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View Full Version : Ram Island Lighthouse in Nor' Easter Winter Storm of 2013



Grady Weed
03-08-2013, 05:11 PM
The technicals: Canon EOS 5D, Shooting Date/Time 3/7/2013 2:34 PM, Aperture-Priority AE, Shutter Speed 1/1000, Av 6.3, Evaluative Metering, Exposure Compensation +2/3, ISO Speed 400, Lens EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM, Focal Length 53.0mm, RAW, Flash Off, White Balance Mode Auto, AF Mode One-Shot AF, Picture Style Standard.

This is the "Ram Island Headlight" from the parking lot of the South Portland Headlight. Our recent Nor' Easter storm was quite a wallop. The wind was gusting to 50+ mph and the waves topped 25-30 feet. This wave set broke and nearly splashed the lighthouse as it went over the rock you see in the left upper frame. My hands were like blocks of ice, I nearly lost feeling and almost was not able to click the shutter. It was "wicked cold" as we say up here! I have not imaged the lighthouses for close to a year now. It felt good to go out once again. :bg3:

I chose to crop this one as a pano. I think I've kept 6 or so panos in all of my 22 years of photography up here. I will post the entire next frame as the wave breaks tomorrow for comparison. Let me know what you think. :S3:

Robert Amoruso
03-08-2013, 06:17 PM
Grady,

I like the lower right rock as it helps to balance the larger one on left. You have a dust spot in the sky.

I am not too keen on the lighthouse placement - being in the center of the image.

Image seems a bit flat. I downloaded it but was not able to come up with something I liked. Overcast light being the culprit for that.

Don Railton
03-08-2013, 07:12 PM
Hello grady

There is a good expression of power in that wave as its about to thump that rock... I would like to see the next frame or so when it hit...
I do agree with Robert that the image is a little flat however, and I think the lighthouse is a little too small in the frame, to the point where the image would be just as strong with it removed...

hope you have warmed up..

DON

Rachel Hollander
03-08-2013, 07:43 PM
Hi Grady, it has been quite a winter in the NE. I agree with the above observations about the light and the placement of the lighthouse. There's also a dust spot in the sky on the lhs. I do like your timing and how you caught the curl of the wave.

TFS,
Rachel

Jerry van Dijk
03-09-2013, 10:46 AM
Some good points already made. In addition, the image looks a bit soft to me, but that may be due to the small size of the image as posted. Also, I find the amount of white in the lower half a bit overpowering. I think this is what led to the comments of the image being flat. My suggestion would be to add micro contrast to the image (e.g. with the clarity slider in ACR). This will add to the apparent sharpness, and will probably also add more detail to the white area in the bottom of the frame. I Sometimes have thismproblem with clouds as well. By lowering the contrast and adding clarity, I'm usually able to get a lot more detail showing. Maybe worth a try, I really like the raw power this image is emanating.

Grady Weed
03-09-2013, 01:35 PM
Thanks all for the comments.

Jerry van Dijk
03-09-2013, 03:21 PM
Hi Grady, couldn't resist playing around with your image to see what I could get out of those whites. There's a lot of detail in the whites, which were slightly blown. I opened the image in ACR and used the grad filter to selectively adapt the white foam. I completely reduced the contrast and applied max. clarity. I also sharpened the image further. I bet you can get a lot more detail out of the original image. I cropped from the left to off-centre the lighthouse and to get a better cut-off of the rock. I then opened the image in CS5, removed the dust spot and converted to B&W, slightly increasing the red channel to 56%. I did that because there was little color in the image anyway, but there was also a slight magenta color cast in the LL corner.

Morkel Erasmus
03-12-2013, 05:01 PM
Hi Grady.
I concur with Robert here...struggling to find a way to make it work.
For the record I like Jerry's monochrome repost more than your OP, so worth a shot exploring that avenue...:e3