Toroweap Dozen

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

#1: Sunset from the West Point:

#2: Last rays:

#3: When Earth, Sun, Moon and stars meet...:

#4: Who said one can't take a picture of a crescent moon? :wink

#5: Sunday Sunrise HP5 pano

#6: Orange:

#7: Memories of Montana:

#8: Sunrise:

#9: Toroweap during the day:

#10: Group Portrait (it does get crowded:-):

#11: Colorado:

#12: Tree Star:

These and a few more also can be found here: http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/8985986_TKfgq

Enjoy! C&C welcome!
This post was made with the assistance of Star*Explorer

dlplumer · July 21, 2009

Wonderful set Nik. Sorry we missed the group shot.

hawkeye978 · July 21, 2009

Beautiful set, Nik. Absolutely love #1.

kdog · July 21, 2009

Very nice, Nik. You always have an eye for composition, and got some really great colors in there. As far as the crescent moon though, yours shows exactly the lack of detail problems I was talking about. It is really hard to capture significant details on a crescent moon.

Cheers,
-joel

Eia · July 21, 2009

My favorites are 3, and 9! 9 is excellent and it is during the day? Looks fun!

Zanotti · July 21, 2009

Cool shots - the group one is fantastic!

The rest are (of course) great also - I didnt know you took shots without people in the foreground!

All the best,

Z

sgonen · July 21, 2009

Nik, great set, you do have a good eye for composition - I love #7 ... and all the others also of course.

NeilL · July 21, 2009

Yo still got that thang goin' with horange, fella!

:D:D

Cool shots!

N

CWSkopec · July 21, 2009

More excellent shots, Nik!! Nice work!

With all you guys getting around to processing/posting already I'm going to have to wait 3-4 months before posting any of mine, otherwise all my comments will be "Well, that's nice, but Nik did one that's better." Or Dan, or Joel, or Gary...

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

dlplumer wrote:

Wonderful set Nik. Sorry we missed the group shot.

Thanks, Dan!
Yeah, we were wondering where did you guys go. Gary even tried to catch you and tell you to come back, but you're were far gone...

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

hawkeye978 wrote:

Beautiful set, Nik. Absolutely love #1.

Tom, thank you!
I think #1 is one of my very first frames in that "session" (sunset Friday). Usually those don't work, but I guess there are always exceptions...

dlplumer · July 21, 2009

Nikolai wrote:

Thanks, Dan!
Yeah, we were wondering where did you guys go. Gary even tried to catch you and tell you to come back, but you're were far gone...

We were in a hurry to get to our hotel in Mesquite. Best shower and steak dinner ever

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

kdog wrote:

Very nice, Nik. You always have an eye for composition, and got some really great colors in there. As far as the crescent moon though, yours shows exactly the lack of detail problems I was talking about. It is really hard to capture significant details on a crescent moon.

Cheers,
-joel

Hey Joel, thanks, but I can only imagine what ISO would come out with if he were there. I'm sure *that* would be something totally out of this world...

And yeah, crescent moon is hard indeed. I mean, it's nothing magical, simply a very steep gradient from a blazingly hot white to a pitch dark black over a relatively smal percentage of a scarcely featured surface, so not many details are visible...

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

Eia wrote:

My favorites are 3, and 9! 9 is excellent and it is during the day? Looks fun!

Thanks, Eia!
Yeah #9 is a dayshot, I think around 4..5pm. Me and Chris almost got a heatstroke during our little quarter mile walk during which this one was taken.
BTW, this image is an example of the "HDR" done right in my book, i.e. not in any automated way, but with a careful application of various PS features, in this case channels-based BlendIf sliders and masks.

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

Zanotti wrote:

Cool shots - the group one is fantastic!

The rest are (of course) great also - I didnt know you took shots without people in the foreground!

All the best,

Z

, now I'm never allowed to take a picture without a person (preferably scantily clad lady:-) on the foreground, am I?

We were joking about it while hiding from the sun. I don't think any model would agree to endure what we did without a fairly large compensation.

But stay tuned, I have at least one outdoor shoot in the pipes, so I shall be redeemed in your eyes in a week or two:-)

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

sgonen wrote:

Nik, great set, you do have a good eye for composition - I love #7 ... and all the others also of course.

Thanks Shimon, appreciate it!

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

NeilL wrote:

Yo still got that thang goin' with horange, fella! :D:D

Cool shots!

N

Well, it was the only thang goin' on during da durned sunrise...

