Whoooosh!

I had a client shoot on King's Beach today on Queensland's Sunshine Coast so I decided to drive up early for a chance to shoot a sunrise at Dicky Beach.

It was a high-ish tide, though still not coming in over the whole wreck, only the lower half and It's a shame the sunrise didn't put on a better display for me but still, I'm quite happy with the streaky wave action. These streaks are actually from a receding wave and you can see the next wave starting to come in at the tip of the old iron hull. I recently made the leap to Lee filters and am really glad I did. The holder has a great build quality and the filters themselves offer beautiful clarity to your image.

After a good hour here I still had two hours until the client shoot so I trekked off to Buderim Forest Park to grab some shots of Serenity Falls. The overcast sky would be perfect for some waterfall photography. I don't have a neutral density filter to fit my Lee holder yet (or a polarizer ) but I could slide my grad all the way over the lens to give the same effect. When I moved under this rock overhang I slid the grad back out partway and turned it on its side to darken the right side of the frame. A soft grad would have been better but the hard grad has worked well enough :)




I would have liked to spend more time at the falls but it started to rain and I had to get back to the beach for the shoot.

Taken with a Canon EOS 40D, Sigma 10-20mm lens and Lee 0.9 hard grad.

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Firey skies

Firey skies, originally uploaded by greenplasticdave.

Very low tide this morning. Taken on a Canon EOS 40D and Sigma 10-20mm. HDR [-2,0,+2]

To answer any post processing questions, here's what I do. I've gathered this workflow after reading what other do and trying some things of my own.

1 - Open one of the three bracketed exposures in Canon DPP and adjust for white balance. I usually bring the contrast right down as well, sharpen and apply the landscape preset.

2 - Copy that 'recipe' then apply it to the other two bracketed images then run a batch process to output three TIFF files.

3 - Open these TIFF files in Dynamic Photo HDR and play around with the settings to get something I like. On this one I used the 'eyecatching' preset and fiddled around with the options a bit there. Be careful to avoid the 'haloing' effect common to HDR (unless you are aiming for that) by being easy on the radius/light strength options. Save to a TIFF file.

4 - Open the new TIFF file in Photohsop. I'm using CS2 at the moment. I apply an s-curve layer set to 'multiply', 'soft' or 'hard' and then I adjust the opacity till I get something I like. Flatten image.

5 - If parts of the image are still not dark or light or saturated enough I open another layer and adjust the levels accordingly then apply a layer mask to reveal the adjusted sections. Flatten image.

6 - Noise Ninja if necessary. Sharpen. Save to JPEG.

I'm no Photoshop expert. There may be redundant steps. This is what works for me at my stage of learning.

Cheers

-Dave-

Nudgee Pan

Nudgee Pan, originally uploaded by greenplasticdave.

Six shot, HDR panorama [-2,0,+2] taken at Nudgee this morning.

Canon EOS 40D, Sigma 10-20mm.

Grill'd

Grill'd, originally uploaded by greenplasticdave.

This morning out at Shorncliffe. The clouds looked a lot more promising when I arrived but grew thicker and thicker till the sun rose. I thought that if I waited till the sun had risen high enough then some light would peek through and illuminate these clouds here. The wait paid off :)

Taken with a Canon EOS 40D, Sigma 10-20mm and a 0.9 hard grad.

Point Arkwright

Point Arkwright, originally uploaded by greenplasticdave.

Taken at a mini-meetup with Camocarzi and Adam Randell. There was a chill wind blowing but it was a fun shoot, with a bit of dashing done on my behalf to get the 'good' sky. On either side of this colourful patch were thick grey clouds and a drab emptyness. T'was fun to find a nice comp as colour drained from the sky :P

Canon EOS 40D, Sigma 10-20mm and a 0.9 hard grad that really needs replacing :)

"The skyline was beautiful on fire..."

"The skyline was beautiful on fire...", originally uploaded by greenplasticdave.

Some nice layered clouds formed in the sky this afternoon. As I left work I just knew I had to get out and shoot something. This was taken at a little pond in the 'Albany Creek Memorial Gardens and Cemetery'.

Shot with a Canon EOS 40D, Sigma 10-20mm and 0.9 hard grad.

The title is a quote from "The Dead Flag Bues" by Godspeed You Black Emperor!

Lake Windemere B&W

Lake Windemere B&W, originally uploaded by greenplasticdave.

Taken during our trip to the UK last year.

Shot with a Canon EOS 40D and Sigma 10-20mm lens. Straightened and cropped slightly. B&W conversion done with Silvereffex.