This little waterfall was found in a small hidden area just off the path going to Fish Creek Falls located in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I went to this location to film Fish Creek falls. So before we left I put a neutral density and a polarizing filter on my lens. The use of these filters allows less light to reach the sensor which in turn give a longer exposure. When this is done with moving water it gives the effect of making the water look silky. Even though it was the middle of the day I soon found out that for this location I did not need these filters. This little waterfall was located in such a dark little area that no sunlight was reaching the water. I took the filters off and reshot. My original plan for this waterfall was to shoot a 5 exposure HDR. The problem I quickly ran into was that so many people were in the area and even though my camera was on a tripod, the mirror up and I was using a cable release it was hard to get five sharp photos. I had to have the tripod on a small bridge, and the traffic going up and down kept producing vibrations. Instead I settled for one exposure.

I exported the photo to NX2 and developed it as normal. This included slightly increasing the exposure. At that point I saved it and then made one stop changes and resaved each time. I was able to make four total exposures. A quick export into Photomatix Pro and I had the HDR I was looking for.

At this point in the development the photo is far from being finished. I exported to Lightroom then to CS4 where I brought in the original photo so that I could blend a few areas that were over saturated from the HDR work. Once I had the photo where I wanted it I merged the layers and ran Topaz DeNoise.

I like how clear the water is in the small pool.
I like the different levels the water takes as it falls into the pool.
I like the moss covered walls.

The equipment I used:
Nikon D200
18-135 lens
Cable release
Mirror up
tripod

The Specs:
18mm
f/16
Iso 100
3 sec exposure

Thank you for visiting today.

~wr~

Here is another fantastic article from Dave of DCSteps. I think you will enjoy this as much as I did.
~wr~

Urban Nights and Lights

So far I’ve been talking here about bird photography, but I thought I’d cover how to make use of some of the same equipment in an entirely different vein of photography. For most of my bird photography I use a sturdy tripod combined with a strong ballhead and a gimbaled head. If I take the gimbaled head off and substitute a wide-angle lens for the super telephoto used in bird photography, then I’m set for urban night photography.

I dabble in architectural photography, but really enjoy combining that with night photography. In some ways, getting a dramatic night shot is easier than getting a really “special” shot in the day time. The same rules of composition and perspective still apply, but the addition of artificial lights on a building seems to make things more dramatic, at least to my eye.

Well lit downtown areas tend to offer good subjects. One of my examples below is Radio City Music Hall in New York, which you might consider “cheating” to shoot something so iconic, but the other is Boston Avenue Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Thinking of the places that I’ve lived, the bridges in Jacksonville, the lit up buildings and streets of Dallas, Denver and Tulsa all offer great subjects. Try to find subjects locally but, when you travel to New York City or Vegas or Paris, pack the tripod.

In addition to the tripod, I also use a remote, wired shutter release to avoid any movement when I release the shutter. My DSLR has a function called “Live View” that puts the reflex mirror up and shows the scene on the camera back’s LCD. Raising the mirror and then using a remote release avoids any shake when the shutter is started and then closed. If you don’t have a remote release, then you might use your camera’s delayed release, combined with the mirror lock-up, if it has it. Point and shoot cameras don’t need to worry about mirror shake, but a remote release is still good, to avoid moving the camera as you press the Shutter button.

I use two primary methods for night exposures. Sometimes I use Aperture Preferred automated settings and let the camera calculate the exposure and other times I use the “Bulb” setting an experiment. When the subject fills a large part of the frame and you’re not trying to do things like catch blurred traffic in the same image with buildings, then the Aperture Preferred method generally works very well.



See DCStep for a larger image.

