Glad to be here

[moondigger]

Hello everybody.

I'm Russ, but usually go by "moondigger" on Internet forums.* I've been an avid hobbyist photographer for the past 36 years. I've had a few paid jobs (mostly as favors to friends or acquaintances), but it's not my career. (I felt early on that making photography my career would take the joy out of it.) My photographic subjects are diverse -- people (formal and candid), street, architecture, and other subjects. But landscape/nature photography is what I spend more time on than any other.

 

For the past 15 years or so, I've been exploring near-infrared and infrared photography. My work in infrared has been almost exclusively landscape/nature. I have an old Canon 20D converted with a 665 nm filter, and a Canon 5D Mk 2 with a 590 nm filter. I also have 720 nm and 850 nm lens filters, though I've found that I prefer the flexibility the 590 nm filter gives me, even when my final product is black and white.

 

I've been lurking here for a few weeks, gathering information in anticipation of trying out UV-bandpass photography for the first time. (I'm having an EOS-R body converted to full spectrum.) These forums have been an excellent source of information on this topic, and I appreciate the tenor of discourse I found here.

 

I plan to be an active participant, though I suspect my participation will be a bit sporadic during the winter. I live in an area that averages over 100 inches (2.5 meters) of snow each winter, so many of the subjects I'm most interested in shooting in UV light will be covered up.

 

I would post a sample image of one of my infrared landscapes here, but the ones I have on this particular computer are all stitched panoramas, much higher resolution than the posting guidelines recommend. I may be able to post something later this evening when I get back to my primary photography computer.

 

Thank you for a wonderful resource; I'm very glad to be a member here.

 

 

* This is due to an unfortunate situation that developed many years ago. I used to participate on Internet forums with my full name. I posted a photo of my toddler daughter on an early web photography group, and got some very creepy messages from somebody about her. I decided then that I wouldn't use my name anymore and adopted "moondigger." My daughter is a grown adult now and so the situation has changed. But I've been using "moondigger" for more than 20 years now, so I hope people won't be bothered if I continue with it here.

[lukaszgryglicki]

Hi, it's great to see you there - where are you living so you have 2.5 meters of snow in the winter? I wish I'm there - I love winter and snow (as a membe rof Polish Polar Expedition in 2011-2012 in Spitsbergen).

[moondigger]

Hi Lukasz 

 

I live in New York State, southeast of Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario is one of the largest lakes in the world, and due to unique features of its depth and volume, it never freezes over, even in the coldest winters. Therefore it causes "lake effect" snow throughout the cold months. The place where I live gets a lot of it, but the areas about 60-100 miles (100-160 km) north of where I live get even more -- an average of 200 inches (5 meters) per year. 

 

I've been to Poland once before, on a business trip. I finished my work early and did some sightseeing, one day in Toruń and a few hours in Gdańsk before my flight home. Unfortunately, I didn't have much camera gear with me, as I didn't expect to have any free time. And I was there during summer, so I there wasn't any snow.

[lukaszgryglicki]

Hi, the closest I've been to lake Ontario was Lake Michigan and Lake St. Clair - Chicago & Detroit :)

[dabateman]

Welcome, 

I grew up in Southern Ontario on lake Ontario near Toronto. 

One year it did freeze out to almost a km. Then the winds broke up the ice and brought it in. So there were mountains of ice on the lake.

I had walked out quite far and saw one mountain crash into the lake. Then we ran back to shore.

But its only ever done that once and that was around 20 years or more ago.

I hope you enjoy this forum.  People here are nice. But its always good to keep your privacy, especially of family members.  I never post images of my kids.

 

[lukaszgryglicki]

In my country (Poland) the Baltic Sea sometime freeze a bit, but smaller lakes freeze totally sometime. I love bathing in them - first breaking the ice with an axe :) My daughter loves that too :)

 

[Nate]

Welcome to the forum, great people and lots of info here.

I think I started my UV journey around winter time. Trees and snow make for some great UV landscapes.

[Andy Perrin]

Hi welcome!

[moondigger]

Thanks everybody for your kind welcome.

 

dabateman -- Yes, I should have specified that Lake Ontario never freezes over completely. Lake Erie, being the shallowest of the Great Lakes, freezes over 100% of its surface almost every year, by the middle of January. The other four tend not to freeze over completely, with Ontario freezing over the smallest percentage of its surface each year.

 

In early 2014, the last time we had a strong/southerly polar vortex, four of the five great lakes froze over at least 90% of their surfaces. Ontario only ended up with ice covering something like 25% of its surface, which was considered a large amount of surface ice for that lake. Unfortunately that still left 75% of the surface uncovered, and we got just as much lake effect snow as we usually do that year. Here's a shot I took of the shoreline of one of the lakes from an airplane window, in March when the ice began to break up. Unfortunately I don't remember which of the Great Lakes this was, though it's almost certainly either Michigan or Ontario. (Apologies for the low quality photo -- it's what I could get with my phone camera.)

[moondigger]

I want to post a sample of my infrared photography. During the weeks that I was lurking here -- before I applied for membership -- I know I read something about recommended file size and maximum resolution for photos. But now that I want to post something, I'm unable to find that page again. Can somebody point me to it?

 

Thank you --

[dabateman]

Well never say never.

Wikipedia has a reference that lake Ontario has fully frozen over 5 times in recorded history:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Ontario#:~:text=The lake has completely frozen,1893%2C 1912%2C and 1934.

"The lake has completely frozen over on five recorded occasions: in 1830,[17] 1874, 1893, 1912, and 1934.[18]"

 

One time almost changed the course of a battle, as troups could cut across the lake.

 

But yes mostly it stays clear.

 

[moondigger]

I'd guess what I read about the lake 'never' freezing over 100% was based on more recent data. Still, this means it has never frozen over completely during my or my parents' lifetimes. My grandparents may have remembered it happening in 1934, but I can't ask them about it because they passed away years ago.

[Doug A]

Welcome to the group. Looking forward to your photos. I'm not a huge snow fan, but would love to try some in UV.

Thanks,

Doug A