If I Said You Had A Nuclear Reactor, Would You Hold It Against Me?

wxwax

Work took me to a nuclear power plant last week. It's Plant Vogtle, in rural Georgia, run by a consortium that includes the Southern Company.

They allowed me to nab some snaps.

This here's what a nukular power plant control room looks like. Actually, it's where they do their training. The actual control room is identical in every way. A fella was taking pics for comparison purposes, just to make sure.

f4 can give decently narrow depth of field, if your subject is close enough to the lens. I'm impressed by the 5D's auto white balance.

wxwax

Our three hour air-conditioned drive did not prepare our cameras well for the South's heat and humidity. My lens fogged up immediately and repeatedly - took about 15-20 minutes for it to heat-up to ambient temps and stay clear.

These here are the cooling towers. Cooling towers such as these are not unique to nuclear power plants, they can be found at coal fired plants as well. I like how the small cars give them scale.

This is a good example of shooting in RAW to protect the highlights (in this case, the sky) then layering exposures together in post.

gus

Where's homer ?

Cool shots ..any more of it ?

wxwax

This here's another example of multiple RAW exposures combined. Masking the trees is a b***h. I used Select Color to make my selection, then did some cleanup.

I worked so hard to protect the sky highlights, the trees were woefully underexposed. Making a half-way natural looking image became a bit of a challenge. This is my 5th or 6th version of this piccie.

Had we shot from the other side of the towers, the light would have been with us. But, you take what you can get.

wxwax

gus wrote:

Where's homer ?

Cool shots ..any more of it ?

Thanks Gus. I have a few more, but not crazy about them.

The wide shots of the control room lack energy, tight shots of heads framed by a backdrop of guages didn't work because the heads were looking the wrong way - all the usual stuff that happens when you're running and gunning.

DavidTO

wxwax,

One of the tips we got from Marc Muench on the last trip was to set your brush to infinitely soft, then adjust the size to what you need. Then when you paint your masks it's really hard to see what you've done. Works really well for me.

wxwax

DavidTO wrote:

wxwax,

One of the tips we got from Marc Muench on the last trip was to set your brush to infinitely soft, then adjust the size to what you need. Then when you paint your masks it's really hard to see what you've done. Works really well for me.

Thanks. Typically, that's what I do, but I haven't changed the setting in so long, I really should check!

DavidTO

wxwax wrote:

Thanks. Typically, that's what I do, but I haven't changed the setting in so long, I really should check!

Well, it was news to me. Before that I was playing around with the softness of the brush and messing up every image I touched.

Nikolai

Sid,

wxwax wrote:

Thanks. Typically, that's what I do, but I haven't changed the setting in so long, I really should check!

In addition to excellent David's point about the Marc's tip, I think in your case Blend If sliders could also help (I tried RGB and LAB, but CMYK could be as goog, too). Dark green foliage over relatively flat grayish sky should be a good candidate..

HTH

DavidTO

That last shot would be fun to play with, have a bake-off in processing it, if you felt inclined to post the original (even low-res).

Nikolai

Funny,

wxwax wrote:

Work took me to a nuclear power plant last week. It's Plant Vogtle, in rural Georgia, run by a consortium that includes the Southern Company.
....

I remember my own visit to the World's First NPP (launched in 1954 in Obninsk, Russia, the city I'm from:-) about 20-25 years ago...

Same controls..

Allen Maestas

Very cool shots, thanks for sharing the trip.

Al

wxwax

Nikolai wrote:

In addition to excellent David's point about the Marc's tip, I think in your case Blend If sliders could also help (I tried RGB and LAB, but CMYK could be as goog, too). Dark green foliage over relatively flat grayish sky should be a good candidate..

HTH

Dang! You're right! I wish I'd remembered that. I'm getting sick of working on these, but I really should try that.

Does it work in channels? The blue channel really shows the white sky versus dark trees and towers.

wxwax

DavidTO wrote:

That last shot would be fun to play with, have a bake-off in processing it, if you felt inclined to post the original (even low-res).

Sure, only I'd have to post the two different RAW exposures: trees/towers, and sky.

wxwax

Nikolai wrote:

I remember my own visit to the World's First NPP (launched in 1954 in Obninsk, Russia, the city I'm from:-) about 20-25 years ago...

Same controls..

Cool!

wxwax

amgolds wrote:

Very cool shots, thanks for sharing the trip.

Al

Thanks Al!

Nikolai

Sid,

wxwax wrote:

Sure, only I'd have to post the two different RAW exposures: trees/towers, and sky.

This would be fun:-)

wxwax

Nikolai wrote:

This would be fun:-)

David used it for his tutorial.

Nikolai

Sid,

wxwax wrote:

David used it for his tutorial.

I noticed...
Thanks!

Awais Yaqub

No i wont be against you

Very neat photos loved them

Forehead

Yeah, I've been around a few myself--land based naval prototypes at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory back in 1983. The S1W prototype--the one design later used in the Nautilus submarine--was still in operation then.

I also felt my first earthquake ever...about a 6.1 which shook things up enough for me!

Nikolai wrote:

I remember my own visit to the World's First NPP (launched in 1954 in Obninsk, Russia, the city I'm from:-) about 20-25 years ago...

Same controls..

Rhuarc

THe last one you posted, with the trees infront of the cooling towers, I could have sworn that the steam clouds were moving!! Great job at keeping the texture in the clouds. Love it!!

Andyman

What kinda of work do you do, wxwax?

I drove past the nuclear power plant in SE Pennsylvania last week. It was neat to see the cooling towers puffing steam. We have a nuclear power plant near me in Salem, NJ also (about 45 minutes from me).

Something kinda interesting: the power plant in SE PA, everyone that lives within like a 10+ mile radius was distributed these special pills (I forget what exactly) that will help temporarily in case there's a radiation leak or something at the power plant.

wxwax

Hey Forehead, is that why you type in green fonts?

Thanks Rhuarc! Trying to blend multiple RAW exposures on that one was tough. DavidTO made it the subject of a Tutorial. He was too polite to say he thought my trees were too dark.

Hey Andyman, I do TV production work. These guys at Southern Company are very proud of their safety record. I used to live in Sacramento, where they finally shut down the Rancho Seco plant because they couldn't keep it online for long enough to make it profitable.


Here's one more, from a bit further away.

ChrisJ

I love that first shot, Sid! I went to school in NC not too far from the Harris reactor, so I used to see the towers often. Looks very familiar...

Forehead

It's a convention I've adopted. I use white when posting a picture, and green to liven other posts a bit.

But then again, it could be the green glow from all those nuke plants!

wxwax wrote:

Hey Forehead, is that why you type in green fonts?

Thanks Rhuarc! Trying to blend multiple RAW exposures on that one was tough. DavidTO made it the subject of a Tutorial. He was too polite to say he thought my trees were too dark.

Hey Andyman, I do TV production work. These guys at Southern Company are very proud of their safety record. I used to live in Sacramento, where they finally shut down the Rancho Seco plant because they couldn't keep it online for long enough to make it profitable.


Here's one more, from a bit further away.