Yesterday was Scott Kelby's annual worldwide photowalk, where almost 30,000 photographers around the world meet up in local groups to take photographs.
A friend of mine organised the photowalk in Vancouver, located in Olympic Village in Vancouver. I've been tending to avoid organised photowalks for the past few months, as I don't necessarily find them conducive to producing photos I'm happy with. However, Olympic Village is an area of the city which I haven't photographed that much, and when I have I've taken shots I'm somewhat happy with, so that, along with it being scheduled at dusk, got me to sign up.
In case you couldn't guess, this bridge is called Canoe Bridge (next time, bring wire clippers...), so named because of the way it is wider in the middle. I've always liked this bridge, especially at night with the lights under the handrails, but I've struggled to get a shot that I'm particularly happy with. Despite this, I thought I'd give it another go.
In order to capture the dynamic range and pick up the faint texture in the cloudy sky, this is an HDR shot, with a series of eight exposures in one-stop increments from 2 seconds to 4 minutes. Acquiring these shots took rather a long time due to this bridge being on the seawall, and being rather heavily used! The thirty second shot was the worst -- long enough to make it really hard to get a shot with the bridge clear, but short enough that anyone who was on the bridge would make a noticeable shadow. After about twenty minutes, I'd finally managed to get the component photos.
In the background on the left is the end of False Creek, and the Science World building and geodesic dome. The dome, along with BC Place (out of shot behind and to the left) are lit up in pink this month for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. On the right are some of the apartments and shops that make up part of the Vancouver Olympic Village, first developed during the Winter Olympics in 2010, and one of the fastest-growing areas of Vancouver.
Since the EXIF seems to have run off, shot at 17mm, f/11 (for depth of field and sparkly star effects), ISO 200.
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...
@princessm Those step-like outlines are steps :) They lead down into the bay to the right of the bridge. (I believe the designers rather grandly call it the Tidal Amphitheatre...)
how can anyone resist a photowalk at the olympic village! your composition and the perspective you took is beyond awesome, alexis, and as always, this great shot is accompanied by an incredibly easy to understand description. you're a real star alexis!
First off FAVing this wonderful shot and view. I also did the WWPW but in the old town of Frederick, Md. It was great to be part of something happening all over the world... now to look through some of your album
nice! our photo walk in Victoria was from 3:15-5:30pm, absolutely the worst light possible. not sure why he chose that time, I like your organizer's choice better.
@cameronknowlton Thanks! Those times do sound tricky, especially if you had the same flat skies we had on Saturday afternoon!
Getting everything in focus wasn't too much of an issue here -- the nearest point in the shot was about 8 feet away, which is a long way away when you're at 17mm on a full-frame camera. By f/11 I could be fairly confident I'd get everything in focus fairly easily.
As almost always when I'm on a tripod, I focused manually using the magnified Live View, choosing a point at infinity (in this case, the lights on the Science World dome). I dialed those into focus, and then turned the focus ring very slightly to bring the focus closer. I've done this often enough that I was confident that I'd have picked a middle point that would get both the lights at infinity and the nearest parts of the bridge in focus at the same time, when shooting at f/11.
If I'm in a more challenging situation (such as some of my seascapes, where the near point in the image can often by as little as two feet away), I'll tend to use the DOF preview button in Live View. I'll set my aperture to what I'd like to use (ideally f/16 or less, as that's about the diffraction-limited aperture on my camera), focus on infinity using the magnified Live View, and then holding down the DOF preview button (which stops the lens down), bring the focus nearer until I'm only just keeping the infinity objects properly sharp. I'll then move to the nearest point of the image in the magnified Live View image and again hold down the DOF preview button, and confirm that is properly sharp as well. If it's not, I'll repeat the process with a narrower aperture.
You can use depth of field tables to do the same thing, but to be honest I find I can run through that procedure in 10-15 seconds, which is quicker than looking up the right table. I also find that depth of field tables don't always give me the level of sharpness I want -- I think because they are calculated based on 'acceptable sharpness' for film use, and the tolerances are narrower when using modern high-resolution digital sensors -- using the depth of field preview button and magnified live view gives absolute confidence that (excluding other issues such as camera movement), what looked sharp will really *be* sharp.
thank you, Alexis, that's a good process. I haven't played with my DOF preview since I changed that button to call up my artificial horizon (which I use for almost every shot). I recall that I really liked the DOF preview improvements on the D600 over the D90.
@cameronknowlton I have the horizon on my info button, but I'm not sure if that is possible (or even makes sense to do) on Nikon.
There's a few shots on that page, but none of them are mine. I do sell quite a few Vancouver skyline shots through Getty Images though, so they tend to turn up in unexpected places from time to time!
@cameronknowlton While the winning photo is not of a style that I would have taken, I know the organiser (who selected the winning photo) well, and I am confident that he made a careful and well-considered selection. (I also know the photographer who won, and know that it meant a great deal to her to win).
Getting everything in focus wasn't too much of an issue here -- the nearest point in the shot was about 8 feet away, which is a long way away when you're at 17mm on a full-frame camera. By f/11 I could be fairly confident I'd get everything in focus fairly easily.
As almost always when I'm on a tripod, I focused manually using the magnified Live View, choosing a point at infinity (in this case, the lights on the Science World dome). I dialed those into focus, and then turned the focus ring very slightly to bring the focus closer. I've done this often enough that I was confident that I'd have picked a middle point that would get both the lights at infinity and the nearest parts of the bridge in focus at the same time, when shooting at f/11.
If I'm in a more challenging situation (such as some of my seascapes, where the near point in the image can often by as little as two feet away), I'll tend to use the DOF preview button in Live View. I'll set my aperture to what I'd like to use (ideally f/16 or less, as that's about the diffraction-limited aperture on my camera), focus on infinity using the magnified Live View, and then holding down the DOF preview button (which stops the lens down), bring the focus nearer until I'm only just keeping the infinity objects properly sharp. I'll then move to the nearest point of the image in the magnified Live View image and again hold down the DOF preview button, and confirm that is properly sharp as well. If it's not, I'll repeat the process with a narrower aperture.
You can use depth of field tables to do the same thing, but to be honest I find I can run through that procedure in 10-15 seconds, which is quicker than looking up the right table. I also find that depth of field tables don't always give me the level of sharpness I want -- I think because they are calculated based on 'acceptable sharpness' for film use, and the tolerances are narrower when using modern high-resolution digital sensors -- using the depth of field preview button and magnified live view gives absolute confidence that (excluding other issues such as camera movement), what looked sharp will really *be* sharp.
by the way, I saw this photo in Groupon, and wondered if they'd nicked if from you (then proceeded to compress all the quality out of it): http://www.groupon.com/deals/ga-bk-century-plaza-hotel-spa-2?utm_campaign=UserReferral_mih&utm_medium=email&utm_source=uu12482630
There's a few shots on that page, but none of them are mine. I do sell quite a few Vancouver skyline shots through Getty Images though, so they tend to turn up in unexpected places from time to time!
Thank you for the detailed info, one day I hope to manage a capture as good as this
Congratulations on the winning image for the Victoria photowalk! http://worldwidephotowalk.com/walk/victoria-bc-canada-selkirk-waterfront/