Posts in Category: Las Vegas
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.
Vegas by Phone: Happy Sunday!
On my first night in Vegas, I walked across the pedestrian bridge from the Treasure Island, to the the Venetian, in search of the Food Court, and got totally lost. In the process I came on some typically over-the-top Vegas interiors. Of course I left my camera in the hotel room. I mean, I was only going to the Food Court. Right. Never again. All I had was my Android phone with its wimpy 5mp camera which I knew from past experience was, well, wimpy. Still. I might never find this part of the Palazzo again (I was lost), and I have been impressed with what Snapseed can do to even a bad photo photo, so, I did the total tourist thing with my phone.
Unfortunately, back at the TI, the Play Store informed me that Snapseed was not compatible with my device. Uuugh! So, I emailed the images from my phone to my XOOM Tablet, which is already good to go with Snapseed, and processed them on the XOOM, then uploaded them to WideEyedInWonder. Not bad for a phone shot. In Vegas. (And the Food Court at the Venetian is worth the trouble…fair prices and good food. I had a wonderful New York Style Deli Egg Salad Sandwich on rye with coleslaw and ice-tea for less than $10.00! In Vegas!)
And for the Sunday Thought.
Being in Vegas, for me, is roughly like being underwater, without any breathing apparatus. Once I leave my hotel room, I am always wondering if I am going to be able to hold my breath until I can get back there, where at least I can float with my nose out of the water. Even scenes like the one above, are like the fake sunken ships, the bright shells, and the carefully tailored plants of an aquarium. They say, “see, we know what beauty is like above the water, and we can fake it so you hardly know.” I am not fooled, and I struggle not to be impressed either. It is a counterfeit world. Totally false, and designed to deceive.
But then, those who live by faith have always testified that “the world” of our mundane experience is just the same: A counterfeit of the reality that is only perceived by the spirit…the place where the real air is, that the faithful breathe. And yet, I attempt every day to see through that counterfeit to the reality that informs it and gives it meaning and value.
Vegas I guess is just one layer deeper. A counterfeit of a counterfeit…even here a bit of the real shows through where men have labored to coin beauty. How could it be otherwise? Even when captured with a phone. And especially when you factor in the excellent egg salad on rye!
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.
1/20/2012: Venetian Gondola
Continuing with found beauty in Vegas, unlikely as that is…
The Gondolas on the Canal in the Venetian are all ornate, but this one is particularly attractive, especially against the blue water and the red brick. I tried this as an HDR, but I like the untreated image better. Any painterly quality here comes purely from the high ISO…though this is pretty good IQ indeed for 1000 ISO on a small sensor in artificial light.
Canon SX40HS at 100mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/20th @ ISO 1000. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
1/19/2012: Vegas HDR (The Venetian)
You have to kind of (or at least I have to kind of) disconnect my sense of reality to enjoy Vegas. If I even for one moment allow myself to see through the incredibly expensive veneer (or to think about where the funds that paid for all this came from, which amounts to the same thing), then…well then I don’t like Vegas much. So on my way from my room to the show floor at SHOT yesterday, I carried my camera in my hand and made myself find some beauty. I was looking for images that I could process in Dynamic Photo HDR for interesting effects. The reflections in the canal were eye-catching, and, as I suspected it responded in interesting ways to DPHDR.
Canon SX40HS at 100mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/20th @ ISO 1250. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in DPHDR for a single jpg Tone-mapping. Final processing in Lightroom (Intensity and Sharpness and a bit of noise reduction).
1/23/2011: vegas segment 6, light and shadow
Happy Sunday! This might be my last Vegas Segment, as I have moved on to Titusville FL and plan to be out today for pics…
This is the Winn of course, which has come to dominate the Las Vegas skyline in the short time it has stood there, and even now more-so with the Encore to echo it. I shot up through the structure of the Fashion Mart, itself an interesting piece of architecture, using the foreground shapes of girders to frame the reflection of the sun.
Canon SD 4000IS at 106mm equivalent, f5.3 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 125. Programmed auto.
Processed in Lightroom for clarity and intensity. Extra Fill-Light to bring up just a touch of detail in the girders.
As I said last Sunday, it is possible to find and celebrate the beauty in Vegas, for it is there…but it is always beauty that has to be seen despite itself and its intention. It is like the whole city is as artificial as the city-scapes built in miniature inside the hotels. I survived it, but I am certainly delighted to be “outside” again! I’d like to thank all of you who kept me company on this week-long excursion into territory I don’t usually explore. I look forward to seeing the creation more or less as it comes from the mind of the creator, and maybe sharing a bit of that, somewhere out on Blackpoint Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island NWR today.