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 6, 2011 | Wildlife Photography
There is one aspect of winter I look forward to on the flats each year. That’s the carpet of brown vegetation. The shrubs, grasses, reeds, everything has gone dormant and brown making it the perfect home for many dickie birds. Many of the dickie birds are in their winter browns and the combo in the gorgeous mellow light of winter just sucks me in!
The biggest challenge of this type of dickie bird photography (White-crowned Sparrows are seen here) is capturing a “clean” photo. The shrubs, grasses and reeds are a very busy world and the dickie birds move through it like we drive freeways. They often don’t come up on top of the vegetation because that’s how they get eaten, down deep is safety. The way I approach it is find the perch with the background I want within the area the dickie birds are forgaging. Then I psssst, psssst a couple of times and more times then not, a bird will come up on the perch to see what’s up. You don’t have much time, you need to have prefocused on that perch, but you do get rewarded. White-crown Sparrows are a long time favorite of mine and I know them well so making these images is a relaxation making it even more enjoybale. Ah, the brown of winter!
Photos captured by D3x, 600VR w/TC-17e
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!
Dec 2, 2011 | Landscape Photography
I was have tempted to post an empty poster since that’s what my flash card was this morning, empty. With the dusting of snow and the Mule Deer migrating, seemed like the perfect time to make some cool clicks (get it, snow, cool…oh never mind). I had been told that some big boys had been spotted with some nice racks but sadly, the morning was a photographic bust. What’s worse is I had a cool blog already to go, just needed that shot to finish it but no. What you see here is from last year trying to do the same thing and while not coming back empty handed, I didn’t make the shot either.
Photography constantly points out to me in so many insipid ways the golden rule when it comes to business. You Can’t Sell from An Empty Cart which goes hand in hand with, Only Write from Your Files. That’s why I always have said, “The only time I make money is when I’m behind the camera.” I get back to the office to find an email from a client who needs a particular detail shot of an aircraft I had supplied them an article and photos on. I know that detail was on my shot list but I must have been talking too much, I didn’t talk the shot so now….Then I power up the Epson 4900 to get some prints done for folks only to find my maintenance tank full. I go to the drawer to grab a new one only to discover I hadn’t ordered a backup when I grabbed the last one. And that’s been my Friday morning. Actually, a pretty typical one when you’re in the biz, it’s the way it goes. The only real bummer is the no clicks, everything else is easily solvable. Trust you all have a great weekend and may your flash cards come back full!
Dec 1, 2011 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
Our storms so far this winter have been short, sweet and scant. All the snow we’ve had so far as melted off at the house. So chasing storm fronts has been challenging to say the least. I typically set out with just one lens on the D3x, the 24-70. I do this because the sky, the clouds are where the drama resides. I minimize the foreground, pointing the lens up. If there are some wild linticular clouds taking over the horizon, I might go wider but I tend to find going tighter and focusing on specific cloud formations is much more successful. One thing you should notice is there is a foreground, a middle ground and background. Foreground is the sage and grasses. Middle ground are the mountains and the background are the clouds.
When it comes to finishing, that’s pretty much right out of my basic B&W play book. I go into ACR where it all starts. I then go to Silver Efex Pro which does the heavy lifting and then I use Color Efex Pro. There, I use the graduated neutral density and to me, the Blend is the most important slider. You move the Blend slider back and forth and you will see how it does just that, blend the split and it makes a world of difference. Finishing time per image, less then 30sec, down easy stuff. That is of course because the photograph was taken to be B&W.
The bottom one is by far my favorite because of the micro burst, it just brings the storm to life in a still image. And in B&W, it just looks cool.
What follows below are the same images but Silver Efex Pro has not been applied. This is the image right out of ACR. In ACR the blacks are dropped down a tad, Highlights are moved up a tad and the blue is drawn down. And that’s it, it’s real simple finishing. As full color images, there is only one that kind of intrigues me enough to finish as a full color image. Which one is it? I’ll let you guess.
