Montreal In Pictures

November 7 2012

Back on October 15 I mentioned in the post about a permanent indoor ice rink at 1000 de la Gauchetière, the tallest building in Montreal. Since I was downtown buying new memory cards, I decided to go and check the ice rink out. Although I’ve lived in Montreal for 13 years, I don’t recall ever going inside this tower. One thing that I’m really pleased about from doing the 365 project is that it has made me explore parts of the city I didn’t know before.

Being a Wednesday afternoon, the rink was very quiet, probably 5 people in total. I wasn’t sure what the restrictions were with regard to photography, so I kept a bit of a low profile and grabbed some shots discretely. Being an office complex and more to the point, the tallest building in Montreal, I would bet they dislike photographers. I will perhaps one day try to get in touch with the building management and see if a photo shoot could be arranged, I have a feeling there could be some good photo ops throughout the tower. The atrium for instance was begging for some HDR treatment and some longer exposures :-p

Ice rink at 1000 de la Gauchetière
ISO 1250 – 10mm – f4.8 – 1/60 sec

Ice rink at 1000 de la Gauchetière
ISO 100 – 11.5mm – f4.8 – 1/6 sec

Waterfall in the 1000 de la Gauchetière atrium
ISO 100 – 20mm – f5.6 – 1/15 sec

I realized many shots I took outside I had already covered in my previous post, but did manage a few new takes on the area. From what I gather, rue de la Gauchetière to the west of the elevated walkway near the Marriott will be straightened, resulting in a slightly larger Place du Canada. With the new condo and office towers planned near the Bell Center, this area will be looking quite different in the near future.

1000 de la Gauchetière
ISO 400 – 10mm – f4 – 1/180 sec

1000 de la Gauchetière
ISO 400 – 11mm – f4.2 – 1/125 sec

rue de la Gauchetière
ISO 320 – 10mm – f4 – 1/30 sec

IBM tower from the Montreal Marriott hotel
ISO 320 – 10mm – f4 – 1/500 sec

Christmas lights at elevated walkway near Place du Canada
ISO 500 – 70mm – f4.5 – 1/60 sec

Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde dome
ISO 500 – 70mm – f4.5 – 1/2000 sec

Lone walker
ISO 500 – 48mm – f4.8 – 1/30 sec

I got me some speed, 600x to be precise

As I mentioned I picked up some new memory cards earlier. I decided on the 16GB Lexar 600x card. Since I plan next year doing more time lapse movies I thought the write speed of 60mb/s would be a good choice. I was indeed impressed with the writing speed during my shooting today – only to find I hadn’t been shooting RAW, but basic jpeg (a few expletives were uttered upon realizing). I’m pretty sure I will notice the difference tomorrow since my temporary card yesterday was restricting at times.

Moving to a 3rd party hosting

On a totally different note. I’ve been considering moving Montreal in Pictures away from WordPress to a 3rd party host. I’m pretty close to putting the finishing touches to the new site. But before I make the final decision and push the button, I would be really interested to hear from anyone who has made the move away from WordPress.com on how you found the transition and what issues you encountered. Any regrets ?

My reason for wanting to move is to have more freedom in content, running the odd ad etc. The downside as far as I can see (which I admit is not very far) is losing the network of WordPress bloggers. So again, what are your thoughts of the upside vs downside of moving away from WordPress.com ? Your thoughts on the subject would be most welcome 🙂

To view images in gallery format, simply click on one of the images below.