Queen E Sunset

2, a photo by SlowManLuis2011 on Flickr.

Didn't really feel like it but sure glad I dragged myself out to take this photo. I wanted to try and capture some sunset photos since it's been such a long time since I've done so. I was quite pleased with the result although the location wasn't all that good. The combination of the colour intensifier, circular polarizer and reverse grad worked to put life in the image.

impatient tourist

lady in waiting, a photo by SlowManLuis2011 on Flickr.

Stumbled on this little area and I knew I had to take a shot so I grabbed my wife and unwilling as she was I managed to take this capture which I dearly love.

1, a photo by SlowManLuis2011 on Flickr.

Cloudless day so I took this morning as a day to experiment. I first tried shooting without the intensifier and polarizer so I could see if the blues would be less and to get a wider shot as each filter adds to unwanted vignette. Tried it for a little while and then added the intensifier and polarizer to get a slower shutter speed. Eventually I just went with the 5-stop and 10-stop NDs to get the slow shutter speed. Wasn't that successful as I was unable to get the right shutter speed. Seems like the two needed at least 4 minutes to expose properly. Need to try this again...

brisk morning

2, a photo by SlowManLuis2011 on Flickr.

Interesting result with the slow shutter speed blurring the clouds that were moving on this windy day. Love the effect...

workflow

2, a photo by SlowManLuis2011 on Flickr.

Finally remembered all the steps in this morning's shoot. Set the manual focus by determining dof for the focal length, checked the diff exposures so I can use the correct GND filter, attached the trigger release to eliminate shake, closed the viewfinder to eliminate stray light, checked the focal length to make sure there is no vignetting and finally made sure my finger was not in the shot(!).

dof and focus and sharpness

dof, a photo by SlowManLuis2011 on Flickr.

Macros have the additional problem of sharpness as it has very narrow depth of field. One has to be aware of the dof and when it is sufficient it will be nice and sharp like this image. If not, focus stacking may be necessary.

focus stacking

2, a photo by SlowManLuis2011 on Flickr.

A camera/lens only has so much depth of field specially when working up close as with a macro lens. To get more dof requires "focus stacking" whereby one takes different photos with different focus points and then blends them all with software.