You see, he had been plotting not only sunsets but moon rises ever since the Scott Kelby Walk back in July, and knew that tonight would be a particularly good night to catch the moon rising over the skyline of the city both because of its position, and because it was a clear night with very few (if any) clouds in the sky.  Apparently Gregg had been using the Photographers Ephemeris application for a while now (available in desktop versions and iPhone versions as well), and his research was spot on.

A few other decent apps are available for the iPhone/iPad/iTouch crowd (both free and paid), including the popular Sunrise Sunset Lite application which works nicely except for azimuth and elevation.  Still, for free, what can you expect?  Get TPS – it’s worth its weight in gold!

For those that use the Android operating system for their smart phones, try the Sundroid application from the AppBrain marketplace: Sundroid Free Sunrise/Sunset for Android on AppBrain

We walked away from the short outing (only an hour or so) with several good compositions to add to our respective portfolios…only now I owe him a beer.  Well worth it for the following:

Moonrise Over Denver

Happy shooting and have a great weekend!

Stanley Lake

Let’s take a quick run through some of the settings:

On starting the application, you will be presented with several tabs, Project Assistant, Source Images, Control Points, Exposure/HDR, Preview, and Create Panorama.  I only really used the 1st, 4th, and last tabs to process this image, but that’s primarily because PTGui was able to align everything for me.  If everything wasn’t decently aligned during capture, you’d likely have to add control points to the program to account for variations.  So, getting it right in camera does still count!

Tab 1 – Project Assistant

Step 1: Here’s where you import your images – the cool part is that PTGui can take raw files so you don’t need to lose any image quality by running through another program first…(look for a post on how to export to PTGui from Lightroom some time next week).

Project Assistant Tab

It’s pretty straightforward here – simply click the button to load images and your file browser will open…navigate to the folder your raw files are in and select the ones needed for the pano.  The program will likely detect your lens used from the exif data, but if your lens does not look correct, simply uncheck the “Automatic” box and enter the correct information (this was taken with the Sigma 8-15mm, so I changed mine – sorry no screen capture there).

EXIF Data Settings

The next part is the fun part – if you are bracketing your exposures correctly, PTGui will detect that and ask you an important question when you align the images in Step 2.

Step 2: Align Images – If you are not shooting HDR, this step is a lot simpler, but for those that enjoy HDR (even subtle HDR), this is of particular interest:

HDR Options

So, the deal here is that if you are shooting your bracketing handheld, you do not want to link to the original images.  I’m not sure what the distinction is, but according to PTGui instructions, that’s the best course of action.  Naturally, the converse holds true as well…if you are using a tripod, I guess it’s safe to link to the original images.  So, use the one best suited to your needs, and proceed with the alignment – PTGui will analyze and align everything for you (this is the stitching portion):

Aligning Images in PTGui

One the images are aligned, the Panorama Editor window will open – here it shows you how everything is overlaid to create the pano – use this as a reference point, and if things look good (they should, I’ve not experienced a scenario yet where I’ve had to deal with control points), you can close this editor:

Pano Editor

Tab 4:  Exposure/HDR Settings

Step 3: Now, move to the Exposure/HDR tab.  Here is where you’ll enter the tone mapping settings to define how the HDR image will look once flattened and saved so you can view it in a regular program.  You can choose from a True HDR option (which is the one I used) or Exposure Fusion.  Give both a whirl so you can see how things differ…as I said, I like the True HDR version myself, but your mileage may vary:

HDR/Fusion Tone Mapping

The options for adjusting your tone mapping has a basic and advanced tab.  I leave it on the basic tab and just tweak the slider settings for compression, brightness, radius, saturation and contrast to taste.

HDR Options

Click OK to go back to the main window, and move to the last tab in the program – Create Panorama.

Tab 6: Create Panorama

Name Your File: You’ll want to give it a descriptive name so you can find it easily because once this is done a final step will be needed to crop your image so it looks right.  Also, if you want to have access to the HDR reference file, make sure in the output options, you check off both tone mapped and HDR panorama.

You are all set, it will now warp and render the final files for you.  Warning:  This is a pretty resource intensive task as up until now we’ve been using thumbnail views to define our parameters – now it has to use the original files and both stitch and render the HDR reference file.  If you are using your computer for other tasks as well, things may slow down a lot!

Once the final output jpg is created, go into your favorite image editor and crop off the black areas to finalize the panorama image for either print or web.

