouds definitely help the images, although there is something to be said for clear skies in the same"light". I've posted a preview of each. The drilling rigs in the pictures are from Jomax drilling, some of the best kept-and best lit!-drilling rigs operating in western Canada.

Ive been trying-off and on-for quite a few years now to get some good pictures of the moon. Every time I got a new lens, inevitably I would have to point it skyward and see how it measured up. Overall, the results have been less than stellar, but a few night ago I gave the new 600mm a go and the result is seen here.
Much like the 85mm f/1.2, the learning curve on the 600 has been quite steep. In daylight, you have to work pretty hard to mess up a shot - the 11 pounds of stabilized glass is an absolute joy to shoot, providing you can hold it up. Put it on a tripod, though, and it's a different beast. I quickly realized the wisdom of buying a stout Wimberley gimbal head, but wish I had opted to bring the bigger of the 2 tripods to put it on. Also, while some of my other IS lenses seem to behave quite well on a tripod, the 600 really generates a lot of it's own movement looking for movement that isn't there! That's what the off switch is for, I guess.

So, for now, here is the moon. I am hoping to get down to the W.A.C. Bennett dam next week for another shot at their incredible eagle population. Hopefully they will be in a good mood this time, and a little more photogenic.

Well, after a valiant display of avoidance, i've caved in and created a blog, the first of many changes here at R-Bac Photography this year. We are also in the process of launching our photographic equipment rental operation, partnered with Canon Professional Services and are seeking accreditation with PPOC.

A busy start to 2012 to say the least!

I'll start it off with some images from a recent equine gallery and invite you to comment and critique.