Lake Panorama's Marina under Autumn Color

With the south shore of Lake Panorama covered in trees that turned into bright reds, oranges and yellows, I stopped a couple of different mornings to capture the beautiful scene. Arriving in the morning allowed the morning sun to shine on the south shore and kept the water undisturbed by boat traffic.

 The lenses used on this collection of images were the 24-120mm and 70-300mm on the D90. When using a tripod, I turned the VR off on the lense. With an aperture of f8-11 the ISO ranged from 200-400. However, I decided to change up the scene and needed a long exposure to get the water to become soft and smooth. To do this, I jacked up the aperture to f29-36 and changed the ISO to 1 EV under 200. I took the images from different locations around the marina to get different views of the lighthouse, main basin and south shore.

 

The RAW files were put onto my laptop and transferred into ViewNX to start post processing. The white balance was set to either direct sunlight or cloudy and the picture control to Nature-Landscape. The highlight/shadow sliders were also adjusted when needed. To create HDR images, I adjusted the exposure compensation and made 5 different exposed images. Once in EasyHDR, I merged all 5 TIFF files into one using the program. I used either Default or Natural2 settings on the programs default curves.

 

Final post processing was done in PSE 11 with the normal adjustments I’ve been doing in the past. First the clone or healing brush tool was used to get rid of unwanted objects. Next came the step of straightening and cropping the image. I also took the long exposed images of the water and merged them into different images using layer masks so the south shore and lighthouse would be sharp while the water would be soft and smooth.  The final step was to sharpen the images with the high pass filter.

The leaves have quickly blown away but while they lasted, it was a beautiful site on Lake Panorama. Those leaves will soon be replaced with frosty trees, frozen water and snow. I’ll be out capturing those beautiful scenes as well.

#1.

 
#2.

 
#3.

 
#4.

 
#5.

 
#6.

 
#7.

 
#8.

 
#9.

 
#10.

 
#11.

Soybean Harvest 2013

With a wet spring, harvest time arrived late in central Iowa but it proved to be a great opportunity to be out in the field and capture the scenes of harvest. After running the combine for awhile, I let Dad run the controls and I grabbed my camera.

 

Depending on my location to the combine, I shot with either the 12-24mm or 24-120mm lense on the D90. With the 12-24mm, the wide angle allowed me to sit within a few feet of the combine head as it passed by; I definitely was paying attention to my steps. I shot in aperture or manual mode but kept the aperture at f9. Manual mode was used when I had the SB-700 Speedlight involved in exposing the image. The ISO was set at either 200-400 and I also adjusted the exposure compensation if needed. To get the unloading shots, I climbed up in the wagon and stayed in the corner since it was already ¾ full which allowed me to shoot safely.

 

Once in ViewNX, the RAW files were adjusted by changing the white balance to shade and the picture control to Nature-Landscape. The shadow and highlight sliders were also adjusted to save parts of the image that were too dark or bright. Tweaking the exposure compensation also helped with this. HDR images were made as well out of these images so I copied files into -1.5, -.7, 0, +.7 & +1.5 exposure compensations which got me different exposed images. I then merged those 5 files using EasyHDR.

 

Photoshop Elements 11 was used to finalize the images by using the clone brush tool to get rid of unwanted objects in the images. I placed a grid over the images and used the rotate tool to make sure the objects of the image were straight too. The final step was to apply sharpening in the way of High Pass filter with the blending mode set to overlay and opacity at 15%.

 

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the corn harvest for 2013 but looking at these images will pass the time until I’m back in the tractor this spring and the process starts all over again.

#1.

 
#2.

 
#3.

 
#4.

 
#5.

 
#6.

 
#7.

 
#8.

 
#9.

 
#10.

 
#11.

2013 Lake Panorama National Golf Course - From One Extreme to Another

With my camera with me at all times, I was able to capture dramatic clouds over Lake Panorama National Golf Course this year that showcase the beautiful surroundings of the area. I captured these photographs during late evening hours in the spring and mid day during the summer and fall.

The trusty D90 was used with the 12-24mm and 24-120mm lense to get both wide angle and closer up images of the golf holes I selected to capture. I used aperture priority mode from f9-f11 and ISO of 200-500. To light up the flag stick, I used the SB-700 Speedlight as well set to manual mode to control the power output. Exposure compensation on the camera was set to -0.3 too on the RAW files.

I transferred the files onto my laptop and opened them up using ViewNX. For sunset images, I changed the white balance to shade while daylight images were set to direct sunlight. Nature landscape and golf course custom picture controls were used to improve the color. For future post processing steps, I copied certain images and adjusted the exposure compensation in five different steps to create HDR images.

The final step of post processing was done using PSE 11 with a wide range of tools in the program. The clone brush, straightening, crop, layer masks and brush tools were all used. The clone brush is great for getting rid of yardage and water hazard stakes that I don’t like in my photographs of the golf course. To create the HDR images, I used Easy HDR Pro 2 by combining 5 different exposed Tiff files into one image. The program has default settings for tonal curves and I decided on natural for these images.

It’s hard to believe another golfing season is over with but it started late with a wet spring, a drought during the summer and ended early but in between the golf course was in beautiful shape to capture great photographs.

#1.

 
#2.

 
#3.

 
#4.

 
#5.

 
#6.

 
#7.

 
#8.

 
#9.

 
#10.

 
#11.

 
#12.

 
#13.

 
#14.

 
#15.

 
#16.

 
#17.

 
#18.

 
#19.

 
#20.