Two Weeks in Nova Scotia - Page 2: Portland ME to Yarmouth NS

On the map below, the red pin marks Portland, ME.  This map gives a sense of Nova Scotia's location relative to Maine and New England. Note that Yarmouth, NS is almost exactly east of Portland, to the surprise of many.

The overnight ferry from Portsmouth, ME to Yarmouth, NS is a great way to start the trip.  Arriving in NS fresh and rested at 8:00am (NDT), and after an early breakfast in one of the ship's restaurants, we were ready to hit the road.  After a brief stop at Canadian customs, we were on our way along the south shore toward Lunenburg, our destination for the night.

 Old wharf pilings at the Portland, Maine waterfront.

Waiting for the boat.  Our silver van is in the front row.  Like getting on an airplane, we like to arrive early for our departure.  But bring food and water for the wait.

Inside the ferry there is plenty of room for tractor-trailer trucks and tour buses... though there was only one 18-wheeler and no buses on this trip.

This is our cabin.  Two more bunks can fold down above these two.  No, the port hole window does not open.  And yes, we had our own small bathroom with shower.

Looking back at Portland after departure.  About 9:15p.

View from our cabin window at sunrise.  EDT 3:45a. Time to move the clocks forward one hour to 4:45a. We would soon see land.

A little fishing enclave on the outskirts of Yarmouth harbor.

 Looking back from our van as we waited in line for the custom's check.

That's the Nova Star.  It departed at 10a for the return trip to Portland.

Two Weeks in Nova Scotia - Page 1: Preliminaries

Laurie and I had been waiting several years to take a trip to Nova Scotia by ferry.  Of course, we could have driven back and forth.  But I didn't want to do that. It's about 14 hours each way.  So when, after a four year break in service, a new ship, the Nova Star, began operations in May, we booked a one-way trip.  (We were happy to drive home after our two weeks were up... We just wanted to avoid driving both ways.)

It's about an 10 hour "voyage", at 21 knots speed. The Portland, Maine departure time is 9pm and the Yarmouth arrival time is 8am (after moving your watch one hour ahead to NDT).  The ferry then picks up passengers for its 10 hour return trip to Portland.  Because ours was an overnight trip, we also booked a cabin.  It wasn't cheap.  Fare for two passengers, a car, and a cabin was $500.

Preliminaries

1) Passport

Not so long ago you could get in and out of Canada without a passport. Times have changed.

2) Cash

The exchange rate was $500US = $546Canadian.  I purchased $546 from my local bank, and had about $150 when I returned home.  That's because we charged nearly everything on VISA.

3) Lodging

Since 2007 we've had AAA make all our lodging reservations.  They've been great, and its all part of the benefits you get as a AAA member.  We use their maps, guide books, and brochures, and we pick up more detailed guide books at a local Barnes and Noble (we like the "Moon" books) to help us plan our route,  We then give our list of planned nightly stops to Pat at AAA and in just a few hours she's made all our reservations. Sometimes she gets discounts for us that we would not have otherwise received.  She's even canceled and made new reservations for us, while we're on the road.

4) Credit Cards

Be sure to contact your credit card company.  We found that one card charged 0% for foreign transactions, another card charged 3% and a third card charged 6%. Guess which one we used?

Another reason to contact your credit card companies is to let them know you will be making purchases in Canada.  That way they won't confuse your purchases with fraudulent activity.

Everyone in Canada uses these gizmos (image below) to process credit cards; whether it be a gift shop, gas station, grocery store, bed and breakfast, or restaurant.  Your credit card never leaves your hand.

Here's an example: (1) at a restaurant the machine (a remote version) is brought to your table, (2) the wait person punches in the total amount for the meal and taxes only, (3) you slide your card,  (4) you click "approve", (5) you punch in the tip , and (6) the machine prints out a paper slip for you to sign and a copy for you to keep.

5) Get this wonderful map

The map shown in a couple of the pictures above is the standard road map with the AAA logo on it.  It's definitely good to have, but the one shown below is big with lots of sightseeing details. I am not sure who puts this map out, but my guess is that it is produced by some sort of "Department of Tourism" for Nova Scotia.  We picked up our first copy at our local AAA, but we saw copies available at all the Nova Scotia information centers.

Olympus Kit 40-150mm stacked with Canon 500D closeup lens

While mowing the lawn the other day I came across a near perfect dandelion-gone-to-seed.  It was all alone in the grass (I've done a pretty good job this spring killing off the weeds) and the afternoon light was good.  I went into the house and grabbed my camera.  But I did something a bit differently for the lens set up.

I took a kit 40-150R Olympus lens.  I bought this a year ago for $100 and I think it retails for $150-$200.  It has a plastic mount and is very light, weighing less than 7 ounces.  But the optics, at least on this sample, are excellent.  The plastic mount doesn't bother me. No matter how long the lens lasts, it will be well worth the price I paid. Indeed, the charts provided by slrgear.com show it to be sharp all the way up to F11.

Anyway, hoping not to compromise its sharpness too much, I attached a 500D Canon closeup lens into the filter threads. Mine has a 58mm diameter which fits perfectly on the 40-150.  I think I paid about $90 for it, so it isn't cheap, for a small chunk of glass.  But it modifies a zoom lens into a macro lens.

