Category: Nikon

Categories
Black and White China Monochrome Photography Nik Software Nikon Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Nikon D600 San Francisco/California

Armored Kneeling Archer – China’s Terracotta Warriors

Armored Kneeling Archer - San Francisco - 2013

Here’s another image from the exhibition of China’s Terracotta Warriors now underway at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum.

This image required a bit more work. One of the challenges of shooting images of the warriors as they’re displayed is the combination of lighting and reflections – which bring extra “stuff” into the images.

Plus, when we were there, it was really crowded inside the darkened exhibition gallery. Lots of folks moving around – and bumping into each other – a challenging photographic venue for sure!

But the gallery that the Asian Art Museum created for the warriors is really is superb in terms of how the terracotta warriors are placed and, in particular, how they’re lit.

So, to deal with the issues in the image, I did a quick selection in Photoshop to isolate the warrior from extraneous background elements. I then faded those elements into the background while adding some contrast to the warrior.

Then we made a trip into Nik’s Color Efex Pro 4 to do two steps: bring out more detail and add a subtle bit of glamour glow.

Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 was used for the conversion to monochrome – adding a bit of structure to the midtones and highlights while removing structure from the shadows. A bit of soft contrast adjustment helped with lighting.

A quick pass with Doug Kaye’s Warm Black action helped tone the image just ever so slightly.

For the final sharpening step, I used the Sharpen 2013 action included in the latest version of Dan Margulis’ Picture Postcard Workflow panel in Photoshop.

Categories
Black and White China Monochrome Photography Nik Software Nikon Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Nikon D600 San Francisco/California

China’s Terracotta Warriors

Driver - San Francisco - 2013

San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum is currently featuring a beautiful exhibition of China’s Terracotta Warriors.

Here’s an image from a recent visit – of a horse carriage driver. He’s out in the lobby – before you get into one of the three galleries with the other warriors and related sculptures.

This image was shot handheld with my Nikon D600 and post-processed in Photoshop CS6 along with Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2.

Categories
Black and White Monochrome Photography Nik Software Nikon Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Nikon D600

The Kiterunner on the Beach at Point Reyes

Kiterunner - Drake's Beach - 2013

Here’s a shot from early January 2013 – at Drake’s Beach at Point Reyes. Shot with my Nikon D600, I post-processed it in Photoshop with Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2. I love the contrast in this shot – and how the kiterunner is heading into the light off to the right.

Hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think by adding a comment below!

Categories
Black and White Monochrome Photography Nikon Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Nikon D600

Lone Tree at Parker Ranch

20130329-094830.jpg

On the road from Hawi to Waimea on the Big Island of Hawaii is this field with a lone tree.

While driving past, I hit the brakes and hopped out to capture this image with my Nikon D600. It’s cropped a bit on the bottom to remove a barbed wire fence.

The late March morning sky was beautiful. I opted for this version in black and white – warm black actually.

Categories
Monochrome Photography Nikon Photography Photography - Nikon D600 San Francisco/California Street Photography

Double Vision – The Nikon D600 and Street Photography

Double Vision - San Francisco - 2013 by Scott Loftesness

Here’s an image I shot at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Saturday morning as I was heading to the annual San Francisco St. Patrick’s Day parade. The whole Yerba Buena Center complex is a photographers delight – chock full of interesting people, some amazing textures, waterfalls, trees and lawn – you name it, it’s all here in a bit less than a city block!

For the last several years, my primary camera has been a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR. It’s a wonderful camera and has done an amazing job for me. I’ve got a collection of Canon prime and zoom lenses for that camera that work beautifully and have helped me capture some beautiful images. I have lots of wonderful memories of trips to venues around the west with my Canon! (Check out my Cool Tools page for details on my favorite gear!)

In January, Doug Kaye and I headed to Havana, Cuba to participate in a person-to-person cultural exchange program organized by the great folks at Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. Along with our workshop colleagues, we had an amazing week in Havana – and I had a blast getting into the world of street photography which was pretty much a new experience for me.

