Let’s pretend it’s spring

After suffering through a major drought, we got tons of rain over the last month. Austin is so green right now it looks like spring!

Been two months since my last update… I’ve actually been fairly active, just not here.

Round Rock Express

Finally dragged myself out to a Round Rock Express game. Went to the final game of the season ($1 hot dogs and sodas!). (Re)learned that Lexus of Austin provides free parking for Lexus owners! That will never cover the premium I paid, but it’s a nice perk. Took my DSLR out there, of course, and had alot of fun. I used a 70-200mm lens, which was perfect, though a bit short for outfields shots. Going through the photos was a very nostalgic experience. I was really into baseball cards in high school, and working with these photos was like creating my own cards.

Gallery

Austin Museum Day

Back in Sept. was Austin Museum Day. We decided to hit the town and enjoy culture. But we kind of suck it at, visiting only places that didn’t already charge for admission. First stop was Zilker Botanical Gardens, not even on the list! I had been wanting to go there for quite awhile. It was much bigger than I thought. In fact, we spent a couple of hours and didn’t even cover the whole thing (yes, there was much stopping for photos). Even at this time of year and with no rain, it was still beautiful. Oodles of butterflies, too. I did not take a tripod, which I will do next time. Parking is not free on the weekends. However, we parked under Mopac. As you are walking from that lot to the gardens, there is actually a back entrance on along the road. If we had actually seen it on the way there, it would have saved alot of walking.

Next stop was the ultra-close Austin Nature &  Science Center. Only visited the wildlife area. It’s very small but I think we actually enjoyed it more than the Austin Zoo. Missed some areas, but hunger was closing in.

After lunch, we tried to go to the Harry Ransom Center, but couldn’t find any convenient parking by campus, even on a Sunday. So we parked at the LBJ lot and went to the LBJ Museum. The first floor is a history of LBJ. Not really my thing, but it was surprisingly interesting. The second floor contains portraits of the all the Presidents and First Ladies. My favorite display was of some of the gifts that LBJ received in office from other countries. Very cool. Finally, we zipped up to the top floor, which was dedicated to Lady Bird. There is also a replica of the Oval Office.

Final stop was the Texas Natural Science Center. This place is awesome!. The first thing you see when you enter on the 2nd floor is the giant Texas Pterosaur. The rest of the room has various geology displays (cool rocks). The 3rd floor is for Texas wildlife. Think stuffed and mounted. It is quite dark, so crank up the ISO on your camera! The 4th floor was closed, unfortunately. Back down to the 1st floor, which was my favorite. Fossils! I don’t recall ever seeing fossil displays before, so it was really cool. I went photo happy here, and it’s not too dark, so getting a good photo isn’t that hard.

Ran out of time so we had to head home.

Collings Guitars

The following weekend I went with my dad to a tour of Collings Guitars. I’m not a guitar person, but this was actually really good. It’s a 1-2 hour tour into how the make guitars, step by step. Cameras are welcome, so I took a bunch of photos, of course. Recommended, but it’s only during weekdays.

That’s enough for today. I’ve been spending alot time looking into timeshares/vacation clubs. With the real-estate crash, prices have come way down, sometimes to literally nothing. I’ll talk more this next time.

Montreal Moments – Part 4 (The Photos)

Montreal (gallery)

Cathedral-Basilica Mary Queen of the World

Our first stop was very close to the hotel. In several ways this was my favorite of the 3 cathedrals we visited. It was the first cathedral I’ve been too (I might have been to the National Cathedral in DC, but don’t remember it). Being downtown, it is not in Old Montreal, thus far from tourists. In fact, there were only a handful of people. It was very clean, almost ‘modern’, and from a photography standpoint, very well lit. Granted most of my shots were at ISO 1600, but they came out very well.

Construction on the cathedral began in 1870. It is a scaled-down (~half) replica of St. Peter’s in Rome. Definitely something you don’t want to miss.

Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal

Our second stop was to the most well-known cathedral in Montreal. I did not get a good photo of the front. It looks rather short, until you notice how small the people and the light posts are. Anyway, we went on a weekday and it was packed. I can’t imagine how crowded it is on the weekend. Make sure you check the web site first, as that’s where they list upcoming closings. There is a small admission fee ($5 CAD, I believe).

Construction began in 1824, so this one is about 50 years older. There’s a million things to photograph, especially with the intricate details throughout. You can’t tell in this photo, but it was seriously dark. My 17-55 2.8 lens got a good workout here. ISO 1600 or 3200 most of the time. What I should have done was try to balance the camera on a pew, for low ISO, long shutter speed shots.

This is probably my favorite photo. It’s a panorama, fairly detailed. Unfortunately the top got cut off. Guess I need a wider lens!

Since I was in a hurry (as always), I did not take the time to read the brochure. Where I would have found out about the chapel in the back. Fortunately, I stumbled upon it. Small, but much better lit. No photos online of the whole thing but here is one of the side displays:

Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel

I had read about this online, but had forgotten that I wanted to stop here. We stumbled upon it by chance. It is not tall, and easy to miss in the crowd of building. One of the first buildings in Montreal, the chapel was originally constructed in 1655 and rebuilt at after a fire in 1754.

There was orchestra practicing when we arrived, oddly enough. While it was very nice listening, we were prevented from going very far past the entrance. Instead we visited the archaeological site underground and the museum above. The nice thing about this little chapel is that you are given free reign to wander as you please. This includes hiking up the narrow, twisting stairs to the top of the chapel. You can see all of the harbor with nothing to block your view. No fences, no bars.

So that’s it for the photos. We also stopped at the science museum at the port. It was actually pretty decent. We somehow spent a few hours playing (literally) with all the exhibits. We did not make it to the planetarium or the annual fireworks show. With such an early flight out, we elected to sleep instead. Mount Royal was also skipped. That leaves plenty to see on the next trip!

Montreal Moments – Part 3 (Photos)

Finally, I thought I would never get to these. Let’s get on with it!

Montréal Biodôme (gallery)

The first stop was the Montréal Biodôme. We were both looking forward to this alot. It’s similar to a zoo, but with clearly defined ecosystems.

The penguins were what I really wanted to see, since I’ve never seen any in real life. It’s somewhat of a hard area to shoot. Darkness is one problem. More of a problem is the temperatures behind the glass are much colder than the people temperatures so there is ALOT of condensation, meaning you have to move around to find a clear shot. But I got some good ones!

We were fortunate to have our visit overlap with a temporary exhibit of ring-tailed lemurs from Madagascar. We didn’t stay long, since we had alot of ground to cover, so didn’t get any near photos; they stayed at the back.

We spent a fair amount of time in the other ecosystems, the exception being the aquatic exhibits. They were obviously not as good as the Vancouver Aquarium’s tanks, so we saved some time by skipping those. The forest ecosystems are worth a special note. You need to stay here awhile and just relax and listen (if you can block out the kids). There are numerous species of animals and birds hidden. If you take the time to look around, you will keep finding more animals. This was when I regretted forgetting my 1.4x extender for my 70-200. There were more small birds than I expected. You can see my best photos in the gallery, but here’s one I’m proud of, if only because it took so long to get:

I was also quite happy to see a capybara, as they are no longer in the Austin Zoo.

Montréal Botanical Garden (gallery)

The Biodome ate up most of the afternoon, so we rushed over the Botanical Garden next door. This place is big. Due to us being late and the arrival of a thunderstorm, we only covered a portion. After zipping through the greenhouses (check gallery for photos), we occupied ourselves at the Chinese Garden. I could probably spend a few hours here. Very photo friendly.

I was particulary struck by the following photo, where you can see the contrast of new and old architecture. That’s the Montreal Tower you see on the left.

It’s rather late, so I’ll post this now, and save the final part 4 for later as I want to go into more detail for Old Montreal.

