Low tide at Bandon, Oregon USA captured with the Nikon D850
Hi friends, sorry about the post hiatus there… I’m back from two safaris in the span of three weeks and I’m finally going through a few thousand images from my new camera!
Here’s a photo from my recent Oregon Coast Photo Safari that I captured alongside my clients in Bandon, Oregon. The tilting LCD on the new Nikon D850 made getting the low angle far easier than when I used the D810. The Nikon D850 is quite possibly the best all-around camera I’ve ever had the pleasure to use. More than the 45 megapixel sensor, it’s what surrounds that sensor that makes the D850 a must-have upgrade over the Nikon D800/e or D810 DSLRs.
The wide dynamic range of the D850, like the D810 before it, means that in the rare times where you find yourself needing an HDR bracket, you can often do the capture with just two frames; one metered for the highlights and a second frame exposed for the shadows.
I merged two images using Lightroom’s HDR feature and then processed the final image in Photoshop using my Luminosity mask actions. This process allowed me to saturate the midtones without overcooking the highlights around Face Rock in the background.
The Giant’s Causeway is a unique coastal formation of basalt columns that jut out into the ocean on Ireland’s northern coast. I made sure to visit there at sunset, and I was rewarded with some really nice clouds. I used HDR from two exposures (Lightroom HDR tutorial) to capture the full range of tones in the scene.
Nikon D750 with 16-35mm f/4 AFS G VR Nikkor lens f/13, ISO 100 (2-exposures).
As someone who does a lot of outdoor/landscape photography, great locations are important to me. Being in a photogenic location is a wonderful way to experience the outdoors. However, when you photograph a location can be just as important as where you are. The “when” of photography occurs on multiple scales. Within a day, within a year, and even across years. Consider one of my favorite locations to photograph, the South Dakota Badlands.
If you visit the Badlands like most tourists, you’ll arrive at a nice time during the summer after you’ve had your morning coffee. By this time of day, the sun is nearly overhead, and you’ll get photographs like this one:
Door Trail in the Badlands, as most tourists see it… well after sunrise.
Daybreak in the Rockies, Cottonwood Pass, Colorado. Image captured with a Nikon D800e and 70-200mm f/2.8 AFS G VRII zoom Nikkor lens.
When you go out to photograph landscapes, what’s the first lens you reach for? For many of us, it’s a midrange (24-70mm) or wide (16-35mm) zoom lens. Those lenses are great, but there are lots of times when a longer focal length is ideal, even in wide-open spaces. By using something like a 70-200mm zoom, you can make some really compelling images.
Why should you use a telephoto zoom for landscape photography?
Telephoto lenses help you isolate the subject and cut out distracting elements from the scene, especially empty foreground space.
Telephoto lenses create subject isolation by softening backgrounds, especially when used with wide apertures.
Telephoto lenses compress the scene, enhancing the look of layers in a landscape and adding depth.
With all these creative benefits, it’s no wonder that my 70-200mm lens is something I find very enjoyable to use on my landscape photography trips.
I used the Glamour Glow filter on the sky (right) to tone down the harsh look of the clouds in this HDR image (click to enlarge).
Of the 55 filters in Color Efex Pro 4, one of the most versatile is “Glamour Glow.” This filter creates a softening effect with a mild glow that is most often used in portraits. However, I’ve found it to be a perfect choice for smoothing out skies in HDR images and landscapes. To get this effect, you’ll want to add the Glamour Glow filter in Color Efex Pro 4 and dial up the saturation slider a bit. Then, use Control Points to restrict the effect to just the sky. You may need to use a combination of plus (+) and minus (-) Control Points to get the look just right.
Here’s a video tutorial of how I use Glamour Glow on HDR/Landscape images:
