Shutter Speed Variations

Did a little shooting in the snow the other day and was playing around with shutter-speed variations.

This first shot was 30 second shutter, with the use of a ND filter. I like the smooth feeling of the water and sky, but the ND seems to have shifted color a bit more than I expected.

The second shot was 1/6th shutter, no filters. The differences are clear to see, the more defined clouds and water, ripples, etc. You can actually see some of the snow falling in this one.

I like them both, but its helpful to see the different effects achieved by the shutter speed.

Special note: If you can see the little black spot at the top of the tree on the island there, it is an eagle. I tried to grab a few closer shots which I'll post later.

On the Lake Again.

This is about 2 months ago. I'm a bit slow sometimes getting things out and up. I really liked the symmetry of this shot, the tree line and the reflection. Hope you like too!

LightRoom 4 Beta

Can hardly wait for the final release! I wasn't interested at first as previous beta's tended to mess up my workflow. But after reading about some of the new features I couldn't wait. The photo below was one I didn't really think I could salvage for much without taking it into PhotoShop and another filter or two. I'm way to lazy for that, sadly. So I thought I'd give it a quick shot with LR4 and see what it would do.

I am not entirely content with the final results, but the new controls in LR4 made it a lot easier for me to get it closer to something I'd keep. This was all within LR4, no external programs. It really makes me want to get the final release and get going with it. 

 

There are a number of other features that are exciting, but I haven't had a chance to play with them yet. The MAP feature is going to be fun and likely to take way too much of my time to go back and geo-locate my 40,000 plus archive. But it would be so cool if I did.

Real Estate & Property Photography

If you are interested in doing some real estate or property photography, then I highly recommend giving this link a real good read. Its a bit of a book, but it covers the most essential and important points.

Introduction to Property Photography 

I was approached to do some real estate photography at a time when I had never done any. I read over this article a few times and felt like I could do this. And I did! Here are a few of the results: 

tf-photography Real Estate Photos 

My first job I had only my Canon 5D, 17-40 f4, tripod, 580ex II, and a Harbor Lightbox Diffuser. 

Harbor LightBox Diffuser

It took a good bit of trial and error and a lot of shots to cover things enough. You don't often have the luxury of returning to a place and redoing things, so get the shots you need first time around.

I also discovered that a great deal of the work is done in post-processing. Much of that is covered in the above article as well, but maybe I'll come back with a few pointers and things I learned about it also. Post-processing is generally where the magic happens. 

. . .  more later

One of those amazing sunsets

This was one of the most memorable sunsets ever. The tide was out and sand was wet for up to about 60 meters, which caused everything to reflect in that wet sand. It was like walking into and being part of the the sunset, really amazing. Taken in Baja, Mexico, half-way between Rosarita and Ensenada.

A very thought provoking article by Trey Ratclif

I tend to agree with him, but will wait to see how it shapes up.

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2012/01/04/dslrs-are-a-dying-breed-3rd-gen-cameras-are-the-future/

Snoqualmie Falls, various views