Covered Bridge & Vineyard in Autumn Colors

Equipment Used: Nikon D750, 24-120mm f4 lense, 35mm f1.8 lense, SB-700 Speedlight & Vanguard Abeo Plus tripod

This fall I had a request from a client to gather images of a covered bridge and vineyard to finish out their order. When I thought the fall leaves were in prime color, I traveled down to Madison County to their well known covered bridges and stopped at the closest one. I arrived at Hogback covered bridge when it was just starting to get light which allowed me to get the glow of the sun as it peaked over the nearby hills.

I figured the creek below the bridge would be a great angle so I put on my waders and traveled down to the middle of the creek. There I put my D750 on the tripod and waited for the sun’s glow on the bridge and nearby trees. I had the camera in manual mode at f9 and a shutter speed ranging from 1/20 to 1/40 sec. VR and autofocus were shut off on the lense and ISO was at 100. I put the camera in self timer mode to reduce camera shake from pushing the shutter button.

When I started to shoot, I noticed the leaves below in the water so decided to include them in the image and was able to improve their look with a bit of light from the SB-700.

I than traveled to a vineyard, asked permission to go take pictures and started shooting. I changed the ISO to 200 and shot in aperture priority handheld.

Processing started in Capture NX-D by changing the white balance to shade and picture control to nature-landscape. Adjustments to the exposure compensation, contrast and saturation sliders were made to create a better colored image. Because there was a wide range of tones in the images, I decided to create HDR images as well on some of them. I copied the original file and then adjusted the exposure compensation. EasyHDR was used to create the HDR images.

Once in PSE 11, I first cloned out unwanted objects such as a broken tree limb in the water that looked out of place. I straightened and cropped the image after that. The final step involved the high pass filter to sharpen the image.

The trip was a success as the client loved the images I provided them and I was very pleased as well with how the Hogback covered bridge turned out underneath the glow of the fall sunshine.

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Summertime Hay Bales

Equipment Used: Nikon D750, 24-120mm f4 lense & 70-300mm lense

Farmers of rural Guthrie County were busy baling hay this summer and I happened to drive by when one farmer was about finished. The next day, nice clouds dotted the bright blue sky so I drove back to the location and got out my camera.

On the D750, I used both the above lenses to get different scenes of the rolling hillside that was dotted with hay bales. I shot in aperture priority mode at f9 or f11 with ISO at 400 or 800. The format was RAW and I dialed in -.3 EV.

In Capture NX-D, I adjusted the white balance to direct sunlight and changed the picture control to landscape or my custom nature/landscape setting. Slide increases to saturation, contrast and shadow sliders were also made.

The images were finalized in PSE 11 by first cloning out unwanted objects such as tops of trees that were on the top ridge of the hill that could barely be seen. I liked the cleaner look of nothing on the ridge so got rid of them in most of the images. Level layer adjustments were used to fine tune the color of the image. Lastly, the high pass sharpening was completed to end the post processing on this series of images. 

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