Autumn Colors on Lake Panorama

Equipment Used: Nikon D750, Nikon 70-300mm f4-5.6 VR Lense, SB-700 Speedlight, