Dawn Patrol at Lake Panorama National GC

During the month of April on a couple different mornings, I arrived at the golf course when the sun was starting to rise to take some shots of the golf course in the early morning hours. Not having done this before, I didn't know what to expect but I was hoping to capture some dew on the grass along with the warm yellow glow of the sun hitting the grass.

Using the Nikon D90 and 18-105mm lense I mounted it on my Slik tripod to allow me to use the bracketing feature on the camera to help with HDR work and also to be able to use a 3 second time delay on the shutter. This allowed me to keep my hands off the camera while the shutter was being released. However, when reviewing the shots, I learned that the wind caused the trees to move enough were I couldn't use different photographs for HDR work. Instead I just had to use one single photograph and adjust the exposure compensation in ViewNX.

The first series of photographs were processed in ViewNX as RAW files and then straight into EasyHDR were they were tone mapped to create the HDR photograph. EasyHDR also has the ability to change the tone curve on the image so I tweaked that as well to get the look I was wanting too. I saved them as TIFF's and then finished processing them in PSE8 which involved alittle sharpening and cloning of objects I didn't want in the image such as birds and cart signs.

The second series of photographs were processed in ViewNX has RAW files and I adjusted the white balance and used a custom Picture Control that I created for these sunrise images. The images were saved as TIFF's and then finished them out in PSE8 with sharpening, cloning and alittle adjustment on Action Curves and Channel Mixer.

After finishing all of these up, I was happy with my work and will be going out at dawn and also at dusk to capture the beauty of the golf course during these times.

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The second series from the morning outings that are not HDR.

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FC Coop Sunset

At the end of April there was a major thunderstorm rolling into central Iowa and I was outside to witness the clouds coming into Yale with the sunset in the background. Seeing the potential for beautiful colors in the sky and with the FC coop's grain elevators in the background, I quickly got my camera and started taking photographs.

Using the Nikon D90 and 18-105mm I tried to pay attention to the Rule of Thirds when trying to get the grain elevators and certain clouds in the photograph. From past experience, shooting RAW allows much more tweaking of the scene so I used that format when taking these. Since I was concerned about depth of field, the Av mode was used as well. I also took different exposure levels by using the bracketing feature on the D90 which allows me to take 3 different shots (either -2.0, 0, +2.0 or -1.0, 0, +1.0). I was hoping to use EasyHDR to create a very unique photograph but I've yet to learn how to get sunsets processed correctly in the program. Instead I just processed the RAW files in ViewNX and then finished them up in PSE8.

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Spring Tulip Time

With the sun shining this spring, the tulips right by my garage were in full bloom. One particular morning, I set up the tripod with the camera and a couple different lenses and took some photographs of the tulips. Because these tulips are right by the garage, the angle to take them is limited but I tried my best to keep nothing but the blue sky behind them.

After taking some shots with the tripod with the Sigma 50-150mm on the D90, I switched that lense out for the 18-105mm. This lense got me off the tripod and right on top of the ground looking up at the tulips. This was alittle harder as I couldn't see through the viewfinder when I was adjusting the settings.

I changed the exposure level on these photographs ranging them from -2.0 to +2.0 and then processed them in ViewNX since they were Raw files. I finished them out in PSE8 with alittle tweaking of colors and other techniques I'm learning.


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#2. Using PSE8, I put a b/w background behind the tulips in this photograph.



#3. Alittle surreal image here, using PSE8 I used a Neon Glow filter and then using a clipping mask layer and brush tool, brushed out the filter from the tulips themselves. This really sticks out on a black background in my mind.

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#6. Tweaked the background to alittle brighter and bluer in this photograph.

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#9. Using PSE8, I put a b/w background behind the tulips in this image.