A Bridge Too Far

Stumblebum

Panos require inordinate amount of effort and luck (at least for me I have to keep my fingers cross and wait for PS to tell me whether it could or could not stitch them). Longer the area you cover, light changes drastically so you have to adjust exposure for each shot and also align everything. You have to do it in a hurry if the light is changing and interesting light is invariably changing. Large files are so slow to process. For each shot you have to process 5-10 files.

You do all that and then then due to its size the screen reduces it to what looks like band-aid. :rofl

Below are my attempts from capturing dawn at Golden Gate from Marin Headlands vantage point. Unexpectedly fog started to clear just when sun came up.

All harsh criticism is heartily cherished!!

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DougMartinVisuals

Being from the "midwest" I can only contribute my sentiment of amazement. Just stellar images!

boco

een heel mooie reeks geworden.
grt,boco.

Stumblebum

DougMartinVisuals wrote: »

Being from the "midwest" I can only contribute my sentiment of amazement. Just stellar images!

Thanks kindly Doug! Its worth the trip! ;o)

boco wrote: »

een heel mooie reeks geworden.
grt,boco.

Thanks Boco! Means much!

Thelensspot

Taz, I have a real weakness for bridge shots, night shots and ships on water! You got my attention by just reading your title. :smo
I know this sounds familiar but these are just ....well bow
I especially love #1. Please frame that will you and tell me the settings and the lens that you used...as if I could do as well.

Any who...till next time!

Stumblebum

Thelensspot wrote: »

Taz, I have a real weakness for bridge shots, night shots and ships on water! You got my attention by just reading your title. :smo
I know this sounds familiar but these are just ....well bow
I especially love #1. Please frame that will you and tell me the settings and the lens that you used...as if I could do as well.

Any who...till next time!

Thanks kindly Wayne! Your support means much!

So for first one this is what I know.........still practicing to get better, but sharing what I have figured out.

Lens is canon-24-70mm 'L' lens (horribly expensive).
Used f-16, as confident that it would give me the star-burstand DOF I wanted.
Never use filter at night.....just makes it mushy and less crispy.
Come to think of it, I have stopped using UV for protection all together, even in daytime, just have to be careful obviously.
I use both mirror lock and remote trigger, to give it max chance at stability.

Then just wanted to have 30 second exposures (max in manual mode) so cranked up the ISO to whatever gave me 30 second exposure for whatever camera recommended as optimal exposure.
I mention that because during daytime, I over expose at least 2/3 f-stop if not more. Then pull that back in Post. Pick up more punch and details that way.
That "expose to the right" doesn't work at night.

As light changes (There were 9-10 vertical shots), you modify the ISO according to need.
Reason for not being longer is that to take that many exposures at low ISO, you would need really long time and any airplane and boat can take off and leave streaks of light in your shot.
Furthermore, the big bright lights, longer you go in exposure, they tend to get too hot and no recovery from that. If you don't have super bright lights in your shot and don't have to worry about air or boat traffic then lower ISO is always better, but here had to sacrifice it. Then again that is why we pay exorbitant prices for camera bodies, even at bit higher ISO it is more or less okay.

You want to take readings off of BRIGHT area or HIGHLIGHTS, which would normally cause your shot to be underexposed and darks to be darker, but since this is at NIGHT, dark area works in your favor.

Since there are so many shots, it may make sense to get focus each time as well so you get both near and far sharp, if it makes sense. (I forgot to do that here, DOH, but it is in my mental notes)

In post, I still had to deal with bit of banding and I found just by desperation that other than "noise" if I also use "moire" and "defringing" it helped hide the bands to reasonable extent. I only used that brush on sky.
Still need to pull back highlights and yellow and orange luminescence in post other than usual stuff, wanted to mention that as it is needed.

Good luck my friend!

Cornflake

These are spectacular. Excellent.

Stumblebum

Cornflake wrote: »

These are spectacular. Excellent.

Thanks Don! Your endorsement is very valuable to me! Cheers!

Celtic Snapper

Cracking shots - #1 is outstanding!
That really would look good printed, framed and hanging from your (or my) wall!
Really sleek and professional looking!

Dirty Harry season on TV over here, would love to visit, Golden Gate, Alcatraz, and the sloping tram running streets. Instantly recognizable city. :-)

Stumblebum

Celtic Snapper wrote: »

Cracking shots - #1 is outstanding!
That really would look good printed, framed and hanging from your (or my) wall!
Really sleek and professional looking!

