05/05/16 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Springtime sunset over Pinnacle Mountain
- At May 05, 2016
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
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Taken with a Nikon D800e, Nikon 14-24 @ 14mm F 8, ISO 100, exposure bracketed in 3 frames and worked up in Lightroom with Topaz Clarity
The evening I took this, I have hoped for a bit more cloud cover, but the spring colors were out in full so I went ahead and worked up the shot. This was taken from one of my all time favorite spots over looking Pinnacle mountain. Here you are looking due west, so depending on the time of year, you can sometimes catch the sun setting right on top of Pinnacle. As I recall the best times for this are in late March and September, but it’s been a long time since I went after that shot.
Even with Nikon I went ahead and bracketed this shot, I feel many times that in protecting the shadows, I will blow out the highlights and they will never be recoverable. I worked this shot up once before a couple of years ago, but never got it where I liked it. Now with the HDR feature within Lightroom, I went back to the raw files and worked them up again. This time I got much better results and then worked on the file just a bit in Topaz Clarity. I am not sure why the sky went black at the top, but that is just how it worked out, I kinda of like it!
The HDR feature in LR has it’s problems, but most of the time I can do what I want and get the effects I am looking for so much easier than any other HDR tool I have ever used.
The spring colors in Arkansas just looked great on this evening so it all came together for me.
11/15/15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Autumn afternoon at Pinnacle Mountain State Park
Taken with a Nikon D800e, Nikkor 24-120 lens @ F8, ISO 100. Image taken in 3 parts and stitched together in PtGui and Photoshop.
This was just one of those days. I had been out a few times previously, but the conditions did not equal this afternoon. You have to wait until around 2:00 pm to get this shot as you want the sun over the back of your shoulder. The light was perfect and Little Rock had a much better fall than other locations in Arkansas. But the clouds, oh the clouds. They started out as just some small swirls but as I continued to shoot they grew into this massive line that was turned upwards. To get this type of a panorama, even with a 36Mp camera, I knew I would need to stitch. However since my subject (main subject) was all off in the distance, I did not worry about a tripod, or setting my nodal point. I didn’t need to, just aimed and shot. I was using the Nikon 24-120, and was in the 90mm focal range. The colors that afternoon were perfect also, but I did add a circular polarizer to help pop them some more and cut the glare. You can clearly see the exposed part of the trail heading to the summit. Pinnacle to me is best photographed from below as the view from the top is impressive, but surround by homes, roads and the like.
To make this image happen, I first converted the raw files in Adobe Lightroom, then opened them up in PtGui, (a panoramic stitching software). The image came together perfectly and at first I thought I was done. But on closer inspection, I found that during the stitching I had allow for blur on the center image. It was only on the right edge and looked like a VR user error. VR is Nikon’s vibration reduction that is built into some of their lenses. If you are panning you have to be care with VR as you can confuse the system and it will not be totally finished. When you take a picture like that the blur looks more like a rolling issue as some of the file will be fine but usually towards one edge you will pick up some vibration induced blur.
So I had to manually go back to another image and pull that one part back to this stitch. It was not as hard as I thought it would be and the overall came out fine.
Springtime sunset from Mt Magazine–03/23/15 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography
- At March 23, 2015
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
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Taken with a Nikon D800e, single exposure with 0.9 ND grad filter on a Nikon 14-24 lens, F7.1 for 1/6 of a sec @ iso 320. The views from Mt. Magazine are some of the best vistas in Arkansas. The valley to the south, which is featured here looks towards Blue Mountain and below it, Blue Mountain lake. It’s easy to see where the timber industry has harvested all the natural hardwoods, below the Mt. Magazine as the deciduous trees run down the mountain to the park boundary. Springtime is a special time in Arkansas, I like to call the power puff period as all the trees will have different shades of green for about 2 weeks. After that, all the leaves will take on a similar dark green hue until fall.
This shot features the most famous tree on Mt Magazine, the bonsai shaped juniper. I would have loved to make it up to this spot when the huge dead cedar was still alive as it is a huge tree. It’s interesting still standing there and when you look at the roots, you have to wonder how it managed to live as long as it did as the vast majority of them are above the ground on the rock. Mt Magazine is the tallest spot in Arkansas at around 2,700 feet high.
Nighttime skies over Havana Arkansas revisited–02-09-15 Featured Arkansas Photography
Taken with a Nikon D800e, 14-24 Lens @ 15mm and F 3.5 in a series of stacked exposures. This shot was taken in February of 2013 on a very clear night from the summit of Mt. Magazine. The view is directly to the south looking over Havana Arkansas. In the distance you can see Blue Mt. Lake and Blue Mountain itself. I believe that Blue Mt. is the on the left. It would be a tall mountain if not for Mt. Magazine as Magazine dwarfs Blue Mountain.
