Spring Finally!

[Grady Weed]

The sunrises here at the Portland Headlight have been hit or miss at best. We have had mostly grey overcast, cold, wet or rainy days with blowing frozen rain at times. To say the least we have been wanting spring to be here! So I packed my cameras and left for the lighthouse at 4 am. the sun was showing it colors by 5:45 am and it was easy to tell it would be nice. Since I have gotten so many full deep colorful shots of this grand old girl, I wanted to find something fresh. I came up with this image. I went for a painterly feeling. So I stopped down to F/22 and waited for the colors to abate some.

Canon EOS 5D, Shooting Date/Time: 4/9/2008 06:12:18, Tv(Shutter Speed) 1/5Sec. Av(Aperture Value) F22, Evaluative metering, Exposure Compensation +2/3, ISO 100, Lens: EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM, Focal Length 28.0 mm, Image size: 4368 x 2912, Image Quality: RAW, Flash On, -3, White Balance Auto, One-Shot AF, Picture Style: Landscape. On tripod with cable release.

I cropped out the sun on the right lower bottom side in order to keep the blown ball out. I do not own ND Filters, I want them for my 28-135 and the 100-400. Just one more thing to buy till the next thing, right. LOL. I really want to keep my creative juices flowing and am trying to come up different views, angles and sky schemes, cloud formations with deep colors etc. Of course the weather has to cooperate, which it has not done so lately.

Northern Maine still has very deep snows and some roads are choked down to 1 lanes from 2. We are supposed to get more wet snow turning to rain this weekend. I sure hope it ends soon. So...what do you think of this composition here? I have one more for tomorrow's post. Plus I have a shrimp boat in the sunrise and a RWBB to post. I also saw 6 snowy egrets and 2 great blue herons!

Thanks for looking.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Grady,
Coool to see Ram Island light composed in the image. I take it the ND filter line was for my benefit:D! I have a new one for you to possibly try. Looks like you are over the fence??? Try a HDR shot..........one correct exposure for water and one for the sky. We'll have to ask Michael Pancier how he does it!
#2.......but be very carefull as it gets extremely slippery.......down lower at the water level......you get reflections of the lighthouse. This will depend greatly on tides and such. If it's Icy and all.......don't do it as it's too slippery. May give you a new/different perspective.......or try a very long exposure on one of your rainy/foggy days. Glad to see that spring is coming to Maine! enjoy and have fun shooting,
Roman

[Robert Amoruso]

Grady,

I like the composition in this one - especially the rock in the lower right corner that helps to balance the image with the lighthouse and its larger rock base. I would have preferred not to have the jet trail look like it is emitting from the top of the lighthouse.

When you get the ND filters we want to see 30 sec. shutter speeds and smooth, milky water. :)

The two exposure HDR merge is the way to go here. I have pestered Michael to do a how-to but when I find time, I will post my method. While your there, I suggest doing one exposure for the ground and one for the sky that way you have them to play with later.

The image looks a bit soft - did you sharpen it before posting?

Nice work and it is interesting to see multiple images from the same location.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

This is a lovely scene and comp. I agree with the exposure issues. This is a hard one to nail! I read a lot of references to HDR, and I assume those posters mean to use the automatic HDR routines in PS and the like. Personally, when I bracket exposures for a landscape that has a very wide dynamic range, I blend the layers together manually and get a more realistic and pleasing result. Sometimes the masking is challenging, but a few years of experience will get you there!

[David Kennedy]

Grady,
I would be very tempted to remove the contrail that seems to "grow" out of the lighthouse. It diverts attention from the composition. Also, I wonder if a little more foreground would have strengthened the image--or you could crop off the rock formation in the lower RH corner, and then the progressively smaller and smaller amount of beach would make more sense, and more foreground would be unnecessary. On a last note, I can see some chromatic abberation on either side of the lighthouse's tower.

[Grady Weed]

David, Your right. The aberration is from me not doing a pre focus on the tower then re-focusing. I forget to do that all the time. I appreciate all the comments to help me grow. You can't really back up to add foreground. An ugly fence is there, so options sometimes are limited. Bicycle racks, stacked picnic tables, piles of snow etc are in the way at different spots. It seems that the management does not care to put too much effort in the appearance or the public just destroys what improvements are made. not trying to be negative, but with budget cuts and all not too much money is spent keeping the place up. You know the drill.

I am going to go to water level for the next series and climb around the rocks for different views. I plan on redoing a few very specific images there.

I sometimes shoot to help my severe depression. this was one of those times. I just needed to go out and shoot some scenes and the sunrise often does the trick. Thanks all once more for your support.