Nighttime Meanderings On The Seawall

Every time I have driven over the Lions Gate Bridge southbound during the evening or night I have always wanted to head to the Stanley Park Seawall and capture Vancouver’s downtown as the sunsets. For some reason I just never got around to doing it until last night. I took my Canon XSi, the EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS Kit lens, cable release and tripod and headed out at around 5:30PM towards Coal Harbour. The sun was set to go down at roughly 7:00PM.

Since I have been hanging out with the people from No Compacts Allowed, I have come to learn the term Nautical and Civilian Twilight as well as Golden Hour and Blue Hour. Various points at which the sun passes the horizon and supposedly the best (or more artistic) types of light for photography. I could not find the best reference for these key times of the day, so I just headed out for around the time the sun was supposed to set, sa the twilight hours are when the sun is at particular degrees past the horizon and cast some impressive colours in the sky.

Now I’m not sure if I captured the twilight scene, but I did have fun in the dark taking photos.

This is where I sat for 2 hours waiting for the sun to go down. Not a bad view of our beautiful Vancouver eh?

Other photogs were there, they must have had the same thoughts that day as me. Funny thing is, they all had Canon gear!

Majority of the time I head out on a photowalk, no matter the time of day (well ok afternoon to evening), I always see wedding photos being taken. This couple arrived at “Golden Hour” and and a bazillion photos taken. They didn’t seem to mind me snapping a quick shot as they walked past the bench I was sitting on. Yes, their photographer was also shooting Canon

Various photos I took as the sun began to sink below the horizon (which is off to the right of the photos if you’re curious). You can click on any of the photos in my posts and it will overlay a larger version for your viewing needs!

I tried to experiement with various apertures and shutter exposures. If I kept the shutter open longer the blue from the reflection was greater as the water movement was captured.

Good ol’ Vancouver! How I love our city during the day and during the night. That bright light up in the top left corner is (I am assuming) either Mars or Venus rising.

On effect I have always thought was cool was lapping water or waves during long exposures. It makes the surface look cottony. I’ve always wanted to take evening shots of the shore with waves crashing, but sometimes there is still too much ambient light about to do longer exposures and I don’t have myself a Neutral Density filter (ND), though I wonder if my Circular Polarizer (CP) might work?

The above photo I like for a couple reasons. The reflection of the buildings’ lights, the buildings themselves and the cool white light on the right. The water being calm helps with the reflection too as there wasn’t much movement to disort the reflected lights too much.

As I was taking the above photo I had a skunk wander around me. They are cute little fellas, you just don’t want to spook them as their last line of defense is to spray. He just sniffed around me as I was taking long exposures and then wandered up over the bridge. If it wasn’t for the long exposure you would have seem him in the photo above at one point.

I really did like going out and just hanging out on the bench as the sun went down. Lots of tourists went by with curious faces as myself and the other photogs just hung out with our camera gear on tripods. Perhaps next time to help time pass a bit quicker I’ll bring my EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS lens so I can take photos of things that are at slightly further distances. I would love it if I had a stronger and sturdier tripod to accomadate that particular lens. I found that last time I used it (with the lens mount collar) it was still a bit too heavy and the camera would shake quite a bit when on the tripod I have.

Where will my feet and camera take me today?