PTGui panorama

So, there’s the process.  I know, there’s many other pano processing programs out there, and all have their pros and cons.  What struck me as the biggest advantage is the ability to process both panorama and HDR image stacking at the same time.  For those interested in learning more about PTGui – they have a free trial download, and the program itself is very cost effective considering what it can do for you and your work flow.  There’s a personal license for $109 US and a Pro license for $206.  I’d recommend the Pro version.  Check it out here:  PTGui

Got your own personal panorama software preferences?  Share your thoughts on the pros and cons in the comments area – would love to hear what others are using and what their work flow looks like.  Enjoy the post and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!  Happy Shooting!

Polarizing Filters

Polarizing filters can be a godsend – they can really bring out blues in a sky, or minimize reflections in windows, and can really help to improve the quality of your work.  At the same time, polarizers can also be very tricky to use.  On my recent trip to Arizona (I shot a weekend with Rich Charpentier of The Airstream Chronicles), there were many opportunities to bring out the gorgeous blue sky, and contrast it with the amazing colors in the orange rocks that the American Southwest is known for.

The problem with polarizers is that the blue that is brought out is not a consistent blue – it usually gets stronger as you move toward the light source.  So, when you go to stitch things together, the results can be less than satisfactory with evident banding and shifts on hue of the blue skies.  Take a look at the example below to see what I am talking about regarding the banding…

See how the sky has blues that aren’t consistent?  It’s because I did not rotate the filter to accommodate the shift in blues as I shot across the scene.

Another problem is kind of hinted at above – what if you have a sky where you want the blue to pop, but the foreground includes a water reflection that is an integral part of your composition?  The answer here is to expose both with, and without the polarizing effect, and then blend together the two shots later in post production.  Masking off parts of images is much easier to deal with than the polarizing effect in the sky, but it’s a pitfall of panorama photography to be aware of.

As it happened, later on that day I was capturing another scene where there was no sky, so it was a non-issue.  Here, the key is to remember to spin your filter so that the reflection does reveal itself, otherwise you will think you are doing something severely wrong when you can see the reflection with your eye, but not through the lens.  I probably spent a good five minutes trying to change the angle of view before I realized it was just a quick spin of the filter to reveal the reflection below me…

As, as you can see, there are benefits to polarizers and there are also downsides to consider as well.  When used correctly, they can really add to the character of an image.  For those looking at specific recommendations, here are the ones in my gear bag:

• Moose’s Warm Circular Polarizer (58mm)
• Tiffen Circular Polarizer (77mm)

But enough about my thoughts on polarizing filters – what about you?  Do you think they are legitimate tools to alter a scene?  What about reproducing the effect in post production?  Which ones do you use?  Do you have a favorite or do you prefer all photography “au naturale”?  Sound off in the comments or via email!

Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow for more photography goodness!

For instance, I was working on the photos from the weekend shoot and had a rather good set I wanted to put into a panorama shot.  Before taking the good set though, I decided to run a test on some older images on a new program that came  which came recommended to me from Alex Saunders over at Tenuous Thread called AutoPano Pro.  So, in working with the trial software, I went into Lightroom and grabbed my 12 or 13 photos to stitch together from my archives and see how it did for a test run.

Well, because the stitching of 12-13 images can take a while, I left it and came back the next day to find I had grabbed one of the wrong images.  Can you find my “oops”?

Here's the edited version

Pre-post production

So, my foibles and failures in attention to detail thrown wide for the world to see!    It can be fun though when you look at these things lightheartedly and just have a good chuckle though.  Anyone else have any stories or foibles they want to share?  Comments are open…

