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Posts Tagged ‘Washington Monument’

Personal, Photography, Travel | 0 comment

Washington Monument

Updating Wall Art

Washington Monument from Tidal Basin ©TimeLine Media
Washington Monument from Tidal Basin ©TimeLine Media

Last May, I went to downtown Washington, DC to get photos of the Washington Monument. We are updating a wall art collection in one room. For that reason, I thought about grouping photos of DC monuments would fit nicely.

Now that I had an idea of what I wanted to create, I set out to make the photos on a clear evening. This time of day is ideal for what I was looking for. I did not want a late evening, or nighttime shot, but the middle of the day would not have the dimension I was looking to have on the monument. When the sun gets lower in the horizon, the shadows will be a little less harsh overall.

Sunset photo of Washington Monument ©TimeLine Media
Sunset photo of Washington Monument ©TimeLine Media

For these photos, I used the 24mm PC-E F/3.5D tilt shift lens. This is one of the sharpest lenses I have in my bag. Secondly, the shift function of the lens helped to correct the ‘falling away’ look of the very tall Washington Monument. As can be seen in the comparison photos, the straightened version is more accurate, and a different perspective than from the ground vantage point that you see.

uncorrected monument 24mm lens ©TimeLine Media
uncorrected monument 24mm lens ©TimeLine Media
shift corrected monument 24mm lens ©TimeLine Media
shift corrected monument 24mm lens ©TimeLine Media

Washington Monument Print

Once I had the settings of the camera dialed in, I moved around the base of the monument. Sometimes the placement of the trees at the bottom surrounding park was distracting. In another case, the construction cranes from a museum going up near the monument was distracting. Finally, I just decided to shoot, and remove the crane out of the print in software for my final selection. It was a successful exercise to gain experience with a lens, and to shoot for a specific purpose.

final black and white wall print ©TimeLine Media
final black and white wall print ©TimeLine Media

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Comparing HDR to Non-HDR images

Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument from Virginia - ©TimeLine Media

With all my landscape images, I have been bracketing exposures with the intent to do some post processing on the photos and create a high dynamic range (HDR) final image. One evening, I walked out on the Virginia side of the Potomac River from Washington, DC to the Memorial Bridge. This is a beautiful spot to make images of the Lincoln and Washington Monuments especially in the early evening. With the sun lowering, the white buildings again take on that pink/orange hue of the fading light.

Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument from Virginia - ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument from Virginia – ©TimeLine Media

HDR testing

In looking through the set of images that I made after the shoot, I did notice that this night had a smoggy haze. With rush hour traffic starting to build, it did not make for as nice a scene as the crisp winter mornings. The haze came in the middle of the frames underneath the blue, and stayed over the pink part of the sky overlaying this ugly gray layer.

This was just bad luck for the time I happened to be out there shooting. Obviously, it makes me want to try this on a different day. Perhaps I can get a better result next time. In any case, I saw the result from the post processing the bracketed photos with Photomatix. I wanted to compare it to the RAW file images. With this in mind, I had a feeling that being able to shoot at a low ISO. Additionally, with all the detail and information that the Nikon D4 gathers, I could make one of the RAW files that was in the middle of the bracket look just as good as the HDR image.

Washington, DC

Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument from Virginia - ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument HDR from Virginia – ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument from Virginia - ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument non-HDR from Virginia – ©TimeLine Media

What I learned in looking at these photos, is that there is not a huge difference between the dark and light sections of the photo. Moreover it is very possible to make one exposure similar to a realistic HDR image from 7 bracketed photos. The Raw file was adjusted in Adobe Lightroom with just some contrast, clarity, and vibrance added to the original file.

I then adjusted the white balance of the scene to mimic the HDR, and these photos looked very similar. Although it is not something that I am comfortable yet pre-visualizing. So it is nice to have the bracketed photos as a backup. I will probably continue to shoot both ways, and processes them in 2 ways, until I can more easily predict when it will save me a lot of time and memory card space to shoot just one photo instead of the whole series.

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Personal, Photography, Technology, Travel | 0 comment

Washington Monument at Sunrise

Washington Monument HDR - ©TimeLine Media

Frozen Reflecting Pool

We have traded the cold for rain! With this in mind, I have not been able to get out there to make more photos in the early morning. Overall, it has been too overcast and rainy to get me out there. I should have made the effort, however, I am backed up with other work . Additionally, I would need to gear up with rain repellent gear for me and the cameras. Needless to say, I got lazy this week. There is still a backlog of other images that I have not posted about on the blog. These are images of the Washington Monument at sunrise from the reflecting pool that is situated at the front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Washington Monument - out of camera exposure - ©TimeLine Media
Washington Monument – out of camera exposure – ©TimeLine Media

Washington Monument

This is one of the images taken straight out of the camera. In this case, I took a bracketed series of photos around this exposure to combine into an HDR final image. From this file, you can make edits right in Lightroom to bump up the Exposure, Shadows and contrast, then adjust the vibrance to make this image:

Washington Monument - out of camera adjusted exposure - ©TimeLine Media
Washington Monument – out of camera adjusted exposure – ©TimeLine Media

HDR image

I was surprise to see how much data you can pull from one Raw file! Processing the 9 different exposures into HDR Efex Pro 2, I adjusted the sliders in that program to get something similar. My goal was to bring out more detail in the monument face and trees lining the pool on either side since those areas were so dark.

Washington Monument HDR - ©TimeLine Media
Washington Monument HDR – ©TimeLine Media

When editing in HDR Efex Pro 2, I was able to use control points to directly edit the face of the monument. Sunrise is not the best time to photograph the Washington Monument from this angle. It loses a lot of the luster and shine with the backlight from the rising sun. I tried to pick HDR treatments where I could bring back the light color of the monument bricks. I already have some places in mind that are situated better in the early morning light to photograph next. If you have any suggestions, please let me know! Stay tuned-

Washington Monument HDR - ©TimeLine Media
Washington Monument HDR – ©TimeLine Media

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

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