Thanks!

NeilL · July 21, 2009

Nikolai wrote:

Well, it was the only thang goin' on during da durned sunrise...
Thanks!

Gotcha!

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

CWSkopec wrote:

More excellent shots, Nik!! Nice work!

With all you guys getting around to processing/posting already I'm going to have to wait 3-4 months before posting any of mine, otherwise all my comments will be "Well, that's nice, but Nik did one that's better." Or Dan, or Joel, or Gary...

Thanks man!

You know, while this is always a concern with a group shoots, my experience with Smugmug shootouts (when you have not just 9, but 50..60 people shooting the same feature from the same spot at the same time) tells me you can always come out with something unique. You just gotta follow your guts.

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

dlplumer wrote:

We were in a hurry to get to our hotel in Mesquite. Best shower and steak dinner ever

You got steak???

Damn, I was in a wrong car.... :cry

When we came back four of us (Quick Silver and White Knight teams) went out for lunch. It was Sunday 2pm, so naturally ALL the steak places Aaron could think of were closed. We did end up having very nice burgers at Iggy's, though.

bryanj87 · July 21, 2009

Very nicely done, hard to pick a favorite. It looks like you all had a great time.

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

bryanj87 wrote:

Very nicely done, hard to pick a favorite. It looks like you all had a great time.

Thanks!

Yeah, it was fun... one hour starting 5am in the morning and an hour or so around sunset. The rest was 110 in a shade

J/K, the fact we were all packed under the tiny shade of our two gazebos kept us all compact so we simply had to communicate - which was absolutely awesome!

You won't hear those kind of stories any other way...

schmoo · July 21, 2009

Nikolai, I know you're the model man but it's always great to see landscapes from you again!

This looks like it was a really great weekend with beautiful skies. The group photo is hilarious -- who is the one pushing the cart?

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

schmoo wrote:

Nikolai, I know you're the model man but it's always great to see landscapes from you again!

This looks like it was a really great weekend with beautiful skies. The group photo is hilarious -- who is the one pushing the cart?

Thanks, Steph! :-)

The group portrait layout:

On the grader, left to right:
Nikolai, Gary, Chris, Jim, Joel, Aaron, Aaron

On the ground, left to right:
Chris, Joel, Gary, Nikolai

kdog · July 21, 2009

Nikolai wrote:

Yeah #9 is a dayshot, I think around 4..5pm. ...
BTW, this image is an example of the "HDR" done right in my book, i.e. not in any automated way, but with a careful application of various PS features, in this case channels-based BlendIf sliders and masks.

Really good work on that one, Nik. Looks awesome. So how much time did you spend on it?

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

kdog wrote:

Really good work on that one, Nik. Looks awesome. So how much time did you spend on it?

Thanks!
About 5 min I think. I know it's not one button click

, but my MO is if a shot is worth it, it's worth spending time on it

Marc Muench · July 21, 2009

#9: Toroweap during the day:

Great shot Nik

#10: Group Portrait (it does get crowded:-):

Ohhhh! I would not leave any camera equipment lying around with those sharks:D

Looks like a good time was had, and by all the images a great experience

kdog · July 21, 2009

Nikolai wrote:

Thanks!
About 5 min I think. I know it's not one button click , but my MO is if a shot is worth it, it's worth spending time on it

5 mins? Really? That's a lot less time than I would have thought. I probably spent more time on my sunstar shot. And no, it's not a one-button click.

Cheers,
-joel

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

kdog wrote:

5 mins? Really? That's a lot less time than I would have thought. I probably spent more time on my sunstar shot. And no, it's not a one-button click.

Cheers,
-joel

Well, it's a bit faster/easier when
1) you know your way around the PS, and
2) you know what can *possibly* be done.
The reason I don't like uber streamlined helper tools is that they hide everything behind some potentially nice (and sometimes even flexible) UI, yet when it comes to certain things there is no way you can figure out what needs to be done to tweak it into the right direction. Or maybe you can, but you'd have to spend another lifetime learning just *that one tool*, and I have already spent one learning PS, so I think I better stick with it:-).

I guess all I'm saying: give me a low level access (like those channels) and I'll do the rest myself. I'm sure you can relate to that ;-)

Azzaro · July 21, 2009

Hi Nik........That is a really nice set......

azzaro

Nikolai · July 21, 2009

Azzaro wrote:

Hi Nik........That is a really nice set...... azzaro

Thanks Gary!

Toroweap Dozen

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