Travel Archives - Page 11 of 43 - TimeLine Media Blog

October 14, 2014

Event, Personal, Photography, Technology, Travel | 0 comment

Morning Moons | Tech Tuesday

Fairfax, Virginia

I feel like I have been so lazy with the blog! Sorry if you have just been anxiously hitting refresh to see if I get inspired today J Well, I am really getting caught up with all my assignments, and getting things back on track after going on a short vacation. Last week some excitement happened in the early morning skies that I almost missed! There was a lunar eclipse that would be viewable in our part of the world right at the time that I would be getting up to start my day – a perfect chance to make some photos without too much effort! And with the backlog of things I had to do, this was what I needed.

Early-morning-lunar-eclipse-©TimeLine-Media

Lunar Eclipse

A lunar eclipse is an awesome practice for your camera. Trying to get good photos of a bright moon can teach you a lot about metering, or “how a camera views and image”. Left on automatic, a camera has a difficult time getting a good photo of the face of the moon. This is due to the construction of the light meter in every camera system. They do not see composition, nor can they read the photographer’s mind to know exactly the goals for the image.

A meter measures all the light coming into the sensor, and it calculates the aperture and shutter speed that will give a middle gray image. It does not know that you want the bright light of the moon to be lowered to see the details of the surface. Lowering the amount of light will also make the rest of the photo darker – which is the compromise when making these photos. You will lose detail around the bright moon. During an eclipse that is happening right outside my front door– that is fine by me! I do not care about any of the other surrounding details.

Early-morning-lunar-eclipse-©TimeLine-Media

Once I figured an exposure that gave me the detail that I was looking for, I played with all kinds of settings. Sometimes I changed the aperture, sometimes the ISO. The exposure values were very similar, but I wanted to see how the camera responds when pushed in such a dark scene.

It only lasted a few minutes before the moon ducked too low in the horizon. I was very lucky! No need to go to extra lengths to get these photos, but so many that I’ll keep in the collection.

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August 14, 2014

Event, Photography, Technology, Travel | 0 comment

HDR – Deghosting | Tech Thursday

Tysons, Virginia

I received some questions about this photo from a few post ago:

HDR-SilverLine-in-Tysons-Corner-©TimeLine-Media

This was a high-dynamic range (HDR) photo from the Metro platform with an incoming train going through the frame. I really did not know if this would work at the time I took the images. For HDR, you need to make a series of exposures that differ in shutter speed. This will create a range of images that vary from underexposed to overexposed. Using the bracketing functions built into the camera, you can set this up in camera.

Using the very fast motor drive of the Nikon D4, there is very little difference in the composition of each frame. For the most part, you would not seen much differences except for the moving train cutting across the middle. This is what you need – the composition should be as similar as it can in each of the bracketed frames. With this in mind, the software can align each individual image for processing.

Post Processing

For this particular set, I brought the bracketed images into Photomatix Pro 5.0. After you export the images from Lightroom to Photomatix, you are presented with a Deghosting dialog box:

From the initial preview, you can see that the train is a mess. There are many different versions you are trying to stay, and the software is trying to put all of them into the combined image. To clean things up, you need to drag the “Deghosting” slides on the top left all the way to the right. This is the “Very Strong” setting. Then from the set of images below, select which of the bracketed photos you want to select as the master or source file that will take precedence over all the others. I chose the 1/160s one because the train was just starting to come into the frame. and you could still make out many of the numbers at the top of the train.

Photomatix-Very-Strong-Deghosting-selected

After selecting ‘OK’ you have a much cleaner file to tone map to your final HDR image in Photoshop. This is an extreme example, but it will work if you want to clean up moving people in an image, or anywhere that the preview HDR looks too muddy or blurry. Give it a try!

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

August 11, 2014

Personal, Photography, Travel | 0 comment

Lancaster Pennsylvania Covered Bridges

Earlier this month, we traveled to Lancaster County, PA to help another photographer cover a beautiful wedding. The road trip allowed for some time to explore this part of the country that is not that far, but one that I have not visited in a very long time! The helpful visitor’s center pointed out some of the places that would be great for out of town visitors to see. The highlight for me and my camera were the covered bridges! I cannot remember the last time I had come across these in my travels, so I was excited to get some photos while we were in the area.

Zooks-Mill-Covered-bridge-©TimeLine-Media

Little did I know there were so many around! We could easily drive to a few in a day, spend some time making photos, and still do some other sightseeing. These bridges all came with information right by their entrances. You can read about their history, their construction, and how they have changed in function over the years.

They had a nice setting in the farming country of southern Pennsylvania. Surrounded by cornfields, and spanning the waterways that carried commerce from Amish farms to the towns really gives you the sense of their importance in the development of the area. Although many of the covered bridges have been replaced so many are still in use. They help to preserve the history, and add nicely to the landscape. I will definitely try to make it back to see others next time.

Lancaster-Covered-bridge-©TimeLine-Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Archive of ‘Travel’ category

Fairfax, Virginia

Lunar Eclipse

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Tysons, Virginia

Post Processing

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