Tag Archives: sunset

Friday Image

Editing Sunset Photos in Nik

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View from the Roaches, Leek, Stafordshire. Fuji X-T3, Fuji 16-55mm lens, ISO200, 1/7″ at f/10, Kase 0.9 Soft ND Grad filter, Tripod.

In this week’s YouTube video, I shared my favourite Nik Collection filters for editing sunset photos. The image used in the video is the one above, which initially didn’t have obvious clouds and colour. The video demonstrates how you can improve most sunset photos using one of three filters in the Nik Collection.

The adjustments in the video are a little strong to ensure you can see them, but the techniques and tips are solid. I also used all three filters on the image which I wouldn’t recommend. One or two of the Nik Collection filters are all you really need.

Luminar 3 Competition

If you haven’t seen yesterday’s post, do take a moment to read it. I’m giving away a Luminar 3 license which I bought by mistake. Yes, I can be that scatter-brained. The competition’s open until the 30th April 2019 when my wife will draw the winner at random.

Friday Image No. 217

Although I’ve used the Friday Image in my YouTube video, I did want to share it. I shot it last weekend whilst meeting up with a couple of friends that I used to work with. The weather on the day wasn’t quite as forecast. The initial fog quickly burned off (unfortunately) with a clear blue sky replacing it (not a cloudy one). Then, quite quickly, a strong blue haze developed with a few wispy high clouds. The high contrast conditions were terrible for landscape photography, but we persevered.

Towards the end of the day, we grew quite hopeful that we would have a nice sunset. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be and most of the compositions we had available didn’t work well with the conditions. The only composition that looked slightly interesting was the one you see above. I reasoned that I would be able to improve the sunset and enhance the light on the lake, by editing the photo in Nik. It isn’t a wonderful shot, but it serves a good purpose.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Image

Friday Image No.211

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Foggy sunset looking across Hope Valley in the Peak District
Foggy sunset looking across Hope Valley in the Peak District. Fuji X-T2, Fuji 55-200 at 75mm, ISO200, 1/210″ at f/9.0. Tripod and 0.9 (three stop) Soft Kase ND Grad filter.

I captured this image a few weeks back now. At the time I wasn’t sure quite how best to process it and to be honest I’m still not sure.

I captured this from Bamford Edge in the Peak District looking across Hope Valley to the cement works. It was a little before sunset and the conditions were quite challenging. Not because they were unpleasant but because the light was so bright. The valley was filling with fog and the low sun was streaking through the clouds. I couldn’t see the image properly on the back of the camera and even using the viewfinder I was struggling.

At the time it looked like the conditions were so bright that they exceeded the cameras dynamic range, even using a three-stop Kase Soft ND Grad filter. I did bracket the shot (with the filter) using five exposures. My thinking was that I would create an exposure blend, but the image above is a single exposure. With some tweaking in Lightroom, I was able to control the exposure enough to create a good base image. Much of the processing was then with Luminosity Masks (using Lumenzia) before converting to black and white using Nik Silver Efex Pro.

I’m probably going to revisit the image when I have more time.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Image

Friday Image No.210

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Dramatic sunset on Whitby Pier, North Yorkshire. Fuji X-T2, 18-135 f3.5-5.6 WR at 18mm, ISO200, 0.7″ at f/10.0. Tripod mounted.

Today I was going to share a shot from a recent shoot I did in the Peak District, but I’ve decided to save that for another day. Instead I have this image which I shot on Tuesday in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

I had been over walking the Hole of Horcum with my wife. As it’s only a short drive to Whitby we decided to carry and get fish and chips before heading home. Secretly I thought I might get lucky and catch a sunset on the pier. Unfortunately, I lost track of the time and we only left the café about 10 mins after sunset. Luckily there was plenty of colour still in the sky still as you can see from the image. It just goes to show that you should wait a while after the sun has set before packing up.

I captured the image using the Fuji X-T2 and Fuji 18-135 lens. It’s performed remarkably well and is pin sharp. In fact, I’m rather surprised at how good the performance is for this type of subject.

The camera was tripod mounted and I used a cable release, but I haven’t used any filters. As is often the case, once the sun sets, the contrast or dynamic range in the scene drops to something the camera can handle.

Another stroke of luck was the lights came on at the point I took the shot and whilst there was still colour in the sky. Often the lights seem to come on once all the colour has gone.

I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.

Friday Image

Friday Image No.207

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Tarn Hows Winter Sun in the Lake District.
Tarn Hows Winter Sun in the English Lake District. Fuji X-T2 with Fuji 18-135mm lens, various shutter speeds (see text), hand held.

It’s been a hectic week here, with four back to back days of photography. I can’t recall the last time this happened, but I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity.

The first day was a trip over to the Peak District to meet up with a friend. That almost didn’t happen because the Snake Pass (which is my usual route) was closed by snow and ice. Fortunately, I had the idea of driving down to Winnats Pass which I reasoned was more likely to be clear. When I did arrive, there was snow and fog everywhere, making for some amazing scenes.

Following this, it was over the Lake District for three more days enjoying the Landscape, as well as more fog and snow. The image you see here is from the Sunday at Tarn Hows. It’s five exposures which I’ve blended into a single image as the composition just didn’t allow me to use an ND Grad.

I captured the images with my Fuji X-T2 and 18-135mm Fuji lens hand held. Fortunately, the bracketing option on the Fuji means you only need to press the shutter button once to take all the images in the sequence. This allows you to concentrate on holding the camera steady for all the shots.

I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.

Friday Image

Friday Image No.206

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Peak District Panorama from Stanage Edge. Fuji X-T2, Fuji 55-200 lens at 55mm, ISO200, 1/55″ at f/10.0. Kase 0.9 Soft ND Grad Filter. Tripod. Two Frames Stitched in Lightroom.

As I’m sat here looking for a Friday Image to post, I realise I haven’t been out with a camera all week. The weather’s been grey and wet, although it’s been trying to snow this afternoon. I’ve also had my head buried in the second draft of my Affinity Photo book. I want to finish this and get it off for editing so that I stand a chance of launching later in the month or early February.

Anyway, I thought I would look through some of my recent shots and found this one from mid-December. It’s two images captured on my Fuji X-T2 and stitched in Lightroom.

It’s funny because I remember this sunburst at the time but forgot that I had shot it. It was quite an amazing scene and I noticed it as soon as we arrived at the parking. I thought I would miss it by the time I had walked up and onto the edge, but I didn’t. In fact, it went on for almost 30 minutes before the clouds cleared.

Shooting the image was straightforward. I used a long lens to crop in on the sunburst and a soft 0.9 ND Grad on the sky. I set the metering to use the centre of the frame which was quite bright. I figured that if I let it expose that area to a midtone it would intensify the colours in the sunburst and send the foreground hill into silhouette. The trickiest part was trying to focus as the camera wouldn’t lock onto anything. In the end I focussed manually on the horizon, slightly out of frame. I then recomposed and captured the frames I needed.

I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.

Friday Image

Friday Image No.202

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Today I was going to share an image of the Franz Joseph Glacier. But having published two mountain images in the past two weeks I decided I wanted a change. Looking through my recent collection of images from New Zealand I picked this image from Punakaiki with its famous pancake rocks.

Fuji X-T2, 10-24 lens, ISO200, f/11.0 at 1/13″

I just finished reprocessing it and I’m very happy with the results. When I say reprocessing, it’s because this is my second attempt at the image. The reason I decided to do this is that I just finished watching a video on YouTube from Glyn Dewis in which he discusses Frequency Separation. Glyn’s a brilliant portrait photographer and if you want to view the video, you’ll find it on his channel here.

https://www.youtube.com/user/GlynDewis/videos

My version of frequency separation is a little more complex and uses a Photoshop Extension Panel called “Wow! Frequency Equalizer Pro”.Interestingly I just reviewed their Masking Panel on my YouTube Channel the other day. If you want to simplify Luminosity Masking, you should watch my video.

I captured the image using a Fuji X-T2 and Fuji 10-24mm at16mm. The camera was tripod mounted and I used a 3 stop Kase Soft ND Grad filter angled over the sky and sea.

I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.

Friday Image

Friday Image No. 188

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Llanddulas, North Wales. Nikon D800, Nikon 24-120 lens. ISO100, f/16.0, 0.8″. Kase 0.9 Reverse ND Grad + Kase 6 Stop ND filter. Tripod.

My saga with the corrupt Drobo is rumbling on. The Data Recovery software I was running finally completed it’s scan in the early hours of this morning, having been running all week. I watched eagerly as the final sectors were scanned and the progress bar ticked over from 99% to 100%. And then nothing happened; it couldn’t find anything on the drive.

I have now switched back to the first software package I was using (which I though was slower). At least that was building a virtual file structure that I could see as it progressed. I don’t know how long this will take but I’m sure I will get there in the end.

Here is one of the images that I thought I had lost but have managed to recover from a formatted memory card.

I hope you like it and have a great weekend.