Dirty Harry season on TV over here, would love to visit, Golden Gate, Alcatraz, and the sloping tram running streets. Instantly recognizable city. :-)

Thanks Carl! Much appreciate it! You can't go wrong in San Francisco Bay Area! City is cool and then there is much more around it!

Thelensspot

Stumblebum wrote: »

Thanks kindly Wayne! Your support means much!

So for first one this is what I know.........still practicing to get better, but sharing what I have figured out.

Lens is canon-24-70mm 'L' lens (horribly expensive)....

Good luck my friend!

Taz, As of last week I just purchased the Nikkor 24-70/2.8 glass for my D810! Thanks much for the feedback. I've got to try the 30 sec exposure option at f16 with setting the ISO to match next bridge night shot. The favorite subject in my neighborhood is the George P. Coleman across the York River. Not quite as famous as your subject but it'll do!

Regards,

Wayne

bristlecone

Another great set Taz. Love them. You got up early for these didn't you.....
Best,
-Len

Stumblebum

bristlecone wrote: »

Another great set Taz. Love them. You got up early for these didn't you.....
Best,
-Len

Thanks kindly Len!!
Yes, 4:00am!:D
Dream still remains to capture it wrapped in fog, but I caught a bright sunrise which is its own reward!

kdog

Excellent light and sky drama on these, Taz, along with your signature excellent comps. #4 is a tosser though. The big blown out area draws your eye from your subject and is just unpleasant. #5 is better because the blown area is proportionally smaller, plus you can see the golden light in the hills emanating from it. It's pretty hard to do what you attempted here. Really you needed to bracket that shot so that you had an underexposed frame with that area properly exposed (and the rest most likely black) to blend in. Of course for consistency, you'd want to bracket the entire pano. So take all those frames you shot and multiple them by three. :yikes

Stumblebum

kdog wrote: »

Excellent light and sky drama on these, Taz, along with your signature excellent comps. #4 is a tosser though. The big blown out area draws your eye from your subject and is just unpleasant. #5 is better because the blown area is proportionally smaller, plus you can see the golden light in the hills emanating from it. It's pretty hard to do what you attempted here. Really you needed to bracket that shot so that you had an underexposed frame with that area properly exposed (and the rest most likely black) to blend in. Of course for consistency, you'd want to bracket the entire pano. So take all those frames you shot and multiple them by three. :yikes

Thanks bro! First the panos are tribute to your teachings!
The hot area is there but it wasn't flagged by LR and just very bright, but thought it wasn't blown......but I could should have underdexposed tad more. Gonna try again and see what happens!
Maybe with you! ;o)

toferbaseball

very nice photos, they have a good "feel" to them and tell the "story" of the visit (to me at least)

Wiren

Stumblebum wrote: »

Panos require inordinate amount of effort and luck.

The longer the area you cover, light changes drastically so you have to adjust exposure for each shot and also align everything. You have to do it in a hurry if the light is changing and interesting light is invariably changing. Large files are so slow to process. For each shot you have to process 5-10 files.

Taz, I too have been doing Panos... as you can typically tell, I love the 1x2 and 1x3 format (and lately digging the 16x10 crop). I don't have/use PS, but a stitching program called Hug-In... not the best out there, but it was free and it works.....

I have found that by shooting with wider lenses, I can get my stitches into fewer shots (which also helps the success rate ) I started (as I am sure many have) trying to squeeze in mondo detail by using a tele at say 50-75mm and taking too many shots... Now I try to use the WA Lens at about 25mm (FF Equiv.) max, take no more than 5 shots (typically about 3-4) and crop from there. Your file size will be big enough even with all that.

Worry less about fine detail, go wide, get the sure stitch and let it all out in post!

Oh, and as an example of this, I am digging number 5 the most!! possibly due to the wide look. I also look at it like... if a client is going to do a canvas wrap, I want enough meat on the image to keep the look up after the wrap or great without it.... hard to do, but ya gotta think of the end game - something I struggle with in my excitement to show off my images!

Stumblebum

Thanks Lee! I think that is a great idea to try and stitch with wide angle. The 25mm seems to be a good angle because wider are so distorted when I tried. I will surely try the 25mm boundary and hope to get some good results! I also want to grab more than I want......sometimes that is better when aligning and cropping happens!
Cheer m8!