Atlas Coal Mine

After stops at Horseshoe Canyon and the Royal Tyrell Museum yesterday morning, I stopped for breakfast at the A&W in Drumheller, and then headed southeast on Highway 10 along the Red Deer River.  I stopped at the Atlas Coal Mine National Historic site near East Coulee, which was not yet open for the season, and took some photos of Canada's last remaining wooden coal tipple.

Wooden Tipple, Atlas Coal Mine
(Canon 5D Mark III, 24mm f3.5L II TS-E)

The Canon 24mm f3.5L II TS-E perspective-control lens proved to be perfect for an image like this; the entire structure of the coal tipple is rendered in crisp detail, and by keeping the camera level and shifting the lens upwards I was able to avoid making the tipple look like it was about to topple.

In the early part of the last century, the Drumheller valley was one of the major coal producing regions of Canada, but the Leduc oil strike in 1948 spelled the beginning of the end for the region's sub-butuminous coal as a home heating fuel, and the Atlas mine closed in 1979.

Drumheller and Horseshoe Canyon

It was an early start this morning, departing the house at 4:30am in order to arrive at Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller, around sunrise.  I made it there a few minutes after sunup, but there was a lot of cloud cover in the east, so the lighting was not as dramatic as I had hoped.

Horseshoe Canyon, near Drumheller (Canon 5D Mark III, EF 24-70mm f2.8L II)

Continuing on into Drumheller, I stopped by the Royal Tyrell Museum.  Since I had arrived several hours before opening time, I thought I would have the site to myself to photograph the building exterior, but to my surprise, there was a steady stream of children and parents leaving the building after a sleepover in the museum.  I had to time my shots to avoid the people, but I did manage to get a couple of images I liked, including the one below.

Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller (Canon 5D Mark III, 17mm f4L TS-E)

Sunrise (Sort Of) at the Big Rock

I made an early trip out to the Big Rock outside of Okotoks this morning, hoping to catch some interesting light as the sun rose underneath a heavy chinook arch.  I was planning to make some comparison shots between my Canon 5D Mark III and newly acquired 1Dx.  Sadly, the chinook cloud stretched too far to the east, blocking the sunrise, and the dramatic lighting I was hoping for never materialized.  

Since I had made the effort to get out of bed so early, I thought I might as well take some test shots despite the rather dull light.  Even underexposing about a stop to avoid blowing out the highlights on the distant horizon, both the 5D mark III and 1Dx are capable of pulling a lot of detail out of the shadows with no noticeable noise or banding.  To be honest, I never saw these issues with the old 5D Mark II or the 1Ds Mark III either, but a lot of internet "experts" have made a big deal about it over the past few years.

This example was shot with the 1Dx and Zeiss 21mm f2.8 ZE lens at ISO 100.  After uploading the file I increased the exposure by 0.5 EV in LightRoom 4.4, and added +30 to the shadows and +25 to the blacks to get a result I liked.  The version below has been converted to the sRGB colour space, so it's not quite as nice as the original file.

Big Rock, Okotoks

I have to admit, I initially had little interest in the 1Dx, thinking it was overpriced and not liking the fact that it has less resolution than the 5D Mark III.  While the increased resolution of the 5D Mark III is definitely noticeable in side-by-side comparisons, the 1Dx is by far the best-handling camera I've ever used, and its low-light performance is quite remarkable.  I can hardly wait for an opportunity to give it a good workout in better lighting conditions.