Posts in Category: cityscape
Vegas Flowers
In typical Vegas fashion I can not tell if these are real blossoms or paper. This is a 30 foot “tree” that is part of the China themed display at the Palazzo. I suspect the flowers are fake but the make a brave show with their contrasting hanging lanterns.
This is a moderate tele shot to isolate the lantern buried in the flowers.
Canon SX50HS at 200mm equivalent field of view. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. f5.6 @ 1/20th @ ISO 1250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Vegas Morning
I am making an effort to “keep my eye in” while in Vegas…attempting to find and take at least a few images a day. Not easy, since I am spending 10 of my daylight hours sequestered deep inside the Sands Expo Center. This is part of the view out my window yesterday, soon after sunrise. In the right foreground is the other wing of the Treasure Island, where I am staying. Center is the Encore with the classic reflection of the Wynn and the Strip beyond in its windows. I say classic, because I can not imagine that the architects of the Wynn and Encore did not pre-visualize exactly this mutual reflection when they designed the buildings. In front of the Encore is the strange space ship like structure of the Fashion Mall. The building at the far left is under construction and looks to be another play on reflections building project…or at least another building with an all glass exterior.
Canon SX50HS in Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. 70mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/50th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Palazzo Chinese: The Flip Side
Another In-camera HDR from the Shoppes at the Palazzo and the SX50HS. Again we will return to our regularly scheduled programing in a few days: after I get out of Vegas. Still this visit has given me an excuse to experiment with interior in-camera HDR.
I like the open effect here…very natural, very balanced exposure.
Canon SX50HS at 45mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/30th @ Iso 800. HDR Mode. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Palazzo Chinese
I feel like prefacing these Vegas posts with “We will return to our regularly scheduled nature photography posts after this brief intermission.” Be patient with me while I survive my time in Vegas!
Finding myself with an unexpected few hours of free time yesterday, I went back to the scene of Sunday’s phone photo with my “real” camera. I wanted to try the In-camera HDR for some interior shots. As I have said before, the Canon SX50HS’ In-camera HDR does not produce the over-the-top HDR effect you often see as examples of the technique…it simply provides a gentle extension of the natural contrast range, and a file that can be processed in Lighroom for a very natural look. In an interior like this you see further into the shadowed areas, without sacrificing the highlights.
This is part of the display just off the lobby of the Palazzo Hotel, where the Shoppes at the Palazzo start. They are just finishing building this particular display, around a Chinese theme, complete with at dragon in a flowering tree. I am always amazed at the sheer opulence of these Vegas hotels. Talk about eye-candy. I am certain this display alone, which is, I remind you, seasonal and temporary, must have cost half a dozen of my yearly incomes. It is, like most of Vegas, simply so far from my comprehension that just have to nod my head and press the shutter button. Well okay! Can you imagine that!
Canon SX50HS in HDR Mode. Three 24mm equivalent shots processed in-camera. Recorded exif: f3.4 @ 1/30th @ ISO 640. I propped the camera on a stone railing. Processed in Lightroom for intenisty, clarity, and sharpness.
Vegas Nightview
After a long day at our yearly National Sales Meeting, which we always do in the days before the SHOT Show in Vegas, I came back to the hotel and made video loops for the booth for the show, and processed the few pics I had had time to collect during the day. Yesterday I put my little Canon SD100HS in my pocket and did manage a few snaps on trips back and forth to the hotel during set-up for the meeting. After my processing, I looked out the window, pretty much for the first time, and, of course, had to dig out the SX50HS to try a few hand-held night shots of lights along the west end of the Strip.
This is shot is in Hand-held Night Scene Mode. The recorded ISO is 6400, but it is actually three shots taken in rapid sequence and stacked. The Digic 5 processing engine in the SX50HS attempts to process out some of the noise and and some of the camera motion compared to one long exposure, and it seems to do a pretty good job. No one in their right mind, two years ago, would have believed you get this kind of shot with a P&S, especially without a tripod.
I used –1 1/3 EV Exposure Compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Some work on the highlights and whites.
Found Art: Lelystad Centrum.
Whoever designed the train station in downtown Lelystad, in the Netherlands, had a lot of fun with color and shapes, and I, for one, really appreciate it. On my way back from the Dutch Birdfair I had to take the train from Lelystad to Schipohl Airport, and I was on the platform before 7am. The Lelystad Centrum is about as far from the darb and dirty rail station of our imaginings as it can get. It is, in fact, a functional work of art, highly designed, consciously whimsical and playful, colored like a brand new box of Crayolas, and really quite attractive. A good place to start a journey.
