Posts in Category: lighthouse
9/16/2009
Portland Head Light: the other view
Shooting against the light, the problem is always balancing the exposure and using post-processing to bring up the whites of the Lighthouse to some semblance of reality. They eye, of course, has no difficulty seeing the brightness of the foreground and the brilliant white of the white-washed stone, but no photographic medium, be it film or digital sensor, can do that trick. So I exposed for the scene and trusted I could “pull it out” in Lightroom. And of course in this shot, the sky behind the light house is just as much the subject as the light house itself.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/1600 @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Heavy Fill Light in Lightroom for the light house, as mentioned above, and some Recovery for the sky. Added Vibrance and Clarity in the Presence panel. Sharpen landscapes preset.
From Portland Head Light.
9/14/2009
Up the Light
I always take several of these up the Light shots, mostly because there is no medium distance vantage for a good shot of the Light. You are either across the inlet or right under the light. Nothing in between. When you have some interest in the sky, this kind of shot can be satisfying. Here the wispy clouds draw a pattern on the sky that somehow complements the solid shapes of the light and tender shed, while the white-washed stone and the red brick offer a contrast of textures. The angles catch the eye, and the massive black and faceted glass of the light-housing itself sits bold and high. Altogether on of the more successful up the light shots I have taken.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/1000 @ ISO 100. Programed auto with -.7 EV exposure compensation.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky and white stone of the tower. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Sharpen landscape preset.
From Portland Head Light.
9/13/2009
Portland Head Light and Rose
Another view of Portland Head Light from our Labor Day visit. Generally I use the flip-out LCD on the H50 for low angle shots. Here, however, the rose is actually just below my eye-level, and including it in the composition from a normal height makes the greenery obscure most of the Lighthouse building. So I flipped out the LCD, tilted it down instead of up, and held the camera at arms length above my head to capture the relationship between foreground and background that I was after. Score one more for the articulated LCD.
Sony DSC H50 at about 55mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/1000 @ ISO 100. Programed auto with -.7EV exposure compensation for the whites of the Lighthouse.
Recovery in Lightroom for the sky and Lighthouse whites. Blackpoint just to the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Sharpen landscape preset. This image, like most of my over-the-head shots, required some straightening of the horizon as well.
From Portland Head Light.
9/12/2009
Portland Head Light
It seems to be somewhat of a tradition in our family these past years to visit Portland Head Light on Labor Day, at least on Labor Days when the summer is going out in the best Maine Style: Windy, clear, with just enough clouds to add interest to the sky.
And this is a classic Portland Head shot from what is perhaps the classic spot. Nothing out of the ordinary, but, as I say, enough interest in the sky to make it a memorable portrait of the Light.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/1000 @ ISO 100. Programed auto. -.7EV Exposure compensation to help hold the white of the lighthouse within limits.
Recovery for the sky and lighthouse whites in Lightroom. Blackpoint slightly to the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Sharpen landscape preset.
From Portland Head Light.
8/31/2009
Road to Dent
On our last day in the Lakes and Dales, we took a drive in to Dent. I say “in to” since Dent is at the end of a Dales road, deep in, with no other way in or out. It is a typical Dales road. If you look at the where the road passes round the barn…or rather between the barn and the fence…you will notice it is two lane. At least it has a stripe down the middle. No way could two cars actually meet at that point. Each side is about 2/3s of a car width and the turn is, as you see, completely blind. And, since it is the only road, they drive full sized delivery trucks on this road, at speed, going into and out of Dent. Several times we were only saved because there was a gap in the stone wall right at the moment we needed it where a gate lead into a field. (The roads in the Hebrides are narrower…actually one lane, but they have frequent pull-outs for meeting cars, and everyone drives them like one-lane roads. In the Dales it seems everyone drives like they are on the motorway.)
Dent is beautiful, quaint, remote and worth the visit, but next time I will take the bus.
Minolta A1 at 28mm equivalent. F8 @ 1/640 @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Punch and Sharpen landscape presets in Lightroom. Blackpoint to the right considerably, and heavy Recovery for the sky (and even then the lightest clouds are blown). Cropped slightly from the top.
From England 2005.
