67th Street Dunes - Last shot of 2008

Travis

C&C Welcomed. Thank you for making 2008 a great year and I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2009!

schmoo

Wow Travis what great color and shapes! A perfect cloud formation and light for a spectacular shot. Thanks for sharing

Travis

Thank you Schmoo. The image is composed of 25 exposures - 5 images bracketed by 5 one-stop exposures. Each image was processed through Photomatix and then the resulting 5 images were merged in Photoshop and final adjustments made in Lightroom.

hawkeye978

Love the contrast and color in the dunes on the right contrasted with the blue sky. The buildings on the lower left seem a little distracting to me but I really like the sand dunes over there. Do you think reducing the exposure on those buildings might enhance the picture?

NeilL

Travis wrote:

Thank you Schmoo. The image is composed of 25 exposures - 5 images bracketed by 5 one-stop exposures. Each image was processed through Photomatix and then the resulting 5 images were merged in Photoshop and final adjustments made in Lightroom.

Does The Guinness Book of Records know about this? :D:D

Breathtaking! clap

jstpeter

Travis,

Very nice image. 25 exposures! Wow that is a lot of post work. Curious as to why 5 differnet images. Is the photo also stiched together? I would like to hear more about your 25 exposire workflow.

jeffmeyers

Travis wrote:

C&C Welcomed. Thank you for making 2008 a great year and I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2009!

Very nice work, Travis. Reminds me of my capture of an Iowa sunset a few months ago. Same kinds of clouds.

Travis

hawkeye978 wrote:

Love the contrast and color in the dunes on the right contrasted with the blue sky. The buildings on the lower left seem a little distracting to me but I really like the sand dunes over there. Do you think reducing the exposure on those buildings might enhance the picture?

Thanks for the suggestion Hawkeye. I play around with it a little more to see if it improves the image.

Travis

NeilL wrote:

Does The Guinness Book of Records know about this? :D:D

Breathtaking! clap

I think Baldie has the Guinness record so I'll just settle for a draft.

Travis

jstpeter wrote:

Travis,

Very nice image. 25 exposures! Wow that is a lot of post work. Curious as to why 5 differnet images. Is the photo also stiched together? I would like to hear more about your 25 exposire workflow.

It was mainly trial and error. The reason for so many exposures is because I wanted to expand the dynamic range of the scene and create a large image to print while maintaining detail. Here is what I did (whether or not it is the correct way to do it is anyone's guess )

At capture:

1. Secure the camera on the tripod in portrait orientation.
2. Set lens to 18mm
3. Set Auto-bracket to +-0.7 (I mistakenly said 1.0 before) for 5-shot range (-1.4 to +1.4).
4. Take the first composition (5 shots), turn the camera leaving about a 1/4 overlap and shoot the next composition, and repeat.

Post:
1. Import into Lightroom
2. Select the 5-exposures for Composition 1
3. Export to Photomatix
4. Process HDR file and save the settings as a preset
5. Save combined image as a 16-bit TIFF
6. Follow the same process for each of the remaining comps using the saved preset to keep them similar.
7. Open Photoshop CS3
8. Select File>Automate>Photomerge and let CS3 stitch the image together
9. Save file as 16-bit PSD.
10. Import the PSD into Lightroom
11. Perform additional modifications - clarity, vibrance, selective brush (exposure, etc)
12. Generate jpg
13. Cook dinner while jpg is processing

That is pretty much it.

Travis

jeffmeyers wrote:

Travis wrote:

C&C Welcomed. Thank you for making 2008 a great year and I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2009!

Very nice work, Travis. Reminds me of my capture of an Iowa sunset a few months ago. Same kinds of clouds.

Wow, that sky is almost a perfect match! Except I bet you had a much better process for getting there.

richtersl

That sky is spectacular! Where was it taken? North Carolina?

Llywellyn

Woo, I somehow missed this one. Incredible sky! Beautiful light.

Travis

Thank you Linda and Kerry. It's funny... I posted this shot for feedback and it sat around for several days before I got the first comment. The shot was taken at the Virginia Beach oceanfront up at the northend of the beach.

rwells

Very Impressive Travis

Thanks for posting it.

Travis

Thanks Randy!

divamum

I'm really loving this shot, Travis- talk about "big sky"! Absolutely beautiful. Are you going to print it huge to take advantage of all that dynamic range?

Travis

divamum wrote:

I'm really loving this shot, Travis- talk about "big sky"! Absolutely beautiful. Are you going to print it huge to take advantage of all that dynamic range?

That's the plan. I've order a 12x18 as a test print with the intention of printing a 3x4.5' or 4x6' if I like what I see. I have a room in my house that is going to be in a beach theme so I think this will look good displayed on one wall.