Over the Sound and through Bainbridge, to (great) Grandmother's House We Go

It's hard to really get out and do things with a newborn! Over the past summer, Kyra and I used to go hiking or backpacking nearly every weekend.  Hell, we did Granite Mountain two weeks before Andrew was born (sorry, no pictures) and then did Annette Lake only three days before Kyra was born.

Then, came the baby, and the lack of sleep (oh lord, the lack of sleep). Going out with a newborn is tough and involves a lot more planning and flexibility than even I thought it would be. So, we really didn't do much for the first few weeks.  But we were getting cabin fever and had to get out.

We decided on Discovery Park because it is close, it has a fair amount of trails,I have never been there, and there is a lighthouse which I hoped would make for some interesting pictures. I had a goal - I wanted to grab a few shots of the lighthouse.  One with the sun "in" the lighthouse and maybe a few golden or blue hour shots.

• Baby? - Check
• Car Seat? - Check
• Baby Carrier? - Check
• Diaper Bag? - Check
• Tasha (Dog)? - Check
• Camera gear? - Check

Off we go!

I didn't know what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised.  The park is very well maintained with a great combination of open spaces and "forests".  The best part is that it is huge so it never felt very crowded--nothing like the Snow Lake trail.  Hell, for being in the city it was downright lonely.  I liked that.

Taken just inland of Sand Point Beach on the Olympic Coast (4th of July)
1/125 second f/2.8 ISO 125 (taken on my Lumix FZ1000)

I used to only like taking pictures of "big views".  You know, from a mountain peak or pass looking out across a large landscape (you will see plenty of these if/when I finally get around to publishing my Stevens to Snoqualmie story), but I have grown to appreciate other pictures, specifically ways of playing with light.  A fair amount of this new interest is owed to my good friend Jack, who has helped spur my photography interest and knowledge in several ways.  On our 4th of July trip to the Olympic Coast he taught me some things to look for when hiking through (what I thought was) a boring forest which resulted in one of my favorite all time pictures.

It was a very clear and bright day, which I'm learning means not-so-interesting pictures because there is not much color in the sky to serve as an interesting backdrop.  So, sadly none of my "big view" pictures turned out very well.  However, I was able to find a few interesting spots along the trail with the sun peaking through leaves or between trees and had a bit of fun playing with these.

Trail along Discovery Park in Seattle
1/60 second f/20 ISO 800

This first shot was hiking north along a bluff along a nicely shaded section of trail.  I had been keeping an eye out for something similar to my favorite Olympic Beach photo and this looked like a good spot.








I had red somewhere that using really high f-stops would result in star-burst type patterns.
My old Lumix FZ1000 only went to f/8 or f/9 on the high end so while it was great for taking landscape photos, I was never able to play with this effect.  So, I decided that for these "sun peaking" shots that I would stop it up to 20 and see what happened.  I liked it and in this situation it pulled off exactly what I was going for.

Trail along Discovery Park in Seattle
1/125 second f/11 ISO 800

We continued followed the trail as it veered west and dropped in elevation toward the Sound / Lighthouse.   As we dropped we entered a more heavily forested area with fairly tall and nicely spaced trees. Hoping to re-create the lovely Olympic Park shot, I stayed here for a while and took several shots.  I noticed a few things while standing
here.




There is a lot of contrast so if I would point the camera toward the sun everything else would be way underexposed.  If I pointed the camera at the trees or the ground, those would be exposed properly, but the sun and trees would be way over-exposed. I was having a tough time at getting a good exposure, and bracketing the shot really wouldn't work because I was handheld (and I'm not very good at blending layers in Photoshop as you will see below).  I was starting to get Frustrated then remembered Galen telling me that I can do an exposure lock by pressing the * button on the back of the camera.  Re-armed with this knowledge I took several shots exposing on different areas then pointing the camera at the sun and taking the shot.  Honestly, while I'm not too impressed with how it turned out, it was a fun learning exercise.

"Final" Lighthouse shot composed of 2 layered exposures

We made it do the lighthouse WELL before sunset.  I was pretty sure that we weren't going to be able to hang out until the sun went down (remember me saying going out with a newborn is difficult), so I was falling back on my idea of getting the sun "in" the lighthouse so it looked like the lighthouse was on.






Andrew had different plans.  While I was waiting for the sun to go down he managed to eat, twice, and poop. . .three times.  We were out of diapers and had a very unhappy baby. I was able to convince Kyra to give me 5 minutes so I could try taking multiple exposures and blending them in Photoshop (thanks Kyra!).

I took three exposures all at f/22, ISO 100. The first was to expose for the sun, the second for the foreground, and the third for the shadows.  In the end I only ended up using the first two.

RAW Shot exposed for the sun
1/100 second f/22 ISO 100

RAW Shot exposed for foreground
1/10 second f/22 ISO 100

Lessons Learned:

While taking and processing these pictures (RAW images below for anyone interested) I noticed a few interesting things about high f-stops.  The first is that they under-expose quite a bit you really need to lengthen the exposure time (couldn't do while handheld) or crank up the ISO which adds a bit of noise.  The second lesson is that you lose clarity/sharpness.  While that isn't too noticeable in these pictures, it was fairly noticeable in some photos that I didn't process, and can also be noticed in my yet-discussed SODO blue hour photo (to come). Also, in less-than-bright lights I ended up with a fair bit of camera shake if I didn't crank the ISO.

Exposure lock is a good tool if you are handheld and shooting in strongly contrasted lighting situations.

Luminosity masks are very helpful.There are a lot of extensions and I learned a bit about luminosity masks while trying to combine the lighthouse exposures.  The concept is pretty cool, and using luminosity masks is actually quite easy to do, but very difficult to do right and make it look good. I by no means claim I did it correctly, nor made it look good in my lighthouse shot, but it is a learning experience.  I am going to try similar shots in the future to practice.

RAW shot.
As you can see, the lower half is fairly under-exposed. It wasn't that big of a deal as I didn't really  want to capture the roots, I was more interested in the sun and the leaves. Post processing consisted of cropping and highlighting the image.

RAW shot.
Similar to the one above, even when playing with exposure lock I couldn't quite get enough light from the trees.
Additionally, even though this was f/11 instead of f/22, I still think that the sun starburst is a bit strong. Oh well
Post processing was cropping and highlighting.

Have to slip in a picture of Kyra (and Andrew, though you can't see him).
I love you Kyra!

My Not-So-Super Eclipse Experience

For those. . .not in the know, there was a super lunar eclipse on September 27th, 2015 (this past Sunday). I was pretty excited and thought it would be a great opportunity to test out the new camera that my wonderful wife, Kyra, got for me.  So I did some research and found this website which was tremendously helpful and gave me the awesome idea of doing a stacked shot (like the one below). The idea was to set up and take the shots from Kerry Park, one of the more famous picture spots in Seattle.

What I was TRYING to get. Photo credit: Fred Espenak http://www.MrEclipse.com 

Armed with this knowledge, I did all the calculations and prep work I could do at home. I printed out the exposure guidelines, I used the PlanIt for Photographers app on my phone to "preframe" the shot, and I tested out my camera, tripod, and intervalometer to make sure all of  my equipment worked.

Finally, the big day arrived.  The golden hour started around 6:15, moonrise was around 7:00, the blue hour began around 7:15 and the maximum eclipse was scheduled at 7:47. I knew it was going to be busy so I arrived around 5:30 to a pretty packed house, found a place to squeeze in, got everything set up, and waited.

I took a few shots of the city during the golden and blue hours, only one really turned out, but they were primarily to test the composition and to get the one good shot to use as a base layer for the image stack.

Blue Hour Seattle From Kerry Park: 60mm, 25 second exposure, f/22 ISO 100

At around 7:30, I realized that the moon was supposed to be up, but I couldn't see it.  I pulled out my trusty compass to verify the direction of the moon rise, set it to 90 degrees. . .and ended up staring directly into a building. A TALL building.  I double checked my app and found out that the moon wouldn't be be past/above the building at around 9:30, well past the eclipse.

