After shooting Lake Louise the normal ways, I decided to get a little creative. This is a 5 minute exposure starting at, and going through the entire peak color display of a brilliantly colorful sunrise. I used two circular Polarizers at opposite directions to get a counter overall color balance (usually a cooling effect, but here the opposite, warming) as well as 2 - 9 stop ND filters, and also a three stop Singh Ray ND grad to balance the sky luminosity with that of the water. The exposure was a total guess (and I fail far more often than the occasional success). A couple spots on the snow glacier are specular highlights that went to pure white, but with some direct sun cutting through now and then, that was to be expected.
Woah. There ya go buddy. so let me get this. 24 stops total for the sky?? yikes. interesting with the double polarizer. really curious how that looks...to a 'normal' photo :-P Great job Mark
aF
Mark, from what I read (your intro), sounds like an awefully complicated shot to set up . Having been quite a few times there (this was probably shot from in front of the Château LL ?), I must say that I never saw such a photographic rendition of a sunrise in LL: it is creative, and brings a fresh perspective on this Western Canadian icon. Whether it is realistic or not, for me and in this specific case, is of little relevance. In the end, what counts too is the viewer's experience and personal interpretation in front of the photograph. In my case, and despite what I remember about the place, I like it, without reservation.
Now that's an insane combination of filters, I really can't imagine that chunk of glass in front of the lens . As for the shot itself the colors are really nice and wintery, plus the shot shows a nice symetry, something that appears very often on your shots so you can probably call it "your trademark".
Very nice scene, I don't think I'd consider it realistic, but that's not the point, it's wonderful to look at! The geometrical shapes and symmetry as milanissimo pointed out (and these long exposures) is definitely your trademark. Nicely done.
One question - have you ever considered shooting with the programmable cable release and doing lots of 30 sec or 1 min exposures continuously and then stacking them in PS to simulate a much longer exposure? I've found that works very well, and it takes the guesswork out of the process since it's a lot easier to meter for a 30 sec exposure. Also, you can underexpose by a bit to make sure you won't blow any highlights, as stacking lots of images will reduce the noise by quite a bit (so you can bring up the shadows no problem). Lastly, it makes it easier to pick exactly the stretch of time over which you have peak color. And of course you don't have to hang a pound of glass in front of the lens..
The image is sort of a mish-mash of different things and is a bit jarring to look at, but as floris said, that's not the point. I applaud your creativity here.
The image is very compelling, eye catching and I like it.
Not a realistic comp, but it wasn't intended to be, so bravo for the creative approach.
I like a lot more than most HDR attempts I see here.
Thanks for posting & sharing your approach to the scene.
Dan
Interesting shot, as always Mark. I too would love to see a standard exposure of this place for comparison. since this isn't photo journalism here, you are completely entitled to your efforts at interpreting the beauty here. I quite like it.
Nov 24, 2008 at 03:48 PM
David Leask Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
so thats an absolute minimum of 24 stops for the sky.(3 stops for 2 polarisers)
2^24=16777216, 5mins=300seconds
300/16777216 = 1/56000 th base exposure, minimum.
Think you might have got your numbers wrong there Mark!
Anyway to the case in point, this is a nice shot but it does look processed and I dont really like for it to be obvious. That said, its a spectacular scene.
Thanks everyone for the feedback here. Sorry I can not get to it all right now...
floris wrote:
Very nice scene, I don't think I'd consider it realistic, but that's not the point, it's wonderful to look at! The geometrical shapes and symmetry as milanissimo pointed out (and these long exposures) is definitely your trademark. Nicely done.
One question - have you ever considered shooting with the programmable cable release and doing lots of 30 sec or 1 min exposures continuously and then stacking them in PS to simulate a much longer exposure? I've found that works very well, and it takes the guesswork out of the process since it's a lot easier to meter for a 30 sec exposure. Also, you can underexpose by a bit to make sure you won't blow any highlights, as stacking lots of images will reduce the noise by quite a bit (so you can bring up the shadows no problem). Lastly, it makes it easier to pick exactly the stretch of time over which you have peak color. And of course you don't have to hang a pound of glass in front of the lens..
