Sunsets part Deaux. . . and a few sunrises

About 45 minutes north of Seattle lies the little suburb of Mukilteo which has a very pretty park along the shore of the Puget Sound.  I have seen a few pretty photos from there so decided to head up and check it out. There were two things driving my renewed interest in shooting sunset.

1. Playing with depth of field. I wanted to create great depth of field by having things really close and really far away, all in focus.
2. I had just purchased the Lee Filter Kit; the "big stopper" 10-stop neutral density filter and three graduated ND filters (1,2,3 stop) and sunsets are fantastic opportunity to try them out.
3. It was Memorial Day Weekend and I had rented the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Ultra Wide Zoom Lens from Glazers Camera and wanted to play with it.

So, up to Mukilteo I went.  The photos below are from two different trips. The first trip resulted in one good sunset shot then I wanted to play around near the lighthouse. One HUGE thing I learned is that if you are setting up for a 5-10 minute exposure and using mirror lockup. . .make sure to actually lock up the mirror before "starting" the 10 minute exposure (oops).

Lighthouse Sunset
Single RAW file, 17mm, f/22, 25 sec, ISO 50
10-Stop ND plus 3-Stop grad (top left)

Rocky Shore
2 Exposures:
Both: with 10-Stop ND
Both: 5-Stop grad ND as well
Both: 19mm, f/22, ISO 50
One @ 4 sec, One @ 5 sec

Blue House
Single RAW File
24mm, f/122, 128 sec, ISO 100
1-stop grad ND on left side
2-stop grad ND on right side
middle open.

I took the second trip up there primarily as an excuse to hang out with a buddy of mine, but I also had an idea for a shot, involving long exposures and large depth of field.

Stumped Sunset
Single RAW file
40mm, f/16, 75 sec, ISO 100
10-Stop ND+5-Stop Grad ND

Single RAW file
35mm, f/16, 60 sec, ISO 100
10-Stop ND+5-stop Grad ND

On to something different, but still sunset related.  If you have read some of my past blogs you may remember this photo of the Aurora bridge.  While I like it, I feel that the mountain (Mt. Rainier) appears too small as to my eye the mountain seems to fill the frame a little more.  

Ever since taking the picture I have wanted to recreate it using a longer lens (longer focal lengths tend to bring the background forward).  To get that reach I went out to Glazers and rented the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4-5.6L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens.  I had read terrific reviews of that lens (all 100% true) and wanted to try it out.  If I had 2 grand to drop on a lens, this is the one I would buy.

Armed with the rental lens I headed back out to the Aurora Bridge, and framed up for the shot. . .I didn't get it.  The contrast between the dark bridge and the bright sunset-lit mountain required the use of multiple exposures.  However, there were leaves on the trees this time and there was a rather strong wind.  All this meant that I couldn't blend the exposures. . .DAMN!  Looks like I will have to wait until winter and try again.

However, it wasn't a total loss, I managed to get a shot (handheld apparently) of the same arch looking across the canal to the other side.  Not as many leaves in this shot so it worked out.  Similar to my "target shot" there was a huge amount of contrast between the near bridge and the far strut so I ended up using three exposures to capture the entire range.

Bridges Within Bridges
3 exposures (handheld) stacked
1: 106mm, f/11, 1/320, ISO 1600
2: 106mm, f/11, 1/80, ISO 800
3: 106mm, f11, 1/40, ISO 800
(I don't recall why I switched to ISO 800)

As I was packing it up to leave I noticed a sculpture of a  picture frame.  I looked through it and went "ah hah" perfect.  Unfortunately I had lost the light so I had to wait until the next morning and capture it during sunrise.  I tried shooting this in a few ways and realized that I couldn't get enough depth of field through a single exposure no matter what aperture I tried so it gave me the opportunity to try focus stacking (which I did a meh job doing, the "easy" photoshop method doesn't work at all so I tried to hand blend them).

Similar to the previous two shots, this ALSO required multiple exposures to capture the dynamic range of the mountain/town scene.  I am willing to try this again to get the the focus blending to work better.