For this Boston Avenue Church image I used the Aperture Preferred method. Since the background was largely black and the building was brightly lit, I used -1EV to avoid over exposing the building. (Whenever a portion of a subject is well lit and most of the background is totally dark, the camera will typically over expose the highlights while trying to give you a good average reading). Remember, you can change the exposure after you look at the Preview of your image and it’s either too dark or too bright. Be sure to look at it large size (if your camera allows) to make certain that you didn’t over expose some small detail area, or didn’t have enough exposure to bring out shadowed areas. Generally you’ll have time to bracket up and down 1 or 2 EV, to see how it impacts your final results. Remember, once you’ve paid for your equipment, extra images are essentially free.

I screwed up on the Boston Avenue Church images, forgetting to bring my remote release on the trip. You can see that I got a nice shot, but I ruined a few others with camera shake when I released the shutter. I knew of this risk and took some extras to be certain that I had a sharp image.

I like to use a true wide-angle lens for most architectural photography. I use a full-frame Canon body (the EOS 5D MkII), meaning that the digital sensor is roughly the same size as 35mm film. The full frame sensor gives a wider field of view through my EF 24-105mm f/4L IS than when the same lens on my “crop-sensor” 7D. In fact, at 24mm on the 7D, the equivalent focal length is just over 38mm. I think that 17mm to 24mm is the best focal length range for architecture on a full-frame camera.

This image was taken at 24mm, f/8.0, ISO 100 and -1EV, resulting in a shutter speed of 2.5-seconds. The low ISO setting is critical, because large parts of the image are under exposed and will show much more digital noise at higher ISO settings. I could have used ISO 3200 or 6400 and handheld this shot, but the noise would have been very intrusive. With the low ISO the blacks are deep and rich, highlighting the building dramatically.




See DCStep for a larger image.

For this image of the iconic Radio City Music Hall I used the Bulb setting to get the building sharp, but allow the streaks of taillights from the moving traffic. As with the Boston Avenue Church image, I used a low ISO 100 to minimize digital noise. Once again I had the 24-105mm zoom lens all the way wide at 24mm because I like that perspective, but I used a smaller f/16 aperture which allowed me to leave shutter open longer without over exposing the building itself. I wanted the building well exposed, but I also wanted the lights of heavy traffic to be obvious in the image.

After I set up my tripod, I’d wait until traffic was coming and then, with the mirror up in my camera’s Live View mode, I’d hold the shutter open on Bulb for a few seconds. At the time I knew that I was holding the shutter open three or four seconds, but I had no idea that it was actually 3.2-seconds. I’d take an image, look at the Preview and either increase or decrease the exposure by a little. Shooting in RAW there’s great leeway to bring the exposure level up or down, but I tried to get the building lights about right.

If you look at the EXIF data for this image you’ll see that the camera was set at -2/3EV. That’s meaningless on Bulb settings. I’d taken a couple of shots of the building using the camera’s exposure, hence I set it at –EV to avoid over exposing the many lights. In Bulb mode you’re overriding all the camera’s calculation, so it doesn’t matter if it’s set at 0EV, -2EV or +4EV. I cropped this square because the building is kind of square.

By the way, my technique for setting the tripod position is to set the lens at the focal length that I want, then set up the tripod and look at the subject. If the subject is too small in the frame I move forward and if the subject is too large I move away. I didn’t end of standing in the middle of a street for either of these shots, but if I did, I’d change the focal length of the zoom lens. Getting close and using the lens’ widest focal length generally gives a more dramatic perspective. It usually only takes a little more effort to move the tripod rather than zooming in or out from wherever you happen to be standing, but I think the results are well worth that effort.

If you have a good tripod and a wide-angle lens for your camera, then you can take these types of shots pretty easily. The remote shutter release is a nice added accessory, but not absolutely required. I’ve started making night photography part of my travel plans by packing the tripod, even when bird photography is not on the agenda.

Happy shooting,


Dave

This past weekend we were at Steamboat Lake in Colorado. As we were eating our lunch my daughters and their cousins started to gather dandelions from the grassy field. They decided to decorate the local picnic table. They had a great time and the table looks great.