I haven’t meant to be this long between posts; Like I said, I’ve had a lot of extra projects going on as well as extra hours at work, and of course, all the fun of shoveling snow. I’m hoping to get more-or-less back on schedule soon.
Anyways, Niagara Falls. It’s one of the most famous attractions in Canada(and the USA), and might be the most famous site in Ontario. It was never a big deal to me; As a child, I lived close to the falls, and visited it enough that it wasn’t a big deal. Now that I’m living in British Columbia, however, I only get a chance to see it every few years, and it is much more impressive now.
Niagara Falls is vast. It is actually composed of three falls- two smaller falls are located in New York, and the third, the iconic Horseshoe Falls, is bordering America and Canada(with the majority of the falls being located within Canada). Over 160 000 000 litres of water flow over the rim of the falls every minute during the peak tourist season(less at nights and during the off season).
Niagara Falls is slowly eroding and moving upriver at about a foot every year. Eventually, the river will open up, and the falls will disappear, but not for several millennia.
The last time I visited Niagara Falls was in 2014. I had only started taking infrared photos the year before, and only brought a couple filters with me. I visited the falls in summer, when the Maid of the Mist ships were active in the Niagara River.
Horseshoe Falls is on the right, partially obscured by the mist of the waterfall. The two American falls are on the left, with a small rock outcrop dividing them. Goat Island is the large piece of land in the centre; it is a part of New York.
I’ve divided the above photo into the blue, green, and red channels. 
There really isn’t much difference between the three- the shadows of the cliff at Goat Island are darkest in the red channel, and the sky is slightly darker. In the full colour photo, you can see that the distant objects(such as the Goat Island cliff) have a faint blue tinge- I think that is partially due to a slight level of haze, but also due to the effects of the mist landing on my camera lens. The cliff looks clearest in the green channel, but due to the darknesss, there is a lot of noise in every channel.
With my Zomei 760 nm filter, the sky and water have a brown tinge. The sky is much clearer than in any of the visible channels, as is normal for near infrared. The Foliage is a monochromatic grey, and the cliff of Goat Island is much more detailed than in the visible spectrum. Most notably, the division between the limestone rock and the foliage in the canyon is easy to distinguish in this photo.
There’s one more feature that stands out with the infrared photo. The dark blue rain jackets being worn by the tourists of the Maid of the Mist have a very faint blue tinge. It is visible in the above photo, but much clearer in the photo below.
The ‘Behind The Falls’ tour takes the visitor to the base of Horseshoe Falls, before entering tunnels that end (obviously) behind the falls.
It WAS a sunny day, but the mist and spray at the base of the falls is so heavy that you wouldn’t know it. Breaking the lower photo into the blue, green, and red channels again, there really isn’t much difference.
Infrared(The 760 nm filter again) does have a significant difference, however:
The sky and clouds are much clearer, and the sunlight is more obvious at the longer wavelength. This photo was taken in the same location as the above one, but I did change to a portrait orientation.
That’s the end of my near-infrared photos at the falls- I did take some at nearby Queenston Heights and other areas around the region.
As for the tunnels behind the falls? That was the first and only time I visited them. My father saw them when he was younger, and remembered walking on the catwalk and being buffeted by the spray. I’m not saying he was misremembering (in fact I’m fairly sure that he’s not), but… well… there’s no catwalk. I mentioned the erosion above, and four decades after he visited, the tunnels lead to a dead end.
Four years later, and I’m wondering how much more will erode by the time I return.
The above visible spectrum photos were taken with a Canon T3 Rebel camera. The near-infrared photos were taken with a modified Panasonic Lumix camera.
Parallel Views 