Posts in Category: cityscape
1/21/2012: Vegas Dawn
I am at the airport waiting for my flight out of Vegas. This is yesterday’s dawn from my hotel room at the Venetian. I like the sliver of moon high in the sky.
Canon SX40HS at 40mm equivalent field of view. F3.5 @ 1/30th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
1/3/2012: Lafayette Building, Kennebunk ME
I don’t do a lot of architectural photography, but I could not resist this view of the Lafayette Building in Kennebunk ME. I drive past it, most days, at least once. This was taken from the Cumberland Farms at our end of the bridge over the Mousam River where I stopped to get gas on my way out on a picprowl. The sky, of course, makes the image.
It was taken at 24mm equivalent field of view with the Canon SX40HS, and while the Canon image processing engine processes out most of the expected wide angle distortion, I was still left with considerable vertical perspective distortion. Lightroom’s distortion controls allowed me to pull the building back to vertical. I cropped out some of the road way (bridge surface actually) at the bottom and there we have it. Warm brick with lots of interesting details, the blue sky with massive clouds, and the touches of green from the Christmas decorations, make for a pleasing architectural shot. Or so I think. Feel free to view it at a larger size on WideEyedInWonder. Just click the image and use the size controls at the top of the window.
f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed, as above, for vertical perspective distortion, Intensity and Sharpness in Lightroom.
11/15/2011: Chili Restras, Old Town Albuquerque
The scene shifts from the Texas Rio Grande Valley to the New Mexico Rio Grande Valley. I will be at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge later this week for the Festival of the Cranes. My wife and youngest daughter met me in Albuquerque yesterday and we spent late afternoon and early evening in Old Town soaking up the atmosphere and some delicious Navajo Tacos at a reasturant built around a giant cottonwood tree. My favorite shop in Old Town displays Chili Restras of all kinds, shapes, and sizes. I love the vivid colors and the textures (and the fact that they are actually food 🙂
Canon SX40HS 1) and 3) at 36mm equivalent field of view. 2) at 24mm. 1) f4 @ 1/60th @ ISO 200. 2) f2.7 @ 1/30th @ ISO 800. 3) f4 @ 1/40th @ ISO 200. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lighttoom for Intensity and Sharpness.
6/25/2011: Denver and the Front Range, panorama
You should click the image above to open it to the width of your monitor or screen. It is a thee shot panorama, each shot at 215mm equivalent field of view, with the tops of the Denver skyline on the left and the sweep of the Front Range mountains behind. I took it from the plateau above the city where they have developed the airport hotel complex, near Aurora. I caught a crow in passing, just as a bonus. I used the “assisted panorama” scene mode, hand held, on the Nikon Coolpix P500. After you take the first shot, about 1/3 of it is displayed on the left side of the finder, in transparent mode, so you can lay it directly over the live scene and line up the second shot, and so for the second, etc. for as many shots as you want to attempt. You need a program like the PhotoMerge function in PhotoShop Elements 9 to stitch the individual shots. PSE’s PhotoMerge is very sophisticated and does a excellent job of masking and tonal adjustment to make a seamless composition. It will even automatically fill in edge gaps left in the alignment.
Due to the heavy haze over the city this shot took some extra processing in Lightroom after assembly in PSE. I did my usual Clarity and Sharpness adjustments, plus some extra Recovery, Fill Light, and Blackpoint adjustment. I also did a general contrast boost, trying to offset that haze, and finally dragged a Graduated Filter effect down from the top for a local brightness and contrast adjustment (- brightenss and + contrast).
I think it captures the naked eye view pretty well.
5/19/2011: Night at the St. Francis, St. Augustine FL
Experimenting with the Night Landscape mode on the Nikon Coolpix P500. Night Landscape uses the fast capture capability of the Back-illuminated CMOS sensor to take a number of exposures in extreme low light and then stack them in camera to produce a single shot with increased sharpness, better color detail, and somewhat lower noise. There is also a Tripod setting, which uses a single exposure and aggressive noise reduction. The handheld mode is more attractive for general shooting, but it does require some processing time in camera.
This old inn in St Augustine was on my way back to the car after the opening festivities at the Florida Birding and Photo Fest. Besides the interest of the scene itself, I wanted to see how the camera would cope with the mix of bright lights and ambiance. The shot did require some additional noise reduction in Lightroom, and some fiddling with shadows and highlights…but I am impressed by the camera’s ability to get this shot handheld at all!
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f3.2 @ a nominal 1/15th second @ ISO 280. Night Landscape mode.
Processed in Lightroom as noted above.
4/30/2011: Old Town St. Augustine
Historic home on St. George Street in St. Augustine, Florida. Early evening.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 84mm equivalent field of view, f4.4 @ 1/30th @ ISO 280. Programmed Auto. Image stabilization and the high ISO ability of the back-illuminated CMOS sensor make this kind of hand held low light shot possible.
Processed for Clarity and Intensity in Lightroom. It also required some distortion control, and some creative editing using the local brush to desaturate the brand new boards and bright green bush in the lower right corner, which were a distraction.
3/15/2011: San Diego Bay
This shot will benefit from viewing at a larger size (click the image and it should resize to as wide as your monitor will take). San Diego Bay and Harbor from Point Loma’s Cabrillo National Monument. Not the clearest of days but a good sky. Cropped from the bottom for the panorama effect.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. Landscape mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
1/22/2011: Vegas Segments 5, Cranes
Vegas is not only the city that never sleeps, it is also the city that is never finished. There are people on the streets and in the bars and casinos 24 hours a day, and every year when I go back I see at least one new hotel, or new hotel wing, and there is always evidence of new construction at the moment. Construction cranes over Vegas are as much a part of the skyline as the Winn or the Venetian or Cesar’s Place.
Canon SX20IS at about 75mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Programmed Auto.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity. Perspective adjusted and cropped.
8/28/2010: Good Night Wetzlar
One last shot from old town Wetzlar. The stone bridge, gables, and lighted shop windows, with the gloomy drama of the sky above. Without HDR treatment this shot would be impossible. To me it totally captures the feeling of the rainy evening as I headed back to the hotel, and says something about old town Wetzlar that I have felt, but never captured before.
Two shots with the Canon SX20IS separated by 3EV, and then tone-mapped blend in Photomatix. Final adjustments in Lightroom for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen. Perspective and distortion correction.
From Germany and England 2010.
8/27/2010: The Dom and the Bridge
It got later and later on my rainy evening walk through old town Wetzlar, but the evening light lasts a long time in Germany. I was headed back to the hotel when I made a last stop for this classic shot of the Dom above the stone bridge over the Lahn. Once more a shot I have taken many times, but never in this light, and never with HDR in mind. The drama of the cloud cap, the last light, the moisture in the air softening color and prespective, and elegant arches of the bridge set in rustic stone, the pastel gables of the old houses, and above it all the tower of the Dom (and that anachronistic blue polyester tarping). Quite a shot, even without the fairy light of the fountain on the trees at the right. 
Two radically different exposures allowed me to capture the light of the foreground and the gray of the sky, and Photomatix Lite put them together for a pretty remarkable effect (if I do say so myself).
A little help from my usual Lightroom routines (Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen), and some perspective and distortion correction, and there it is.
Canon SX20 IS.
From Germany and England 2010.