02/01/14 Featured Arkansas Photography–Sunset from Flatside Pinnacle
Taken with a Phase One IQ160 Digital Back and Rodenstock 28mm lens @ F11 iso 50 for approximately 1/30 of a second. If you have a few hours one winter afternoon, take a drive out to Flatside Pinnacle and work up a sunset. This area is not too far from the city, and takes about 40 minutes to get there. From Flatside you have a view to the west that is one of the best in Arkansas. Here you can see the beginning of the rolling Ouachita mountains and in the distance Forked Mountain. Flatside is not a hard hike so you can bring some extra equipment if you like. It’s also a great place to position yourself to watch a storm roll in from the west in the summertime. Looking to the right just outside the scope of this photograph, you can see the other tallest peaks in Arkansas all lined up, Mt Nebo, Spring Mountain, and of course the tallest Mt. Magazine. Great place to spend to off time.
09/25/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–A quick preview of things to come, Fall scene on the Buffalo River sunrise over Bee Bluff
Taken with a Canon 5D MKII, Canon 24-70 lens @ F8 24mm, iso 200, bracketed exposures for final image. The Buffalo River has to hold some of the best photographic opportunities in Arkansas, especially in the fall. This shot was taken in 2011 but it’s a great example of what you can expect on the Buffalo. Here you will find almost every tree species that the state has and each one will have a unique fall color, along with the short leaf pines. In this shot you can see a row of sweet gums and maples along the lower part of the bluff and in the background on Bee bluff the oak and hickory trees are making their presence noted also. Fall in Arkansas can be glorious and on the Buffalo tends to peak sometime around mid October. I feel that this year since we have had such a long dry spell that the colors may not be as bold as normal and fall may come a bit earlier than normal. So far no major storms are forecast for Arkansas this fall and the northwest portion of the state is very dry. I was up in this area last week and there were already a few trees starting to turn a bit early. I am hoping that this year will not be repeat of last and the year before where each tree species seemed to turn by itself and there was never a great display of fall color. I was lucky in this shot to catch the last of the morning fog lifting off the ground and still showing up in the maples and gums. I took this shot as a bracketed exposure since I wanted to be able to catch all the light in the sky and not have too much noise in the trees along the bluff.
09/18/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–The Natural Bridge in Lost Valley near Ponca Arkansas
Taken with a Phase One P45+ in 3 vertical segments to be stitched into one frame, 35mm Mamiya lens, F14, iso50, 3 second exposures with ND filter and CL-PL. Lost Valley is one of my favorite spots in Arkansas to photograph, especially when there is water running in Clark Creek. I would say that in the 100 or so trips I have made to Lost Valley over the years, I have only seen water like that shown in this picture about 10 times. Clark Creek runs throughout Lost Valley and eventually empties into the Buffalo River above Ponca. This one valley has more scenic value packed into the 1.5 miles of trail than most other places in the Ozarks. You can find over 6 separate waterfalls when the creek is running at full flow. If you have not been there before with a good head of water running in Clark Creek, I would put this on your list of places to visit. You can be sure of good water in Clark Creek if the Buffalo River is running over 2000 cfs when gauged on the USGS gauge at Boxley. Lost Valley can also especially pretty in the dead of winter if you happen to catch it after a heavy snow.
04/21/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Sunrise over Bee Bluff on the Buffalo River
- At April 21, 2013
- By paul
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Taken with a Canon 5D MKII, Canon 24-70 lens @ 24mm, Image is a composite of several different exposures. There are times that I will remember more than others on the Buffalo River. This photograph is one of those days as I had a great landscape opportunity on this morning. While everyone else was out chasing the Elk, (which are a bit on the tame side) I found this scene near Roark and Bee bluffs. The trees around this area vary from Maple, Sweet Gum and various Oaks. Most often in the fall in Arkansas the various trees tend to change colors independently and don’t come together to give a great color display. This spot near Steel Creek landing features two of the most prominent bluffs on the upper river and in the fall you can sometimes catch early sunrise shots like this one. There was no wind and just a bit of light fog was rolling across the tops of the trees below the bluff. I was able to shoot this scene only by using several different exposures to catch the bright sun and deep shadows in the foreground. I am now finding that with a Nikon D800 many times scenes like this can be taken with just one exposure due to the extreme dynamic range of the sensor of the D800.
