Brian Zinchuk Publishing

It took two visits to the field, several visits to the rig up site in Estevan, and well over 30 hours of editting, but I think the results are worth it. This is Betts Drilling Ltd. Rig 1, the first of two rigs this new drilling company has put together in short order. It went to work in southeast Saskatchewan on Nov. 29. Rig 2 is just about complete, and is expected to go to work this week.

The first day I was there just after sun-up, but there was no real nice sunrise to shoot. I stayed the entire day to get the sunset, only to find it, too, was not too great. That necessitated a second trip to the rig at the tail end of my day when I was in the area later in the week. I got there literally three minutes before the sun went down, and got the shots I wanted.

In this shoot I tried to get the scenic nature of the skies, since there aren’t many mountains near where they are drilling. I also focused a lot on the details, from the mud leaping up in little balls on the shaker, to the effort the roughnecks put into removed drill pipe caps.

I also did three 360 degree panoramas, one inside the doghouse, one on the drill floor, and one on the roof of the doghouse. Unfortunately the hoarding around the drill floor limited the view, but perhaps that can be revisitted in the future. These panoramas were the result of using the new Acratech GP ballhead and nodal rail, combined with a Really Right Stuff L-Bracket for the D700. It’s about $1,000 of kit, but I think the results speak for themselves. Stitching of something like 18 photos for each was done in Photoshop, with final adjustment in Lightroom.

Click on the photo to be taken to the gallery. You will be able to see these photos later on Betts Drilling’s website.