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Sunset On Buck Mountain (& moonlit landscape)

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  • Sunset On Buck Mountain (& moonlit landscape)

    I thought I'd already posted these but apparently not. Nice day on buck, beautiful sunset, but I missed it on the summit by a few minutes.

    From MLK Day....






    Trip report can be found here (link) for those interested in the hike, definitely a gentle skiable ascent. Not really how the book describes it though with plentiful views, and if anything, on foot or snowshoes a bit of a slog over a wide switchbacking trail. The hike seems to take forever for just 2000ft and 3 miles. I was dreaming of Karhu Karvers or Metas for the hike down!!!
    sigpic

    "As to every healthy boy with a taste for outdoor life, the northern forest -the Adirondacks- were to me a veritable land of enchantment." -Theodore Roosevelt

    Mountain Visions: The Wilderness Through My Eyes

  • #2
    Love the first shot, hate the second. Using flash in night photography is so beneath you!

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    • #3
      Very cool!
      I like the full moon shot. It's like a huge spotlight in the sky.

      Hey, great idea!
      Sunsets and Moonlight shots.
      Maybe there should be a thread on it.
      Attached Files
      Last edited by Justin; 01-31-2008, 07:39 PM.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Kevin View Post
        Love the first shot, hate the second. Using flash in night photography is so beneath you!
        Now be nice!!! Constructive critiques only

        Actually no flash involved, light painting...i lit the tree by painting the light from my headlamp. basically like brush strokes, any spot too long and it would "burn" a hole in the exposure. used similar technique on the stars over the raquette shot in my summer in photos thread.

        Quite a bit of strategy involved, including using the halogen vs. the led so I could later move the WB to incadescent, making the sky and landscape "blue".

        Moonlight is actually daylight balanced, not blue. So using incadscent makes the scene colder but keeps the halogen beam slightly warmer.

        The moon can only be photographed still for about 15 seconds but this was 20 seconds in an attempt to really capture the landscape. Didn't quite work perfectly. You can see the moon started to shift, and the landscape isn't as bright as it was too my eyes (or I envisioned).

        You could do the same thing with a strobe and a blue gel, but I find as experimental as the results are, a strobe makes things even more complex. Plus, I didn't have one!

        BTW, love the silhouette effect on the sunset...you need a tripod though (even just a little Ultrapod II), that looked like a great shot with the shy and the golden light on the lake. I never get good sunsets like that!!!
        sigpic

        "As to every healthy boy with a taste for outdoor life, the northern forest -the Adirondacks- were to me a veritable land of enchantment." -Theodore Roosevelt

        Mountain Visions: The Wilderness Through My Eyes

        Comment


        • #5
          Love them!

          What lens, f-stop, exposure settings did you use for those photos?

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          • #6
            Originally posted by johnstp View Post
            Love them!

            What lens, f-stop, exposure settings did you use for those photos?
            For the lake i shot at f/8 and hyperfocal distance. I used a digital split ND filter rather than a glass filter on the front of the lens to balance the foreground and sky. I'm leaning more and more this route, yet I still carry the 2 stop graduated ND filter with me most of the time.

            For the tree/moon I used f/13 and hyperfocal and 20 seconds.

            The lens on both was the 21mm DA* Limited. Actually my first day using it. Love it, very compact, and it's built out of aluminum, with milled markings and metal milled focus grips with painted #'s, just like the old school M42 lenses. Bad move getting it because now I'm scrambling to sell some of my FA glass (35mm and 50mm) to get the rest of the limited series (43mm and 70mm) without actually spending any money. The optics on the FA's are top notch, actually the 35mm is my favorite lens, but the build on the Limiteds is so nice (along with the impressive optics) that going that route seems like a nice long term upgrade.

            Right now my hiking setup has become the 21mm and an old M42 55mm 1.8 with a M42/k adapter.

            Here is what the 21mm looks like on the K10D, looks a bit better (less weird) on the smaller ist D...


            The Pentax K10D DSLR camera is announced today. The K10D offers 10.2 megapixels, shake-reduction, dust removal system, 22-bit colour, three new shooting modes, 2.5 inch LCD screen and 11 point auto-focusing.


            BTW, how are you liking the K10D? Hope you've been getting out with it.
            sigpic

            "As to every healthy boy with a taste for outdoor life, the northern forest -the Adirondacks- were to me a veritable land of enchantment." -Theodore Roosevelt

            Mountain Visions: The Wilderness Through My Eyes

            Comment


            • #7
              Is a digital split ND filter something you do in post, or is it an actual lens filter?

              Comment


              • #8
                The digital split filter is a post process. The downside is it requires computer time, the upside, in some instances it gives better results since the filter can have a completely irregular edge.

                There are a lot of ways to do it but the essence is the same as the film method in that you are reducing the dynamic range of the scene to what the sensor can handle.

                I personaly take two shots at about 2-3 stops difference, then I merge them in photoshop using mask to reveal the area I want. You can use the gradient tool, or other methods as well. The downside of the gradient tool is it requires a fairly level horizon. I am pretty sure on the Lake Lila Sunset on the sunsets thread I used the gradient method.

                Our eyes can differentiate around 20 stops of light, but the sensor or film someplace between 5 and 8 stops. Remembering that is always tough!!!
                sigpic

                "As to every healthy boy with a taste for outdoor life, the northern forest -the Adirondacks- were to me a veritable land of enchantment." -Theodore Roosevelt

                Mountain Visions: The Wilderness Through My Eyes

                Comment


                • #9
                  Love the sunset !

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