Historic Kinnick Stadium

The second Saturday in September had the Iowa Hawkeyes playing their instate rival, Iowa State. To celebrate my big birthday from the summer, my sister was able to get us a field pass to be on the sidelines before the start of the game. We spent around 45 minutes watching the players warm up and were side by side with them as back in black was played as they ran out of the tunnel. It was an awesome experience and I had my camera along with me.

The D90 was fitted with the 18-105mm lense and with bright blue skies, the day was great to take pictures of Kinnick. I shot in RAW, ISO from 200-400 and kept the aperture at a consistent value of f8 or f10. Since the shots were all handheld, I kept the VR on the lense to help produce sharper images.

In ViewNX, I adjusted the exposure compensation, white balance, picture control and shadow protection if needed. The white balance was either kept at what the camera recorded or changed to direct sunlight. The picture control was changed to either nature landscape or sport.

I finalized the images in PSE8 by cloning out a few small items, cropping and using the smart brush tool. Since the blue sky was filled with puffy white clouds, the smart brush tool was set to cloud contrast and I painted the skies to enhance the color of them. I adjusted the blend mode to multiply and lowered the opacity level on the layer.

A selected few images I made into HDR images as well using ViewNX and EasyHDR. I adjusted the exposure compensation to -2, -1, 0, +.5 and +1. and made copies of them and the let EasyHDR combine them to create the HDR image.

Experiencing the sidelines before the start of the game, I can see why visiting teams say Kinnick is one of the toughest stadiums to play in as it was unbelievable loud down on the field with the fans so close to the field.

 

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