Water Falls of Grey County, Hoggs Falls, Flesherton Ontario

Within the Beaver Valley area of Grey County is one of its best kept secrets. Located just east of the village of Flesherton Ontario is Hoggs Falls. Located on the Boyne River, Hoggs Falls plunges over 7 meters, or 22 feet, to the river basin below. Quietly located in a beautiful wooded area, Hoggs Falls provides wonderful photographic opportunities for those that are so inclined.

Hoggs Falls is named after William Hogg. It was at this site that he built a sawmill during the late 1870’s. The remnants of this sawmill can still be seen at the site. William Hogg himself referred to these falls as Little Falls in a newspaper advertisement in 1882. The sawmill itself burnt down in 1888. Upon this event, William Hogg then turned his attention to the much bigger falls in the area, Eugenia Falls, for another development project.

Since the burning down of the sawmill much of the land has since been reclaimed by the forest with only pieces of the concrete foundation still remaining visible today. The site is now protected as a forest reserve managed by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. The waters of the river abound with speckled trout and other species and fishing is permitted, in season, within the 83 hectares of posted public lands.

To get to Hoggs Falls take Highway 4 east from Flesherton to East Back Line, north to Lower Valley Road and turn east. Watch for a sign indicating the parking area on the north side of the road. A short walk into the woods takes you to the falls' edge, where you can listen to the rushing water plunging over the rocks into the basin below. The water flow over the falls is reasonable during most times of the year.


As a photographer this is one of my favorite waterfalls to photograph. As you approach the falls from the parking area you will first notice the remnants of the old sawmill. A few meters further down is the falls themselves. The top of the falls provides a very pleasant view, a view from which I love to photograph from. To best photograph from this vantage point a wide angle lens is required.


For those who are a bit more adventurous, are not afraid of doing a little climbing and are wearing the proper footwear, there is a way down to the basin below. The last couple of times that I have been there someone has left a securely fastened rope to a tree which greatly assists with the repel down into the basin below. Once down, you need to watch your footing as it can be damp and slippery. Shooting the falls from the basin below provides a very unique perspective.

The best time to photograph Hoggs Falls is in the morning or later in the afternoon or evening. Photographs taken during midday could experience harsh lighting conditions as the falls will tend to be backlit.

In order to properly photograph Hoggs Falls the following equipment is required: footwear suitable for hiking, a small umbrella to protect your equipment from the potential spray, a digital SLR with a wide angle lens, a polarizing filter, neutral density filters for longer exposures, a sturdy tripod that can handle getting wet, a remote release cable and a lens cleaning cloth.

This is a wonderful place and visit and I plan upon returning soon.

Happy snapping.

Indian Falls - Owen Sound Ontario

Indian Falls is located in Indian Falls Conservation Area, just north of Owen Sound Ontario. You will take a 1.8 km walk to the falls; along the way you will see a variety of ferns, trees and wildflower species native to the area. The 15-metre horseshoe-shaped waterfalls was named for the Newash Indians who lived in this area.

I, along with my daughter and niece, visited Indian Falls on the weekend of October 13th. Even though this was a wet day there was virtually no flow over the falls at all. Indian Falls does feature a classic plunge waterfall, with a wide "amphitheatre" style gorge. This is evidenced in the attached photo. To me the lack of flow at this time of year was very disappointing but I am very hopeful of better flow during the late winter and early spring months. The attached photo is a compilation of about 15 photos that I took at the falls. I was using my Canon 40D with a 24-105 ef L IS lens attached at 105mm.

To view Indian Falls follow these directions:
From Owen Sound, go west on Hwy 10 to Second Ave W and go north. This road soon leaves the town and eventually becomes Grey Rd 1. Drive for about 7 or 8 minutes to Balmy Beach. Watch for the signs for the Indian Falls Conservation Area on the left. Drive to the back of the parking lot, find the trail, and walk for about 10-12 minutes upstream to the falls.

For my other photographs of Indian Falls please visit http://www.pbase.com/scornfield/indianfalls

Creating Your Own Tabletop Photo Studio

The creation of your own tabletop photo studio is much easier and cheaper than what you might think. Through its creation you will find it much easier and convenient to take photos of indoor flowers and other smaller objects that you may have around your home. The real advantage of using a tabletop studio is that you can avoid the elements of nature which you would otherwise be facing if you were to be photographing similar subject matter outdoors.

To create a tabletop studio you really only need three items. They are a camera, a tripod and a reflector. But there are other items that need to be considered as well. These are the supporting surface, lighting, background and the subject. We will look at each of these to see what is needed.

The camera. Pretty much any digital camera will do. If it has macro capabilities then all the better. Having macro capabilities will provide more flexibility when photographing flowers or other smaller objects. When shooting always remember to set the ISO to its lowest possible setting and to set your white balance setting to “cloudy” or to a setting that accurately reflects the light source that you will be using. Never leave this setting in “Auto” as this may not produce consistent or accurate results. Another item that would be really nice would be a remote shutter release but it is not essential as most digital cameras have self timers built in.

The tripod. Use a tripod that is easy to move and adjustable. It also needs to be sturdy enough to support the camera equipment that you will be using. Typically, the heavier the camera means the heavier the tripod. Your tripod should have an adjustable head that will allow you to quickly switch from landscape to portrait, and visa versa, with little effort.

The reflector. The purpose of the reflector is to create even lighting on your subject. To achieve this effect it is best to locate the reflector on the opposite of your subject to where the light source is. The reflector itself does not have to be big but it does have to be big enough to reflect a sufficient among of light back onto your subject. Typically, the bigger the subject, the bigger the reflector needs to be to light it. To help hold and position the reflector a second tripod with a support arm can really be handy.

The supporting surface. The surface itself not only needs to be sturdy and large enough to support whatever it is that you are putting on it but, also, portable enough to be moved as the need arises. I personally prefer a good sturdy folding table due to the fact that they typically have good supports and are portable.

The lighting. You do not necessarily want the light source to be facing directly into the sunlight as this can produce harsh lighting conditions. If this cannot be avoided try placing fabric, or other materials, over the windows to diffuse or soften the light. This will produce a much more pleasing effect.

The background. Try to use coloured, textured backgrounds wherever possible. This could be a table cloth on your supporting surface to coloured papers and backdrops. I personally prefer to use backdrops whenever possible. The disadvantage to backdrops is that some require hanging and special supporting mechanisms for them to be deployed.

The subject. You should, in most cases, shoot your subject from the side facing the light. Do not be afraid to move your subject or any other item in your tabletop studio setup to get the effect that you want.

Other items that you may want to consider that I have not covered here are lightboxes, turntables, external lighting systems, etc.

Happy snapping.

New Canon Telephoto Lenses

I just read a post that Canon will be displaying two new telephoto lenses at PhotoPlus Expo in New York next week. These lenses are the EF200mm f/2L IS USM and the EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM. The EF200mm is of interest to me because of the type of work that I like to do. The EF800mm would probably be of interest to those who do sports and nature photography. Potential prices of these lenses are yet to be determined.

Shooting on the weekend with ND, Neutral Density, filters

This past weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada. Usually this time of year presents amazing photo opportunities and this year was no different.

I grew up in a small town called Meaford Ontario. My parents and two of my sisters still live there. Meaford is situated right in between Owen Sound and Collingwood, on the south shores of Georgian Bay. This being only a day trip my family and I decided to travel light, only two bags of camera gear plus my heavy duty tripod. I was obviously hoping to leave the family behind for a couple of hours so that could go and shoot some of the fall colours.

