Posts in Category: evening
7/23/2011: Down the creek toward Kennebunkport
Though I have checked all my maps, including Google Earth, I can not find a name for this tidal creek that flows under Beach Avenue in Kennebunk and into the Kennebunk River near its mouth in Kennebunkport. Here, about an hour before sunset on a summer evening, the light, the clouds, the reflections in the water, and the expansive perspective of the 23mm equivalent zoom combine for an image that draws you in (imho) and invites you to stay a while. There is a lot going on here within the classic rule of thirds and leading lines composition.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f3.4 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting (and it is in a shot like this that the ADL really shows its value).
Processed for Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom. Some Recovery for the sky and clouds, some Fill Light to bring up the trees along the sides.
7/22/2011: Blue House on a Summer Evening
Another summer evening shot from Kennebunk. This blue house occupies a little point of land between Middle and Mother’s Beaches. With the sun somewhat behind it and low, and against the interesting wispy sky, it adds a solid element (along with the circling rocks) to a picture that is really about light and color.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 38mm equivalent field of veiw, f5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed for Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom. I also used “dueling Graduated Filter” effect (brightening from the bottom and darkening from the top) to adjust tonality of the sky and sea.
7/21/2011: Black-eyed in the Sun (Susan)
We have a vigorous stand of Black-eyed Susans in the yard this year. I went out after supper to catch the late light on the flowers in the front yard and got down under this beauty to put it between the camera and the sun. Between the Active-D Lighting on the camera and some Fill Light in Lightroom, I was able to catch a fairly natural balance between the shadowed stem and the highlighted petals.
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close Up mode (macro) at 32mm equivalent field of view, f3.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160.
Processed for Clarity and Sharpness (and that extra bit of Fill Light) in Lightroom.
7/18/2011: Baby Chipper in Evening Sun
A little mammal for Monday.
Walking one evening last week, along what is called Parson’s Way in Kennebunkport, a path along the cliff-top of Old Fort Point, between St. Anne’s and the Bush compound on Walker’s Point, we came upon this baby Chipmunk on the sidewalk. He was somewhat alarmed to be caught out in the open and froze. We were able to get close enough for this shot with the long end of the zoom on the Coolpix, before he decided the safer course was flight. The late sun of an Maine evening picks out the detail and color.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 810mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 120. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
7/15/2011: New mown hay. HDR
I wish, of course, that there was some way to capture the smell of new mown hay…but I will have to rely on your memory for that. There was a bit of summer evening haze rising off the marsh and forest beyond the field, but I like the evening light, the sky, the tree in the foreground, the texture of the shadowed bark, and the light coming through the leaves. I like the fine un-mown grass in the foreground and the texture of the stubble field. And I like the way the hanging branches frame the pines in the middle distance.
Because of the wide range of tones, from bright sky and sun-lit field to the tree trunk in full shadow (the sun is directly behind the tree trunk) and the bushes at the bottom in deep shadow…this shot is only possible via HDR: in this case the in-camera HDR on the Nikon Coolpix P500. When set to Backlight/HDR mode the camera takes a number of images very rapidly (almost instantaneously), and then combines them in-camera for extended dynamic range before writing them to the card as a jpeg. In most cases, the result is way too flat, but it can be processed to good effect in Lightroom with a combination of Recovery, Fill Light, Blackpoint adjustment, and Contrast to produce a result very like you would get from 3 or more exposures processed in Photomatix or other HDR software. I find that they process better in Lightroom if I apply another layer of in-camera processing…in this case, a low level of Quick Retouch…before I upload the image to my laptop.
This particular image is, after all that, very close to a natural eye view of the scene, with what amounts to a dynamic range at least beginning to approach what the eye can see. Of course, your monitor (or mine for that matter) can’t reproduce the range of the human eye either, so clearly the results are only an approximation of nature…but satisfying, imho, all the same.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 31mm equivalent, f4.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160 (nominal exposure…but of course there was the in-camera processing on top of that).
Processed as above in Lightroom.
7/9/2011: Summer Evening 2, Kennebunk ME
The most hardy of tourists and summer folk, with a scattering of locals down to the beach late in the day. You really have to view this as large as your monitor will allow. (Just click the image) This is Gooch’s Beach in Kennebunk ME (most tourists think it is in Kennebunkport, and the point on the right, beyond the Kennebunk River, is…but the beach is solidly in Kennebunk :). This matters to summer folk with houses there and to us locals).
Not an easy pano…four shots using the Nikon’s Assisted Panorama Mode so the second shot is laid over the first, etc. I tried to work as quickly as possible to minimize movement of people and boats…not to mention the ocean…but it works for the most part.
Four 32mm equivalent field of view exposures @ f3.7 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160, stitched in PhotoMerge in PhotoShop Elements 9 using manual positioning. Final processing in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. It is cropped from the bottom as there was a family in beach chairs in the shade of the wall that drew the eye down from the horizon.
