Brain freeze- Snaphappy playing & learning

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snaphappy

Senior Member
Rainbows and Waterfalls
To say I was in heaven would be a serious understatement
I tried to use my ND and polarizer together to smooth water but keep the rainbows but it didn't work with my ND :( So stuck with polarizer to capture the rainbows
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I got a fantastic family shot right here with my tripod and remote. I was having heart palpitations with my camera unattended so close to the edge of the falls though:)
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Strange, I know, with shiny ice in the photo and the elevation we were at, but that sun was hot. We were stripped down and dragging jackets while climbing around up there and making our way back down the hill.
 
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snaphappy

Senior Member
Entering the Columbia Icefield
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Signs in the parking lot
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There just is no way I could capture the strange feeling of being in an alien world I felt while there. I also hate the sun glares in photos but decided to work with it
The sign says that in 1982 the glacier edge was at the sign.
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I'm standing just in front of the 1992 sign
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Andromeda and the edge of the glacier. If you look closely and see black dots on the glacier they are people (not ants) who went over the barrier to walk on the Glacier. There were many signs of the people lost to the glacier when they fell through thin ice areas down into crevasses. We have small children so did not cross the barrier
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snaphappy

Senior Member
The walk back down
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The very dry Sunwapta lake (it'll fill up again in spring). 2 black dots along the side a couple walking
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My monsters not the only ones that tried to skip rocks on the thin ice
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Small pond and looking south towards Banff (only a couple kms as the ice field is right at the southern end of Jasper and the northern tip of Banff)
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snaphappy

Senior Member
Sadly we missed the last bus up to walk on the upper portion of the Glacier by only 8mins, it'll have to be our excuse to come back
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So to give a sense of scale of the area, here is a tiny crop of the lower right edge of the glacier in the next photo showing the parking lot below
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Since the walk up to and around the glacier wasn't enough here's the steps up and down to the visitor centre LOL There is a walkway for wheel chair access but it's a long windy pathway
In the back ground is Snow Dome with the sun just going down behind it
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Sorry I want to get to my next photos so these are my raw files I gave up trying to do any adjustments with my iPhoto
 
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snaphappy

Senior Member
Lastly in the visitor centre we found out what the platform they were building near tangled creek falls is.
I'm impressed with my camera iso 2500 and iso 4000 unedited
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What a wonderful project I sure would love to walk out there
 
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snaphappy

Senior Member
Nearing the end of our 2nd day in Jasper and only saw the deer in the campsite and 2 elk in the pitch black of night
On a few Kms from the Icefields though and my son noticed white up on a mtn above us
Mtn Goats yeah!
I finally had a reason to haul out my 70-300mm I'd been lugging around everywhere. Above us a good 150+ft straight above us were little white fluff balls
Now that I'm looking at my photos it looks like a mom and little one and an extra adult was there
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I really like the tiffen CPOL I have for my 70-300mm sure made this sky look crazy blue
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I think I need to strengthen and steady my hands because I missed my focus on this one but it shows just how incredibly furry they are, look like polar bears :)
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Next only a few kms up the road we came across 2 big horn sheep girls who just were so close (15-30ft) and posing for me but I'm struggling with trying to PP them. I've got my old Aperture 2 to quit crashing on me. However so far I've only worked on mastering my camera, learning what the heck the triangle is and working on composition. I'm struggling with doing justice to my photos so will have to get dig up old Aperture 2 videos tomorrow and see what I can soak in :)
 
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snaphappy

Senior Member
Thanx Roy I've never seen mtn goats in the wild before. In a zoo yes, but thats just not the same thing as seeing them living freely in their native area
Looking to my right as I rested my neck after staring straight up at the goats
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And a few mins later to the left and across the road is part of the new skywalk they're building
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The sunlight was disappearing quickly so had to get out of my comfort zone and pushed my ISO up to 1600
 
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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
Every time I hear of a skywalk I think of the one they built over the Grand Canyon. They charge you to park and ride a bus the last mile then the walk out on the skywalk is outrageously expensive and to top it off they do not allow you to carry a camera out on the walk. They will take your picture while you are on the walk and then overcharge you for it.

​I hope this one is not like that.
 
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snaphappy

Senior Member
Don this a national park you pay a daily fee of $19 a vehicle and you are free to explore all 1,087,800+hectares as well as the 664,100+ hectares of Banff National park. There is no firearms of any kind allowed in the park at any time, they give you safety handouts about the animals and Gawd help you if you leave food stuff in campsite or try to feed the animals! Also speeding in the park is going hurt your wallet cause they do not mess around! The only thing we paid for was to go up on the Tram to the mountain top and swim in the hot springs. Everything else is self guided and paid for with the daily park fees. There are beautiful hotels and many stunning cabins available to stay in but hubby and I stayed in our 18ft trailer with 3 kids and 3 large dogs LOL I could spend a month and still barely see the stuff available to see and do in the park. We only had 2 full days because we spent our other 2 days travelling to get there. We live about 5hrs north west of the park. Hubby has driven through Banff when he worked in alberta and I was in Jasper in 1986 but I barely remember anything since I was 8 and we just drove through :)

We went at the end of the summer season so it was pretty quiet but even then there was still LOTS of people and getting photos with out people took ALOT of patience! There is skiing etc so there is also a winter season and the photos I saw of the frozen canyons and waterfalls are fantastic. No street lights or power lines sure is nice too :)
 
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