TWIP HDR from the Platte

Last week the cub scout pack my son belongs to, took a den activity to the airboat tours location close to our home.  I had been on boats many times, but never an airboat.  Thought this would be an awesome experience for both of us.  The boat tour was on the Platte River, so I was pretty familiar with what it was like especially growing up around the Niobrara River.  Deep spots with tons of sand bars.  The tour was interesting and the boat ride surprisingly smooth.  I would definitely do it again.  I kept the camera tucked away as I didn't know what to expect in terms of water spray, but if I would have remembered my camera strap, I would have had it out almost the whole time. No splash at all.

We stopped a couple of times for the guide to show us different parts of the river and wildlife along the sides.  We even made a stop on the sand bar so the kids could say they stood and played in the Platte.  Yep, right there in the middle of the river.  40 feet of water on either side, but yet it was 6 inches deep.  Just as I remembered the Niobrara when I was a kid.  The clouds were pretty cool giving way to some great sun rays.  I shot a couple of HDR shots from the boat, which is challenging afterwards to line up.  I even tried a new technique using Raya Pro of which I liked the output, but lining up the images was very tough...still wondering if I did something wrong.  Either way, I'll put it out there to view. 

The top shot was from earlier in the day as we were leaving.  The sun rays kissed the top of the church tower.  

 

This is a pano done with an iPhone 6 as I didn't want to get my camera out and chance it.

These are the two HDR shots.  The top was done using NIK filters and were taken from 5 separate shots.  The bottom was done using Photoshop and Raya Pro.  As you can see, the tree on the left side doesn't quite line up right, but I tend to like the softer tone of the photo.  Guess I have a little work to do on mastering luminosity masks.

This one lined up a little better.

This is a 6 shot vertical panorama taken and adjusted in Lightroom.  No HDR.

Long Exposures Daytime Style

Something I have always wanted to try was stacking multiple ND filters during the day time to get a super long exposure.  Taking a long exposure in the day is tricky due to the sun and shadowing factors.  You also need to have clouds for some movement in the sky to make the picture more interesting and show depth.  I found the perfect situation to try this but didn't have much time.  I have a 6 stop and and 10 stop filter that I stacked on to each other to get a full 16 stops of light.  Moving the exposure to around 3 minutes with enough depth of field caused me to move my f/stop to f/11 and increase my ISO to 400.  I didn't want to take a much longer exposure due to the amount of noise that you will already have in your image due to the time and thereat of the day at 3:30pm.  The other problem is with 16 stops of ND filter in front of your image, you can't really compose a shot due to everything being so dark.  I probably should have composed the shot then added the filters on later, but time wasn't on my side.  I took the original photos and worked them as I normally would in Lightroom and was given the suggestion of cropping and conversion to black and white.  

90 seconds

235 seconds

217 seconds

90 seconds

This is the first photo I took from the day and ultimately turned out to be my favorite once I cropped and converted the file.  I did a massive amount of work on this file to make it presentable and I am very happy how it turns out.  This was 217 seconds.

Russ and Chelsea

The last couple of weekends I have had the pleasure of spending time with this couple.  Capturing the moments and details of their special day has been nothing short of a fantastic experience.  I normal try to pick a couple photos from the day to display, but since it was over a two weekend timeframe I have more photos that I know what to do with.  So here are some of my favorites from the wedding and reception!  

Congratulations again to the Bride and Groom!!!

Please select the photo to view in a larger gallery!  That way you get to see all of the awesomeness!