Photomatix is my New, Best Friend. California Primary Care Association. November 2009.
Tech: Canon 1Ds Mark III. EF14mm f/2.8L MkII at f/8. RAW Developed in Aperture and Tone mapped with the Photomatix Aperture plugin. Tripod mounted.
Comment: Light sources include: South facing floor to ceiling windows, basic incandescent bulbs in pendent lights, halogen lights recessed into the ceiling and washing the distant walls and, finally, compact fluorescents in the distant hallway. Combing 5 one stop brackets tamed the huge contrast range. Note that the area under the table maintains detail as does the afternoon sky. Shooting and developing this image from a RAW file allows fine tuning color to spot on – not remotely possible with a jpeg as the original.
Photoshop is becoming a distant memory as Aperture and a collection of plug-ins have made it largely unnecessary for my photographic work.
Alabama Hills and Sierra Nevada Range, Eastern Escarpment. November 2008.
Tech: Canon 1Ds Mark III. EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM at 105 mm. RAW Developed in Aperture. Tripod mounted.
Comment: The light is mostly indirect – from a rising sun, just breeching the local horizon. The majority of the scene is lit by bounce light (off a bank of clouds) with some of the illumination arriving directly. Further proof that a great landscape shot does not need 12 stops of dynamic range.
Zach In Motion. Loch Levin, Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, California. October 2008
Tech: Canon EOS 40D. Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L Zoom Lens at 35mm (56mm equivalent.) RAW file developed in Aperture.
Comment: Forty pounds of pure energy.
With Thanks to a View Camera – Spring in Detail. Carrizo Plain National Monument, CA. May 2006
Tech: Arca-Swiss Field View. Fuji RVP 4×5 Film (aka Velvia 50.) 135mm Fujinon View Lens (38mm equivalent.) Scan from original transparency using a Canoscan 9950F flatbed scanner.
Comment: I made the mistake of viewing the original transparency of this image through a very good loupe this evening. The internet and 72 dpi are killing landscape photography. And, as useful as Canon TS-E lenses are for their shift capabilities, they are too imprecise to be confused with even a rudimentary view camera. When we all have 6000 pixel tall monitors I’ll post this at a reasonable size. Until then…
The Waiting is The Hardest Part. Westfjords, Iceland. July, 2008.
Tech: Handheld. Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III with Canon EF 24-105 f/4 L Zoom Lens at 45mm.
Comment: 2007 was my first visit to Iceland’s magnificent Westfjords region. We drove by this shot at low tide but at or near high noon. At low tide the rocky intertidal area reveals two sets of linear, volcanic features that weave together at nearly ninety degree angles. I made a note to revisit the spot. This year I decided to devote significant time to getting the shot. This is very much an evening/sunset shot. I first arrived on the scene at about 1600 hours with the water level as pictured above. I pulled into a nearby picnic area and managed to kill five hours catching up on paperwork, backing up CF cards, having dinner, etc. Then, ready to stay until sunset I drove back to the scene to find this:
Maybe next time…
Ford Ka vs the Past. Stykkishólmur, Iceland. July 2008.
Tech: Handheld. Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III with Canon EF 24-105 f/4 L Zoom Lens at 60mm. RAW file developed in Aperture.
Comment: The Ford Ka isn’t common in Iceland. Wood buildings of any age are less and less common with the oldest often covered with corrugated steal. If there is a lesson in this image I don’t know what it is. That said, it was after 2200 hours on another long Iceland shooting day… and the light was pure Iceland on a clear evening.
An Unnamed Building in an Undisclosed Location. Sacramento, CA. May, 2008
Tech: Tripod Mounted. Canon EOS 1Ds III with Canon 24mm TS-E Lens. RAW file developed in Aperture.
Comments: One in a series shot for submission into a “best of” building renovation contest. The judges are shown dowdy, hand held, full sun “before” pictures. The “after” pictures tend to go higher end. Furthermore, the judges are not told the name of the development or any of the companies (architect, developer etc) involved with the project. This is a beauty contest and nothing says beauty like a cobalt blue sky, fully lit building and a wet parking lot.
Sierra Club Calendars Has an Epiphany. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, CA. March, 1988
Tech: Wista SP 4×5 Inch View Camera… on a Tripod. Fujinon 210mm lens. Extachrome 64 Film
Comment: Sierra Club Calendars, then the Holy grail for Natural History photographers (and maybe, still), picked this for the Wilderness Wall Calendar on my first submission. I had just declared myself a full time, real deal photographer, and this image gave me traction and purpose. I had been traveling from my then home of San Diego out to Anza-Borrego since College so I knew the landscape. Smoke Trees are a favorite subject of painters but typically did not photograph well. I walked for miles over several visits searching only to find this shot across the road from where I had set up camp.
Slices. Midtown Sacramento, CA. March, 2008
Tech: Pan Head Mounted. Canon EOS-1D Mark III, Canon TS-E 24 mm L (31 mm equivalent.) Highlight tone priority enabled. RAW file developed in Aperture.
Comment: Shooting in Midtown Sacramento is usually claustrophobic… especially when shooting a four story under construction building from 60 feet away. The client wanted the entire building and the TS-E 24 needed some help. This is a screen dump, from Aperture, of the 6 pieces that, when assembled in Photoshop, resulted in the “winning” image. The TS-E 24 mm is cranked almost all the way up to just catch the top of the building.
My Very First Time. Woodland, CA
Tech: Tripod mounted Canon Rebel 2000 with Canon EF f2.8 20mm lens. Fuji Provia film.