This is one shot but it was composed by taking around 30 or so stacked exposures of 45 seconds. I had a 3/4 moon that night so the illumination down into the valley is all from the moon. I did some light painting on the tree on the left as the moon light was not going to get there until much later. I did not want to wait that long as by the time the moon would provide that illumination it would also be causing both flare and over exposure issues. This night there was quite a bit of traffic down in the valley along Hwy 10, but it just adds to the overall effect to me. I am always amazed when I look down into this valley during the day it’s hard to see any building of significant size, but at night even the smallest light will show up.
I first worked this shot up back in 2013 and thought I had a good version. Recently when viewing that shot, I realized that I had not been very accurate with the star trail work, and in fact I had a dip. This happens when you just slightly move the camera. It doesn’t take much to offset the trails. The best bet is just don’t touch anything until you are done. I say that, but I usually have to stop the series somewhere in the middle to see if I am getting some damaging flare. The Nikon 14-24 will flare with any amount of light that hits the outer element from the side and the flare can be very destructive and next to impossible to correct in post processing work. Flare tends to totally shift the blue of the sky to a red or yellow hue and tend to have a very hard demarcation which makes removal quite difficult.
Here is my first version of this work, and I greatly prefer the new one. I was able to pull out a lot more of the details in the valley. I also re-worked each of the images to try and pull out more of the trails on the left side. In this location the moon will pass from the left side to right and thus makes an even exposure pretty hard to obtain. However working in Lightroom and with some filters I have I pulled out more definition from the faint trails on the left side.
08/06/14 Featured Arkansas Photography–Autumn afternoon on Richland Creek
Taken with a Nikon D800e, Nikkor 24mm 1.4 lens at F 5.0, for a 5 second total exposure. The autumn in Arkansas can be one of the most beautiful times to be out photographing the state. The Ozark mountains are cut by thousands of small creeks and hundreds of larger ones like Richland. Richland however is by far one of the most scenic creeks in the state. It is the 3rd largest tributary of the Buffalo National River, after the Little Buffalo River, and it has 6 miles of sheer wonder to hike. The best times to hike this creek are the early spring and early fall. The color display along the creek can offer some of the most variety in the state as you can expect to see hickory, oak, maple, gum and dogwood with hundreds of lessor species of tree. If the creek has water in the fall, it just adds to the overall great effect. On this day in 2012, there had been a heavy rain about days before so I only caught the later half of the water, but it still had a lot to offer. This rapid is called Maytag is the last major drop on Richland before the campground. The large rock on the upper right of the photo is “maytag”. The color along the creek on this day was more green and yellow but there were a few dogwoods starting to show up. I love it when I can catch a small whirlpool eddy which is showing up on the lower left of this shot.
04/12/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Midday autumn calm along the Buffalo River
- At April 13, 2013
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
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Taken with a Nikon D800e, Nion 24mm 1.4 lens @ F7.1 1/250 of a sec shutter speed, iso 200. On this day, the conditions were constantly changing. I had been up on top of Roark Bluff most of the morning, but a large mass of clouds rolled in and pretty much shut things down for the morning. I had gone back to my truck and I was figuring out where to head next when the clouds started to part. The blue sky came out and within 20 minutes all of the clouds were gone! I prefer to have some clouds in the sky when working with large masses of blue since the clouds will help break up the sky and allow for the use of a polarizer on a wide angle lens. If I had just been shooting a solid blue sky, even at 24mm, due to the angle of the sun I would of had the classic dark to light polarized effect that wide angle lenses can create. However on a day like this with muted sunlight, you really want to have a polarizer on since it will make the colors in the leaves really stand out. The polarizer also defeated any refection I was going to get on this shot but I felt it was a fair trade off.
03/15/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Night skies over Roark Bluff on the Buffalo River
- At March 15, 2013
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
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Taken with a Nikon D800e, Nikon 14-24 Lens @ 14mm, F4.5, iso 400, total exposure time approximately 40 minutes. This shot was taken back in January, but it was a great night to be out shooting the stars. The temperature was around 29 degrees and there was virtually no wind. We started shooting at dark and by about 1 hour into the night we were getting excellent runs. This shot is a composite of 40 minutes taken in 2 1/2 minute exposures at iso 400. I will then stack the exposures to catch the motion and create the trails. The blue sky is due to the moon. If you work with the moon at night you will be pleasantly surprised by the results. It will give a nice blue hue to the sky and also provide all the illumination to the bluff that you see in this photograph. This is not a daylight/nighttime exposure as many people think. This is all done at night with the aid of the moon. As was looking up, it makes the perspective of the trees a bit more interesting, as if they are looking into the photo. I am going to start working at night with a Canon 24mm TS-E for perspective control where it will give me a good enough FOV, which on this shot I needed all of the 14mm I could get. You are looking to feature the sky, but you still want to get as much of the foreground as possible.
