Here´s a shot I took of my neighbour and very good friend Juan. He´s from Mexico and have lived in Sweden for about 10 years. He´s got two daughters and they are about the same age as my two sons. We live on the 3rd floor and they live on the 4th. Our kids have been growing up together and are the best of friends. We are really blessed with having each other so close.
Anyway, I took this shot after Juan cut of his beard and only left a big mustasch. He wanted a couple of shots so I took a few of him.
Here is some extra detail for those interested in it for the first shot that I had given in the City Arch forum:
I have passed through this church more than couple of times and always wanted to photograph it at the right moment. The moment came this Easter weekend, with clear skies. I packed up my trusty Nikkor 28mm f3.5 Perspective Control and Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AIS lens as I knew I wanted to cover the wider angled view of the church.
I am extremely pleased with the effort though there was lot of tungsten lights lighting the path. One particular light kept flickering which made it difficult to bracket. I ended up manually bracketing with different shutter speeds.
The final image I chose was when the tungsten light in the front had turned off which gave me a 45 sec window to come up with this shot with other cooler led style lights.
3 Exposures:
One Base Exposure at f11, ISO 100 shifted up, 15 seconds.
One Exposure for the bright entrance lamps that were blown out.
One 30 second exposure at ISO 1600 for the stars.
Removed the ugly cones through Content aware fill, removed two airplane trails and ensured only the brightest stars were added back without the noise that came with that high ISO exposure using luminosity masks.
Luminosity Masks:
There are many writings in the web, but here is what I did, when you go to Layer Masks, I picked one of the R/G/B Layers, duplicated layer where there was highest contrast between the bright stars and dark sky., Using Apply Image option, I further darkened and increased the contrast so that only the brightest stars and the foreground scene remained in the scene.
I applied this mask on the the stars layer which automatically revealed the stars without any noise along. It also brought back the overexposed foreground which I then painted black to hide in the mask.
It took 30 minutes but the result was pleasing and was exactly who I remembered the scene.
I'll hit the trail again tomorrow, likely with a different lens mounted. There are hundreds of miles of trails like this along the periphery of Mount Tamalpais... all accessed via trailheads located within five miles of where I live.
I'll hit the trail again tomorrow, likely with a different lens mounted. There are hundreds of miles of trails like this along the periphery of Mount Tamalpais... all accessed via trailheads located within five miles of where I live.
Yes, many schools are closed here. I guess folks are heading to the mountains for a bit of skiing. The majority of the ski resorts in the Sierra Nevada Mountains are open...
Let's see if this works. Resized and dumped it on imgur.
I posted the single shot duotone previously, now here's a pano of Mt Tam
You are blessed indeed, Curtis. It's beautiful country where you are.
Ken B, you repeatedly demonstrate for us the capabilities of the 25-50 f/4 as a landscape lens. I thought for a moment that I'd take that on the trail with me today, but then took it out of the cabinet and realized this is not the best lens to have hanging off the front of my Df that will likely be hanging around my neck as I ramble along the trail. It is a hefty lens! I think I'll opt for something smaller and lighter... at least for today. But thanks for the reminder that this beautifully made zoom lens is a winner!
Yes Chin! That's more like it. That scene definitely deserves this kind of treatment. Nice work.
As I write this I'm sipping Singapore breakfast tea you graciously gave me. It is a lovely, aromatic tea. I brewed a pot so I can enjoy it this morning before heading out for a hike. You definitely come to mind as I'm out and about Marin. It was delightful spending time with you my friend.
That's the one!
Makes for a nice comparison tasting session when coupled with Bombay Sapphire (which is distilled just down the road from me)
Colin
I was intrigued as to why its name association with Bombay. Wikipedia gave me the answer as the drink was namesake from a Sapphire with the same name even though the Sapphire was mined in Srilanka and had nothing to do with either Bombay or British occupied India.
