June 01 2012
I caved in this afternoon and called into Simons Cameras to buy a new camera. I ended up going for the Nikon D7000 despite almost being drawn to moving over to Canon.
I would really like to have moved up to a full frame sensor, but can’t really (read at all) justify the expense at the moment – But I did ensure that a new piece of glass (AF-S VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G) I purchased was full frame compatible, so when the time comes to move up, at least that will be one less purchase I will need to make. I wanted to get the 85mm 1.8G but they were out of stock…at 500$ this seems like a good fast prime lens to add to my kit in the near future.
Anyway, to give my new toy a test run, I headed down to the Quartier International de Montreal tonight to shoot the amazing La Joute sculpture and fountain by Montreal artist Jean-Paul Riopelle that sits between The Palais des Congrès and The Centre CDP Capital building in the square named after the artist.
Jean-Paul Riopelle sculpture
The central fountain is surrounded at the base by a number of bronze abstract human and animal figures, but what makes this piece a must see is the steam and ring of fire sequences that occur throughout each hour at night (7-11pm) during the summer.
Unfortunately tonight the fire sequence didn’t seem to be working – just my luck, so I will have to go back again. Plus it was starting to rain so I didn’t get as many shots of the fountain as I had hoped. I’m thinking I might actually attempt to do a time-lapse movie here in the coming months – particularly now I have a camera that will enable me to do time-lapse photography more easily 😉
All the images I shot tonight are 3 exposure HDR’s merged in Photomatix with some tweaking in Lightroom.
Steam vents in Place Jean-Paul Riopelle
La Joute in front of the Palais des Congrès
La Joute sculpture
La Joute sculpture
La Joute sculpture in front of the Centre CDP Capital
La Joute sculpture in front of the Centre CDP Capital
La Joute in front of the Palais des Congrès
One thing about the D7000 I think will be useful is that it takes 2 memory cards – so now if I run out of memory, I will certainly have taken too many shots for 1 day 🙂
To view images in gallery format, simply click on one of the images below.
Thanks for stopping by. Until next time.
Martin
Related Images:
