Uploads from elmofoto, tagged fav50, with geodata

mighty moody mitre peak | fiordland, new zealand [explore]

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 18:19:26 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

When there are 20+ folks shooting the same scene as you it can be tough to get a nice wideangle shot of the scene without becoming well-acquainted with the context-aware fill and clone stamp tools in Photoshop. Alternatively, you can wait until everyone clears out to get the shot. The third alternative is not OK in my book: run in front of everyone else to get the shot first. I've always had relatively good luck in this respect with group shoots and photowalks. After 18 months of taking part in multi-person photo outings I have only had to use my signature sarcastic utterance twice: "Hey, thanks for giving us all the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of the clone stamp tool! Appreciate it!" :)

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Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

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golden rollers | lake hayes

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:08:15 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

Taken during an outing to Bendemeer Estates, near Queenstown, NZ. The sunsets were so slow-motion there. It was wonderful because with such a drawn-out sunset you get a chance to try a multitude of compositions. I think I got to try about 30 different ones this evening.

The rolling hills here reminded me a lot of Tuscany. A pretty fantastic spot, I have to say.

________________________________

Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

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monkey creek | fiordland np, new zealand

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 02:36:16 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

It was supposed to be a 15 minute stop, but it turned into an hour. Glad no one was in a huge hurry :)

Edit: There's a +1/2-stop version of this shot here at 500px: 500px.com/photo/30440811 In addition to adding back a bit of brightness, I also slightly changed the crop angle. What you see here is actually 100% horizontally correct, but because of the slight slope to the lower left of the grassy area in the foreground, it might have looked crooked. Thoughts?
________________________________

Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

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sunset sail | san gregorio, ca

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 14:00:48 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

She unfurled her wings as she waited on the shore for the right gust of wind. When it came, she was lifted effortlessly into the sky, and with a few gentle flaps of her wings she was well on her way toward a beautiful setting sun. Travel should always be this easy....
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Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing (although this particular photo is not HDR). All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

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that funky sound | milford sound, new zealand

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:51:49 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

Here's another shot from Milford Sound, in New Zealand. I had a great time dodging the incoming tide and the persistent sandflies one morning with 20 or so friends. The way the morning fog and mist clings to the mountains here is absolutely breathtaking.

I've been having a lot of fun playing around with different processing techniques on my shots from Milford Sound. I think the fact that there's no overly bright light source combined with the reflections and the interesting texture in the sky make this a great scene to experiment with.

Speaking of experimenting with different processing techniques, are you a Nik Software user? If so, you might know that Nik was recently acquired by Google. You might also know that this week they announced a DRAMATIC price drop on their suite of photo editing plugins. I used Color Efex Pro to make this image, but all the products are excellent. If you're a B&W person, Silver Efex Pro is for you. Prefer bright colors? Then Viveza is for you. If you don't know what you need (or if you need it all) you're in luck because for $149 you can get all six (I think it's six) plugins. Before this week you would have paid $499, so it was a big price drop. I'm not a spokesperson for Nik, but I realize this sounds like an ad. It's not -- I'm just excited that they dropped the price to make these products more accessible and affordable. Plugins have become a bigger and bigger part of the evolution of my processing. I think they're pretty awesome, and I'm thrilled to see such a big price break on these.

In case you're new to the plugin model, a plugin basically integrates with an existing photo editor (Aperture, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc) and allows you to actually launch files from your editor into the plugin, where you make your plugin-specific edits. When you're done, you click save, and the image gets stored back in your editor ready for the next processing step. In this photo, I did some initial work in Photomatix and Lightroom (my usual workflow), but once I was in Lightroom I launched this into the Color Efex Pro plugin. I used a few options in the program, adding some polarizer filter effect, a multi-color filter for the blue/orange toning and finally a bit of vignetting to really focus the eye on the center of the scene. Once I was done I saved it and it popped back into Lightroom, where I did a few more small adjustments, and voilà, done!