Well, crap! There goes my idea.  I didn't want to just pack it in, so after thinking it over for a few minutes I figured that the best place to go would be West Seattle. I hopped into my car and raced across town, parked illegally at Salty's (sorry), grabbed my tripod and set up by the water.  The overall framing of the pictures wasn't that great as the moon was really pretty far South of the city, but at least I could fit it all in the frame.

I started by taking a few close-up shots, of which one turned out fairly nice.  I was looking for some way to frame the moon, but there really wasn't anything around. Yeah, that's the top of a very scraggly tree in the bottom right, and the glow is from the lights on Harbor Island. All in all, for a hurried drive across town to even see the damn moon, I'm not too upset.

The Moon from the parking lot of Salty's in West Seattle. 105mm, 4 second exposure, f/4.0, ISO 400

After going for a few close-up shots of the moon, I recomposed the shot in an effort to get Seattle and the moon at the same time and ended up taking several shots.  By this point, I was no longer thinking about shooting in constant intervals to stack, I was just playing with different aperture, ISO, and shutter speeds seeing what I could do.  After taking around 70 shots I ended up with about 4 that I thought were worth saving and post processing.

One of many shots that I thought turned out OK.  This is actually the backdrop to the entire stack.
24mm, 4 seconds, f/4.0, ISO 400

Another one. Yeah, I know that it is very underexposed, but I found I personally enjoyed how the city lights look when the rest is underexposed. 24mm, 10 seconds, f/8.0 ISO 400

24mm, 15 seconds, f/8.0, ISO 200

Very dark, but personally, I think this has the sharpest city lights.
24mm, 8 seconds, f/11.0, ISO 400

It was only after the fact, way after the fact (in fact?) that I realized I took enough photos to do some type of stack that would allow me to see the transition of the moon out of eclipse state.  So, I went back to the drawing board and reloaded all of the RAW files from the camera (when I reject photos I generally delete the RAW files as well to save space. If I reject a photo, I reject a photo).

I then filtered through these files for ones that showed the progression of the moon at the appropriate (enough) intervals.  Once identified, I exported those photos into Photoshop as layers and did the whole mask layers thing to make each moon appear.  For a first attempt, it turned out alright.  The biggest issue is that I was taking each of these photos with an eye on the city skyline more so than the moon and in some cases ended up with either a slightly over exposed moon, or the moon noticeably moving in the shot.  Oh well, better that I tried, had fun, and learned something than just give up when things didn't turn out as planned.

The final stack.  Not too shabby for an afterthought.  It was fun and I can't wait for another opportunity to try something like this again.

Lessons Learned:

1. When possible, SCOUT THE LOCATION BEFOREHAND!!!  This is especially true when dealing with incredibly rare events such as a super-blood-moon eclipse.  Had I gone out to Kerry park a day or two before the eclipse and watched the moon rise (or at a minimum pulled out my compass) I would have immediately known that the location would not work.  Unfortunately, due to new baby and wedding shenanigans I was unable to do this.
2. When you make a plan to take a specific type of shot, stick to that plan.  This is in reference to the moon-stacking shot.  I planned to do the stacking shot, then forgot about it when I drove across town and ended up with fewer exposures, and improperly exposed for the moon.  Had I stuck to the plan of a multiple-exposure shot then I would have captured the full eclipse, more moons, and each moon would look better.
3. Be flexible.  I know, I know.  This flies in the face of the second lesson, but it is an important one anyway.  I could have stayed at Kerry park all night and not gotten much of anything.  It was my willingness to leave that got me something at least.  However, it would have been better had I pre-picked an alternate location before hand. . .so perhaps the lesson should be
4. Have a backup plan for when things don't end up as planned. And, finally
5. Have fun and learn something.  After all, isn't this why anyone has a hobby, to have fun and learn a new skill.  If you keep getting upset and frustrated because things don't turn out perfectly, you will never do anything.  Mistakes are part of the learning process.  I can guarantee that I won't make these same mistakes the next super-blood-moon eclipse. . .in 18 years :)