Dec 19, 2011 | Landscape Photography
Our annual Night of Lights here in Mammoth was this past weekend. You bundle up in warm clothes, grab some xmas spirit and head up the mountain to Canyon Lodge for the show. It’s always a great time and a good place to have a camera. I headed up with simply with a D3s and 24f1.4AFS, shooting at ISO 3200 and f1.4 the whole time, making it simple and fun. Now us mountain folks do this Christmas lights thing a little different then most. The first thing you should notice is the groomers have their cats in the shape of a Christmas tree (a fat, short one). Then with the fireworks, the top two images, you’ll see the Christmas tree shape again. The last image, it’s just a big explosion, I like big explosions. All the images were taken handheld at around 1/200. The one element I was trying to capture but really didn’t were all the folks with their iPhones up in the air trying to take pictures. You can see some glows from them in the foreground. It was a lot of fun with a lot of friends, great way to start off the week!
Dec 10, 2011 | Landscape Photography
Starting Thursday night and running through Friday night, every time we came back to our room, I would hang out the window and take a shot. I just love the view, I’m sure it’s just a Moose thing, but I really love looking at all the architecture, history, humanity that I can see hanging out the window. And with the Empire right there, I cannot take its photograph. The second from the bottom is my favorite from this day, it’s the last gleam of light of the day. A number of folks have asked if I’m shooting this with the 24PC-E. Some have asked how with shooting with the 24f1.4 I’m not getting the buildings leaning in. Some of asked if I’m fixing them in PS. Well, the buildings aren’t leaning because I’m shooting out the 22nd floor. I’m not shooting up on the, I’m kinda shooting across to them. It’s that simple, I like simple, I can handle simple!
Dec 8, 2011 | Landscape Photography
OK, I have stood by the window all night and no, I can’t stop! Top frame the skylights get turned off and the water towers really pop. The bottom, basic B&W to bring out the drama in the clouds. I’m not getting any sleep tonight!
Dec 8, 2011 | Landscape Photography
These are two separate clicks. Both finished the same using Nik Dfine and then Nik Color Efex Pro Detail Enahncer / Tonal Contrast. The only difference is the top frame started as a 5 image HDR and processed with Photomatix Pro and the bottom a single click processed first with ACR. I love the top frame much better! Between the glow from the light bouncing around the clouds and the reflections from all the wet surfaces, I could stand at the window all night long shooting the constantly changing mood. City Landscapes, I just love them!
Dec 8, 2011 | Field Reports, Landscape Photography
We’re back in the Big Apple and in the room we love when we’re here. With a simple request though, this time the screen on the window was removed so I can hang out the window on the 22nd floor and shoot (so much better then shooting through window or screen). It was raining so the mood around the Empire Ste Bldg is just simple cool. Here’s a simple click. Nothing exciting, but there is mtc.
Photo captured by D3s, 24f1.4AFS
Dec 3, 2011 | Landscape Photography
“You should have been here yesterday, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky! Perfect for picture takin!” I heard that this morning being said by a local to a visitor and I just had to laugh. They all just looked, saw it was me and since they know I’m nuts, thought nothing of it. To me living in The Range of Light, there is nothing worse then a bald sky.
Back in the day, I was sent the Fuji 617 with its three lenses when it was first announced but not being shipped to customers yet. I wanted to not only review the camera, but see if it would work on this idea I had for Ultra Wide Panos. Well, I could only get the camera for 1 week, there were other photographers like me to review it and there was only one camera. Well it arrived and for the next week, we had nothing but those “Perfect for picture takin” days. That’s probably what started my outright hatred of bald skies.
I only know of a couple of cures for bald sky photography. Use a split, make it as dark as possible and then shoot B&W making the sky just a graphic element. A polarizer in combination with split can make it even darker. Or, point the lens down and include lots of interesting foreground and leave the sky a mere sliver. Lastly, and I use this technique most of all anymore, find something else to photograph all together. In this case though, there was just enough of a whiff of a cloud along with polarizer/split ND, I could make a simple click. Better then bald skies, better then being skunked. And of course, just being out makes it all worth while!
