EXPLORED!!! Highest position: 37 on Wednesday, July 21, 2010
I planned another early morning photoshoot for tomorrow, hope some clouds will show up!
Weather is almost impossible for photography: it's been days since I've seen a cloud, humidity is at its highest and temperature is about 35+ ° Celsius (95 Fahrenheit)
Tomorrow will be my first session with my Manfrotto 410 Geared Head; I made some quick home-tests and it seems I finally found what I was searching for.
I ended my numerous photographic purchases with a 3 stops 100x100 ND filter (to get long exposure times when the light isn't that strong. Should arrive next week.
I'm starting planning my Spain trip for the photographic aspect: I realized I need to change my mindset if I want to get the maximum possible results;
All the best shots (and I mean the very best ones) come from a careful planning, which is the only possible attitude to get consistent quality.
I will be tracking down the sunrise/sunset times for every place I will visit and try to find out some nicely exposed locations using both maps and Google Earth;
I found (as a suggestion from my friend
Brent Pearson this cute app:
The Photographer's Ephemeris
It provides you the sun angles (both at sunrise and sunset), the moon phases, and all the other interesting stuff for a landscape photographer; I will try to
use it regularly when finding locations and planning.
As for vignetting and filters, I followed the suggestion received by
Arild Heitmann, removed the third slot on the holder; tomorrow I will try it out.
In this shot, I had some of the most difficult conditions for exposure: contrast was really high and having the sun into the frame made things even worse.
I will try to avoid situations like this in the future but this is of course a tough test for the camera and filter system!
Details
- CANON 5d Mark II, EF 17-40 @ 24mm, f/11, 1/50 s, ISO 100
- Lee Soft Grad (0.9 + 0.6 + 0.3 (six stops total))
- Mirror Lockup, Phottix TR-90 Remote Shutter
- Tripod
The shot
Shot a few minutes after my last upload.
The Processing
Photoshop:
- Cropped to 16:9 to improve composition;
- Merged a bright exposure to lighten up the corn (at low opacity);
- Flipped the image horizontally;
- Converted to Black and White using Silver Efex Pro;
- Added four overlay layers to equalize light as I wanted;
- Cloned away two silos in the middle left section (Clone stamp);
- Resized;
- Improved the contrast with an Unsharp Mask tune;
- Sharpening (Smart Sharpen + more accurate);
- Framing and signature.
Take a look at it,
LARGE on Black :
@ You all
Comments, faves and critiques are always welcomed!
I wish you a splendid weekend, my dear Friends!!!