I tried a few shots to catch the angular real beauty of it. This is at 31mm equivalent field of view, to frame the various shapes effectively. Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f4 @ 1/50th @ ISO 320.
Of course, as I wandered through the terminal taking photos, I did wonder if the Dutch equivalent of Homeland Security was going to descend on me in force. But no. Good thing too. That would not have been a good way to start a journey. Perhaps I was just so obviously a tourist 🙂
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Parting with Rainbows! Good-by Holland.
I am back from Holland. This is from my final evening there…appropriate. With the chancy weather I had been looking for a rainbow for 2 days, but it was just hanging there when we walking back to the car on Sunday.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 51mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/19/2012: Golden Gate, San Francisco CA
When I go to Godwitt Days in Arcata California, to save $1000 in airfare, I fly into San Francisco and drive the 7.5 hours to Arcata. I would not do it, of course, if it were not such a great drive.
I generally arrive at SFO mid-afternoon, and head up Rt. 101, which, if you know the route, takes you right through downtown SF and across the Golden Gate Bridge. I only go half way the first day, stopping in Ukiah. My GPS, attempting to avoid the worst of the traffic, sent me on a tour of parts of SF that I have not seen before, including the Presidio and the National Cemetery, and put me back on 101 within site of the bridge.
And of course, I had to stop at the vista on the far side of the bridge. I know it is very touristy thing to do, but, honestly, who could not? As usual (in my experience at least) there were low clouds rolling in from the sea…just touching the bridge…and stretching out over the city, but the vista and most of the bay were in sun.
I walked around, looking for angles and frames, trying to keep the real tourists out of my shots.
It was a delightful rest after the tension of driving through the city, and primed me for the rest of the trip north (good thing, since it was stop-and-go traffic to north of Santa Rosa and I did not get to Ukiah until after 7PM).
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 24mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 125. 2) 24mm equivalent. f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. 3) 43mm equivalent. f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. 4) 175mm equivalent. f4.5 @ 1/300th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, sharpness, and clarity.
3/30/2012: Along Church Street, Burlington VT
I am sure this building has a name, but I do not know it. The distinctive architecture graces one end of the Church Street shopping mall in Burlington Vermont. I chose to leave the lens and perspective distortions as part of the image, since the converging lines add to the composition (which is another way of saying “because I like it.”) The same with the lamppost intruding into the lower left of the frame. As I see it, the lamp makes its own contribution to the convergence, and pins the corner of the frame down for the eye, making the whole composition more coherent. And I wish I could say I thought all that through while framing the image…but of course I just pointed and shot, letting my inner imaging eye (or engine) do the work, just as I let the cameras imaging engine do the work of exposure and focus 🙂
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/15/2012: Church Street, Burlington VT
On our short visit to Burlington Vermont, we took our daughter shoe shopping on Church Street. Church Street is an urban mall…a common feature these days of attempting to revitalize the downtown shopping districts in cities the size of Burlington. In New England they all share the closed to vehicle traffic and the brick street and sidewalk ambiance, as well as the trendy shops, art galleries, organic and exotic restaurants, and boutique coffee and tea houses. Burlington has also managed to attract a more main-stream mall mix, from Macy’s and Famous Shoes to Panara Breads and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. All in all it is one of the more vital revitalized downtowns that I have seen.
This shot is the very north end of the mall on a rainy morning. There is nothing like wet brick for atmosphere. It was taken with the 24mm equivalent end of the Canon SX40HS zoom, and then pulled back into plum with the distortion tools in Lightroom. The next two images, taken later in the morning when the sky was clearing, show just how powerful the Lightroom distortion tools are for architectural shots.
With the camera tipped up to frame the church, the vertical distortion makes for a crazy city scene. It seems shots like this, with untreated distortions, are pretty well accepted these days, and it does have a kind of wild appeal…but I think I prefer my buildings standing up straight.
This correction required both the vertical distortion slider (considerable) and the lens distortion slider (just a tiny bit)…and then a custom cropping to keep the walker’s feet in the frame. It is totally amazing what you can do in Lightroom!
1) 24mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/80th @ ISO 100. 2) and 3) 24mm equivalent, f4@ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3 EV exposure compensation.
Processed (in addition to the distortion corrections) in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.