silentgphoto
Hanalei Pier
These next two images were taken on Kauai at the famous Hanalei Pier. I shot both within about 30 minutes of each other, and this will help explain why I carry at least 2 camera bodies when I travel.
You'll notice a lot of my long exposure work is done during golden hours, or even during the middle of the day for black and white conversions. I get really anxious shooting long exposures during sunrises/sunsets as the light is so limited you only get a couple shots to get it right. And there's nothing quite like committing to a multiple minute exposure only to see the sky really blow up with intense detail. There are just times when I'd prefer a shorter exposure to retain all that detail.
So for this solo trip back in March I brought my D800 and D7000 and rented the Nikon Df (LOVE that camera). I brought a couple tripods as well. While this long exposure was firing with the Df I was over in the tide with my D800, shooting much shorter exposures to get that tide pullback effect I enjoy so much.
I set up in tides for all my slow shutter work, but for the really long exposures, no matter how robust a tripod is, you need to be set with solid footing. So I read the tide and set the Df up in a spot I knew wouldn't be affected by the incoming tide, and opted against a really wide angle shot.
I knew the long exposure would give a pretty reflection, and with all the folks walking and stopping at the end of the pier this approach helped in removing people in-camera. While I often like how "busy" a shot can look with the blurring of clouds, zooming in here made the shot much more simple, and when I only have a couple static subjects in a frame I think in terms of "square format."
I'm a BIG stickler for straight horizon lines. That should always be a huge priority when composing a landscape. With that said the straight portion of the horizon is hidden in this image (the shot is level, but the land heading out to Na Pali Coast almost appears otherwise). I originally got really low so I could see the horizon below the top of the pier, but the gap was a little too small with the zoom I selected, and I wanted to be set up closer to eye level to get more reflection in the cove's negative space.
Nikon Df
Nikkor 24-70mm/f2.8
Really Right Stuff TQC-14 Tripod with BH-30 LR Ballhead
LEE 0.9 Soft Grad ND
Formatt Hitech PRO IRND 10 Stop (I loathe this filter and have sold it - NO, it's not the same as the new Firecrest I'm raving about. This filter had such a nasty color cast I did have to do a lot of correction in post)
44mm
f14
ISO 100
405 Seconds
The clouds weren't moving too incredibly fast and I wanted a painterly blur here, so needed to go quite long with the exposure time, thus I went f14. f8 would have been plenty for depth of field.
Post production:
Again, I had to work a decent amount to get rid of the magenta color cast, but luckily the scene was a firey red to begin with.
1.) LR5 for lens corrections and chromatic abberation removal.
2.) Nik's Dfine for denoising--I pushed the Df's sensor to the limits here and did get a pretty noisey shot with a TON of hot pixels.
3.) Back into LR5 to bring up shadows, take down highlights, and then re-add lights. (That lights slider is right below the basic sliders, underneath the tone curve box--I tend to take down highlights a lot and add the lights).
4.) Into Nik's Color Efex for:
a.) Pro Contrast (remember, this helps with dynamic contrast and color correction)
b.) Polarization
c.) Sunlight on the foreground water and the brightest part of the sky.
d.) Very minimal Glamour Glow to help with more smoothing and tone warmth
e.) Graduated Neutral Density to darken the top-most section of the photo--to help isolate the pier and the sunset glow as much as possible.
f.) Brilliance and Warmth to help with a little more color enhancement.
5.) Back into LR5 to do another pass on chromatic abberations (simply checked the "remove chromatic abberations" box in the lens corrections section)
6.) Brushed in a little more highlights in the forefround
7.) Into Nik's Output Sharpener for slight sharpening on the pier and mountains, only.
The next image was again, taken during the same sunset, and only about 40 feet away from this location.
Hanalei Pier
These next two images were taken on Kauai at the famous Hanalei Pier. I shot both within about 30 minutes of each other, and this will help explain why I carry at least 2 camera bodies when I travel.
You'll notice a lot of my long exposure work is done during golden hours, or even during the middle of the day for black and white conversions. I get really anxious shooting long exposures during sunrises/sunsets as the light is so limited you only get a couple shots to get it right. And there's nothing quite like committing to a multiple minute exposure only to see the sky really blow up with intense detail. There are just times when I'd prefer a shorter exposure to retain all that detail.
So for this solo trip back in March I brought my D800 and D7000 and rented the Nikon Df (LOVE that camera). I brought a couple tripods as well. While this long exposure was firing with the Df I was over in the tide with my D800, shooting much shorter exposures to get that tide pullback effect I enjoy so much.
I set up in tides for all my slow shutter work, but for the really long exposures, no matter how robust a tripod is, you need to be set with solid footing. So I read the tide and set the Df up in a spot I knew wouldn't be affected by the incoming tide, and opted against a really wide angle shot.
I knew the long exposure would give a pretty reflection, and with all the folks walking and stopping at the end of the pier this approach helped in removing people in-camera. While I often like how "busy" a shot can look with the blurring of clouds, zooming in here made the shot much more simple, and when I only have a couple static subjects in a frame I think in terms of "square format."
I'm a BIG stickler for straight horizon lines. That should always be a huge priority when composing a landscape. With that said the straight portion of the horizon is hidden in this image (the shot is level, but the land heading out to Na Pali Coast almost appears otherwise). I originally got really low so I could see the horizon below the top of the pier, but the gap was a little too small with the zoom I selected, and I wanted to be set up closer to eye level to get more reflection in the cove's negative space.
Nikon Df
Nikkor 24-70mm/f2.8
Really Right Stuff TQC-14 Tripod with BH-30 LR Ballhead
LEE 0.9 Soft Grad ND
Formatt Hitech PRO IRND 10 Stop (I loathe this filter and have sold it - NO, it's not the same as the new Firecrest I'm raving about. This filter had such a nasty color cast I did have to do a lot of correction in post)
44mm
f14
ISO 100
405 Seconds
The clouds weren't moving too incredibly fast and I wanted a painterly blur here, so needed to go quite long with the exposure time, thus I went f14. f8 would have been plenty for depth of field.
Post production:
Again, I had to work a decent amount to get rid of the magenta color cast, but luckily the scene was a firey red to begin with.
1.) LR5 for lens corrections and chromatic abberation removal.
2.) Nik's Dfine for denoising--I pushed the Df's sensor to the limits here and did get a pretty noisey shot with a TON of hot pixels.
3.) Back into LR5 to bring up shadows, take down highlights, and then re-add lights. (That lights slider is right below the basic sliders, underneath the tone curve box--I tend to take down highlights a lot and add the lights).
4.) Into Nik's Color Efex for:
a.) Pro Contrast (remember, this helps with dynamic contrast and color correction)
b.) Polarization
c.) Sunlight on the foreground water and the brightest part of the sky.
d.) Very minimal Glamour Glow to help with more smoothing and tone warmth
e.) Graduated Neutral Density to darken the top-most section of the photo--to help isolate the pier and the sunset glow as much as possible.
f.) Brilliance and Warmth to help with a little more color enhancement.
5.) Back into LR5 to do another pass on chromatic abberations (simply checked the "remove chromatic abberations" box in the lens corrections section)
6.) Brushed in a little more highlights in the forefround
7.) Into Nik's Output Sharpener for slight sharpening on the pier and mountains, only.
The next image was again, taken during the same sunset, and only about 40 feet away from this location.