Location

Cathedral Cove

Cathedral Cove

Cathedral Cove, New Zealand
Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ISO 100 | 25mm | 133 sec | F/16

Cathedral Cove is located on New Zealand’s Coromandel’s peninsula — south east of Auckland on the North Island. Quite simply, it is a long exposure photographer’s delight. We only had an afternoon in this location — but this turned out as one of my favourite images of the trip. You can read more about our visit there on our shared blog Clicks & Trips.

Windy Night

Vantage, Washington, USA
Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ISO 200 | 32mm | 243 sec | F/4

From last night on the Wild Horse Wind & Solar Facility in Vantage. The conditions were challenging for star photography with a full supermoon and a cloudy sky. We experimented for a few hours with both short and long exposures. In the end, long exposures which highlighted the bright streaking clouds won out.

The final image is a composite of 3 frames: a low-ISO long exposure (4 min) for the majority of the scene, a high-ISO short exposure (0.3 sec) to capture the spinning blades of the wind mill, and a final exposure that shows Nate manually lighting up the wind mill for scale.

Dungeness Lighthouse

Dungeness Spit, Washington, USA
Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ISO 100 | 32mm | 134 sec | F/8

Another long exposure image — this one from our Sunday hike to the lighthouse at the end of Dungeness Spit on the Olympic Peninsula. The weather was that perfect mix of sun and cloud with a strong wind to boot — ideal for those wispy clouds… This was the last frame of the afternoon before we turned back for our 6-mile beach hike back to reality.

Kubota

Seattle, Washington, USA
Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ISO 100 | 25mm | 1.3 sec | F/16

From a photowalk with friends at the Kubota Garden this morning.  I surprised myself by converting this image to black and white — despite its original vivid colour and luminosity.  The texture in the image was generated in camera (not in post-processing as is quite popular) as a result of the camera shake I applied during the exposure.

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Juncture

Bandon, Oregon, USA
Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ISO 100 | 20mm | 240 sec | F/7.1

Another Memorial Day week-end, another trip to Bandon…  This time we came better equipped with both 6 and 10-stop neutral density filters to enable us to capture much longer exposure images.  This particular shot was taken at a disappointing and windy sunset.  Despite the bitterly cold and gusty wind, Nate stood nearly motionless on this flooded rock for 4 full minutes!  The image was solely post-processed in Lightroom.  Although I originally edited out the ND filter-induced vignette, I ended up leaving it in.

Tacoma Cable Stayed Bridge

Tacoma, Washington, USA
Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ISO 100 | 70mm | 180 sec | F/11

Nate and I were in Vancouver, Canada last week-end for Marc Koegel‘s “Fine-Art Long Exposure Photography” workshop at Vancouver Photo Workshops.  You can read Nate’s own write-up about it here.   Inspired by the experience, we went scouting for some new locations suited to long exposure photography around Tacoma.  Tacoma turns out to have several such locations with the Glass Museum, Marine Park, Titlow Park and the Tacoma Cable Bridge.  This image is a 3-minute exposure using a stacked 10-stop B+W ND filter and a Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter.  The image was post-processed using Lightroom 4, Photoshop CS6 and Nik Color Efex 4.

 

Bandon Beach

Bandon, Oregon, USA
Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ISO 100 | 17mm | 91 sec | F/22

From a series of long exposure images created last Memorial Day week-end on the Oregon Coast.  Processed in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 and Lightroom.

Macro Madness

Redmond, Washington, USA
Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ISO 100 | 100mm | 1.3 sec | F/4.5

Nate and I took a macro photography workshop yesterday offered by Charles Needle.  The day-long event involved much experimentation and was a great deal of fun.  Nate wrote more about the workshop here.  This image  is my first shot on the photoblog from the new 5D Mark III. What an upgrade from my previous camera (Canon 40D) — why did I wait so long?  🙂  This particular frame was captured with a 100mm F/2.8 macro lens along with a borrowed Canon 500D close-up filter.

Wat Arun

Bangkok, Thailand
Canon EOS 40D | ISO 100 | 10mm | 2.5 sec | F/20

A short and cheap ferry ride from the old city, Wat Arun has beautiful light in the morning.

Ford Truck in the Palouse

Colfax, Washington, USA
Canon EOS 40D | ISO 100 | 10mm | 1/6 sec | F/22

Captured last summer during a week-end getaway to the Palouse in Eastern Washington.  One of those photogenic barns (right outside Colfax proper) that beckon you.  The owner clearly looks after his property and is a very nice man.   I experimented with some HDR rendition but ultimately chose the single processed shot developed in Lightroom 4.

Wat Po at Dusk

Wat Po Temple, Bangkok, Thailand
Canon EOS 40D | ISO 200 | 10mm | 3.2 sec | F/22

Wat Po Temple is truly magical at dusk — and surprisingly uncrowded we discovered.

I tried to create an HDR version of this image in Nik HDR Efex Pro using either a set of -2/0/+2 EV shots or just the -2 and o EV shots. But I been able to create subtle and compelling HDR images from photos taken at night and showing significant light blooming. Recommendations or tips anyone? Meanwhile I processed the -2 EV shot for this blog post.

Zebra Slot

Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA
Canon EOS 40D | ISO 100 | 10mm | 1 sec | F/13

Zebra Slot is a fun, short, and in our case wet, canyon in Escalante National Monument. It is best known for this short and narrow section of striated rock with many colourful moquis. Best time to shoot is mid-morning before the sun strikes the slot walls directly.  More details on how to get there at Tom’s Canyoneering.