Waterfall Scouting

I haven't been out shooting for a little while so I decided to take a little bit of time yesterday to seek out one of the many waterfalls in my area. This one is just off the Bruce Trail, as pretty much all of the waterfalls are around here, on the Sleepy Hollow Side Trail... so I'm guessing that this is the Sleepy Hollow Falls.

Pretty simple setup using a Nikon D300s and 24-70mm f2.8. A tri pod is crucial as the shutter speeds are slower to get the silky look in the water. I used the Singh-Ray Vari ND filter as I needed the extra stops to get the slower shutter speeds. This filter gives me between 2 to 8 stops of neutral density, which allows a lot of control.

Landscape orientation:

I always like to do a portrait orientation for a different perspective. You never know which one you may like the best:

There's always the smaller run offs as you get further from the main falls. These are fun to shoot as there a usually many levels of drop off:

Enjoy!

DC

Lightroom Sharpening Quick Tip Video Tutorial

Here's another video tutorial with a quick tip on how to use Lightroom's Sharpening tool to dial in the right amount of edge sharpening and avoid having too much sharpening in the overall image. Great little tip for quick edits or quick portrait retouching.



Enjoy!

DC

Long Exposures at Oceanside Pier

When I was down in Southern California back in March one of the objects of my attention was the Oceanside Pier. Not only because there's a Ruby's at the end of it, but because we don't have piers like this back home. I don't live near the ocean, and although I'm right on Lake Ontario I haven't found a scene like this, yet.

I knew when I was heading down that I wanted to try some long exposures. I have the Singh-Ray Vari-ND (neutral density) filter which offers anywhere between 2 to 8 stops of density; long exposures is what this filter was made for. Once I got to the pier I found a spot to set up and began working out a composition. I like to keep my compositions simple so I landed on the one you see in the image above. I took a number of exposures, including some bracketed sets for an HDR version which I'll share in another post. I was lucky to have had some clouds, which always works nicely with long exposures. The image above was shot at f22 with a shutter speed of 85 seconds.

After shooting the image above I wanted to shoot directly underneath the pier for a completely different perspective. However, the tide was up and the rocks under the pier were washed over and there wasn't really a safe way for me to set up, so I had to pack it in and come back another time. I made it back a couple of days later and this time I was able to get beneath the pier to set up to shoot the image below. Same idea here, using the Singh-Ray Vari-ND and my camera in manual mode, I set my aperture at f22 for maximum depth of field and held on for a 41 second exposure.

If you haven't done a long exposure before you need a few key pieces of equipment: camera that has a "bulb" option on the shutter speed (all dslr will have this); a tripod is a must, with the shutter open for that amount of time any amount of shake will blur the shot; a neutral density filter, cuts the light entering the lens allowing you to keep the shutter open for longer; and finally a remote cable release to trigger the shutter without shaking the camera. All of these things together will help with the technical aspects of making the shot, but you also need a good scene.

Both images here were initially processed in Lightroom and the black & white conversion was done using Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro 2.

Cheers! DC

Video Tutorial - Overview of Nik Software's Viveza 2

This is the next instalment of my video tutorial series. In this video I provide an overview of Nik Software's Viveza 2 plugin. Easily one of my favourite plugins for Lightroom and Photoshop.



Enjoy!

DC