06/13/20 Sunset over Western Little Rock and the Big Dam Bridge
- At June 14, 2020
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
- 0
Taken with a DJI Mavic 2 Pro. For this shot I was forced to use multiple AEB bursts of 5 shots each, knowing that I would be throwing most of them out. However it’s the only way to get a a full reach of dynamic range from this drone as DJI really did a poor job on the raw capture process. But that’s another story in itself.
This was one of those wonderful thunderstorms that just rolled in quickly after the sun had dropped below the horizon. I started taking the shots right at around 8:00 pm and was able to shoot well towards 8:2o. This shot was one a rare shot as I was able to catch the full thunderstorm to the right of the shot and then the clear evening sky to the left. I used Capture One software to convert the raw files. I took 10 shots for the bottom portion to finally get a single file that was not too noisy. The sky was much easier to capture with just the normal 5 exposures. Once I had the images completed in Capture One, I opened them as tifs in Photoshop and layered the sky over the bottom of the image, doing this for the right and left half of the shot. Then I used Photoshop’s panoramic software to combine the final two images. Photoshop will do OK most of the time as long as you don’t have a pure blue sky or any other type of solid sky. The longest exposure was 1.6 seconds, which I feel is about the longest you can go with a drone in most conditions.
Paul Caldwell
06/13/20 A sunset with a stormy sky over Pinnacle Mountain
- At June 14, 2020
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
- 0
Taken with a DJI Mavic 2 Pro. For this shot I was forced to use multiple AEB bursts of 5 shots each, knowing that I would be throwing most of them out. However it’s the only way to get a a full reach of dynamic range from this drone as DJI really did a poor job on the raw capture process. But that’s another story in itself.
This was one of those wonderful thunderstorms that just rolled in quickly after the sun had dropped below the horizon. I started taking the shots right at around 8:00 pm and was able to shoot well towards 8:2o. This shot was one a rare shot as I was able to catch the full thunderstorm to the right of the shot and then the clear evening sky to the left. I used Capture One software to convert the raw files. I took 10 shots for the bottom portion to finally get a single file that was not too noisy. The sky was much easier to capture with just the normal 5 exposures. Once I had the images completed in Capture One, I opened them as tifs in Photoshop and layered the sky over the bottom of the image, doing this for the right and left half of the shot. Then I used Photoshop’s panoramic software to combine the final two images. Photoshop will do OK most of the time as long as you don’t have a pure blue sky or any other type of solid sky. The longest exposure was 1.6 seconds, which I feel is about the longest you can go with a drone in most conditions.
Paul Caldwell
01/30/16 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–December sunset from the summit of Mt. Magazine
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Taken with a Fuji X-T1 and Fujion 16-55 lens, in 2 landscape segments and converted into a panorama in Photoshop
In December I was able to take sometime off and spend the Christmas weekend at Mt Magazine Lodge. The weather I had hoped for was snow but instead the daytime temperature was in the high 60’s, (and they say we don’t have global warming going on!!), but at least it did not rain while were there. The days in December are quite short but I was able to get some wonderful sunrise and sunset shots from below the lodge.
In the summer months, the sun will set behind the main part of Mt. Magazine, so the best time to grab a sunset shot is in December and January. During these months the sun will just barely be visible on the far right side of the shot. However to capture both the famous trees below the lodge, you will need to work your shot into a panorama. There are many ways to do this, but on this evening, I went with the fastest method, which was to just take two horizontal shots and then merge them back into one final image later one. This is usually an easy process, but on this evening, there was a lot of wind blowing so I had to bracket not only for the light but to stop the trees blowing on either side of the shot.
There are many great spots to capture the view from the summit of Mt Magazine, but this has to be the most famous as it features the Bonsai Juniper tree that is used in all the literature from Mt. Magazine and is the emblem used by Mt Magazine State Park. I have never been to Mt Magazine when the large cedar tree on the right side of the shot was alive, but standing as it does bare against the sky makes for an interesting shot. In the valley below you will see Blue Mt. Lake and the town of Havana. The two peaks off in the distance are both about 1,500 feet tall, and the one of the left is Blue Mountain. You can easily see the boundary of the state park, as it’s where the pine trees begin, as all of the hillsides below the state park have been cut.
The clouds this day were most impressive starting out with a nice band just above Blue Mountain and then a large group formed just around the sun which made for an even better view.