The Sentinel Sleeps

[Bill Jobes]

A Nike Hercules air defense guided missile, its work done, rests in eternal sleep.

Throughout the Cold War this missile, and others in its fleet, defended New York Harbor against the threat of Soviet bombers.

Photo taken at Ft. Hancock on Sandy Hook, NJ.

Sony NEX-7
Sony-Zeiss 16-70mm lens at 16mm
Handheld
Full-frame
Aperture Priority at F/8
ISO 400
Raw conversion via DxO Optics Pro 9
Processed in CS 6

[David Stephens]

Love this sky. As a fellow user of DxO Optics Pro 9, I see some artifacts in the grass that makes believe that you raised the Shadow level just a touch too much; however, if I weren't a DxO user, I'd probably not notice it. Did you use DxO's PRIME noise reduction here. I would try it here. In this size, I'm not certain if I see some Luminance noise, but I think I do. PRIME does a good job, but I find that I usually apply less than the default, in order to preserve details.

Anyway, great scene and shots.

[Bill Jobes]

Thanks David, those are great suggestions. I did play with it in DxO, and really don't recall if I used Prime ! :bg3:

I'll be mindful of its power next time.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hey Bill. Nice scene and thanks for the back-info for us non-US citizens :5
I like the dynamic range you were able to capture (assuming it's a single exposure here?) - although a 2-exposure blend would probably have been my approach here.
The magenta in the water and sky bugs me - very strong and looks a bit unnatural - did you push the saturation/vibrance a bit too much?
I think it could do with some more midtone contrast and a hint of shadow recovery (but not too much).

Happy New Year!! :5 :cheers:

[Bill Jobes]

Thanks Morkel -- glad you like the photo.

Yes, it was one exposure, hand-held.

The magenta in the water is the reflection from the sunset. I could enhance or lighten it to taste.

I used a CP filter when taking the photograph, and did a fair amount of saturation and vibrance enhancement in post, to create a quasi-HD, dramatic impact.

Here is the original capture, converted from raw to jpeg, to show my starting point in the post processing. As you can see, I also did some selective cyan desat on the missile to show its true color.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Bill - as a New Yorker, this is an interesting photo. I had no idea. You've gotten good suggestions above.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Bill, I like the repost best with the reduction in the magenta. Thanks for sharing the history on these missiles.

[Bill Jobes]

Thanks, Rachel and Andrew.

Glad to share some history, which I happen to know quite well. A long time ago I spent a year in Korea with a U.S. Army air defense artillery battalion that deployed Nike-Herules and Hawk missiles.