03/13/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–January Night skies over Roark Bluff
- At March 11, 2013
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
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Taken with a Nikon D800e, Nikon 14-24 lens @14mm F 4.5, iso 400. Image taken in a series of 2 minute exposures and stacked to capture motion. This was my first trip with the Nikon D800e for night photographic capture. I had used the D800e throughout the 2nd half of 2012 but was never able to coordinate a good night for a shoot. I prefer to have a clear night with a 1/2 to 3/4 moon and on the 20th of January in 2013 all of this came together. There was also very nominal wind for the entire night. This particular shot was taken looking downstream so I can featuer Roark Bluff and still capture Bee Bluff, the next bluff down river. All of the on the bluff and riverside trees is from the moon and no light painting was needed. The moon is a wonder ally with night photography, giving you a great blue hue to the sky along with adding just enough illumination to see the foreground details i.e. bluff, trees, etc. I was very pleased with the results of the D800e at night. The 14-24 lens at F4.5 still was extremely sharp and the corners of the shot were very useable. I noticed no coma in the stars and very little chromatic aberration. I used Capture One 7 to convert the raw files and stacked them in Photoshop CS6 to capture the star motion. I then combined various versions of the foreground image until I got the best overall image.
03/07/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Midnight skies looking south from the summit of Mt. Magazine
- At March 07, 2013
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
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Taken with a Nikon D800e, iso 250, Nikon 14-24 lens @ F4.5, final image is composite of 50 minutes of 2 minute stacked exposures. I had been to Mt. Magazine a about a week earlier but was still learning about the place. The small ceder tree to the left is a famous landmark on Mt. Magazine and has been recently adopted by the Mt. Magazine lodge as their emblem on all signage. It’s a easy shot, but tends to be over run with people most times during the year. On this night with temperatures ranging about 25 degrees, I didn’t have too much to worry about in regards to people, however I did need to watch out for ice. The bluff line drops down about 80 to 100 feet about 5 feet in front of where I had the camera. On this night the moon was more of a hindrance then a help as I was near full, just two days past full and very high in the sky. The day had been very hazy and some of the haze can be easily seen in the distance against the horizon line. The town in the distance is called Havana, not sure where the name came from and the lake in the foreground is call Blue lake. All my night work is now shot in stacks since I get so much more control over the final product. For some reason I still had some gaps that I didn’t expect so I am starting to feel that the Nikon D800e might be buffering out with a long series of raw files, but I need to test this in a control to make sure. The gaps can be easily fixed with Startracer software so I am no worried. However I still managed to somehow touch the tripod and move it so that last few stacks were out of line. This image represents a 50 minute time frame and I took the individual stacks as 2 minute images. This gave me the best balance of star light against the very bright moon. However I still added a dark short frame that I took towards the end of the series which helped a lot in closing down the moonglow to the left of the image. This shot is looking due south and the pattern of the trails was a pleasant surprise for me.
03/05/13 Sunset over Cameron Bluffs on Mt. Maganize, Arkansas
- At March 04, 2013
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
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Taken with a Nikon D800e, iso 100, Nikon 14-24 Lens @14mm, F9, 1/1250 of a second, Single Exposure. I was lucky enough to catch this great sunset as the sun was just dropping over Cameron Bluff on Mt. Magazine last week. All day the weather had been overcast and hazy, but when I reached the summit of Mt. Magazine, things changed dramatically. The sky started to clear and the temperature dropped by as much as 20 degrees. The wind was blowing out of the north and I figured the wind chill was close to 24 degrees F. I had been working the opposite side of the Cameron Bluff overlook and just happened to turn around in time to catch a great sunset over the bluff. I did not have my tripod and with the wind that was blowing I knew I had to go to a very fast shutter speed to stop the trees in the foreground. I set the camera to iso 100 and then moved my shutter speed to 1/1250. The overall exposure was quite dark in the area around the bluff and the sun appeared to be overexposed, but as I worked the image up in Capture One 7 I was pleased to see that I had an amazing amount of detail still available to me in the hills below the bluff. My only issue was FLARE, which is a real problem with the Nikon 14-24 whenever you are shooting into the sun. I have a love/hate relationship with this lens as it’s so sharp but the issue with flare is terrible. I spent more time working on the flare issues than anything else. The 14-24 tends to create a rainbow looking flare and depending on the angle to the sun it can tend to dominate the lower portion of a shot away from the sun. As you are shooting into the sun and want the sun in the shot, there is no way I know of block out the flare at the time of exposure. The D800e was still able to give me a wonderful shot that I feel captured the moment perfectly!