Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Playground At Dusk


Another big thanks to Ray for getting me excited about Lightroom 2. I was able to create this amazing shot in Francis Park by settung expsoure on my son which blew the sky completely out. I then used the Recovery adjustment to bring back all the blue sky highlights. Added a little vibrance and clarity and got this sweet picture.
D90, ISO 500 (auto-iso), 18-200mm @ 44mm, f5.6 @ 1/160s.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Hercules and the Hydra Variations

I spent most of Sunday browsing for Lightroom add-ins.  The most common are Develop module presets.  I think having a good collection of these helps to quickly see what changes in mood and other possibilities might be for given photo.  Starting with a straight shot of "Hercules and the Hydra" behind the St. Louis Art Museum, taken with a Nikon D100, 24-85mm @ 48mm, ISO 200, f/11 @ 1/400s, cropped 1:1 in Lightroom 2.

Transform using "BoonDoggle 2" from BlixPhoto.  This is a very nice muting of tone combined with a strong boost in contrast.  I like the way it grayed the sky, moving the shot to more abstraction.  
Look familiar?  This is the "300" transform by Mike Lao.  This subject, oddly enough, isn't really suitable, but I'd love to run this on some protraits.

Probably not familiar because almost nobody saw the movie, but this is the "Max Payne Red" transform from by Matt Koslowski, the "Lightroom Killer Tips" guy.  Not great for this subject, but I'm keeping handy...

Finally, this one really surprised me.  The statue transformed from bronze to chrome, while leaving the other colors roughly the same.  This is the work of the "Gritty & Grungy" preset from Neil Cowley.

Shoot me a note if you want more information about these Lightroom presets.

Lone Elk

Ray and I went out to Lone Elk State Park a couple of weeks ago to shoot the elk and bison. I had my new 70-300mm f4-5.6 lens to try out and we lucked out - there were elk, bison, and candian geese aplenty. This is one of my sharper shots. Nikon D90, ISO 400, 180mm, f5.0 @ 1/160s. You can see the complete shoot here.
This was my last shoot using JPGs. Ray has tutored me on shooting RAW and loaned me his Lightroom 2 book and I'm seeing some fabulous results. More to come soon...

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Street Light at Dusk

Here is a true test of the new sensor dust removal system on the D700 :)  This street light is in front of the St. Louis Art Museum.  Nikon D700, ISO 640, 50mm f/1.8, f/8.0 @ 1/400s.  I've been importing files with the new Lightroom 2.2 Camera Neutral calibration setting after I noticed that the ACR 2.6 default profile was causing odd color shifts.