View allAll Photos Tagged pixelshift
A nice early spring evening in Manhattan and I decided to venture down to my favorite spot, the old pier pilings beside Brooklyn Bridge park. Sadly, the sunset didn't amount to much but the nice thing about this spot is that a good blue hour reflection is still very colorful here. I've done this shot before, but this time I decided to get the rocks in the foreground in to the picture. The green on the rocks is pretty vivid, especially lit from behind by the big lights in the park. I toned down the vivid green tones a bit, but even still, I'm not sure whether the foreground works or distracts with its brightness.
I tried using my new Pentax 24-70mm lens here for a closer shot, but it didn't look as good to me so I went back to the 12-24mm (@14mm). This is a 30s exposure with the Pixel Shift feature (meaning it's actually 4 images).
"Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers 'til I reach you"
-Rivers and Roads by The Head and The Heart
As I said in my last post I want to dedicate my next couple of posts to my family. This image is dedicated to my daughter Avery. Rivers and Roads is the title of a song by the band The Head and The Heart that my daughter happens to be learning to play on the guitar. I am very proud of her for her many talents and spirit, and am very glad that she is sticking to her guitar lessons. The song is beautiful and perfectly captures the heartache associated with constantly traveling away from my family. I was very excited when I found this spot, as it had this perfect intersection of a glacier-fed river, a mountain road and the stunning Swiss alps, and the song title immediately popped in my head. So my dearest Avery, this is for you, I miss you terribly and think about you always when I am away.
As to the image itself, this is the unmistakable Matterhorn as reflected in the river Findelbach that flows off the Findelgleischer (glacier). I had a weekend stay over in Switzerland during a business trip in September so I took the train from Zurich to Zermatt, with the intention of hiking up to the Stellisee lake to get a photo of the reflection of the Matterhorn in the lake. If you search Matterhorn on flickr, this is the classic shot you will find most often. In a nutshell, I underestimated the intensity of the hike and I didn't quite make it there. This shot of the Matterhorn peak bathed in the alpenglow and reflected in the Findelbach is unique as far as I can find. Judge for yourself whether that makes it interesting. It is clearly not the shot I really wanted, and the original composition had several issues. It's one of those images that doesn't quite work at first and you have to step away from it for a while and then patiently work with it to improve. After removing some unsightly gondola wires and cropping it I was more satisfied.
Of course, the intended shot had to be a sunrise or sunset shot. Unfortunately the gondola and funicular train that both go up from Zermatt (at 4,000ft) to the 5 lakes (at 6,000ft) start running after sunrise and stop before sunset. So if one wants a sunrise/sunset shot one has two choices: overnight on the mountain-side, or hike up/down from Zermatt. I chose the hike option because I wasn’t prepared to camp out. To skip straight to today’s lesson: it was the wrong choice. Or rather, I didn’t have the time to properly prepare and half-assing my way up there at 3am cost me my chance at a reflection shot in the lake. Now, that may not be such a disaster because without some decent cloud lighting I don’t think the lake reflection would be any more satisfying to me than this shot. But that hike!! Very nearly did me in. It's about 12km walking at a fairly good incline from Zermatt. But the main reason is actually right in the middle of the frame of this shot. The bridge in the center is the connection between the path up from Zermatt to this particular spot and the road that continues up to the Stellisee. And I was so busy trying to find a composition during the few minutes of pre-sunrise Alpenglow that I missed the sign where the road up to Stellisee forks from the path that follows the river.
I continued to follow that path along the river as it started to slope upward and got increasingly difficult, until I was almost at the foot of the glacier. I was now hemmed in by steep slopes of loose rock on either side and decided I'd clearly misread the map or missed a fork, and it was just too stupid to go any further.
I turned back down and eventually discovered the sign to Stelligsee. The funicular was also up this path just beyond Stelligsee. I summoned my last bit of drive to follow the path (back uphill) until I reached the Grindjisee lake, a few hundred meters before Stelligsee, just to stubbornly say I'd made it (mostly). I took my reflection shot in the Grindjisee for posterity, even though it was well past sunrise and the light quality was bad by that point, so I'll never post it.