This is a huge sweep. When taking the left-most exposure my back was pretty much completely to the exposure on the far right.
7/8/2011: Summer Evening 1, Kennebunk ME
Kennebunk happens to be where I live…but for some Kennebunk is summer…beaches, boats, the ocean, the taste of salt in your hair, bare feet on wood floors, and the breeze through summer home, or grand hotel, window screens. It is not a world I am part of, but it is one I see all around me. We locals don’t go to the beach during the day, but come evening we are apt to wander down to see if there is any parking along the beach yet, to enjoy, if we can, the late light and see the most hardy of the tourists and summer folk still out, making the absolute most of a day in Kennebunk.
I like the way these girls stand on their shadow/reflections and the quality of the light and the modeling.
Nikon P500 at 215mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped top and bottom for composition.
7/4/2011: Tide’s Out. Happy July 4th
Okay…except for its quintessential summerness, this shot has noting to do with July 4th. It is another from my late evening loop down by the ocean Saturday, which happened to be at extreme low tide. You can see, from the anchor cable on the boat on the right, just how deep the water is in this little cove at high tide.
Though deceptively simple, there is actually lots going on in this shot. It is mostly about layers, lines, and light…with the bright yellow of the center boat anchoring it. To really see the textures that form the lines you need to view it lager in the Smugmug lightbox by clicking it.
Nikon Coolpix P500 @ 130mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto, with Active D-Lighting and Normal Image Optimization.
I experimented with the Nikon’s in camera post processing on this image…applying Quick Retouch…which apparently adds some dynamic range (D-Lighting), sharpens, and adjusts the blackpoint or contrast slightly…before taking it into Lightroom for final processing. I have been surprised to find that on some shots the Nikon’s in camera post processing can improve the result while introducing less noise than achieving the same effects in Lightroom. Not all images…but some.
And I pray that your July 4th (whether it is a holiday for you or not) will be blessed.
7/3/2011: Sunset over Back Creek, Happy Sunday!
I happened to look out the window at about 7:30 last evening, and the light across the yard sucked me out and sent me down to the ocean. I did a loop around the Kennebunk beaches, and found myself at the confluence of the Mousam and Back Creek just at sunset. The holiday weekend folk were packing and leaving the beach, so I was actually able to park and watch the sunset.
It was not dark enough for the Nikon’s Night Landscape mode to work, but this shot uses the Backlight/HDR mode…it is three shots assembled in camera for extended dynamic range. I have been disappointed with the effect during daylight, but here it was just the thing to capture a relatively natural balance between the bright colored sky and the landscape. Too often sunset images catch the spectacular sky against a dark, or even completely black, foreground…which is never the way we actually see it in nature. In reality there is always considerable light on the foreground until well after the sun is completely set. Trying to bring up the foreground in post processing sometimes helps, but at the cost of considerable noise in the image, and effort with the software.
This is a closer shot from the same location, a few moments later, using a longer zoom setting for framing.
I love it that the camera was able to maintain detail even in the trees against the sun. Both of these will benefit from a larger view by clicking the image to open the Smugmug lightboox.
I will admit to being (maybe too) interested in the technique and technology that make such shots possible with the cameras we have today…but, of course, the hardware and software only have value for the results they produce. That more natural balance of light over the landscape, with the full intensity of the sunset sky above, is worth capturing because it makes the image more than sunset shot…it makes it, as I see it, an opportunity for the viewer to more completely participate in the event itself…to be there, where the photographer stood…and experience the sunset as the photographer experienced it. And this is, again, I think, a good thing…a value…and what photography can, at its best, accomplish.
These images are not photography at its best, of course, but they are satisfying attempts to capture the feeling of the place and time. I think. Sunset over Back Creek, July 2nd, 2011.
We are, perhaps, already in Sunday territory in that discussion, but one of the things I love most about photography is that opportunity to share each other’s vision and experience…to share worlds…and what I see most clearly, as I experience the growing community of photography on flickr and facebook and everywhere on the web today, is that the sense of what is beautiful, admirable, interesting, sad, touching, valuable, and even humorous…what is worth taking a picture of…extends across all cultures and races…is something we, as children of the creator…share, no matter where we were born or how we were raised. Oh, I do occasionally find a photographer who is into a slice of the world I don’t particularly want to look at, but it is rare, and even so, I can generally see the value he or she saw, even if it is not my value. And, many times, I am simply stunned by what others see and capture, because it could so easily have been what I saw, if I had been there. I so I would like to think anyway.
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Backlight/HDR mode. Nominal exposure info: 1) 53mm equivalent field of view, f4.4 @ 1/250 @ ISO 160, 2) 175mm @ f5.4 @ 1/160th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity, Sharpness, and intensity. 1) was cropped slightly for composition.
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.