Today was our first full day not driving the RVs anywhere, but doing some scenic touring. We are in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada and just about everywhere you look there is a spectacular view. We started out the day in downtown Banff getting tickets to a couple of attractions we want to go to later and getting an idea of what to go see today.
Next we headed towards Lake Louise, watching for wildlife and scenic areas to photograph. It did not take long until we found a car stopped on the side of the road, which usually means wildlife in the area. Sure enough, Mule Deer. Only one, but it was something. Of course, every turn we made brought more spectacular views into our windshield, so the going was slow, but we got some great pictures.
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Finally, we arrived at Lake Louise and searched for somewhere to have lunch. We found a restaurant in the lodge and, although the service was a bit slow, even though there were not a lot of people eating there, the food was good, and we were soon out taking photos.
Ken had told me about a photo correction technique he uses called HDR (High Dynamic Range) which gives better detail in both the light and dark portions of a photograph. You must take 3 pictures in bracketed exposure mode. He uses +/- 2.0 stops for his, so I checked the programming modes on my camera and set it up to do this. Later, I would see if I could find software which would let me process the pictures I took.
Spring comes on slowly in this part of the world. Lake Louise still has a lot of ice on it. With the peaks around the lake also still being mostly snow covered, and the glaciers at the far side of the lake, it makes for some pretty nice pictures, even without any post-processing.
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Next, we headed over to another icon lake here, Moraine Lake. There are spectacular moraines of debris of the sides of the peaks which surround the lake. This lake is up around 6,000 feet so it is also still frozen over and there is also still a few feet of snow around it too. The road to the lake had just been cleared before we went there. Again, you can’t take any bad pictures.
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After trying a few things with the pictures I took for HDR processing, I talked with Ken again, and saw what he had been able to do with his. Now, you can make them look pretty good this way, but you can also make them look pretty “creative” as well. He seemed to like to make then look a little “other-world-y”, but I got the idea and found out what to look for. Then I found Luminance HDR, a free, open source program and, after some work figuring out the program, was able to get my own HDR processed photos to come out like I wanted them.
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