Metadata:  74mm, 1/320 sec, F5, ISO200.  
I had the minimum shutter speed set to 1/320 and F5 is "wide open" at the 74mm zoom mark. 
A touch of fill flash.  No cropping.

Center crop at 100%

Focusing is a bit tricky with the 500D attached.  It is designed to focus your zoom lens at 500mm (about 20").  That's it: 20" (plus or minus a couple of inches).Once you have achieved focus, you then zoom-in or zoom-out to compose your picture.  Zoomed-in I can focus on an object about 1 3/4" in width.  If that is too magnified, I just zoom out until I get the composition I am looking for.  If my subject is more than 4" in width, I don't need the closeup lens; there is enough magnification in the lens itself to accomplish this without an accessory.

[I also own a 58mm diameter 250D.  This is designed to focus your zoom lens at 250mm (about 10").  Fully zoomed-in at the 150mm end of the 40-150, I can focus on an object about 1" in width.]

Here're a few more examples using the 500D on top of the 40-150 zoom:

Metadata:  Zoom to 100mm, 1/250 sec, F5, ISO200.  
F5 is "wide open" at the 100mm zoom mark. 
A touch of fill flash.

Metadata:  Zoom to 82mm, 1/500 sec, F4.8, ISO200.   
A touch of fill flash.

Metadata:  Zoom to 150mm, 1/800 sec, F5.6, ISO200. 

Metadata:  Zoom to 78mm, 1/250 sec, F4.7, ISO200.  
A touch of fill flash.

Maple whirlybird portfolio

Every spring when I feel like grabbing my camera and pressing the shutter I find myself strolling around our yard.  We have some beautiful sugar maples and I love the little seed pods when they turn pink or magenta.  They look so photogenic against a blurred background of green foliage.

According to Wikipedia the maple seed pods are called samaras. Less formally, they are also called whirlybirds, polynoses, and maple keys.  As a youngster I remember calling them helicopters because of the way they spin.

Yesterday, between raindrops, I took a few pictures.  The wind was more than I wanted, but I shot at fast shutter speeds to freeze the action.

I will start below with my favorite picture from yesterday.  I call it "the capture of the day".  And, it was right outside our front door. I spied this inch worm purely by accident, and found that if I viewed it in a backlit orientation I would pick up light off the thin thread strand, which you can see of to the left of the stem.

The two pictures with the inch worm were taken with the Olympus E-M1 and an old 50mm macro lens designed for the FT format.  It autofocuses terribly, so I relied on manual focus and focus peaking.

The remaining images were taken with the Sony NEX-6 and 90mm Tamron macro lens. I relied on manual focus and focus peaking here as well.  I preferred the white balance I got from this set up.  It was a bit cooler and the Olympus was a bit warmer.  Once on my computer, I adjusted the Olympus images to resemble those from the Sony.

Around the yard. A few macros. New spring growth.

Spring is a beautiful time of year.  Birds are singing and plant life is growing. The colors are fresh, and where earlier there was brown, now there is green... in many different shades.

These pictures were taken with a mixture of cameras and lenses.  The Tamron 90mm macro was used on the Olympus E-M1 and Sony NEX 6.  I focused manually using the peaking feature.  And I also used the 60mm Olympus macro on the E-M1.  I used the smallest focusing point with auto focus.

Red Maple

Maple

Maple seeds.  

I think the lowly dandelion can look very pretty.

These will be blueberries.

Rokinon 12mm F2 for Sony NEX: Purple Fringing? yes!

[This is my seventh post on the Rokinon 12mm F2 for Sony NEX.]

Like vignetting (see prior post), I feel that the purple fringing seen in the images below are all part of the nature of a third party ultra wide angle lens that has no electronic connection to the NEX camera body.  I don't know for sure, but I don't think this lens performs any less well than would native lenses; it is just that there is no way for the incamera processing to eliminate the Rokinon's vignetting and purple fringing.  However, it is generally an easy (but extra) step in post-processing to make appropriate corrections.

The purple fringing is very prevalent.  It is visible in each of the four images below.  These were taken at F2, F4, F8 and F16.  Further below I have shown 100% crops from each one. Though I am choosing to make corrections in Lightroom, in most images it really won't make a difference when viewed at normal viewing sizes.

The four images taken (F2, F4, F8, F16)

F2

F4

F8

F16

  

----

The four 100% crops

The four crops that follow are taken from the area of the
original image circled in red.

F2 100% crop

F4 100% crop

F8 100% crop

F16 100% crop

---- 

How to fix this

What to do?  Well, in Lightroom, things are made easy. Just a click of the check-box for "Remove Chromatic Abberration" and most of the work is done.  For a portfolio image, you might want to instead play with the eyedropper to fine-tune things.

F8 after applying Lightroom "remove chromatic abberation" tool.
This is far better, and remember this is a 100% crop.

----

If that isn't good enough

Here I have used the eyedropper tool as well as the automatic removal tool

F8 with "remove chromatic abberration" tool,
plus customized removal with eyedropper.