St. Louis Art Museum Muse at Dusk

The muse to the right of the St. Louis Art Museum main entrance as it appeared at dusk.  The building is lit by a sodium vapor streetlight and the statue by skylight and tungsten.  Auto white balance from Nikon draws some heavy flack in reviews, but I think it does a remarkable job interpreting perceptual colors.  A picture I took in January this year does not have the black railing showing at the foot of the statue.    

Monochrome was processed in Nik Silver Efex Pro using a green filter equivalent to Wratten #61 and toned sepia/blue in Lightroom 3.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikkor AF-S 50mm f1.4 G
Exposure: ISO 200, f/5.6 @ 1/5s
Support: Handheld
Lighting: Mixed dusk skylight, tungsten and sodium vapor streetlight
Location: St. Louis Art Musem GPS
Dates: Capture - November 26, 2010, Processed - November 27, 2010
Processing: RAW in Lightroom 3 and Nik Silver Efex Pro

St. Louis Art Museum at Night

Leaving the St. Louis Art Museum at dusk last evening, the sky was absolutely crystal clear and lighting on the statue of St. Louis spectacular.  This monochrome was processed in Nik Silver Efex Pro using a custom blue/sepia split tone.

This is the color version, pretty much straight out of the Nikon D700 set to auto white balance.  The color is accurate, which is to say, this is how the scene looked to me.  The sky is amazing, but, as Susan pointed out, it really over powers the subject.


Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikkor AF-S 50mm f1.4 G
Exposure: ISO 200, f/5.6 @ 1/8s
Support: Handheld
Lighting: Mixed dusk skylight, tungsten and mercury
Location: St. Louis Art Musem GPS
Dates: Capture - November 26, 2010, Processed - November 27, 2010
Processing: RAW in Lightroom 3 and Nik Silver Efex Pro

Artemis Running #9, HDR Test

The one picture stop I always make on a visit to the St. Louis Art Museum it "Artemis Running".  This time, I thought I'd see how well make handheld HDR work.  The light was very flat, so I used my custom "Realistic Bright" setting in Nik HDR Efex to pull up detail and contrast without introducing exaggerated color or texture.  The picture got a little finishing help from Photoshop CS5 to adjust levels and curves.

This monochrome was made in Nik Silver Efex Pro using a custom preset I call "Wet Plate" that emulates the collodion process, then applied the sepia/blue split tone in Lightroom 3.

I have a preset in Nik Color Efex Pro that I call Fresson, which I applied for this version.  I can see that the Fresson processing lends itself more to pictures with less dynamic range.


Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikkor AF-S 50mm f1.4 G
Exposure: ISO 800, f/5.6 @ 1/50s x three 1-stop brackets
Support: Handheld
Lighting: Mixed window daylight and tungsten
Location: St. Louis Art Musem GPS
Dates: Capture - November 26, 2010, Processed - November 27, 2010
Processing: RAW in Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Photoshop CS5, Nik Silver Efex Pro

Meg HDR Portrait Test #1

In the early 1970's I worked for a time at Todd Studios in St. Louis.  Part of my job was to fill print orders from a massive library of glass plate negatives.  The experience as amazing, not just because of the invaluable hands on experience, but because I was working in a sort of time bubble using equipment that was state of the art in 1920.  One thing I took away was Todd's imaginative lighting, which had that beautiful hard/soft Steichen feel.

Over the years, commercial lighting style got very flat, epitomized by room sized banks and the ring flash.  The flat light is fast and easy, making it perfect for high volume catalog work.  It has been on my mind to do a series of portraits and figures that have that Roaring Twenties feel.

This picture is a detail from an improvised sitting with Meg last Friday.  Meg very patiently sat rock solid still for a five exposure brackets and three position panorama.  The bracket shots were processed in Nik HDR Efex and the panorama stitched in Photoshop CS5.  I used Lightroom 3 to make the monochrome conversion and apply a sepia with blue shadows split tone to emulate Kodak Printing Out Paper that we used at Todd Studios.

Camera: Nikon D700

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/8.0 @ 1/6s x five 1-stop brackets

Support: Gitzo Basalt tripod, Acratech GB Ball head, leveling base and nodal rail, RRS L-bracket

Lighting: Single Calumet Quattro daylight fluorescent from behind, strip mirror to fill

Location: Grand Center Artist Studios GPS

Dates: Capture - November 19, 2010, Processed - November 26, 2010

Processing: RAW in Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5, Nik Silver Efex Pro

Clouds #29, HDR Test

I've been working through various workflows for processing clouds, but keep coming back to the look that underexposed Kodachrome gave us.  I wonder how long it will be before the shorthand meaning of Kodachrome drops from the visual literacy lexicon.  After I got the Kodachrome color and contrast, I took it one step further and simulated Pete Turner's Kodachrome copy look by processing a single image in Nik HDR Efex, RAW Sharpener and Dfine.

This monochrome based on the HDR color, converted in Nik Silver Efex Pro simulating a Wratten #61 filter.  The blue/sepia split tone was applied in Lightroom 3.

The starter shot made to look like Kodachrome using Photoshop CS5 levels and curves adjustments.  

