AquaBus: False Creek, Vancouver, BC

On the weekend I wanted to go somewhere to take a few photos and I didn't want to travel all over the countryside so I ended up at one of my favourite places, False Creek. It is easy access and the parking is the right price. During the summer there is lots of activity down here along the sea wall with joggers, cyclists and people just out for a stroll



Today it was cool and only a solitary jogger along this S-curve section designed more for 2-wheeled motorized transport . False creek is an inlet within the downtown core of Vancouver with a seawall alongs its circumference.



If you are coming from the south and wish to go to the downtown area you must transverse one of 3 bridges, or if you are walking, you are able to hop aboard one of the many Aquabus's which cross this small inlet. There are many stops which can take you anywhere along its shores



I happened to be at the one at Stamp's Landing which is under the Cambie Street bridge. There is also a staircase at this location which brings you to the bridge deck level where you can either walk north towards downtown, our south to the Cambie shopping district.



There is not much aquatic activity this time of year. During the summer there are a multitude of watercraft, kayakers, dragon boats and yachts floating up and down. Today it was just watching the aquabus's going back and forth trying to find paying passengers to transport. They maintain a schedule and if there is anyone on the dock they will pull in pick them up, otherwise they just continue on their merry way. Like fish in a fish bowl it was just relaxing watching them go about their daily business.



It was like a game. With my Canon T2i & my 55-250mm telephoto lens in my hands I watched as they criss-crossed and zig zagged around the anchored boats and I managed to capture two aquabus' just by anticipating their moves and planned trajectories



It was like playing a game of snooker waiting for combinations and I finally managed to capture 3 in one frame . I kept scanning the landscape looking for a higher combination but no such luck. It was not my day to capture 4 in one window.

Finally after a while a better combination came into view and I got a more pleasing composition


(Good things come in threes)

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After all these years of doing photography, I just never got into Macro. I did have a macro lens for my Nikon (AF 60D macro) but I seldom used it. We're not talking about macro mode on a P&S pocket camera but actually making quality prints of small things such as insects . For the past few weeks I have been perusing various photography forums and there are excellent macro photos posted . Other than the new to me 100mm 2.8 Macro EF Canon lens I just acquired, I had no macro or close-up accessories, so I decided to purchase this cheap kit to get started



This is a 3 ring extension tube set for Canon EOS. The only problem is that most of Canon EF-s lenses do not have aperature rings and to use these rings you have to meter in stop-down manual mode. So naturally I just had to have another Nikon Ai to EOS adapter (the right one in the photo below) Luckily I have a handful of manual focus Nikon lenses to attach. In Macro mode you are more or less confined to manual focus anyway due to limited DOP



These extention tubes have no electronic couplings and the rings can be used individually or in combination with each other to extend the lens. Focusing the lens further away from the film plane (read sensor plane in digital terminology). The EOS body is set to Aperature priority and you set the f stop via the aperature ring. The shutter speed is set by the brain inside the camera.



Here are the tubes all connected together. One end attaches to the flange on the camera and the lens connects to the other end. In my case I am using manual Nikon lenses so I also need to attach the NF--> EOS adapter.

I have nothing interesting to photograph at work, but just to give you an idea of what the difference is, here is a photo with my Canon T2i using the Nikon 105mm 2.5 lens, which is a regular non-macro lens



this is the closest focusing distance with NO extension rings

Here is what it looks like with all the extension rings attached to my Nikon 105mm 2.5 lens. It more or less makes it able to focus much closer. As a general rule extending the lens out 50% of its focal length turns it into an approximate 1:1 ratio. This means that the image will be life-size on the sensor.



now all I have to do is find some flowers, bugs or spiders to photograph