Heading East

In the last few years we have been making more of an effort to travel in Canada and in the States. We have been all over Europe, to Singapore and New Zealand multiple times but we have not really spent a lot of time traveling in our own backyard.

This year, we decided to return to Newfoundland, Canada for a two week trip. We started in the province's capital St. John's, then traveled up to Fogo Island which is on the northeast corner of the Island of Newfoundland and then finally a trip across to the west coast to visit Gros Morne National Park. The three locations are about five hours (driving) apart so we figured we would have four days in each location plus two travel days.

The moose population in Newfoundland is predicted to be in the 120,000 to 150,000 range which is about one moose per four people that live on the island. When driving around the province, you will see a lot of signs like the one on the left. The average moose weighs about 1000 pounds and there are one or two moose vs car collisions every day! As much as we tried though, the only moose we saw where the ones on these signs...they looks pretty mean though, not sure I'm up for an in person meeting.

The KIT

First Trip with the Leica M11

At the beginning of this year I decided to take the plunge and move back to a Leica system as my main camera. I have an older Leica R film camera and a few nice lenses but, because the system R cameras were discontinued, there was no easy upgrade path to digital. The Sony AR7 series was great because I could use my older Leica lenses which worked fairly well, but I do a lot of travel photography and the R lenses are a bit bulky and on the heavy side. Leica has a few systems available these days but the choice was simple, I decided to go with the classic rangefinder, the Leica M11. It’s a very easy camera to use and “does not get in the way” if that makes any sense. I had a funny conversation with a good friend of mine about making this switch. He was really pushing me towards Leica and I was like “So the Leica does not have video support or super fast auto-focus or any auto-focus for that matter. It does not have the ability to shoot a bazilliion frames a second and costs twice as much money - so why do I want this again?”. But that’s exactly the point, the M11 is not about any of the features that the Sony A7Rx does really well, it’s kind of the opposite. You manually set the ISO, shutter speed, set the aperture, manually focus the shot and then you push the release. Sounds like a lot but if you practice you can get most of it figured out before you even bring the camera up to your eye. Controlling the aperture means that you can work with the sweet spots of the lens - mind you, with Leica glass the whole aperture range is going to be very sharp. Even so, I try to avoid going wide open or completely closed down unless I need to. In the end, you spend more time composing the shot and making sure you are going to capture it the way you want and less time pushing the wrong buttons on a camera that is doing everything for you, focusing on the wrong spot, and/or shooting too fast or too slow. Do I mess this up? Yes, absolutely. I have lost a few shots because the focus is out or I’m shooting wide open when I want more depth in the shot. It’s ok though! Sometimes the mistakes are interesting in themselves and can be creatively turned into something that was not part of the original composition in post production. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s just crap and sometimes the technically perfect (but compositionally boring) shots are crap too - this is how photography goes. It just takes a lot of practice.

Kit on this trip is the Leica M11, the Leica Super-Elmar-M 21mm f/3.4 ASPH and the Leica R Summicron 90mm f/2.0. I was hoping to bring a Leica APO-Summicron-M 75mm f/2 ASPH instead of the R lens but unfortunately it seems to be perpetually backordered (In the words of Wayne from Wayne’s world “Someday, you will be mine”). Also, because I’m using the R lens which blocks most of the view in the viewfinder and the 21mm SEM which captures a frame outside the bounds of the viewfinder, I also added the Visoflex 2 EVF. Cheating? technically yes. A ton of connivence, totally!

St. John's

We fully expected the weather to be varied and St. John’s did not disappoint. With the rest of the country locked in a crazy heat wave, we were really hoping that we might find some relief with some cooler temperatures. What we got was the fog rolling in and then staying for the whole time we were in the city. While this sounds kind of dreary, for someone taking photographs its not the worst situation as the fog (and just generally being overcast) does tend to make the light a little less harsh. Unfortunately, fog does obscure the scene so maybe you are not going to get as much image as you really want. I just try to work with it. Sometimes it’s really cool effect while other times, you are standing on a cliff and you can hear the ocean, and you know it’s down there somewhere, but today is not the day.