There are other companies making plugins (onOne, Topaz, etc) as well. Most have 15- or 30-day free trials so you can see whether you like them before making an investment. I encourage you to try them.

OK, well, I've been home sick the past few days (killer allergies). I'm feeling better and hoping to be able to go back to work tomorrow. Hoping....
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Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

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kaleidoscopic | wanaka, new zealand

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 02:10:32 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

I just wrapped up a work call (yes, it's 2am), which is why I'm posting so late at night.

Good night, Flickr :)
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Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

14 at 14 | san francisco, ca

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 10:22:34 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

Another shot of the San Francisco skyline snapped as I was waiting for a group of friends to meet up with me for an evening shoot of the new light display on the Bay Bridge. I haven't even gotten to processing the Bay Bridge shots because a) I've generally been really busy and b) the sunset shots before I shot the Bay Bridge came out really nicely.

I hope everyone's weekend is going swimmingly....
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Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

waiting game | marin headlands, ca

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:19:53 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

On March 5th a sizable group of us made our way up Slacker Hill (ironically named, since it's a pretty steep hike). The plan was to photograph the lighting of the Bay Bridge (which you can see waaaaaaay off in the distance on the left [see note]). The rain had held off most of the day, but just before 9pm when the Bay Bridge was to be lit, it started raining. Great timing, Mother Nature -- well done! A few of us tried to hold out to see if it would stop raining, but it just started raining harder. So we decided to quickly pack up and make our way back down the now-muddy trail to Conzelman Road. All the while we were all secretly wishing we had joined the much smarter group that gathered way closer to the bridge, on The Embarcadero.

Fortunately, the Bay Bridge will be lit up for two years, so we'll all have plenty of chances to make that hike up Slacker Hill again. Oh joy :)

>>More on The Bay Lights project: thebaylights.org/ | A video on the display: vimeo.com/41574472 <<
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Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

artist's rendering | san francisco, ca

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 21:22:46 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

I got together with a group of cool folks (photographers) in SF yesterday evening. Long story, but because I parked in the wrong place, I ended up way far away from where we were all initially meeting up, so while I waited for them to catch up with me near the Bay Bridge, I snapped a few shots of this spectacular sunset from Pier 14.

I hope everyone's weekend was productive, lazy or whatever you wanted it to be. Happy Monday, y'all.

_________________________

Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

beginner's luck | the milky way

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:22:45 -0700

elmofoto posted a photo:

During Trey Ratcliff's New Zealand Photo Adventure I discovered that a lot of things are awesome-er in the southern hemisphere, and the Milky Way is no exception -- it's so much more visible to the naked eye and so much richer south of the equator.

This is only the fourth or fifth star shot I've ever attempted, so I was pretty thrilled with the way this came out. I look forward to learning more about this new area of photography, and to finding nice clear spots from which to practice.

I mentioned on my Friday posting that I was going to Boston to surprise my mom for her birthday. Sadly I did not make it to her party. I got all the way to Washington only to have my connecting flight canceled. There was no way they could get me anywhere near Boston until today, so I had to turn around and fly back to SF. I was pretty devastated, but I'm really happy that at least my sister and my cousin made it there to surprise her.
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Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing (although this particular shot is not HDR. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

dare to dream | bendemeer estates

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:55:53 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

This is Bendemeer Estates in Arrowtown (Queenstown), New Zealand. Imagine living in a place this beautiful. And further imagine living in a house where you have a nearly unobstructed view of this gorgeous place….from the comfort of your living room. I don't know about you, but I would love to live in a house like this. I have no idea whether the slanted roof is a plus or a minus architecturally or structurally, but I do think it probably allows for a very large window facing those awesome peaks, The Remarkables. Dare to dream….
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Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

morning glory | lake wanaka, nz

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 10:34:36 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

Best viewed in Lightbox (press L)

This was perhaps the easiest-to-get-to morning shoot Greg Benz and I did during our travels around the South Island. Our little motel was just up the road, just a 5 minute drive away from this spot....none of this get up 2 hours before sunrise and take an hour drive to the chosen spot stuff this particular morning. As a non-morning person, I appreciated the proximity of the shooting location :) Still, before we left I threw down a cup of motel coffee. God-awful as it was, it certainly helped wake me up enough to make the short drive.

