First thing's first. Before you continue reading
click here and let it play in the background. Go ahead. . .I'll wait. Ok, now you should be in a better mood. On to the blog!
We have done quite a bit of traveling over the past month or so and I was originally going to wait until I either processed all of the images, or at least all of them from a single trip before posting, but then I decided that it was taking too long and I should write about what I have now since even though they are from separate trips, they share similar subject matter--the dark (BOO!).
First, the trip to New Jersey. As I
mentioned earlier, we traveled to NJ to see my in-laws. While there we decided to spend a night in "The City" to explore. . and to take pictures. One of the primary reasons I wanted to go to NYC was to get a very specific picture of the One World Trade Center. Sadly, due to technical difficulties, and that security guards were literally chasing us off of the property, I didn't quite get what I was going for, but I got close.
After the half-successful OWTC shoot, Galen and I wandered around aimlessly for a while. We took the subway over to Brooklyn to take pics of the Brooklyn Bridge and had a fantastic time. As soon as we got off the subway we be-lined it to the base of the bridge where I got this shot.
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Da Bridge
Brooklyn Bride and Manhattan |
This was actually quite difficult to process. First, it was a blend of three shots: 2.5 seconds (for the city lights), 6 seconds (base exposure), and 10 seconds (bring in a few more highlights), but blending the exposures wasn't the hard part. For some reason I took this using the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 and let Galen use the really nice Canon 16-35 f/4.0 L lens (that's right I was using a $200 lens and letting Galen use the $1,200 lens, no I don't know why). The problem with the Roki is that it has massive barrel distortion. Look at the RAW file from the base exposure below, notice how the bridge and the WTC are both "leaning in". After I did my post processing touch-ups I spent nearly an hour trying to straighten everything out. That was the hardest part.
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| "Base" Exposure RAW file, notice how everything is leaning? |
I popped on the Canon 70-200mm f/4.0 L lens and took a a similar shot to get a different perspective. This one is a single raw file with minor lighting adjustments such as white balance, and bringing down the highlights.
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The City Never Sleeps
Single RAW file: 90 sec, f/11, ISO 100 |
As we were walking away from the bridge I noticed a little park of sorts. Really, it was more of a garden, or a path. The whole thing was no more than 25 meters wide and 50 meters long. Anyway, it drew my eye so I wanted to walk through it to see if there was anything interesting. I am very glad I did because while there I got what I at the time called the "shot of the night".
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Da Pahk (yes, no "r")
Single RAW file: 15sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 |
After much whooping and "giggidy"ing we wandered our way through Brooklyn to a really nice little bar and had a beer. Servers in NYC are some of the best I have ever encountered and this bar tender was no exception. We told him we were looking for interesting places from which to take pictures and he said we had to check out the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Thank you Mr. Bartender.
For those who don't know, the
Brooklyn Heights Promenade is a park/walkway right on the edge of Brooklyn elevated about 200 feet above the east river. It provides unobstructed views of Manhattan and it was amazing, best view in the entire city. . .so far.
As amazing as the view was, i only managed to grab one good shot?
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Empire State Bridges
Stack of 3 shots: 10 seconds (city lights), 20 seconds (base), 10 seconds (highlights) |
Finally, around 2:30AM, we made our way back to the hotel. We passed by this building on the way and I took a quick handheld shot (very hard to do at night when it is dark). I just thought it was interesting. Nothing special.
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| Single RAW file: handheld 1/20 sec, 17mm, f/4.0, ISO 800 |
I took other shots while in New York, but those are for another time (not part of the "night" theme).
We returned to Seattle, spent a few days at home, then made a road trip across Idaho for the 4th of July (yeah, busy few weeks). We stopped in Boise for a few days. Before heading out there I searched on Google for any Boise Blue Hour pictures and was surprised at how few were out there, especially given how the Train Depot creates a great viewpoint of the City. So, during the first evening there I set up shop at the Depot just before sunset and hung out for an hour or two.
I was rewarded in two ways. The first was a really nice blue hour / car trails shot. Yes, it is a composition of several shots. I took a base blue hour shot to get the sky and the city (70mm, 35 seconds, f/4.0, ISO 50 - for longer exposure time), I waited about 30 minutes for it to get darker then took three more shots ranging from 30 seconds to 140 seconds. The purpose of these shots was to capture more car trails. Once I had a few exposures, I loaded them into Photoshop and basically did a Blend-->Lighten which compares each frame pixel by pixel and only shows the brightest pixel. This gave me the lighter sky, foothills, and buildings, but brought out the city lights and the car trails.
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| Boise Blue Hour |
I started packing up then turned around and noticed that the Train Depot was perfectly framed by Jupiter (right) and mars (left). I quickly switched lenses (to the 16-35), composed the shot and fired. Yes, this is more than one shot (it's two). Exposing for the sky / planets required a 30 second exposure which light up the depot like a Christmas tree so I had to do a shorter (3 second) exposure to get the depot.
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| Planetary Framing (make this full size to see planets) |
If you have followed my blog at all, well, first, thanks, second, there can't be very many of you, and third you may have notices
this shot posted way back in my
Vantage Rocks blog. That was taken in December of 2015 and while I really like the location, I was never really happy with the shot (learning process) so one of the key goals of my trip to Idaho Falls was to hit that location again and get a Milky Way shot. Unfortunately, the clouds were rolling in so I had to act quickly. Even so, they cut out a good portion of the Milky Way. Oh well, there is always next year. This image is a composition of two exposures. The first was exposing for the sky which I had to do quickly before the clouds completely covered the Milky Way (14mm, 30 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200). The second was exposed for the foreground (14mm, 6 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200). Next time I do this (yes, there will be a next time damnit) I will remember to drop the ISO for the foreground so the shot is not so noisy.
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| Roadside Memorial |
Well, that's it for this time. Sorry it took me so long to get it written and up. I keep trying to post more often but it's a lot of work and travel+baby+life makes this difficult. Anyway, for making it this far, enjoy a bonus baby pic.
