Utah
Salt Lake City – F/16, 20s, 50mm, ISO 100, 166MP
My tripod came 2 hours late because of flight delays from PHL to SLC. We thought we could never catch the sunset in Ensign Peak to take panorama of Salt Lake City. It was a fast hike and we almost missed the sunset. There was still a little bit of light to work with when we arrived at the summit. SLC is pretty unique because it is nestled in these huge mountains.
Delicate Arch Viewpoint – F/18, 30s, 24mm, ISO 50, ND110, 76MP
The next day we drove to the Arches National Park to witness the magnificent geology of Utah. I really love this state. I wish I can find work here and do photography in the week ends.
Garden of Eden – F/22, 30s, 24mm, ISO 50, ND110, 90MP
Double Arch – F/11, 30s, 24mm, ISO 50, ND110, 85MP
Delicate Arch – F/8, 207s, 24mm, ISO 50, ND110, 36MP
But the Delicate Arch was the main reason for this long drive. My God! What a beautiful sight to behold! I freaking thank my boss for this. That special projects in SLC made this possible. We’ve been bugging him about Utah for a very long time.
Hope you enjoy them!
Until next time…
Gotham City Long Exposures
Dark Clouds Over NYC – F/22, 343 sec, 24mm ISO 50, ND110
I am still around New York City area for two straight weeks now. NYC is the best place to photograph cityscapes for real. I still feel lucky to be assigned here. So yesterday, it was pretty humid and it looked like it was about to rain, this combination results to good quality clouds. In the west side of Manhattan is Weehawken, NJ, has a good spot to photograph New York skyline. Metered my camera and added 10-stop ND filter and the result is 343 seconds shutter speed.
Gotham City Afternoon – F/22, 104 sec, 24mm, ISO 50, ND110
When shooting extremely long exposure, more than 30 seconds, I had to close my aperture and set the lowest ISO of my camera and then meter the shutter speed. For example in 2nd image, I metered at 1/10 sec and then using an NDTimer App add a 10-stop filter resulted to 104 seconds. I then set the shutter to bulb function and hold my remote release for 104 seconds. The purpose is to have cloud streak; capturing cloud motion. You see it has more drama into it that having a cloudless sky.
Hope you enjoy my photos..Until next time
P.S. To my new readers, I always put the exposure settings so that you will have an idea how it was done, thanks.
In New York
Heavy Metal – F/8, 30 secs, 24mm, ISO 100
Ever since I got my 36MP FX camera I began the lazy journey of not doing much stitching. But I will be back. I just just got my panoramic leveler that I need to use. Also I have just acquired a new 50mm lens for the sole purpose of stitching. My go to lens which is a prime 24mm is pretty wide in full frame but not too wide compared to using stitch. Sometimes, you just don’t need to stitch everything up, some stitched photos are too busy. Some elements need not be included in the photo for the sake of stitching.
We were in Tampa for a quite two weeks, we enjoyed the humidity over there. And right now we are back in the East Coast. The company that I worked for afforded me to fly anywhere in the country just for work. I work as a telecom field engineer. Sometimes, I asked my boss when are we gonna have Utah projects because I want to stay there for like two months straight to take photos in my spare time. My boss is pretty cool, he knows I shoot landscape.
Business District At Night – F/8, 6 secs, 24mm, ISO 320
When we were in New York, we walked through Manhattan Bridge to have good vantage point of lower Manhattan. The walk way have a fence but at the first pillar when you are coming from Manhattan, there is a hole in the fence. A DSLR would just fit right into the hole and you’d be ready to shoot long exposure. The only problem was too much vibration because of incoming trains. There were trains every 2 minutes. I had to lower my shutter and timing them when there is no trains coming. Took 20 6-second photos and stacked them in Photoshop to get some trail lights.
Under The Bridge – F/8, 30 secs, 24mm, ISO 100
Under the Brooklyn bridge downtown was our destination the next day. To our dismay, there was an on going construction near the big pylons and they closed the access. I would have used the pylons as foreground but what can you do? You just have to shoot what you can shoot at the moment or else you will go home empty handed.
Until next time…
To all the piers I’ve shot before
Bait & Tackle, Redington, FL – F/22, 258 secs, 50mm, ISO 100
If you are a landscape photographer in Utah, obviously your subject will be big rock formations, mountains with snowcaps, all the good stuff mother nature can offer. But, if you are in Florida there are only piers, LOL.
To add more drama to these simple subjects, you must have a good combination of light and composition. All of these added result to a good photo out of simple or ordinary subjects.
Ballast Point Sunrise, Tampa, FL – F/11, 130 secs, 24mm, ISO 100
I have used either a 6-stop or a 10-stop ND filters in these photos to have very long exposures. These are essential tools for a landscape photographer. Don’t you know that they have now a 15-stop ND filter?
Reckless Abandon, Dunedin, FL – F/22, 300 secs, 24mm, ISO 100
Ballast Point Twilight, Tampa, FL – F/8, 306 secs, 24mm, ISO 100
Ballast Point At Dawn, Tampa, FL – F/6.3, 307 secs, 24mm, ISO 100
Stitching limitation 02: Very long exposures
Reckless Abandon – F/10, 258 secs, 24mm, ISO 100
One of the limitations of digital panoramic stitching is very long exposures. I have mentioned this in the past that it is very difficult to stitch images in Photoshop 100 seconds apart. Ideally, stitching is not really meant for very long exposures specially when the light is dynamic; sunrises and sunsets. The stitches will be very visible and it will just look like crap and it’s very difficult to correct in POST.