Floris, thank you and that might be a great idea. I just wonder if you would still get the same smooth effect of the entire lapse of time? How would you blend them?
Alex Nail wrote:
so thats an absolute minimum of 24 stops for the sky.(3 stops for 2 polarisers)
2^24=16777216, 5mins=300seconds
300/16777216 = 1/56000 th base exposure, minimum.
Think you might have got your numbers wrong there Mark!
Alex
Hey Alex,
Thanks for mentioning that Alex... I was thinking about this shot yesterday, and I thought that I put just 1 of those 9 stop Nd's on there (along with the others mentioned). Wish there was meta-data for the filters sometimes. As far as processing, very straightforward. It may not look that way because of the long exposure effect, but that was what I was after, a plethora of intense, painterly colors.
mark70x70 wrote:
Floris, thank you and that might be a great idea. I just wonder if you would still get the same smooth effect of the entire lapse of time? How would you blend them?
Yep, you definitely get that smooth effect. If you're doing 30 sec exposures with 1 sec intervals, the time you lose is so small that it's unnoticeable in pretty much any case (unless you have really fast moving stuff). If you use 1 min exposures with 1 sec intervals it'd be even better.
There are programs that will stack them for you (look for astrophotography programs), but it's pretty easy in PS too.
Basically you want to average all your layers, so set the opacity of each layer according to this pattern:
opacity of layer n = 100/(1+# of layers below layer n)
so like this:
layer n = 100/(1+# of layers below layer n)%
layer 3: 25%
layer 2: 33%
layer 1: 50%
background: 100%
Note that if you're combining more than 4-10 images it can be easier to do this in an iterative approach, ie. combine images in groups of 4 independently, then combine those groups together (otherwise you're dealing with opacity levels at very small percentages, which won't be very accurate).
Floris...killer idea. Great to know b/c I do not have the money for the 9stop to move the clouds but this method would be great. I want to say I have a PS action for star trails that would prob work with this. This should be stickied somewhere.
aFeinPhoto.com wrote:
Floris...killer idea. Great to know b/c I do not have the money for the 9stop to move the clouds but this method would be great. I want to say I have a PS action for star trails that would prob work with this. This should be stickied somewhere.
Rockin
aF
Thanks
I'm guessing that your star trail action uses a lighten blend mode, that's what I use for star trails at least. That or screen mode. Lighten mode will make it easier to judge the final look of the image based on your layers (it will look like the lightest layer, but with stars from all the others added on), BUT it will create minute gaps between the stars. Screen mode will take care of the gaps, but will make the overall image much brighter - it's like a cumulative exposure. The gaps can be taken care of by some other trickery, but it doesn't always work perfectly.
For simulating the long exposure you really want to average (I've tried underexposing and then using screen mode, but it runs you into trouble, you basically have to process with image with zero contrast adjustments, and then still it's hard to add much more than 3-4 images before you really run into problems).
This is exactly the kind of algorithm that's used for non-star trail astrophotography though - so if you found a program designed for shooting nebulae or something it would do exactly this. Back when I looked into this the only program I could find was deepskystacker, which is free but only available on windows.. and I have a mac and no emulator.. I just did another search and it seems finally someones come up with one for mac, I'll have to try it. These auto align layers too, which is key for astro work.
. Very nice indeed.
. Having been quite a few times there (this was probably shot from in front of the Château LL ?), I must say that I never saw such a photographic rendition of a sunrise in LL: it is creative, and brings a fresh perspective on this Western Canadian icon. Whether it is realistic or not, for me and in this specific case, is of little relevance. In the end, what counts too is the viewer's experience and personal interpretation in front of the photograph. In my case, and despite what I remember about the place, I like it, without reservation.