06/13/20 Sunset over Western Little Rock and the Big Dam Bridge

Stormy skies over Little Rock, and the Big Dam Bridge

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

Stormy Sunset over Pinnacle Mountain Little Rock Arkansas

A panorama taken with a DJI Mavic Pro 2

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

08/03/12 Featured Arkansas Photography–Sunset from Flatside Pinnacle

Sunset from Flatside Pinnacle looking to the west and Forked Mountain

Taken with a Canon 1ds MKII, iso 100, HDR series 5 frames, Canon 24-70 lens @ F11. Flatside Pinnacle is one of those places that once you make a trip there, you will find yourself going back many times. You can catch a great sunset looking out over the Ouachita mountains, or if you are there early in the morning, the fog will be down in the hills. Flatside is an easy 40 minute drive from Little Rock, west on Hwy 10 towards Lake Sylvia. I took this shot with a Canon 1ds, MKII, in a 5 frame HDR series. The sun had already set and the exposure times were from around 5″ to 20″. The effect I was after was the light playing off the haze in the distance. The colors of the sky that day were amazing. The hike to Flatside will take you near the 150 mile Quachita trail which runs east/west across most of the Arkansas Ouachita mountains and into Oklahoma.

06/24/12 Featured Arkansas Photography–Sunset over Pinnacle Mountain State Park

Image taken with a Canon 1ds MKII, Canon 24-70 F2.8 @ F11, ISO 100, 5 shot combination for exposure. Back in 2009, which seems to long ago to remember, we were having almost nightly thunderstorms in July. I can only hope that Arkansas gets some this type of weather soon in 2012. We are about as dry as I can remember for this time of year and soon you will start to see tree going into stress, then dropping leaves. The area around Pinnacle State Park is photographers paradise in that there are some many great vistas to work from. One of mine is the view directly to the west from the summit of the quarry ridge at the Pinnacle State Park visitors center. Here you get an unobstructed view of the summit of Pinnacle mountain and can often catch an evening storm coming in from the west. This sunset was taken as 5 separate exposures then blended together to get the final image.

06/17/12 Featured Arkansas Photography–Clouds over Petit Jean Mountain

Sunset sky over Pinnacle Mountain

Taken with a Sony Nex-7, Sony 18-200mm lens @ 18mm F5.6, Iso 100. I like to work the evening skies in the early summer time as many times you are treated to a play of light as seen on these clouds. I had gone to the Petit Jean visitor center at Mather lodge and as the sun started to drop behind the hills some late evening clouds rolled in. The play of light on the clouds was a real treat. I ended up taking several versions of this scene and worked the shot up in both color and B&W. The range of color at that time reminded me of some of the sunsets I had taken out in Colorado years ago.

05/30/12 Featured Arkansas Photography–Sunset over Pinnacle Mountain

Sunset and Paraglider over Pinnacle Mountain

Sunset over Pinnacle Mountain

Taken with a Canon 5D MKII, 70-300 Lens, ISO 100 F8 at a shutter speed of 1/400. There are times that you just get lucky!. While I was working this great sunset, I happend to catch this lone para-glider working around the summit of Pinnacle. For the shot I had to hand hold my Canon 5D MKII with a 70-300 lens since the light was fading too fast to switch over to my tripod. The pilot made only about 2 passes and I was able to capture him on the 2nd pass. The sun lit the plane up perfectly.