At this point my legs were so tired that I just didn’t have it in me to keep climbing, even though it was a 2 hour descent back down to Zermatt instead of a 30 minute hike further uphill. At least I could claim some form of masochistic victory; I had made it to the 5 lakes and had the route scoped out for a future visit. Hiked 20 miles (32km) that day at 4,000-6,000 feet (2000 meters). Climbed and then descended the equivalent of 200 flights of stairs. And lived to write the tale for my wonderful daughter Avery :-)
My second attempt at shooting the famous Jaoanese Maple tree at the Portland Japanese Garden. Last year I was here a few days too early and the tree was just starting to turn colors, with a lot of green and yellow. I posted a shot from that visit, which I confess was significantly color-shifted and never looked quite right to my eyes, so I've been wanting another go at it. This time I managed to get to the garden a few days later, almost exactly at peak color time, so no color shift required (but definitely some vibrancy and light/shadow enhancement).
I really love the shape of the tree of course but also the range of colors you end up with in the image from the deep greens of the moss to the bright greens of the bushes in background to the bright yellow, orange, and deep reds of the maple leaves. It makes for an eye-popping image and deeply satisfies the inner need for grabbing those fall colors. I sacrificed some time in the NC mountains for a trip out west where I managed to grab some color in a few different locations. I did notice that last year's image had a lot of moss covering all over the tree which adds some lovely texture and catches the light, and the tree is nearly 'bald' this year, having somehow lost its moss covering off the branches (if anyone knows what happened to the moss - please drop a note in the comments! I'm curious).
I was delighted to meet several other photographers there in line to shoot the maple, including the talented Bruce Omori, whom I met in Hawaii a couple of years ago and who I can say with fair certainty is the world's pre-eminent lava photographer and an all-around terrific guy. Bruce runs the Extreme Exposures Gallery in Hilo HI, if you are ever in the vicinity I strongly urge you to drop in and say Hi (www.extremeexposure.com/About).
Springfield Falls - Mercer County, PA
Pentax M 28mm f/3.5
I have since re-processed this image and I'm a lot happier with the results. Check out the new version here: flic.kr/p/TGTKTf
A belated Treemendous Tuesday! A slight bout of vertigo (a parting gift from the viral infection I had over the weekend) prevented me from getting this up to Flickr yesterday. Better late than never.
This is a quick grab of The Giant Tree at the Cathedral of Ferns, Mount Victoria.
A test shot with the old vintage A 24-50/4 lens.
Maui, Hawaii
Experimenting with the Pixel Shift feature of the Nikon Z8. Unfortunately after creating a greatly detailed 160MB photo I had to downsize it for upload to Flickr.
This is the oft-photographed Multnomah Falls in Oregon. I originally shot the full length of the falls (620 feet) but I found the slightly closer crop gives a better feeling for the graceful majesty of these waterfalls. Might be the most picturesque in all of North America. Taken earlier this year on a road trip through Washington and Oregon state with Kevin Benedict.
Taken with Pentax K-1 and Pentax 24-70mm lens using "Pixel Shift" feature (which worked surprisingly well here). I did end up photoshopping several people off the bridge.
This is the old city of Heidelberg, Germany, looking across the Neckar river. The Heidelberg Castle ruin is prominently visible in the center. Actually part of the castle is still functional, and there is a large banquet hall which is also home to world's largest wine barrel. The barrel holds 220,000 liters (about 50,000 gallons) of wine, which should have been enough to see even the most besotted royalty through a long winter.
Heidelberg is a university town, and thus of course, has an active nightlife with plenty of clubs and restaurants going at night. I even had the good fortune of dining in the castle one evening, and it was a very nice dinner in a truly unique location. But my greatest enjoyment when I am out on business travel is to grab the camera and find a good location to shoot. Blue hour in Heidelberg presented an opportunity I just couldn't pass up and I enjoyed a nice fall evening along the river capturing the reflected glory of the old city and listening to the distant sounds of dance music.
