Little Rock Sunrise from the Junction Bridge–05/14/15 Featured Arkansas Photography
- At May 14, 2015
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
- 0
Taken with a Canon 5D MKII and Canon 24mm TS-EII lens iso 100, F8. The Junction bridge in Little Rock, which is now only for foot traffic, offers a great view of downtown Little Rock. I love to catch the early morning sun on the buildings. This is best done right before the sun has risen so that the glare on the glass is not extreme and it also allows you to still get the pre-morning blue sky off to the west. The Junction bridge is lit up at night and I made a point of getting this photograph taken before the lights were off. I took this shot in a series of images to stitch together later. I used a 24mm TS-E lens, but did not shift as the shifted portion of the image was not enough to capture the full panorama look I wanted. Instead I found the nodal point of the lens, and rotated it through 3 different locations and bracketed the exposures with each. Canon’s cameras have excellent color, but pretty poor dynamic range even at the base iso, so if you don’t want a lot of noise in your shadows, it’s always best to bracket your exposures. The lens I used, the 24mm TS-E is by far the best lens in this class, and has excellent details to the corners even at F 4.5. After working up each segment, I then used Ptgui to stitch the scene into one large panorama.
08/11/14 Featured Arkansas Photography–October day on Richland Creek
Taken with a Phase One IQ160, Arca rm3di and Schneider 35XL lens, F11 for 1 second, Image created by shifting the back for 3 separate images and then stitched together in post processing. Both a polarizer and neutral density filter were used. Richland Creek, which heads up in western Newton County, then runs eastward before running into the Buffalo River, is one of the most unique spots in Arkansas. The creek has hundreds of photogenic spots but the best photography will be from the forest service campground, upstream for the next 5 miles. Don’t just stop at Richland falls, which is a creek wide waterfall, but instead hike up stream for at least 2 more miles as some of the best spots are in this stretch. This photograph was taken in October of 2012, after a good rain had fallen a few days before. Richland is usually very low in the fall and when you can catch a clear day with good water it’s a rare but special day. The creek is lined with hardwoods, that produce some amazing displays of color, and most years, they don’t disappoint. Even if the water level is low, there should be some larger pools that will offer great reflections which won’t be there in the higher water times. On this day, I had the best color display I have seen in years on Richland, the only tree that had already dropped it’s leaves was the large sweet gum on the upper right of the the photo. In the fall, the water tends to be clear so you can see down to the bottom in even 4 to 5 feet of water.