1. Shoot During the Golden Hours – The reason these hours are called “the golden hours” are twofold:  first, because the quality of light from the  lower angle of the sun is more yellowish and natural looking (or golden), and is more flattering than the harsher light of the hours in between.  Second, because the shots you produce from these windows translates into sales on a much more regular basis than other photos.  While you may not be interested in selling your work – images are far more appreciated when captured during this special time.  In general, the best hours are the ones just prior to sunrise and just after sunset.  With the sun below the horizon, but still casting its light above, the harshness is gone and everything is bathed in golden hues.  Plan your shoots accordingly!  Whenever you notice these lighting conditions, make note of your surroundings – you may see something in a new light – literally!
2. Scout Your Locations – It’s one thing to know when to shoot, but it’s another thing entirely to know where to shoot.  One of my favorite images from my own portfolio came from a venture I took with a fellow photographer in South Carolina that had been studying the movement of the sun for over a year in a certain area.  At the time of year that we went to this place, he knew the sun would be positioned ideally in the sky, the colors it cast would offer the most potential for just amazing results, and the type of skies and weather would be perfectly suited.  He knew this almost down to a science.  When he invited me and said “I’ve never seen conditions better than this”, given his research to date, I knew it was a rare opportunity to get some great shots from the scouting that he had done… I had to jump at the opportunity!
3. Minimize your gear.  Landscapes are all about catching the perspective of a wider area, and the best way to catch a wider area is with a wider lens.  You simply don’t need that 100mm macro, or the 70-200mm zoom.  Take your widest lens and your best body.  For me that’s the 10-22mm and my trusty 40D.  I also don’t take any extra flashes or light stands, umbrellas or snoots either.  My camera with lens on a Rapid-R strap, a spare battery in one pocket and spare memory cards in another, and I just happily shoot away!
4. Shoot in Portrait Mode – I know this sounds crazy, but landscapes usually are not just about the foreground or the background – there are elements of both that you would like to have.  Even when you shoot a wide angle lens in landscape mode (horizontal), it’s best to span the area with multiple images and then stitch together the resulting ones afterward in your favorite editor.  If you are going to stitch together afterward anyway, catch more of that sky and more foreground detail by rotating the camera 90 degrees.
5. Center the Horizon – Conventional wisdom in composition says to put your horizon on one of the Rule of Thirds lines.  While this is true as a general rule, when capturing a landscape image, especially when stitching multiple photos together, it is better to put the horizon in the center for a number of reasons.  First off, there will be less distortion of the scene where it matters most in post production.  When your software stitches things together afterward, it tries to match elements and overlay them.  If your horizon is off center (and this is even more true the wider the lens), there will always be some distortion due to the physics of how lenses work.  Minimize this distortion by centering that horizon.  You can crop it appropriately during the post production phase if needed, and the stitching will go a lot easier!

Since people tend to get a better idea of these types of principles by seeing examples too, here’s a few shots that utilize some of these techniques.

Can you guess which ones used which tips?  Got any tips of your own to add?  Sound off in the comments!   As always, happy shooting, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow – for the last day of the week, and the last day to submit your images for the January Giveaway!  See you then…

Well, the clouds and the sun didn’t really cooperate so I gave up on that and starting fiddling around with some HDR kinds of things.  I saw a traffic light nearby and there wasn’t much traffic so tried to time some bracketed exposures (my shutter speed was getting near 30 seconds on the top end of the bracket).  Some possibilities developed, but nothing too earth shattering, and I was starting to feel a few drops of rain, so I packed up to head back over to the house – about 2 miles away.

As I was coming back to the house, the clouds that evaded me on the mountainous horizon were ominously hanging over the cityline of Denver (another scene I’d been meaning to shoot) and flashes of lightning were coursing through the clouds, with some pretty regular spikes coming down.  All of this was about 30 miles away, and heading away from me so i was feeling pretty safe except for the possibility of some raindrops now and then.

So, I found a nook by the open range, set up the camera on my trusty tripod, and tried to recall things I’d read about how to shoot lightning.  Apparently some of it stuck, because I came away with this:

Lightning over Denver

So, how did I do this?  I kept four key things in mind:

1. I used my tripod!  Stability was key because every single exposure was no less than 15 seconds!  When shooting lightning, you want to open the shutter for a longer time to increase your odds of catching it.  Because it was flashing so regularly I eventually dropped my shutter to 15 seconds and still managed 6 or 7 really good captures.
2. Keep the noise Down – I dropped my ISO to 100 for all shots and made sure long exposure noise reduction was turned on in camera.  Sure it took twice as long to capture each image, but in the long run it was worth it because there was much less noise to process on the back end.
3. Don’t touch the camera!  I set the camera to bracket exposures and put it on a two-second delay.  So, by the time the camera shutter opened I was no longer touching it, and then the second and third shots fired automatically.
4. I made sure I was in a sweet spot of my lens.  Part of this is knowing your gear – I was shooting the 10-22mm (wide angle) from Canon, and know that when it goes below f4 it can get fuzzy.  So, I was at f11 for most of my shots.  Great depth of field and everything is sharp!

Well, a fifth one was post-processing.  After a few rather unpleasant attempts to process as HDR images, I enlisted the aide of friend-of-the-blog Terry Reinert, who you know from our podcast talk a short time ago.  Terry is wicked smart (he’s an engineer) and knows the heck out of HDR.  I asked him what I was doing wrong (because the clouds were getting blotches scattered through them and generally looking poorly).  He gave some insights, what he was finding yielded better results and sent me a low res sample via email.  I liked the path he took, but the colors were not quite where I remembered them from Sunday, so dove in again with the new-found knowledge.  I tried a few quick variations on his technique, but in the interests of time, just did a short version to post here.  Once I get my final edit done (probably this weekend, I will likely be adding the image to my portfolio, so will also post that here as well.  For now though, I wanted to share the back story and a quick version of one processed version that I found appealing.  I am not crazy about the black across the bottom, but since my time was limited here, I’ll likely be addressing that this weekend when I have more time.  For now though, the quick version and a panorama crop looked kinda cool!