7/14/2009
Goat Island Light: Over Rose
Goat Island Light at Cape Porpoise ME is not as often photographed as Nubble Light or Portland Head, and, to be honest, it is not as photogenic. Still, it has its charms. For this shot, one of many taken on the first sunny day we had had in a month, I attempted to get the rose and the light equally sharp for an image with great depth. Program Shift put the aperture at F8 (smallest on the H50) and I used a bit of EV as well to keep as much detail in the white buildings as possible. I also backed off from the rose and used a moderate zoom setting (about 70mm equivalent). This put the rose in the zone of sharp focus while the light was still sharp as well. A few clouds in the sky would have made the perfect shot, but you can’t have everything (or I couldn’t on this day). To compensate I used a Graduated Filter effect in post processing to darken the sky and balance the image better.
Sony DSC H50 at about 70mm equivalent. F8.0 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed auto with -.3 EV exposure compensation.
In Lightroom, Recovery for the sky and white buildings, Fill Light to open the shadows, added Clarity and Vibrance and Landscape sharpen preset. As above, use a Graduated Filter effect from the top to darken the sky and balance the image better, and one from the bottom (while I had the dialog open) to add maximum snap to the foreground.
From Around Home, Kennebunk ME.
And as a bonus, the light up close. Taken from about the same spot, but at full telephoto.
Goat Head Light
5/21/2009
House of the rising sun!
So, woke up this morning without a picture to my name. No. Not really. But I was inspired to get out before my shower to see what was happening, photographically speaking, in the yard. The early sun caught in the dandelion was irresistible. I tried a bunch of angles: high, low, with the sun, against the sun, etc. For this shot I came in almost as close as possible. 1/2 inch or so. Any closer and the forward reach of the globe went totally out of focus. Maneuvering the sun right behind the center mass of the seed globe and still catching the light in the umbrellas took a bit of trial and error, but this one works, I think.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed auto. -.7 EV exposure compensation.
In Lightroom, lots of fill light for the stem and center, added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen. Some Recovery and blackpoint, and moved the exposure slider to the right slightly.
5/20/2009
Strawberry at the Path Edge
Strawberry likes waste ground…poor soil…gravel…the edges of paths and roads, sand. And, of course, sun and heat, which is often associated with such spots. Not surprising then to find it along the edge of the trail at Rachel Carson NWR. Brave and fresh, these blossoms are in their prime. The articulated LCD on the H50 gets me right down to eye level with the blooms, the macro setting gets me in to 1/2 inch, and the image stabalization saves the exposure at 1/40th of a second.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F6.3 @ 1/40th @ ISO 100. Programed auto, -.7 EV exposure compensation.
Cropped from the top in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpened.
5/15/2009
Lowdown on the Lighthouse
Where are the clouds when you need them? Of course this would be more dramatic with some detail in the sky…but it is what it is. Gotta love a Lighthouse. To compensate I chose the super low angle, actually dangling my camera below the level of the boardwalk and framing with the flip out LCD. I like the way the tree/grass line frames the lighthouse in an off center notch. Cropped at the top for better composition.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F5.6 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom I used a graduated filter effect to darken the sky and a second filter up from the bottom to increase foreground contrast for a more chiseled look. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Landscape sharpen preset.
From Cape May 2009.
And here is what you have to do to get the shot if you do not have a flip out LCD. My friend Paul Hackett make the sacrifice for art.
Paul Hackett going the extra mile for art...
2/27/2009
Sheep's Bit
Taken at my feet right after the shot from yesterday. I was standing in wildflowers (another reason I was not eager to move around much). This is Sheep Bit, which we saw all through the Highlands, and on the Hebrides.
The H50, with its tip-out, articulated LCD panel, allows for extreme low shots, and the 2 cm close focus makes for interesting macros. With shots like this, you have to pay attention to what is in the background. I have a wider shot of the same flower which I like, but I will have to go back and edit out some tallish weed behind the flower, breaking the skyline, to be completely happy with it. This works for me. The fence pulls the eye a bit, but the flower is a strong subject, and placed right at the upper left powerpoint of the image, so that it holds focus. I find the bokeh interesting as well, with what amounts to a swirl of pink clover caused by the shape of the hill.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide (31mm equivalent), at about closest focus (2 cm from the flower). F4.0 @ 1/250 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, I used the Recovery slider to put some drama back into the sky, and some Fill Light to pick up the purples in the flower. I moved the black point to the right to add intensity, and used both Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Landscape sharpen preset.
From Scotland.