The intended target this morning was "the tree" in Lake Wanaka, which is a cool little tree the grows in the lake itself (although I suspect its roots are not submerged year-round). We did shoot the tree, and I'll eventually get to processing and uploading photos of it, but once the sunrise colors really started to get vibrant I decided to start focusing more on the sky and the wider landscape. I really loved the curve of the shore from this particular spot, but really, any spot on that beach would have made for a great shot. The sky colors were just awesome. I have another shot from that sunrise in the comments below.

After our shoot Greg and I ended up at a small donut shop in town, where I was able to get a "proper" cup of coffee and -- surprisingly -- a really tasty spinach and feta pastry. Then we headed back to our motel, packed our cars, checked out right at the 10AM checkout time and got on the road toward our next stop: Mt Cook (also in the comments below).

The next few weeks are going to be incredibly busy for me, so I'm trying to spend this weekend getting as much done around the house as possible. I hope your weekend is more carefree and relaxing than mine!

_________________________
Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

you've got to make the moment last | queenstown, nz

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:45:16 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

♪ ♬ 59th Street Bridge Song ♬ ♪

After shooting sunrise over The Remarkables, we ventured into Queenstown proper for a little morning photowalk. This shot must have been taken around 8:00 or 8:30. It was a weekday morning. The whole town was still asleep, I think and except for the street sweepers and the occasional car, it was really quiet and serene. I got waylaid when a something shiny caught my eye and I had to stop to photograph it, so by the time I arrived at the spot where this little boat was parked I was pretty much the only person nearby. Before I shot the scene I sat for a few minutes and just appreciated it. Then I set up for my shot. I think a lot of times we get somewhere, set up, get our shots and move on, but I've discovered a lot of enjoyment from actually taking in the scene and gauging it before starting to shoot it. I've noticed that I'm much less in a hurry to capture the shot when I've had some time to take in the setting -- the whole process becomes much more relaxing and fun. An added benefit to spending some time appreciating your subject before shooting it is that I can find the little subtleties, details, features, light and shadows that I may want to incorporate in my shot.

Do you do anything special to set up (mentally/creatively) before taking landscape/nature shots? Just curious.

Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

c r e p u s c u l a r | wanaka, new zealand [explore]

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 22:46:58 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

There's a cool solitary tree on the shore of Lake Wanaka. It's not in this shot, so no need to squint to try to find it. The tree is what brought us to the lake, but I thought this dawn light was way more interesting than the tree. By the way, if you're in a squinting mood, see if you can spot the two different sets of scullers on the lake. Other than the loud commands the coxswain was barking out to the scullers via megaphone, it was very quiet and serene :)

_________________________
Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

b e n d e m e e r | queenstown, new zealand [explore]

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 10:07:16 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

Got a chance to spend my last evening in Queenstown shooting this beautiful landscape at Bendemeer Estates. It was one of the most spectacular sunsets we had the entire week of Trey Ratcliff's New Zealand Photo Adventure, and was a really fitting end to the adventure/workshop.

Wishing you all a nice weekend...

_________________________
Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

e m e r g e | mount cook, new zealand [explore]

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:20:51 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

We got so waylaid with taking pictures along the road that we ended up arriving at Mt Cook a bit later than expected. Still, this time of year sunsets last for nearly two hours, so we were comfortable making one last stop to shoot this road twisting its way into the distance.
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Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

gentle rollers | lake hawea, new zealand [explore]

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:45:49 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

On the right is Lake Hawea in the Queenstown Lakes District on the South Island.