Interlude – Marble Falls Lakefest

Another year, another Drag Boat race. I packed light this year, after a fashion. The 40D and 300 f/4 was all I took. I looked at my pictures from last year (when I took the 70-300 also), and most were at 300. I debated alot about taking the 70-200, but I would’ve had to use the extender and probably stop down a bit, leading to higher ISO, so I didn’t take it. I did take my monopod, but didn’t use it. It requires panning over a 1/4 mile distance, and I didn’t know how to do that without the thing leaning and having a crooked camera. Difficult to explain without trying it. I managed to stuff4-5 water bottles in my camera backpack. I left around 1pm and almost finished all of them!

I’ve learned a few things from the past couple of years. One is to try very hard to keep the entire boat in the frame (more difficult at 300mm). Also, if you have two boats in the shot, focus on the one closest to you, otherwise it looks odd. Because the slower boats start in the near lane, I usually start on the far boat, and then switch to the near boat after a couple of seconds. Maybe it was because I did this, I wound up with far more keepers than last year.

For most of the races, I shot a lower shutter speed of around 1/320-1/640 sec. This gives a nice blur effect (below), but at the speeds these boats travel, I got some several fuzzy boats. When the 4 seconds boats come through, it’s impossible to get a good shot (for me). 1/1000 sec worked much better.

Also tried a polarizer to block the reflections from the water. This seemed to work, though it’s rather difficult with the angle always changing. I also lost a stop of light.

I’m thinking to not attend next year. I’ve been 3 years in a row. It’s alot of fun, but hot and a little pricey at $20. Check out the full gallery. Watch for the boat that lost a belt and had to be ‘rescued’.

Montreal Moments – Part 2

Lodging

I was torn between two hotels, Le Square Phillips and Hilton Montreal Bonaventure. In the end, I picked the former because it was closer to the Green Metro line and it included free breakfast. The hotel is more for long-term visitors, with a full kitchen included. The room was HUGE. It was certainly no Fairmont, but good enough for me :) It was extremely quiet, we never heard anyone, which is great for me since I am a light sleeper. Highly recommended, though the breakfast was nothing to write home about. I enjoyed going to one of the many Tim Horton’s instead. Next time I would probably stay at the Hilton or Fairmont, to be closer to the Orange line and Old Montreal.

Shopping

I’ve always been fascinated by downtown undergrounds since I learned Houston had one (way back in high school). According to Wiki, Montreal’s underground is the largest in the world. Looking back, this might explain why the streets were so empty. We missed quite a bit of it. Ok, we really barely touched it. But the portions we visited were very nice. You just have to see it.

From what I saw, Rue Sainte Catherine is the place to be on the weekend nights. Tons of people, and it sits on top of the underground. Shopping is above ground too. Speaking of Sainte Catherine, it’s interesting to note that a good chunk of it is closed during the summer, making it pedestrian only. How did we know? Because we went to Chez Cora (below), in the Gay Village, which was next door to a peep show (shrug).

Food

Some highlights:

il focolaio pizza -  Just down the street from the hotel is this place. There’s a million pizzas to choose from and it’s pretty good. You can eat outside and just relax. Awesome! One of the funny things we noticed was that most people ate their pizzas with a fork. Not wanting to appear barbaric, we did the same. It took awhile…

Chez Cora – There’s alot of locations, but we went to the one midway between stations Berri-UQAM and Beaudry. Breakfast/brunch type place. Fruit, FRUIT, and MORE FRUIT. I can’t remember the last time I ate so much fruit. It was really good though. If you’re in Canada, check one out.

The only other meal of note was in Old Montreal. Head on over to Place Jacques-Cartier where all the restaurants are. I don’t recall which one we ate at, but just pick one. Several offer garden, outdoor, and terrace seating. If the weather is nice, take advantage of it. I really enjoy eating outdoors. No bugs, great weather, very relaxed, just how a vacation should be.

Sadly, we did not make it to Chinatown, although we did see the entrance. Lame. Again.

That’s it for tonight. Part 3, the final part, will be all sightseeing and photos :)