04/12/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Midday autumn calm along the Buffalo River
- At April 13, 2013
- By paul
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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.
03/31/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Sunrise over Bee Bluff on the Buffalo River in Arkansas
- At March 31, 2013
- By paul
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Taken with a Canon 5D MKII, Canon 16-35mm Lens, 3 exposure raw bracket converted in LR to final image. When you consider the Buffalo River, one the most beautiful times to photograph is fall. The last couple of years, the fall along the Buffalo has been lacking in overall color. There were spots that contained excellent color but for the most part especially along the ridge tops, most of the trees just turned brown. This spot which is featuring two of the most famous river bluffs, Roark and Bee bluffs, has a great line of gum and maple trees at the base of the bluff. On this day, I was there early hoping for a valley full of fog, instead I only found a slight amount in the immediate trees, but with the rising sun and dramatic clouds that were present it still made for a great shot.
03/13/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–January Night skies over Roark Bluff
- At March 11, 2013
- By paul
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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.
03/10/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Sunset from Flatside Pinnacle
- At March 10, 2013
- By paul
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Taken with a Canon 1ds mkII, Canon 70-300 lens, F11, iso 200, Composite shot taken as a manual exposure bracket. If you get a chance to visit this area you won’t be disappointed by what you find. Flatside is the 3rd in a series of pinnacles that I consider to be the gateway to the Ouachita mountains. In Pulaski County, you have Pinnacle Mountain, then just a bit east from Flatside, there is Northside Pinnacle. These are followed in turn by Flatside and then Forked Mountain. Forked mountain can easily be seen in the distance from the summit of Flatside. Forked Mt. is a considerably harder climb than Flatside but the view from it’s summit is worth the hike. I like to shoot to the west from the summit of Flatside after the sun has dropped below the horizon as you then can pick up the rolling hills out towards the west. I worked this shot up from 5 separate exposures in a classic exposure bracketed series, which was required back when I was shooting with the Canon 1ds series of cameras, now with Nikon’s newer cameras like the D800, I should be able to get the same shot with 2 or 3 frames max due to the extra dynamic range of the Nikon sensors. The trail runs up the back of Flatside mountain and right now there are several large trees down that make the hike take a bit longer. The trail is an easy 1/4 hike from where you park your car.
03/05/13 Sunset over Cameron Bluffs on Mt. Maganize, Arkansas
- At March 04, 2013
- By paul
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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!
02/21/2013 Featured Arkansas Photography–Night skies over Twin Rivers Park
Taken with a Nikon D800e, 14-24 lens@ 17mm, F4.5, iso 400. Image is the result of a series of 35 second frames that were stacked together. Well, it’s been a while since I put up anything new, and I do have my reasons, but I am going to try and get a bit more current. This shot was taken over the new bridge at Twin Rivers Park, in Little Rock. This is a new subject for me but one I have wanted to explore for a while now. The bridge has a series of bright lights that run along it’s course so it added an additional challenge for any type of shooting. If you exposed the bridge for 35 seconds, it would be totally over exposed, but I need the 35 seconds for the stars. So the solution is to expose a series for the bridge after the stack is done, then combine the images together later. The bridge added one other problem in that it had a much brighter center that would go off like a search light every once and while. You can still the effect in the center of the image, but I felt it was balanced enough as I had it. The effect of the center light is a bit harsher in the smaller jpg file I have uploaded for the web. I was blessed to be shooting with Dr. Smith that night and only to have a few planes overhead.