Chicago Skyline

The obligatory skyline shot from our recent trip to Chicago. Click on the image for larger view.




I really wanted to get down here with a tripod and do a bona fide 5 or 6 frame panoramic. I didn't even put the head on my tripod the entire time we were there. I guess I lucked out on the clouds--the rain was just moving in from the west so I had some good clouds to mess with. We had a few minutes before our bus was set to leave, so I just capped off my 18-135mm walk-around lens with a circular polarizer and headed down to the water.

More Tanyard

I've been wanting to do a black and white study of the rock at the top of the waterfall at the Tanyard Creek nature trail. I took several different shots with a couple of different lenses, but I could never really get comfortable with a composition. (Oh yeah. That "stop sign" at the overlook station at the top of the trail? Ignore that. I do.) The rocks are really pretty cool, and it's one of the few times when you'd like a little more daylight to promote some natural contrast. But the sun was just coming up and the fog beginning to lift, so there wasn't really enough contrast.

So I piddlied a little bit and then took this shot, looking down at the rocks. I don't shoot enough shots with my Sigma 10-20mm lens--it's a fantastic piece of glass. This shot is at 10mm (15mm on a full-frame camera), and that's freaky wide; I kept having to move my feet out of the bottom of the shot. I love the exposure on this shot--other than a levels adjustment layer, there's nothing else done to this shot. I may need to punch up the rocks a little just to make them pop a little bit. If you've been out there, you know there's a pretty good elevation change from the foreground to the background that's not really conveyed in the photograph.

But Julie likes it. That's gotta count for something.



EXIF is a little goofy. Out of the camera, it's ISO 400, f11 for 1/20th of a second, and -2/3 EV. A lot of times I'll set the white balance for cloudy and then dial in -0.3 to -.07 exposure compensation to make up for my camera's meter, which tends to try to save the highlights. I shot this in RAW and then added back in about 1/3 of a stop of the the exposure compensation back in. So, there's a little negative EV in here, but not much. I think it helps keep the fog in play.

Tanyard Creek Waterfall in the fog

Saturday morning was foggy. I woke up early, and thought about heading over to the White River. After getting to Lee Town Road in Pea Ridge and realizing I would lose the light before I got there, I turned around and took a leisurely drive back through Price Coffee and Ford Springs Roads, and went to the Tanyard Creek nature trail. I ignore the signs and actually get out into the falls. There was a fair amount of fog shifting around, and I took a lot of shots, experimenting with differing ISO settings and shutter speed settings. I used what Bryan Peterson would call a "who cares" aperture of f11, and ultimately settled on this version. Too slow of a shutter speed tended to lose the detail in the foreground water; too fast tended to lose the silky effect. One thing to note is that your shutter speed will vary the effect across the depth of field. In other words, a slow shutter speed will blur foreground motion more than something further back in the frame, at least with running water.

I don't have a good neutral density filter. But I do have a good circular polarizer, so I popped that baby on and used it to help me extend the shutter speed without burning out the exposure. It was pretty dark, though, and I probably could have done without it. Get out and shoot.

EXIF info: Nikon D80 + 18-135 @80mm, ISO 100, f11, .40 sec

UPDATE: Here's a second
picture from the same shoot:












EXIF data: Same camera and lens, at 75mm, f11 for 1 second.


The first shot is converted to black and white using channel mixer. The second was converted using a gradient map adjustment layer over a levels adjustment layer, and then adjusting the individual red, blue and green historgrams in the levels layer. If you don't have the full version of Photoshop or don't have a channel mixer plug-in, this second method is a great way to exercise a lot of control over black and white conversions.