An adrift half-shell on the wave-streaked sand rippling with ribbons of light under a tempestuous sky …

My first post for 2012: this image was shot a few hours ago. I still have some more photos to post from my last Canadian Rockies trip, but since we’ve been getting dramatic sunset skies, I went back to my local beach with my camera. Will resume posting when I find free time.

Happy New Year!

]]> http://www.photofool.com/2012/01/03/adrift-on-ribbons-of-light/feed/ 63 http://www.photofool.com/2011/10/04/twilight-sky-over-maligne-lake-jasper-national-park-alberta/ http://www.photofool.com/2011/10/04/twilight-sky-over-maligne-lake-jasper-national-park-alberta/#comments Wed, 05 Oct 2011 02:46:55 +0000 photofool http://www.photofool.com/?p=3970

Spent a week in the Canadian Rockies during foliage season and came home with many beautiful photos. Out of seven days there, I was able to photograph one good sunset. The Canadian Rockies have so many beautiful locations that I would love to be able to spend a few weeks there. Between Banff and Jasper, I much prefer the quiet beauty of Jasper. For this evening, I had all Maligne Lake to myself. For hours, our car was the only vehicle in the parking lot.

Will post and write more about my trip. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this image. I captured many different variations of this beautiful sunset over Maligne Lake’s boat house, but like the soft pink clouds in this shot as opposed to later shots that feature intense red skies.

To get a good exposure of the sky and the foreground – including those trees that might have been in deep shadows, I stacked a 2 stops soft edge GND filter and a 2 stops hard edge GND filter. To get extra vertical coverage of the beautiful soft pink sky while maintaining my favorite rocks in the foreground, I took two horizontal exposures at 16mm and combined them in Photoshop. To capture the cloud movements, I lengthen my exposure to five seconds.

Last week, I took my camera gears to the mountains, hoping to shoot new photos, but for three days, I saw 50 inches of fresh snow and no sun. A day later, I was back on my local beach watching this beautiful scene unfolded right in front of me. What a difference a day makes: from a whiteout blizzard at 8000 feet to a colorful sunset at sea level.

As for the tittle of this shot, I could write a long post about it, but I am leaving possible interpretations to my viewers.

A two minutes twilight exposure of a frozen Twin Lakes – Eastern Sierra, California

I took this long exposure of Twin Lakes in the Mammoth Lakes basin after a wonderful dinner at the Tamarack Lodge’s Lakefront restaurant. If you are ever in Mammoth Lakes, I recommend an early dinner at the Lakefront restaurant before a sunset shoot.

I scouted around this area to see where and when I could set up my tripod. I walked near the base of Twin Falls on Lake Mary, but preferred the view from this side of Twin Lakes. From what I saw, this location should be good for sunrise also. I didn’t have enough energy for a sunrise shoot for this trip, but I’ll definitely return to this location next time.

A 100 seconds twilight exposure of a Southern California beach shot with a BW ND110 filter.

I haven’t been out on the local beaches as often as I did in the past years. I really missed shooting these shoreline twilight scenes.

Last Friday, I left work early and went straight to the beach. During my rush, I left my remote cable release and Lee filter holder at home. I ended up hand-holding a Lee GND filter with one hand and pressing down on the shutter release button for 100 seconds with the other hand. I wanted to make a longer exposure, but had to cut my exposure time short because I knew that I couldn’t make a sharp enough exposure without my remote cable release. I underexposed this shot by about 1 stop. Thanks to RAW and post processing works, I am able to salvage this shot.

Cloud movement on the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range seen from the Owen Valley.

I rarely take out my camera in the middle of the day, but when I saw these clouds while traveling on US-395, I decided to pull over near Lone Pine to make this long exposure (150 seconds). The cloud movement were erratic as a storm was brewing further up North.

It looks as if this image was heavily manipulated in PS, but it is just a long exposure converted to black and white. I used both red channels (Image/Calculations/Red/Red) to really pop those clouds. I thought about doing a panorama, but with super long exposures, I knew that it would be impossible to line up those clouds in between frames.

If you are curious about how I shot this: 70-200mm lens @70mm, manual focus to infinity, circular polarizer filter, neutral density 110 filter, bulb exposure.

A 110 second winter twilight exposure on a Southern California beach.

This long exposure shows the cloud movements and the small pebbles rolling around the sand with the tides.

I shot this over a month ago during my experiment with ND110 filter. I also used a 2 stop hard-edge GND filter on this shot. The BW ND110 added too much saturation to my long exposures. The sky was colorful, but not that intense. The actual scene was much darker. I thought about toning down the colors, but decided to leave it. When I get a chance, I’ll post another version shot without the ND110 filter.

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[Edited 3/1/2010]

After the above long exposure was recorded, I removed the ND110 filter and took a 1/6 second exposure of the same scene at the same aperture (F16) and ISO (200). These two images were shot about 3 minutes apart (counting the 2 minutes exposure time for the first shot). Both raw exposures were converted to JPGs using identical steps.

This image is another sunrise exposure of the lava rock tidal pool on Poipu shoreline. This is a different composition of the same location as the photo in my previous post, Bathed In Poipu Sunrise. Both images were shot at 180 seconds.

I am still experimenting with my ND110 filter. Although I like the results that this filter produces, it is a time consuming process to setup and to execute a shot. During fifteen minutes worth of quality light, I can only pull off two or three shots at best. Perhaps when I have more time, I will write a little more about my experience with this filter. For now, it is a very cumbersome process: take meter reading, compose with Lee GND filter attached, remove GND filter holder, screw in the ND110, re-mount GND filter holder, switch to manual focus, then wait about five minutes in between shots (3 minutes exposure + 2-3 minutes in camera processing time).

Back to my latest Kauai pictures, I don’t have too many images to post, but will try to post one or two more.

This image is a three minutes sunrise exposure of the lava rock tidal pools on Kauai’s shoreline. Two filters were used: a BW ND110 to lengthen the exposure time and a 0.6 Lee GND hard-edge filter to balance out the extreme contrast between the sky and the foreground lava rocks.

I spent a few days in Kauai during the last week of 2009. This image is the last sunrise of 2009 that I photographed. I didn’t take too many photos during the trip. Unlike my usual travel routine, photography wasn’t a priority. I came home with a few images instead of hundreds. For two consecutive mornings, I did nothing but sat on Kauai’s Poipu shoreline and soaked in the warm sunrise light.

I will post more next week.