We managed to eek out this sunset by rushing through our motel check-in at Wanaka so we could get back out shooting. We didn't get quite as far as we had hoped, but we got some awesome shots nonetheless.
_________________________
Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

the sound that isn't | milford sound, new zealand [explore]

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 22:32:29 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

Howdy, y'all. I'm back from my trip to NZ. It's been hard trying to decide where to start with my photo processing, so I jumped right to the late middle of my 8000+ photos to this spot, Milford Sound....

The bus driver explained to us that Milford Sound is not actually a sound, but rather a fjord. This was the tamest thing he said the whole time he drove us around. Turns out NZ bus drivers are full of *all kinds* of really interesting stories. And jokes. Usually groaners.

Anyway, about the photo. We got up at the crack of dawn to shoot sunrise at the sound. We battled incoming tides and (the much worse) sandflies for an hour+ to get some awesome shots. With all the fog and mist and the way the clouds clung to the mountains, Milford Sound had a pretty magical look about it. Great place; horrible fauna :) I still have big bumps every place I got bitten by a sandfly. Totally worth it, though.

_________________________
Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

you knew just how to awaken me | san francisco

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:11:41 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

==> Bonus: Can you spot (and name) the planet in this photo?

New Year's Day 2013. I got myself out of bed earlier than my being appreciates, but I had also had a quiet New Year's Eve so at least I wasn't contending with any libation-induced sluggishness :) I guess that's a side benefit of not being big into New Year's Eve in general. The drive to the Marin Headlands is about an hour during the wee hours of the morning when there's no traffic. I was there and set up by 5:30am, including the short hike down to the spot from which I shot this. This is similar to another image that I took, but I was zoomed way out for this one compared with the other one. They're both good in my opinion, but this one is easily one of my all-time favorites.

I did the fusion of the exposures in Photoshop CS6, so the result was a 32-bit HDR file. There is an incredible amount of data in a 32-bit file. Just as an example, the TIFF of this is 450MB. With all that data there's a lot you can do to bring back details in shadowy areas, for example, but I didn't really do too much of that. In particular, I wanted to keep the hill on the left as a silhouette. I did, however, do a bit of spot shadow recovery on the bridge span. Mostly, I like that the 32-bit method yields a less noisy, more natural-looking exposure-fused image. There are some scenes that I still prefer to tonemap in Photomatix, and I may also try the never-before-used-by-me Exposure Fusion feature in Photomatix to compare it with the Photoshop CS6 method. Should be interesting, but that's not a project I have time for right now....

Why? Well, two weeks from today I'll be arriving in Queenstown, New Zealand to attend a photography workshop. I'm beyond excited, but also a bit stressed about all the things I have to do to get ready for the trip. Time to start making more lists :)
_________________________

Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com

"third rock from the sunset"

nobody@flickr.com (elmofoto) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:35:13 -0800

elmofoto posted a photo:

Got a new set of neutral density and graduated neutral density filters earlier in the week. I finally had a chance to use them this evening. That's right, this is not HDR :)

More importantly than getting to use my new filters, I finally met up with fellow Flickrite Jason Jenkins. We've been talking about shooting together for months, and now that he's back in California we made it happen. The conditions were perfect at Pomponio State Beach: we couldn't have hoped for a better sunset.

Jason described the colors in this shot as "rainbow sherbet." Perfect.

This was taken with a combination of a few graduated neutral density (GND) filters. I wish I could remember what combo of 1-, 2-, and 3-stop filters I used. This was my first outing with the filter set and I have a lot to learn. Time to head over to the Univeristy of YouTube :)

I hope everyone's weekend is going well. I've got a busy one but I'm hoping to go out shooting again tomorrow evening, especially if it looks as if it'll be a great sunset.

_________________________

Thank you for your visits and comments. Please feel free to add notes to any of my images.

I do a lot of HDR processing. All of my HDR photos can be found here.

I shoot with a Nikon D800. All my D800 photos are right here.

facebook | google+ | twitter | youtube | tumblr | 500px | pinterest | www.elmofoto.com