Playing around with filters

Now you may want to sit down for this-I have had the cameras out, Sunday afternoon i took the camera gear along with my wife and dog for a trip to the Haw river in Pittsboro, There is a very nice weir there, The sun was high and the light was pretty harsh but what the hell, I set my tripod low and had the Nikon D3s and 24-70F2.8 fitted which is one of my favorite set ups, I took a shot without any filters with the ISO at its base i.e 200 which will give maximum dynamic range-detail in dark shadows and white clouds, I had started with an aperture of F8 which gives pretty good depth of field and got a shutter speed of 1/320 which is quite fast but as i said the light was bright
I put the Singh Ray gold and blue filter on and took images at the goldest and bluest but you can turn it anywhere in between


I dont think that they really work in this instance and think that very grey days will be best, I now put on a 2 stop ND on its own
Nothing much different to the original-just a slight slowing down of the water so i add the 3 stop ND as well to give 5 stops
OK so now we are getting somewhere, the water is getting smooth so i add the poloriser to add 2 more stops and take some glare off of the water, I also set the aperture to F16 giving a 2.5 second shutter speed
Very nice, Now remove the 2 and 3 stop NDs and replace them with the 10 stop Lee filter, This with the poloriser gives 12 stops and a shutter speed of 76 seconds-yep you read that right so i had to set the camera to Bulb which is the last shutter speed setting when you have the camera in manual, In Bulb you hold the shutter button down and it will stay open until you release it-best use a remote cord for this
The Lee 10 stop big stopper does give a very blue colour cast, I have removed that but i think it still has a slight green cast to it but for the blog it gives you the idea, The very long shutter speed combined with the poloriser has given a very flat even water and the water flowing over the weir is very milky-nice

After setting up a Mexican family along with baby Rottweiler decided to fish and play in the water right next to us which pissed me off somewhat, The best bit was when the dog shit next to where the were sitting and instead of picking it up they allowed their son to tread in it and then the dog rolled in it, The wife then picked up her fishing rod and whacked the water and then managed to pick whatever it was out with the rod and placing it carefully on a rack beat the hell out of it, I went over and saw a young Northern water snake (harmless) on the rock, It was belly up and looked dead, 10 minutes later i went back and it was still there, I turned it over using a stick and noticed a small movement with its tail and the tint body flattened, I think it was playing dead like a European Grass snake does, A few minutes later i went back and as my shadow passed over it moved with the speed of light, The water snake looks similar to the venamous water moccasin but as the moccasin is a viper it has a totally different eye, The water snake has a round pupil whereas the moccasin is a slit, We packed up and left but i would have really liked to have thrown the women in and beat her with the fishing rod


Dave

Smoky Mountains Days 1+2

We are in Tennessee with one of Marian's nieces so Photography is on a when and can basis, We arrived Friday afternoon and after following a thousand hot rods towards Pigeon Forge we dropped our bags off and ask what was going on-seems that this weekend is THE BIG car event of the year here and the world and its wife/sister (same person) is here so it takes 30mins to get 2 miles-nice, We went down to Cades Cove, The jewel of the Smokeys, Unfortunately for some reason the meadows are uncut and the wildlife is very difficult to see, We ended the afternoon with 4 deer and 6 turkeys-i get more in my garden and to cap it off they now open at 10am on Saturday and Wednesday which is crap as the light is very harsh by then and any mist will have burnt off, I made a decision to get up early and head into the mountains to a place called Clingmans Dome which is the high point and gives great views of the sunrise and sets, I arrived early and it was still dark with stars in the sky but a distant glow meant that i wouldn't have to wait too long for the sky to lighten, I got the tripod and camera gear out then realised that i had left the ND grads in the motel so i would take some images and have to HDR them, There were already 3 photographers there and as soon as the sky started to get light a photo workshop arrived and for some reason decided that they would all stand around-ME, i got my shots and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise and left, During the day i enjoyed looking at all the shiny cars and really should have taken a camera but i will be back in a couple of weeks and decided to just have a lazy family day, Back to shoot the sunset tonight and then leave early tomorrow to go to the NC side of the mountains for a day.I quickly put 5 frames together with Photomatix but it doesn't seem to like to mist so will have to reprocess it when i get home but it gives you the idea

HDR Image

Standard Processing

Dave

California day 4-The Big Sur-A Special Day

I haven't been to the Big Sur for a few years and i had forgotten just how beautiful the place is, Rugged Coastline and rolling hills make this a photographers dream, Add to that some great wildlife and you have it all, The California Condor is the states largest bird but also one of its most endangered with more in Captivity than in the wild, I was told that there are only 190 left in the wild and the Big Sur is the best place to see them, I was quite a way down the coast when i stopped at a car pull in and there in front of me hanging on the up draft was what can only be described as a truly huge bird-a Condor, I grabbed my D3s and 600 which was all ready and next to me and began to shoot, The bird seemed to come over and see what was going on so at some points the bird was too close and the wing tips were cut off, I could hear sea lions below and i think that there may have been a dead seal as this is what the Condors eat, There was also plenty of Turkey Vultures hanging around the beach area a few hundred feet below, A few minutes after i started shooting the bird flew down and then 10 minutes later 3 Condors flew up from nowhere and i managed to get images from above,below and at eye level, At the height of the action we had 4 together and 2 in the distance-amazing and for me a dream to see such a magnificent and endangered bird soo close, The sun was high in the sky but i was quite happy with what i managed, I shot the 600 hand held as the birds where all over the place and a tripod would have been too difficult to use especially when shooting down over the cliff face, Hand holding such a huge lens is not easy on the arms and shoulders for such a long time and some images were either soft or badly composed but what can you do, I made sure that the shutter speed was over 1/1000 and that the VR was on, I spent a couple of hours shooting the birds before going further on and shooting a waterfall that enters the sea in a beautiful cove, That done and back up the coast to get to a beach for the sun set, I arrived with hours to spare so set up for some landscapes using my new Lee Filters 10 stop 'big stopper' ND filter, The filter is so dark that you cannot see through it, You have to set up and compose and focus before fitting the filter holder, i also used a polariser and a 3 stop grad filter, The whole set up was on my tripod and i used  a remote release, Shutter speeds were hit and miss and i started off at 30 seconds and a couple of hours later i was at the 3 minute mark, Once i got to 2 minutes plus i did suffer from light leakage at the image edge so i will need to do some modifications for the future, Using such long shutter speeds means that any water be it crashing waves or whatever will render as smooth and milky, The sea was very rough and it was very windy but as you can see the image is very calm, I like the effect it gives and will be using it again in the near future, I also took a range of images of the backlit rocks for use as HDR images and these again came out as planned by using Photomatix software, The sun set never happened as the sea fog started to roll back in so i packed up and left, Driving back was a mixture of thick fog and sun shine all in a mile-very changeable and very Big Sur, It was an amazing day, Getting images of a bird i wanted to see and shoot for many years and to be so close was more than i could have hoped for, It was a long day as it was nearly 3 hours each way and it was a very experimental day shooting with new filters and using hugely long shutter speeds-for me anyways, On the way back to the car i noticed some Pacific gulls washing off in a small pool so i stopped and spent some time trying to get some interesting images

California Condors

Pacific Gulls

HDR Images

Dave