We're in for a few days of cloud and rain in Vancouver, and the clouds were just starting to come in from the west on Thursday night, promising a good sunset.
I headed out to a park I've never been to in West Vancouver for this shot. This is probably the smallest park I've visited around Vancouver -- a series of about fifty steps running close between two West Vancouver mansions led down to a small flat area which was well under half the size of my apartment, with a park bench looking out across the water.
Some rock formations in the water made a nice foreground for a shot looking out towards Bowen Island and the sunset. This was taken about 15 minutes after the sun disappeared behind the island, and the last rays gave two or three minutes of stunning colour in the sky, and reflected on the water.
I used a 3-stop graduated ND filter to control the brightness of the sky compared to the foreground, and a circular polariser to capture the colour of the reflections on the water.
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
If you're interested in any...
Hi, your photography is absolutely stunning - so many amazing images.
I'm commenting here because I want to thank you for the brilliant link you've created which shows photos from the PP - I've added it to my profile. I love 365 and getting a photo on PP is so special.
Stunning image. I really love this one, with the great rocks in the foreground contrasting with the golden lights in the back sky. Handled most skillfuly with one image and the ND and CP filters. Fav.
Alexis, you are so talented at these night shots, I love them. Is the used a 3-stop graduated ND filter that you use a screw in or slotted into a holder in front of your lens?
Question for you...I had an infuriating pano experience earlier in the week when I tried to merge 10 shots in elements 11. It couldn't do it...created something that looked like a triple exposure pano with different pano merged shots on top of each other. I gave up and just merged 3-4 shots thereby getting two panos...one of the east and one the west. I just pulled out the tips you have me months ago and see you recommended hugging. Do you think that would have worked? I'm wondering with my d800 if the size of the photos is just too big. Thoughts?
@jgpittenger The files certainly won't be too big to make a panorama, but may be too large for Photoshop Elements. Elements doesn't support images which are longer or wider than 30,000 pixels. Stitching together 10 photos from any reasonably high-resolution camera is likely to see you exceed that limitation.
Hugin (not Hugging, although that's always recommended!) should have no problem stitching together the photos, provided there isn't something fundamental wrong with them (such as insufficient overlap, or too much processing on the pre-stitched photos), but may be overkill for such a simple stitch (10 photos in a single row). If you use a PC, you might first want to try Microsoft ICE, which is a lot simpler to use, usually quicker, and should manage a stitch like this without difficulty: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/
Bear in mind that if you want to do further processing on the result in Elements, you'll have to export at 30,000 pixels on the long edge, or less. Both ICE and Hugin can do this.
I'm commenting here because I want to thank you for the brilliant link you've created which shows photos from the PP - I've added it to my profile. I love 365 and getting a photo on PP is so special.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-lightroom-4/exporting-watermarking-your-photos/
You can either add just text, or you can use a custom graphic or logo, if you have one.
Hugin (not Hugging, although that's always recommended!) should have no problem stitching together the photos, provided there isn't something fundamental wrong with them (such as insufficient overlap, or too much processing on the pre-stitched photos), but may be overkill for such a simple stitch (10 photos in a single row). If you use a PC, you might first want to try Microsoft ICE, which is a lot simpler to use, usually quicker, and should manage a stitch like this without difficulty:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/
Bear in mind that if you want to do further processing on the result in Elements, you'll have to export at 30,000 pixels on the long edge, or less. Both ICE and Hugin can do this.
http://365project.org/abirkill/365/2013-07-04
Let me know if you have any questions!