Thanks go out to Terry for giving a hand.   In our discussion he also mentioned possibly doing a tutorial on blending using the images, so keep your eyes on Terry’s blog (Where Art and Engineering Collide) as I may be a featured artist!  (How cool would that be?) ETA:  On posting the link to his blog, I see he’s already put his tutorial together – thanks Terry!

In other blog/photo news, as you all know from yesterday, the OnOne Giveaway concluded with Pete Petersheim being the big winner.  The new contest is underway though, with a new thread up at the Learning Digital Photography group on Flickr, so be sure to stop in there and share your images in the new thread (the theme this go around is “Fun” since the price is a Wacom Bamboo Fun!)  Good luck to everyone and don’t forget to have some fun!

Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

Grab the Feed

First off, thanks go out to Rob Jones of Towner Jones Photography for another nod from his blog.

I’d also like to pay special thanks to Dave Cross of NAPP fame.  I saw a pretty big blip up on the blog from about a week or two ago and when recently looking at Google Analytics, saw he had given me a mention from his blog back on Dec. 1st.  Thanks so much Dave, and although it’s been said, it’s worth saying again – my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

Lastly, shouts to fellow NAPP member Mitzs who also gave me some link love on her blog, Pursuing Photoshop!  Thanks for that!

And now, for the POTD entries, I was able to contribute to Jason Moore’s ongoing Geographic Composition series which is featured on his blog today, so here’s that photo:

And last but not least, since I got the 10-22mm lens (finally, after a year or so of debating which wide angle to get) on Friday, I was playing with the zoom and looking at the angle of view when my dog came right up to the lens the other day.  Instinctively, I snapped the shutter.  The aperture was wide open and the shutter speed was way to slow so the image quality is horrible, but the image itself is just hysterical.  Her name is Maggie, but we call her Moo for short.  So, in honor of her, I am closing today’s post with her:

Happy shooting, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

As some of you may recall, Scott Kelby held a worldwide photo walk a few months ago to promote his new book that was coming out on Lightroom 2.  Well, since then several smaller photo walk clubs and groups have formed and begun their own outings.  Denver was no exception and our first official photo walk this last weekend had a really good turnout of roughly 15-20 people.  About half of us even got together afterward at a local eatery to share stories and get to know one another better.  Everyone is posting shots over on the Meetup site and at the Flickr site as well, so stop in there to see some of the talents showcased in those venues.  The shot above is a pano I stitched together from the occasion.  With more photo walks to come, this definitely has some positive energy about it.

Jason D. Moore – Geographic Composition Series: Transitions

Well, that’s all for today, Thursday. Remember, Jason’s Geographic Composition Series collection will begin tomorrow, but since I am posting this rather late (9PM Mountain time), the readership will likely see this tomorrow morning. Until tomorrow night then, happy shooting and watch those apertures!

So, you’ll notice that the color on these is a little off, and the exposure is a little dark. I realized that I would have issues though, if I tried to expose for such a wide scene and range of colors across the entire panorama, most especially when trying to use the Photomerge function of Photoshop. So I set my White Balance to cloudy, my exposure to one frame, and just snapped across the image.

Here’s where it gets fun…I am running CS2 on my Mac laptop which cannot read my 40D files. My CS3 was set up on my Windows desktop. The Dell only has a 2.3 Ghz Celeron processor with 1.5 GB of RAM (I never got around to adding that last 512 before the move…). Needless to say, without being set up right, I really couldn’t process 8 shots each at 10MP (that’s a grand total of 80 MP in the final pano)! Even now with the portable AC on the Dell, it was screaming along as I ran the Photomerge utility through Bridge. Once I got the photomerge done, I stamped the layers (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) and converted to a smart object.

I then double-clicked the smart object to edit in it’s own window. This image file was now at 480 MB! Needless to say, I did some layer adjustments for exposure, and curves, then saved the file. I was now back in the full pano composite. I saved the full pano as a PSD file, then flattened before making some downsizing. For the curious, the full size pano is over 8000px on the long side. For the purposes of the web, I did have to downsize it a little. Clearly downsizing to allow the blog to show it would be out of the question, so here’s links to a large sized version (1600px long side), and a xl sized (3200px long side).

Large Pano

Extra-Large Pano

So, here’s the question: was it worth it?