Lens: Nikkor AF 24-85mm f2.8-4 IF 

Camera: Nikon D100

Exposure: ISO 200, 28mm @ f/5.6 @ 1/160s, Auto WB, RAW, handheld

Lighting: Daylight

Location: My backyard

Dates: Capture - April 10, 2008, Processed - November 23, 2010

Processing: Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Nik Silver Efex Pro, Photoshop CS5

Cypress Trunks, Heron Pond, HDR

This is a good example, I think, of a shot saved by HDR processing.  It was taken near dusk and the light was very flat and kind of sickly.  I liked the composition, but the tonality was just too deadly to make a picture with any punch.  Luckily, I had bracketed the exposures and was able to pull out some detail by processing the shots in Nik HDR Efex using my custom landscape preset.  The colors version of this shot is not very attractive, but the detail was punched up with enough tonal separation to give me a wide range of options for the monochrome conversion in Nik Silver Efex Pro.  The final touch here is a sepia/blue split tone applied in Lightroom 3.  The print looks a bit like charcoal on mylar.

Lens: Nikkor AF 24-85mm f2.8-4 IF 

Camera: Nikon D100

Exposure: ISO 200, 50mm @ f/8 @ 1/6s, Auto WB, tripod, RAW

Lighting: Daylight at dusk

Location: Cache River Natural Area, Heron Pond GPS

Dates: Capture - April 15, 2006, Processing - November 18, 2010

Processing: RAW file in Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Nik Silver Efex Pro

Cypress Knees, Heron Pond, HDR Test

The cypress knees are curious structures that are part of the root system.  This version started with the color picture below, made from three half-stop brackets processed in Nik HDR Efex, then applied a "Color Isolate Red" develop preset in Lightroom 3.  The knees got lost is the straight monochrome conversion.

This HDR color version captures fairly well the minor chord dusk light and mood of the swamp.  

In Nik Silver Efex Pro, I was able to get good separation between the knees and water without loosing detail using a split tone preset I made for landscapes.

Lens: Nikkor AF 24-85mm f2.8-4 IF 

Camera: Nikon D100

Exposure: ISO 200, 50mm @ f/8 @ 1/6s, Auto WB, tripod, RAW

Lighting: Daylight at dusk

Location: Cache River Natural Area, Heron Pond GPS

Dates: Capture - April 15, 2006, Processing - November 18, 2010

Processing: RAW file in Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Nik Silver Efex Pro

Urban Detail #4, HDR

This is a side view of the same snow blade at the Museum of Transportation St. Louis I posted as "Urban Detail #3", processed as a single file in Nik HDR Efex.  I used a more naturalistic tone mapping for this picture.

This monochrome was processed in Nik Silver Efex Pro with a split tone applied in Lightroom 3.

Lens: Nikkor AF 24-85mm f2.8-4 IF 

Camera: Nikon D100

Exposure: ISO 200, 85mm @ f/5.6 @ 1/60s, Auto WB, tripod, RAW

Lighting: Daylight

Location: Museum of Transportation St. Louis GPS

Dates: Capture - October 16, 2005, Procesed - November 16, 2010

Processing: Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Nik Silver Efex Pro, Photoshop CS5

Urban Detail #3, HDR

This is a new version of a previously published picture of a snow blade at the Museum of Transportation, starting with the color version below and converting to monochrome in Nik Silver Efex Pro using a custom split tone preset.

Nik HDR Efex found quite a bit of color.  I find that the exaggerated color gives me more to work with in the monochrome conversions.

Lens: Nikkor AF 24-85mm f2.8-4 IF 

Camera: Nikon D100

Exposure: ISO 200, 85mm @ f/5.6 @ 1/125s, Auto WB, tripod, RAW

Lighting: Daylight

Location: Museum of Transportation St. Louis GPS

Dates: Capture - October 16, 2005, Procesed - November 14, 2010

Processing: Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Nik Silver Efex Pro, Photoshop CS5

Botanical Abrstract #3, HDR

These pods in the Missouri Botanical Garden Climatron are about the size of a human head, as as you approach, look like a prop from a sci-fi movie more than anything else.  This monochrome comes from Nik Silver Efex Pro after first processing three 1-stop brackets in Nik HDR Efex.

So, if you like red, this is the picture from which the monochrome was made.

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 D 

Camera: Nikon D100

Exposure: ISO 200, brackets around f/22 @ 1.0s, Auto WB, tripod

Lighting: Daylight filtered through trees and the Climatron dome

Location: Missouri Botanical Gardens GPS

Dates: Capture - October 9, 2008, Processing - November 13, 2010

Processing: RAW file in Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Photoshop CS5 and Nik Silver Efex Pro 

Lily Pad #3, MOBOT, Infrared HDR

This is actually a picture repost.  While I liked the first version, it was really flat.  Older, wiser and armed with Nik HDR Efex, I processed the brackets using a landscape preset I made just for infrared tone mapping.  The monochrome was created in Nik Silver Efex Pro, then toned in Lightroom 3.  The

The infrared color HDR turned out more interesting than usual.  It looks like some sort of UV glow painting.   

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 D 

Camera: Nikon D100

Exposure: ISO 200, brackets around f/16 @ 1/6s, Cokin P007, Polarizer, Auto WB, tripod

Lighting: Daylight, filtered through trees, late afternoon

Location: Missouri Botanical Gardens GPS

Dates: Capture - October 9, 2008, Processing - November 12, 2010

Processing: RAW file in Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Photoshop CS5 and Nik Silver Efex Pro