A few months before the Cuba trip, I bought a new Nikon D600 – shortly after this new camera body was introduced. In particular, I was interested because of the early reviews and reports about the D600’s Sony sensor – and its wider dynamic range. Dynamic range describes the range of the camera’s sensor in accurately capturing whites to blacks – and the D600 ranked very highly at being able to capture one of the widest dynamic ranges. For a lot of my kind of photography, that dynamic range is important – so I opted to get the D600. I was also stimulated by my friend Doug Kaye’s Nikon passion and the fact that on many of the photo shoots we do together he brings along his wide assortment of Nikon lenses!

For the Havana trip, I mostly shot with the D600 kit lens – Nikon’s 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom lens – and it did a fabulous job. I mostly left the D600 on auto everything (ISO, Focus, P mode, etc.) and just shot away. I got some great shots – the camera did an wonderful job.

Recently, I decided to get the Nikon lens that seems to be everyone’s favorite for street photography on Nikon DSLR camera bodies – the Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens. On Saturday, I took this one lens up to San Francisco to shoot the annual San Francisco St. Patrick’s Day parade and, along the way, snapped this self-portrait image in the window at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. This is a great lens for street photography – the combination of its ability to go reasonably wide along with its ability to do a long zoom make for a near perfect lens for daytime street photography. Here’s another example of using the reach of this lens.

I’m still trying to master the autofocus options on my D600 – especially for street photography. The “double vision” in this image has nothing to do with those – it’s just the glass! – but I’m convinced that once I master those the D600 and this 28-300mm lens with be my ideal street photography rig. I’m anxious to do more exploring with it!

Categories
Gardens Lightroom Nikon Photography Photography - Nikon D600 San Francisco/California Stages Street Photography

Morning Light at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens

Steamin' - San Francisco - 2013

This morning I headed up to San Francisco to try my hand at some street photography during the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. This parade is a big deal in San Francisco – and it was my first time heading out to try to shoot it. In hand, I had my Nikon D600 with the Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II AF-S Nikkor Zoom Lens that I’d recently acquired. This lens seems close to ideal for street photography – it has that extra reach at 300mm yet can go wide at 28mm when required. It’s about as perfect a lens as it gets for daytime street shooting.

But, before the parade began, I headed to another one of my favorite San Francisco venues – Yerba Buena Gardens. As I left Menlo Park this morning, we were fogged in – and I wondered what I would encounter weather wise as I got to San Francisco. As it turned out, no fog and brilliant morning sunlight washed across the beautiful Yerba Buena scene.

As I headed into the gardens, I noticed a lot of steam rising from over by the waterfall. As I headed closer, I could see a fellow was using a high pressure water blaster to clean the payment around the waterfall. This turned into a classic example of a “stage” – a place where you think something interesting is going to happen and you plant yourself as a photographer and just wait for it to unfold.

Earlier, he was working in the shadows to the left – a relatively uninteresting area given the poor light. But when he came out into this area – and began working the pavement and tiles being lit by the morning sun, everything got a lot more interesting. As I was shooting it, I thought this would probably work out best as a monochrome – but I left in just a touch of selective color on the worker’s face and hair. Such beautiful light!

Categories
iPad Nikon Photography Photography - Nikon D600 Travel

Crafting an iPad Wallpaper – On South Beach

Easy Rider - Miami Beach - 2013

There’s something about some photos that just grab you. When Doug Kaye and I were exploring South Pointe Park and the beach heading north from there in late January 2013, we came across this bicycle, probably one of the local rentals, hitched up to a post right on the beach. Wow. You start thinking that it’s one of those special moments – where it doesn’t get better than this. So, you take the shot.

As I was looking back at this image today, I thought that it might be a good candidate for an iPad wallpaper – for my lock screen. Seeing it brings me back to that lovely morning – just walking up the beach, a peaceful easy feeling indeed.

So, I decided to try making it into an iPad wallpaper image for my lock screen. I pulled it into a 2048×2048 square image at 264 dpi (for iPad’s with a Retina Display) in Photoshop CS6. I adjust the image placement for the rotation that the iPad does between portrait and landscape – brought down the highlights a bit and then tucked in my contact information.

Here’s a generic version of the result:

Bike at the Beach-iPad Wallpaper-generic

I made a similar image a few years ago – which has been my iPad’s lock screen image from then until today.

Categories
Cuba Nikon Photography Photography - Nikon D600 Travel

Picture Window – On the Highway back to Havana

Picture Window - Havana - 2013

We took one excursion out of Havana – on Monday – to Las Terazzas. Coming back on the bus, I started shooting with my Nikon D600 out the window of the bus at interesting subjects passing by.

Here’s one of those shots – our bus was passing an “open air” bus off to our right. These kinds of shots are so random – I was lucky with this one – catching that small window in the center of the frame. I think it captures the countryside – as we headed back into the heart of Havana!

Categories
Cuba iPhone 5 Nikon Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S100 Photography - Nikon D600 Travel

What I Learned about Photography in Havana

Happy New Year - Havana - 2013

On my recent people-to-people cultural exchange visit to Cuba, I shot almost 1,500 images during six days of out and about walking – almost all of it in Old and Central Havana.

In packing for this trip, I wanted to stay light – but I also didn’t want to miss any photo opportunities due to not having the “best” gear. I had three cameras with me: a Nikon D600 (over my shoulder), a Canon PowerShot S100 (in a case on my belt), and my iPhone 5 (in a pants pocket). Most of my images were taken with the Nikon, a few with the S100 – and a number of “location establishing” shots with my iPhone – taking advantage of it’s ability to capture GPS location data. For the Nikon, I had packed three lenses – the “kit” lens that came with the D600 – a 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom, an 85mm f/1.8 prime lens, and a light 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom.

I decided not to take a tripod – I’m a pretty fickle tripod shooter anyway and figured opportunities for using a tripod in the heart of Havana might be limited.

On the first day, I carried two lenses along – one on the camera with the second in a pocket in my vest. I had brought along a small daypack but decided not to use it. Wish I hadn’t brought it – it stayed in my hotel room the whole time!

Each day, we were accompanied by a Cuban photographer – and I soon noticed how little gear they typically carried. The Cubans weren’t changing lenses – they were just shooting away with the lens on their camera. Nor were they carrying tripods.

After carrying two lenses and finding that I also rarely changed lenses, I mostly just went out with one lens on the Nikon – typically the 24-85mm zoom. That lens turned out to be near perfect for the street photography we were doing. The one time I made use of the 85mm prime lens was for shooting the show at the Tropicana. It was the ideal lens for that – having just enough reach and low light performance for that venue. I rarely used the 70-300mm zoom – should have also left it at home as it turned out but it’s a light enough lens to almost not matter.

For capturing street shots, I mostly left the Nikon in P mode – with auto ISO and auto focus enabled. The D600 does a great job at figuring things out – and I was mostly very happy with the images I got. A few times, focus was off – and I flipped it into a different focus mode to adjust. I also used aperture priority for a few shots where I really wanted more control over depth of field. But mostly I let the camera do its thing – and came away very happy with the results.

While the gear obviously matters, it turned out not worrying much about it was the best choice for me. Being in the moment, seeing such great opportunities in a venue like Havana, made capturing images such a delight!

I brought along an 11-inch MacBook Air – to use for offloading images from the SD cards each evening – as well as an external hard disk to backup the images from the Air – ending up with two copies of each original image. After offloading the SD cards, I would put them back in the camera and reformat them in the camera before going out each morning.

I enjoyed sitting in bed at night or early in the morning processing a few of my images on the Air using Lightroom and Photoshop CS6. We needed to select five of our favorite images for a group show the night before leaving Cuba – and that was easy given having the Air and Lightroom along.

Categories
Nikon Photography Photography - Nikon D600

The Shooter on the Beach

Shooter - Drake's Beach - 2013

A week ago, Doug Kaye and I headed out to Drake’s Beach at Point Reyes for a photo walk with the long exposure group. I held back from the group – liking the light down at this end of the beach instead.

This is an image of one of those photographers – Jason – standing up on the rocks above the beach where I was standing. I loved the light, his silouette, and the other folks in the image! Hope you like it!