I went back in to my photos from earlier this fall for this shot. Have been meaning to post this for a while, but to be honest, I can't decide if I actually like it that much. Beautiful old city, of course, and the old bridge on the left and the castle are magnificent, but I find the lines of light on the river may be too distracting, and that's even after I took the brightness down considerably. I'm not being self-deprecating and fishing for compliments here, I would truly welcome your feedback, positive or negative! I tried various crops to bring more focus to the castle, but in the end I decided I liked the wider view best.
In honor of Earth Day 2017, this is the classic "Monument Valley" view inside Antelope Canyon AZ, so called because the silhouetted peak shape resembles the buttes in Monument Valley. I've been holding off on posting this one for a while. The colors, textures and shapes in Antelope are extraordinary and I can think of no more fitting tribute to our beautiful planet, even if it is a picture so frequently captured. It's a tricky shot to capture because Antelope is so crowded you have only a minute or so to get the shot, when you first look at it, it's not so obvious what you are looking at, you are shooting upwards at an awkward angle, and finally, you are shooting in to a combination of deep shadow and hard direct light. It wasn't until after I got the shot on to the computer I really saw what it was, and then I had to change the angle by about 30 degrees and do quite a bit of cropping, along with a lot of light/shadow work to get it satisfactory.
Shot with Pentax K-1 and Pentax 15-30mm using "Pixel Shift". feature
Twenty minutes from Jenny Lake I stopped to take this shot of the Grand Tetons shrouded in smoke from the California wildfires .
Six panel "pixel shift" panorama, handheld.
Thank you for the invite to "in explore"!
Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly dining on nectar from a neighbor's large garden daisy.
Common.
The magnificent scenery of Banff's Icefields Parkway looking over one of the many glacial lakes nestled between the magnificent snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. I'm not sure whether that is Peyto Lake or Hector Lake in the distance. I didn't mark the location very precisely at the time so I'm just guessing from Google Maps that it might be Hector Lake [confirmed by multiple commenters that this is Hector Lake].
Taken from a snowbank on the roadside on the drive from Banff to Abraham Lake with Kevin Benedict back in better times (Feb). The Icefields Parkway is rated as one of the worlds most magnificent drives, and I have to agree. There are staggering views all over the place. As a photographer, it would be basically impossible to make this drive and *not* pull over to take photos every few miles.
This is a pano stitch of I think three shots. I decided on a monochrome treatment as there isn't much color in this landscape anyway other than the dark green of the evergreens, and the mono really brought out the atmospheric details of the clouds and the snow blowing off the mountains.
This was truly a spectacular and memorable trip and I still have quite a few photos remaining to post over time. I really can't wait to explore the area again in all its different seasonal aspects.
A hint of mist covers one end of Vestrahorn mountain while the sun rises to the east, lighting up this little misty intrusion with a glorious infusion of pink. The emerging sun also gives some pink highlights to the exposed flanks and peaks of the mountain.
On a trip through southern Iceland last fall, we set upon Vestrahorn multiple times in widely varying conditions. On this particular morning the sunrise was a bit odd, teasing a bit of color but ultimately fizzling out. I had decided that the still waters of the morning at low tide were providing some beautiful reflections so I shook off my typical "there might be a better comp just over there" approach which has me wildly sprinting around a location at peak light desperate to find a comp. Instead, I settled in at the same spot for a good hour snapping through various changes in lighting. The just-emergent pink dawn hues against the still dominant blues provided the most appealing result to me. So I was pleased with the outcome here, but also pleased with my own patience in the process. Patience is not a trait I'm not blessed with an abundance of unfortunately, so I managed to surprise myself a bit this day..
An additional surprise was that I came to really like Vestrahorn! It is one of the most commonly shot landscapes in all of Iceland, which is to say, possibly in all of the world. I've struggled in the past to see what was so great about it. Yeah, yeah, there's black sand. And a reflecting tidal pool. And it has a pleasing shape. I get all that but I never quite got the whole as the sum of its parts before. Not that I disliked it before but I never quite got what all the fuss was about. But on this morning it all came together for me and I particularly loved the minimalism of it, making that protrusion of color all the more dramatic.
Deep crimson maples against a soft autumnal background of more red leaves and branches.
Light and shadows.
Wide opened with FE 85mm f1.4 GM.
A7R5 is finally out after a 1 year delay, it does tick a lot of boxes for me even if some of the new features already existed in other brands.
As expected, it retains the same 61mp from the preceding A7R4. The biggest improvements to me are listed below from (a) to (c).
(a) 8 stops IBIS measured at 50mm, up from 5.5 stops of the preceding A7R4. Sony IBIS has always been pegged at 50-55mm since the A7R2. I thought this improvement isn’t due till Sony brings out a 100mp camera, looks like the next iteration A7R6 will probably have the 100mp sensor; www.flickr.com/photos/86145600@N07/50937613287/
Sony IMX555CQR 102mp sensor already exists. Highly likely Sony will wait for Canon to launch a 100mp camera then respond.
(b) Subject recognition AF, this could be similar to the OM System’s new OM-1 Subject Detection mode which apparently makes a bigger difference to the AF than its new m43 quad-pixel stacked sensor. However, A7R5’s Ai AF goes one further as it runs on a dedicated AF processor unlike the OM-1. This separate AF chip in the A7R5 should finally match and perhaps surpass DSLR AF which relies on a separate PDAF module like the one in Nikon D850, without resorting to an expensive stacked sensor.
(c) Fully-articulated rear screen on tilt-out cradle (hence +58g vs A7R4?), very thankful that Sony didn’t go the A74 route with the annoying off-axis flippy screen. Really disliked the flippy screen on my OMD E-M1 Mkii.
(d) Ultrasonic sensor cleaning, a truly effective sensor cleaning function that has been available since my Olympus OMD E-M5 from 2012. The conventional sensor cleaning functions in Nikon and older Sony cameras are utterly useless, for placebo effect only!
(e) Focus bracketing function, the older A7R and A7R II could perform focus bracketing via Playmemories Apps, Olympus also has this since OMD E-M1 Mkii as well.
(f) Movement compensated pixelshift, Panasonic G9 already had this since 2017.
(g) As usual, no mention of sensor readout speed, likely no change since it’s the same sensor and as such slow as molasses. The workaround is to revert back to mechanical shutter for faster paced subjects.
(h) 10fps with mechanical shutter but as usual no mention of bit rate. Unusually with electronic shutter, it's only 7fps. The buffer is more than sufficient at RAW (Lossless Compressed) & JPEG: 159 frames.
(i) $3,898 full retail for 61mp A7R5 vs A7R4 at $3,500 and $5,000 ($6,500 at launch) for a 50mp used A1.
Probably time for me to buy this new camera although the A7R6 might arrive sooner with an improved sensor and possibly 100mp assuming the pandemic is truly over after another year. Those who have bought every A7R iteration will likely face upgrade fatigue.
Going forward, if the sensor can expose the highlights and shadows separately, DR can increase. Currently auto metering averages out the exposure unless one shoot exposure brackets and merge in post-processing.
Earlier I posted some shots of the Cormorant fishermen from the Li River in the Guilin area of China. I also got to hike up to the top of one of the Karst mountain tops for a sunset shot over the river valley. What struck me looking out over this beautiful landscape is the resemblance of the mountains to teeth. And indeed there are several references to be found of the "Dragons Teeth" appearance of the Karst formations.
As I look back on some of my photos from 2018, this visit rates very highly as a great experience and a stunningly beautiful and unique landscape. I thoroughly enjoyed my 30 or so hours there, and am keen to go back and explore it again at a more relaxed pace.
Shot as a 4 image pano using Pentax K-1 and "Pixel Shift" feature.
does a photographer use it for a leading line? Yes, of course he does! This is the peerless Oneonta Gorge in Oregon, not far from Portland. Taken back in May on a road trip with Kevin Benedict.
I already posted a photo of the Gorge a few months ago, but I liked this tangle of fallen trees. They helped to hide the mobs of people that hiked out to cool off in the water on this 100 degree day. One of the most challenging aspects of shooting the Gorge is the huge dynamic range from deep shadows to bright direct sunlight. With the deep greens of the mossy walls, it is a perfect place for a polarizer filter (I used the B+W circular polarizer here, which I've had some good results from in the past).
Very keen to get back to Oregon and re-shoot the Gorge, among other locales, in the not-too-distant future. A very special place.