Fog Rolling in at St. John's Harbour

Fog rolling in at St. John’s Harbour - Leica R Summicron 1:2/90mm - 1/500s f/? ISO 64. Notes: 1) This image was post processed with Nik Tools Color Efex 6. Since I always capture images using raw mode, I typically have to do some level of post processing much the same way that you would typically work in a darkroom. On this image I applied a FujiChrome Velvia color profile and bumped the contrast which darken the sky. 2) One of the drawbacks of using the R lens on the M11 is that you don’t capture the aperture setting with the image since the lens is mounted on an adapter - then again, back in the film days you had to track all of this information in a little notebook…not that this information is hugely valuable.

Similar shot in black and white

The Battery, St. John's

The place we were staying is in an area called The Battery which has great views of the harbour. In fact, we had the flagship for the Canadian Coast Guard docked right in front of our deck. The Louis S. St. Laurent is named after a former prime minister (Canada’s 12th prime minister from 1948 to 1957) and is a heavy icebreaker. It also is always on standby so it has a nice mechanical hum that runs all night long which alleviates the need for a white noise generator to help you sleep (if you are into that sort of thing, sadly, I am not).

The city and the province are well known for their colorful houses. I even the houses in the suburbs near the airport were a variety of colors.

The Louis S St. Laurent in St. John’s Harbour - Leica SEM 1:3.4/21mm - 1/180 f4.0 ISO 64

The Louis S St. Laurent in St. John’s Harbour - Leica SEM 1:3.4/21mm - 1/180 f4.0 ISO 64. Notes: Same shot with the Nik Color Efex 6 Kodachrome64 filter

Maybe a bit hard to see (and also depends on the monitor you are using), but I used a “film filter” on the picture on the right which maps the film color profile for Kodachrome 64 onto the original image. In this case, you get a bit more colour in the sky but the main difference is going to be the red of the hull of the ship. Red is traditionally one of the harder colors to deal with and the Canadian Coast Guard red is definitely one of the more challenging shades of red. The Leica lens does a really nice job on this as it produces good contrast on the image and the film profile brightens the red without blowing it out. That last shot was taken on the first day we were in St. John’s at sunset, then the fog rolled in to stay for the rest of of our stay in the city.

Socked in at St. John’s Harbour and no sign of the fog lifting anytime soon! - Leica SEM 1:3.4/21 1/125s f/9.5 ISO 64

Somewhere up on the hiking trails around Signal Hill - Leica SEM 1:3.4/21 1/125s f/6.5 ISO 64

Colourful houses in The Battery

Quidi Vidi

Take a short walk from St. John's and arrive at Quidi Vidi and more importantly, The Quidi Vidi Brewery. Actually, the walk was not that short and you can either go the long way which is sort of flat or the short way which is definitely not flat, but has good views, at least when there is no fog. This turned out to be a great lunch spot and the beer was really good and well deserved since we took the uphill route.

Quidi Vidi is commonly pronounced 'Kiddy Vidi' and the origin of the name is apparently a bit of a mystery. Something to ponder over while you are enjoying the view and one of their famous beers.

Of course, no trip anywhere would be complete without checking out at least one brewery. We walked over to Quidi Vidi and had a nice lunch on their patio.

Quidi Vidi Brewery - a short walk from downtown St. John’s

View from the deck at the Quidi Vidi Brewery

Placentia/Dildo

In an attempt to get out of the fog, we drove down to Placentia which is on the south coast of the island. The town was first settled in the 1500s by Basque fishermen.

View of Placentia from the Castle Hill National Historic Site

Lunch at the Three Sisters Pub and Eatery

Boardwalk in Placentia

A couple of beers with a view of Dildo Arm and the Dildo Brewery and Museum.