Summer Time Tiger Lilies

A few weeks ago the tiger lilies were in full bloom next to the house and with the right lighting conditions, I had to get out the camera on a couple of different nights. Luckily for me, the sun was setting which gave a nice soft glow of light to the lilies.

The majority of these images were taking with extension tubes so I used the Slik tripod to help make sure the camera stayed nice and steady. The D90 was used with either the 18-105mm or the 70-300mm lense. To vary the depth of field, I used AV mode and used a range of apertures from f5.6 all the way up to 18. As I always do, RAW was used and the lowest ISO was used depending on the lighting conditions. Extension tubes are a powerful tool to have in your camera bag in order to get really close to your subject and they work well with both of these lenses.

The images were processed for white balance, shadow/highlight protection and picture controls in ViewNX 2.0. The custom landscape-nature picture control was used for almost all of them but I did use the custom sunrise control a few times on the orange lilies. If needed, cropping was done in ViewNX along with minor adjustments to exposure.

The post processing fun started in PSE8 were I used the cloning tool to clean up some imperfections in the lilies and other areas of the image. Some images required small adjustments to levels and hue/saturation but overall I was happy with the color of the lilies straight out of ViewNX. Since I enjoy giving flower images some extra processing, clipping masks and filters/plug-ins were used. I used the poster edges and lighting filters to give the flowers a unique look. The VirtualPhotographer plug-in was also used with my favorite black and white filter to make the backgrounds into b/w. Different brush sizes on the clipping mask was used to erase the b/w treatment to allow the lily color to come though.

Another trick that I used to get water droplets on the flowers without having to wait for rain was using a small water sprayer and lightly hitting the lily pedals with the mist. It proved to add another dimension to the tiger lilies.

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Yale fireworks on the 4th of July

To finish off the 4^th of July weekend, Yale had its fireworks on Monday night. After getting off work, I decided to take some more firework images. I decided to set up in the bed of my truck with the camera to be able to get a view over the corn field and get Yale’s FC coop in the image as well.

With the Slikpro 500DX tripod, the Nikon D90 and the 18-105mm lense zoomed in to capture what I wanted; I started shooting as the fireworks exploded in the sky. Since my camera was on a tripod, VR was shut off along with using manual focus since it was dark and I didn’t want the autofocus hunting. Fireworks are bright subjects so the ISO was set at 200 and I used Manual mode. Manual mode allowed me to set the shutter speed to “bulb” and hold the shutter open as long as I wanted to. The sky was darker then it was on Saturday night at Lake Panorama so I held the shutter a little bit longer.

The images were processed as RAW files in ViewNX 2.0 with adjustments to the white balance, picture control, color booster and D-lighting HS. The white balance was set to either cloudy, direct sunlight or left alone to make the sky different shades of color while the picture control was mostly set at Nature-Landscape. The color booster and D-lighting HS sliders were also used on the low side to increase contrast and lighten up the image. Unlike the Lake Panorama firework images with the lighthouse, when processing the images, I decided the coop could remain mostly black.

I finalized the images in PSE8 with the crop and cloning tool to remove unwanted lights and other items in the image that occur when shooting longer exposures.

On a side note, I discovered the on/off button on my camera no longer works which will require a three or four week turnaround to get it fixed. The camera stays on and functions regardless of it being turned off. What a bummer! I will have to decide the correct time frame to be without my camera.

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4th of July Fireworks at Lake Panorama

The 4^th of July, the United States of America’s Independence Day is celebrated every year with grand firework displays all over this great nation. Last Saturday night, I was lucky enough to have great weather and a great opportunity to capture the fireworks on beautiful Lake Panorama.

I positioned myself where I could capture the Lake Panorama’s lighthouse along the fireworks shooting off in the distance. This position turned out to be perfect except without bug spray, the mosquitoes sure liked me as I stood alongside the water.

With the Slikpro 500DX tripod, the Nikon D90 and the 18-105mm lense zoomed in to capture what I wanted; I started shooting as the fireworks exploded in the sky. Since my camera was on a tripod, VR was shut off along with using manual focus since it was dark and I didn’t want the autofocus hunting. Fireworks are bright subjects so the ISO was set at 200 and I used Manual mode. Manual mode allowed me to set the shutter speed to “bulb” and hold the shutter open as long as I wanted to.

The images were processed in ViewNX 2.0 with adjustments to the white balance, picture control and D-lighting HS. The white balance was either left alone to what the D90 had picked for the shot or changed to cloudy. The picture control was adjusted to the custom Nature-Landscape control I created to help make the colors of the fireworks “pop” more. The adjustment that proved to be the best was the use of the D-lighting HS which allowed me to lighten the image without blowing out the fireworks. I wanted to faintly have the lighthouse visible in the image and the D-lighting HS allowed me to do that.

To finalize the images, I used the cloning tool in PSE8 to clone out unwanted lights and the boat docks along the jetty. The burn tool was also used to darken the lights from the houses off in the distance.

This was the first time the D90 was used on fireworks and I’m very happy with the results. A few years ago with my old Pentax dslr, I had to wait an extended amount of time between each shot while the camera processed the image. With the D90, there was no wait.

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