Comment: From my first commercial assignment. More of a maybe I get paid tryout than an actual job. I arrived with my 4×5 Arca-Swiss and every lens I ever owned. Not included (at this point anyway) was a “real” wide angle. I’d also packed my only 35mm camera, a Rebel 2000, and the 20mm, which for reasons left to history, was the only lens I owned for 35mm. The 4×5 images were just dandy but this was the money shot. Literally.
When 70mm is Quite Enough. Razorbill, Látrabjarg Cliffs, Westfjords, Iceland.
Tech: Hand Held, Canon EOS-1D Mark III, Canon EF 70 – 210mm L at 70mm (91mm equivalent.) Highlight tone priority enabled. RAW file developed in Aperture.
Comment: AI Servo at it’s finest. This is one in a series of this very cooperative cliff dweller. If the focus problem with the 1D3 is initiated by bright sun and a heated camera then may I suggest Iceland as just the place to visit until Canon fixes your sub-mirror assembly.
And a Walkway Runs Through it. Natomas Professional Center, Sacramento, California. October 2007
Tech: Tripod Mounted, Canon EOS 5D, TS-E 24mm Lens. Raw file developed in Aperture.
Comment: This shot straddles the architect’s desire for illustrative shots with my desire to shoot what I see and have some fun while doing it. The partial overcast knocked down the contrast allowing a look down a narrow passage between buildings. I chose to start mid-building specifically to fill the foreground with concrete walkway. Emphasizing the walkway gives the image lots of depth and serves as contrast to the far more textured stone veneer of the buildings.
Kelly Was Here. LoftWorks Sales Office Interior. Midtown, Sacramento, California. November 2007
Tech: Tripod Mounted, Canon EOS 5D, Sigma 12 – 24mm Zoom at 12mm. Raw file developed in Aperture.
Comment: This is nicely done space that, thanks to its smallish size, benefited greatly from the combination of full frame digital and a 12mm lens. There is some softness in the extreme corners with this lens but with so much to draw the eye into the center of the frame, no one has noticed. The geometry is well behaved, as illustrated by the “straight as the HVAC guys hung it” duct work running diagonally across the top of the frame.
Red Boat and Gray Sky. North, Iceland. June, 2007
Tech: Hand Held, Canon EOS-1D Mark III, Canon EF 17 – 40mm L at 17mm (22mm equivalent.) Highlight tone priority enabled. RAW file developed in Aperture.
Comment: Often the Iceland sky is too hot to handle. Occasionally it grays up nicely and it isn’t raining. The boat is plastic which allows the vivid red even as it reveals Iceland to be the modern, “wooden boats are a pain I’ll take plastic please”, society that it is.
Very Early. Too Early. Iron Point / Heller Professional Center, Folsom, California. 2006
Tech: Tripod Mounted Canon EOS 5D, Canon EF TS-E 45mm Lens. RAW file developed in Aperture.
Comment: The task, and there were just a few minutes in a day when it was possible, was to balance the exterior light, both from the rising sun and the landscape lighting, with the illumination in the buildings interior. All that and keep the camera level.
Alone in a Crowded Gallery, Second Saturday. MARRS Building, Sacramento, California. October 2007.
Tech: Tripod Mounted Canon EOS 5D, Canon EF 50mm f/1.4. RAW file developed in Aperture. Cropped to 4 x 5 aspect ratio.
Comment: On the second Saturday evening of each month Sacramento’s Art Galleries stay open late and people by the thousands turn out to socialize, drink and even, as pictured here, take in some art. This is one frame of 400 taken as part of a commercial assignment showing the newly renovated MARRS building in use.
Black Church and Snaefellsjokull Glacier. Búðir, Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Iceland. June 2007
Tech: Tripod Mounted EOS 1D-Mark III, Canon EF 17 – 40mm L at 25mm (33mm equivalent.) 5 Frame HDR image assembled in Photoshop from RAW files developed in Aperture. Highlight Tone Priority Enabled.
Comment: I am not a huge fan HDR photography. Much of the HDR landscape work that litters the web’s photo sites is too vivid to represent any place on this planet. But HDR as a tool allows images like this one, with a dynamic range of at least 12 stops to be made to behave. Looking into a sunset past a tar black church to the volcano and Snaefellsjokull Glacier that Jules Verne chose for the entry point for “Voyage to the Center of the Earth” would not have worked back in the good old film days.
Full Frontal Light. Solano Corporate Center, Fairfield, California. August 2007
Tech: Tripod Mounted EOS 1D-Mark III, Canon 45mm TS-E lens (58mm equivalent.) RAW file developed in Aperture. Highlight Tone Priority Enabled.
Comment: Architectural photography isn’t always pretty but it is always illustrative. This shot was taken mid-afternoon on a clear-as-can-be Central Valley Summer day. The time was chosen to best illustrate the bumped out features on the building. The highlight tone preservation by the Canon 1D Mk3 helps to hold the very white I-beams.
Hay Made at Sunset. Sacramento Valley, California. July 2007
Tech: Hand Held using Canon EOS 5D, Sigma 12-24mm Full Frame Zoom (15mm.) RAW file developed in Aperture. Cropped to 4 x 5 aspect ratio.
Comment: The Sigma is as wide as wide can be on a full frame sensor / film, never counting fisheye lenses, so it easy to forgive it being less than stellar until well stopped down. It is actually very well behaved at f8 and is very good at f11.