As we arrived at our destination a couple of hours later, my niece was very quick to point out that her dad had just purchased for her the Canon A650 IS. This is a 12MP point and shoot. It appears to be a very nice camera for the money. From the moment she saw me she wanted to show her how to use her camera. I thought that there was no better way to show her than to go and do something. So, off we went to nearby Eugenia Falls Conservation area.


One of the purchases that I have recently made was that of a couple of ND, Neutral Density, filters. The ones I had purchased were the B+W 103 (3 stop) and 106 (6 stop) filters. The purpose of standard photographic neutral density filters is to allow the photographer greater flexibility to change the aperture or exposure, allowing for more control, particularly in extreme circumstances. What these filters can allow you to do is to photograph a waterfall at a slow shutter speed to create a deliberate motion blur effect. This is something that I had always wanted to do but never had the equipment to do it.


When we arrived at Eugenia Falls I first wanted to get a couple of photos of the falls themselves so I set up the Canon 40D with my 24-105 L IS lens and, due to the brightness, attached the 6 stop filter first. The results were okay but thought that I could do better. So, I also attached the 3 stop filter as well. This effectively gave me a 9 stop filter which allowed for a 30 second exposure. The result is above.



We then did a little exploring by following the river back up into the bush, about 100m or so. That is were I found this glorious little spot with a small waterfall. I think it provided a dramatice effect.

Adobe Announces Photoshop Elements 6

Being a photographer, the introduction of a new Adobe product usually gets my attention. The announcement today of Photoshop Elements 6 was no exception. Even though I am a current user of Photoshop CS2, soon to be CS3, I have worked with Elements 4 and 5 in the past. With each of these previous versions I have been impressed with the capabilities and with what it has enabled me to do. I am currently looking at installing the Elements 6 on my laptop as it is simply not powerful enough to handle the full Photoshop CS versions of the product.

One thing that I have been very happy with in the previous versions of Elements is its ability to handle and process RAW files. I currently own Canon 20D and 40D SLR bodies and shoot exclusively in RAW. Shooting this way provides me with much more flexibility regarding photo processing and editing. In my opinion, if your digital camera has the ability to shoot in RAW format then you should be doing so. By not doing so I believe that you may not be getting the ultimate photo quality by doing otherwise. The newest RAW file version formats are available in Photoshop Elements 6.

I will be providing a review of this product in the next week or two.

Stay tuned.

The joys of scanning unmounted 35mm slides

Today has been a very interesting day. I have a full time job (aka Monday to Friday) and I run a photographic company on the side (aka Monday to Friday, plus evenings and weekends). It does keep me busy.

As part of my photographic side business, Photo Field Imaging (http://www.photofieldimaging.com/), I not only do photography based work but I am also involved the with scanning of slides, photographs and negatives. 95% of the jobs that I do go very smoothly and everyone is happy. Every so often, like today (aka Sunday) something happens that really tests me.

Yesterday I had an older lady and her daughter deliver to me what she initially stated were about 200 slides to scan. I thought that this would not be a problem. I mean, I have the equipment, Nikon 5000 and 9000 series scanners, plus other flatbed scanners, that allow me to do almost any job. I thought, sure, a couple of hundred slides would not be an issue at all. I was in for a bit of a surprise.

As the lady and her daughter showed up she handed me a book. My initial reaction was, okay, where are the slides? "In the book" she said.

"Where, I do not see them?

"There" she said, pointing to page after page of carefully cut, umounted, 35mm slides.

I closed my eyes and said to myself "Oh no. Oh no. Please no." I then took a deep sigh and opened my eyes. What I thought was something that could be done easily and quickly turned out to me much work than what I initially anticipated. I told her that slides are usually mounted. She informed me that, yes, these are in fact slides (aka "film positives").

I thought to myself, "You know, this is not worth arguing over." I then told her that I would go ahead and do the job at the quoted price. What I did not tell her was that I would be updating my website to clearly state "35mm Mounted Slides" and would be chalking this one up to experience.

Such are the joys of scanning unmounted 35mm slides:)