Roadtrip Images

Lake Louise is a gorgeous scene in Banff National Park. Just need to capture it at the right time of day.

Lake Louise is both a lake and a town. Situated in Banff National Park, Lake Louise is about 57 Km (35 miles) Northwest of the town of Banff, Alberta. The lake is one of the most recognizable scenes in the Canadian Rockies. Best photographed at sunrise but with the right light, evening can be good too.

The village of Lake Louise is quite small with only some tourist shops, cafe’s, and a gas station or two. The most notable business in Lake Louise is the huge 5 star Fairmont Chateau hotel that sits right at the edge of the lake. This 539 room hotel seems a bit out of place in an otherwise rustic natural setting. We stayed at the nearby Lake Louise campground which is part of the National Park.

In May when we went, the lake was still ice covered for the most part. There is an outlet at the northeast end of the lake that had some open water when we were there. It made for some wonderful reflection shots. We scouted out the scene in the evening knowing that the best light would be sunrise. That’s when we discovered that most of the lake was still ice covered. Better to do this before getting up at 4:30am only to discover the shot you wanted just isn’t there. We spend a lot of time scouting for shots. Mid day is a good time for this since we rarely shoot in that light.

We found the open water section and spent some time exploring compositions that would work. By getting pretty low to the water it makes it look like more of the lake had open water. I’ve included a shot from the evening scouting trip below. It was shot with the tripod a little higher up. This view shows more of the ice covered lake.

Sunrise up here was around 5:30am so we planned to arrive about then to make sure we didn’t miss any good light. We weren’t sure what time the sun would get over the surrounding mountains. We also wanted to ensure our spot on the shoreline. With that huge hotel right there, we weren’t sure how many photographers would be out there for sunrise. As it turned out, there were only a few early ones. Many more snap shooters came later.

At first light it didn’t look very promising. Heavy clouds filled the sky and it looked like rain. The cloud forecast indicated it would start to clear by around 7:00am so we decided to go. The clouds were still pretty thick when we arrived at the lake and it was spitting rain on and off.

The composition I wanted was to have the rocks in the foreground line up with the V shaped reflection in the water. All of those elements served as a leading line into the mountains. Hoping to have some nice clouds, I wanted to include as much sky in the scene as well. This required a very wide angle lens. 16mm in this case. I also lowered the camera to about a foot above the water to emphasize the water and corresponding reflection.

The pine trees on either side of the image were going to be in shade and therefore pretty dark relative to the light on the mountains and the sky. I planned on bracketing my exposures to ensure I’d be able to cover the wide dynamic range of the scene. I also knew I’d need to focus stack. The rocks in the foreground were very near to the camera while the mountains in the distance were very far off. Better to anticipate issues like these while getting set up so when the light show starts you’re all ready to go. You may not need the extra exposures but it’s better to have them as insurance.

They sky was beginning to open up and some blue sky holes were forming. When the sun found one of those holes and began to illuminate the scene it was a beautiful sight. The clouds had parted enough over the mountains to see some blue sky there as well. It had stopped raining and you couldn’t have ordered up a better set of conditions. Even though it was cold, it was a wonderful morning.

Right behind our campground was the Bow River. We decided to check that out and found a pretty amazing scene. Mt Temple in the background with the Bow River as a leading line in the foreground and it was in our backyard so to speak. We spent some time one evening enjoying the view and the late day light and captured the image you see below. It was a pleasant surprise being so close to where we were staying.

I like the way the sunlight was making alternating light and shadows on the trees. It was also added some nice warm color to Mt Temple. I added a 4 stop ND filter to smooth out the water. Moving water looks better this way in photographs. A nice find!

The Canadian Rockies are amazing and the Banff and Jasper areas offer up some of the best mountains scenes on the planet. Even though it was May many viewpoints and facilities were still closed due to snow. Moraine Lake was one of those so we didn’t get to shoot that one.

The Lake Louise area is a great base camp to explore these iconic locations especially if you’re camping. We’ll probably stop again on our way back down from Alaska in the Fall.

As always, you can see higher resolution images on our Facebook page. Please give us a like while you’re there.

Nikon D850 with Nikkor 16-35mm at 16mm. f/11 at 1.6 seconds. ISO 31 for featured image at top.