Just as with the previous evening, as I was walking back to the car I saw something really cool. . .in this case it was the underside of the bridge lit by the rising sun.  And, just as with the previous evening, I fired off a few quick handheld shots.  Personally, I like this one much more than the Framed shot

Framed
Four total Exposures
1: Focus-frame: 200mm, f/11, 4 sec, ISO 400
2: Focus background: 200mm, f/11, 1 sec, ISO 100
3: Focus background: 200mm, f/11, 2 sec, ISO 100
4: Focus background: 200mm, f/11, 4 sec, ISO 100

Living Under the Bridge
2 Exposures-Handheld
1: 106mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO 1600
2: 106mm, f/11, 1/160 sec, ISO 1600ISO was so high because I was shooting
handheld and didn't want motion blur

Well, that's it for now.  I have quite a few shots from my recent trips to New Jersey (you already saw the baby ones), New York City (ohh, exciting), Idaho, some Macro shots, and a handful of hiking shots.  I recently decided that I'm not going to wait until I finish processing them to post blogs so hopefully I will actually start posting on some sort of regular basis.

Look. . .BABY!!!

Here are some baby photos to please those who wish to see them.  Not much to say, but I'll do a brief intro.

First off, a few random around the house shots.  I rented a few lenses for Memorial Day weekend; one of which was the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro (more shots from this later).  These four shots were taken with that lens.  I was also playing with flash trying to create a well exposed baby but a very over-exposed, almost white background.  Personally, I really like it as it creates a very sharp contrast/focal point.  Oh, one more thing. . .while the Canon 100mm f/2.8L is a FAST lens, taking a shot of a baby on the go is pretty damn difficult. (Andrew was 8 months old at the time--taken in May, 2016--and was starting to get the crawling bit down. Notice the little bruise on his left cheek?  I think he was holding himself against a corner and lost his balance. . .yeah he started getting a lot of little bumps/bruises once he started getting mobile).

f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO 400 Flash (off-camera to back/left)

f/2.8, 1/200sec, ISO 400 Flash (almost directly behind Andrew)



f/2.8, 1/125, ISO 800, Flash (top left corner)

f/4.0, 1/50, ISO 800, NO Flash (different lens from others).

In late June we went to New Jersey to see my bro-in-law and his wife, for that trip I rented two lenses, the Canon 16-35 f/4.0L IS (more on this lens later) and the Canon 70-200 f/4.0L IS (similarly, more on this later).  While thee we went to a park and put Andrew in his first swing!  I wanted to try the panning technique to imply motion. . .these first few shots are that attempt.  The idea is to slow your shutter down a bit so you are firing somewhere around 1/10 to 1/30 second and pan the camera so that you subject looks still, but the background implies movement.  I also needed some reach because I wanted a pretty tight shot so these were taken with the 70-200 at 93mm. Finally, I needed a somewhat more shallow depth of field so didn't want to go beyond f/8.0ish so I knew I would need to use filters of something to slow the light down a bit.  I played around a bit and it was too bright so ended up using a circular polarizer to cut the light by ~2 stops (I haven't measured that yet, but I should).

Also, these were taken in June of 2016, so about 1  month after the previous four shots (Andrew was 9 months old).

f/8.0, 1/15 sec, ISO 125

f/8.0, 1/15 sec, ISO 125

The next thing I wanted to do was play with depth of field; specifically, I wanted to see what type of depth of field I had at f/4.0 in the 70-200 range.  I knew that I would be trying to freeze motion so I took off the polarizer to gain that 2-stops of light. The fun thing about taking depth-of-field shots while Andrew was on the swing was I could also see what the impact of distance from camera would have on depth-of-field as well.

f/8.0, 1/200 sec, ISO 400.
Note, I wanted slightly more depth of field
because I wanted Kyra somewhat in focus
(FYI: she didn't know she was in the shot)

f/4.0, 1/1600 sec, ISO 400
Note, he was much farther away so
more s in focus

f/4.0, 1/1000 sec, ISO 400
Very close which is why DoF is very shallow
I like the focus on the feet

Finally, here are some old-timey shots of Andrew and his great grandmother (95 years old, taken late June 2016).  I played with the "nifty-fifty" for these shots (I wanted a really fast lens and would be about 7-10 feet so would get adequate DoF for portraits).  I want everyone to notice the scabs on Andrew's head. During his (near to last) visit to the gym he decided to scramble out of his car seat and crawl over to the treadmill where he proceeded to headbutt the thing. . . babies. . .well, they ain't too smart.

f/2.0, 1/200, ISO 200

f/2.8, 1/160, ISO 400
(it is my goal ot give Kyra a pic of  Andrew crying every month for his first 12 months of life)

f/2.8, 1/40, ISO 100

OK, bonus shot of Andrew at our friend's house. He had the "Andy Grumpkins" face and I liked it.

f/4.0, 1/50 sec, ISO 1600
(Canon 70-200)