Mark Metternich
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Technicals for the Techie Minded:
In our cars, having them end to end as we were beginning to drive off the desert playa lake bed, with "The Lightning Trigger" on my Sony A7R2's hot-shoe, my group just had to take another shot or two! The storm-clouds were getting so ominous and lightning was beginning to strike. So, with the Canon 11-24 at 11mm on, I braced the camera against the inside of my car door window (too dangerous to get out). I focused about 20 feet out, at f/18 and 1/25th of a second (400 ISO). In less than a minute, BAM! A huge lightning bolt struck so close it was almost terrifying (remember, this is at 11mm, making stuff in the distance look MUCH further away!). The camera caught it, we got the shots and got the heck out of there! The next issue was that we had to race toward the storm (and then veer off to the right about 8 miles total) and the lakebed was just beginning to get caught in the downpour. The playa here is as smooth as the salt flats, so we drove about 110 until slight sprinkling started to come down. What happened NEXT can be found on my YouTube page!
The image was adjusted in Lightroom to its fullest and then brought into Photoshop as a RAW Smart Object and Layers and some Custom Masking was used (still in lossless 32-bit Raw) to do the additional color corrections and subtle fine tuning. For those not familiar with RAW Smart Objects, it is the future of post-processing! It is amazing what Photoshop has done (so far) to allow us to go so much further down the processing chain of adjustments/optimization but still remain in 32-bit RAW (as apposed to 8 or 16 bit lossy). When you are finally done with the image, you can make a copy of your master file (leaving the original master in layers) and flatten it and save it as a 16 bit Tiff, PSD, PSB or whatever. But with the use of Raw Smart Objects, superior tonality, color fidelity, and lack of artifacting is noticeable in fine art enlargements. It is one (just one) of the secrets of being able to make HUGE (40", 50", 60", 70", 80", 96"+) prints and them look incredible, with our modern pixel count. Just look at FM member Robert Parks (owner of the boutique fine art print lab, Nevada Art Printers, and one of the best, most knowledgable printers in the world) NY shot (a whopping 106") and Vegas shot (80") in the Carnevale Gallery, Caesars Palace. They both look like 8 x 10 film, but were shot with the Nikon D810! See image...
BTW, those who follow me on Facebook or my mailing list know I have something very special coming out about Raw Smart Objects very soon. 
Lastly, this was the best playa area on the entire lakebed for foregrounds. I often go out a day before my groups come in and I drive the playa from edge to edge, cross-crossing it like a grid to find the very best foreground areas. It changes very often.
Edited on Jun 08, 2018 at 12:24 PM · View previous versions
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