Tampa Skyline – F/18, 194 secs, 24mm, ISO 100
But why do very long exposures? Because it adds drama to photographs and for me it is the opposite of a snapshot. I don’t like snapshots personally, photos taken effortlessly with no passion. Drama is capturing motion like slow moving waves or slow moving clouds. With the aid of neutral density filters these are possible. The first photo is with the help of 6-stop ND at 258 second exposure and the second photo with 10-stop ND at 194 seconds.
In stitch, I would just limit it to 30 seconds per frame. As an example below, 5 frames at 30 seconds each. These were stitch seamlessly in Photoshop.
Brickell Key – F/9, 30 secs, 24mm, ISO 100
All shots were taken from the beautiful state of Florida. Until next time…
Abe
Non-stitched because sometimes I don’t need to
Philadelphia – Birthplace of American Democracy – F/8 @ 30 secs, 50mm, ISO 100, 36MP
Dark Part of Twilight – WTC – F/9 @ 30 secs, 24mm, ISO 100, 36MP
Cloudy With A Chance of Rain – WTC – F/9 @ 85 secs, 24mm, ISO 100, 6-stop filter, 36MP
Hope you enjoyed your 4th of July celebration!
Abe
Chicago
Chicago Skyline -F/6.3, 30 sec, 24mm, ISO 50, 4-stitch
These are the photos I took during our visit to Chicago. I have been to big cities in the US and I gotta say that Chicago is up there, first class city. Anyway the best place to shoot Chicago skyline is at Adler Planetarium. In this location beside the lake you will have full view of the skyline plus water reflection. Two days ago we went there but it’s too foggy, cold and windy. We had to go back last night which was perfect conditions.
I only have one lens with me my trusty Roki 24mm F/1.4 and this lens is so wide in full frame camera. I had to use the DX crop mode of my camera to have a close up stitch because the distance from Planetarium to the skyline is quite far. The skyscrapers and buildings became too small looking from the live view of my camera. The best lens to use in this situation for stitching is a telephoto, perhaps a 70-200mm lens.
Foggy Cloud Gate – F/22, 20 sec, 24mm, ISO 50, 7-stitch
The second and third images were taken form Millennium Park.
Millennium Bean – F/10, 30 sec, 24mm, ISO 50, single photo
Stitching limitation 01: Image stacking
Philadelphia – F/18, 6 sec, 24mm, ISO 100, 30 image stack, 36MP
These are 30 shots stacked in Photoshop. The purpose here is to really capture as much trail lights my camera can, spaced at 6 seconds each frame. The exposure must be the same all through out.
Image stacking is also used in photos like star trails you see in photosharing sites. Some are like 500 images stacked together. If you have the patience, this Photoshop technique is really fun. Of course you are going to need Photoshop software and high capacity RAM computer. My 8GB RAM computer could barely make it, LOL.
Compare it to 30 seconds, 10 image stack. I used a ND filter here you can see a little bit of vignetting.
My point really about this post is that, these two above, are the limitations of stitch panorama, which I normally do. I think it would be very difficult to image stack with long exposures and stitch them. I do not think the result would be good specially when the light is changing, e.g golden hour, sunrise or sunset. The white balance will be messed up as well.
Have a good week end everyone and all.
Abe
Reflections
Boathouse Row Reflections – F/8, 30 s, 50mm, ISO 100, 97MP
There is a photography quote from Vernon Trent, ..amateurs worry about equipment, professionals worry about money, masters worry about light, I just take pictures… In photography forums, you can see people spending too much time talking about gears and doing less time photographing. It’s about who’s got the best tripods and lenses.
Boathouse Row – F/8, 30 s, 50mm, ISO 100, 97MP
Do people or clients really care about the gear you used to take that photo? The answer is no. If it looks good in their living room or kitchen they will buy it. I have been in this location a couple of times in Philadelphia, the famous Boathouse Row. I’ve sold three photos from this location using not so expensive lenses. My point really is you to go out there and shoot!
The above pictures were photographed with a Nikkor 50mm F/1.8 I bought for 80 bucks off Craigslist, stitched in PS and post-processed in Lightroom.
Abe
Walking to Canada
Horseshoe Falls – F/20, 2 sec, 24mm, ISO 100, ND64
I’ve been busy lately, my vacation leave that I filed 1.5 months before was denied. My plan during the peak foliage was to drive and take photos in Maine, New Hampshire, cross Canada to Quebec and drive down to Toronto and meet a friend and then go to Niagara Falls. Only the last part was materialized because I was in the Upstate New York area doing work.
It’s been 8 years that I never stepped out of American soil. Today was my first time. I crossed Canada via Rainbow bridge in Niagara Falls. Wow, that was easy. I was very early before the sun was out and head right to Canadian Horseshoe falls. This waterfalls is just right to the edge of where people could stand and take photos.
Morning Mist – F/20, 5 sec, 24mm, ISO 100, ND64
On my way back while the sun was still low in the horizon, I took a 180-degree panorama of Rainbow bridge, American falls and the Canadian falls. 9-stitch total of 94 Mega pixels! The weather cooperated and of course I got timing because the foliage is at its peak in Ontario.
Hope you enjoy it!
Abe Pacana Panorama Blog 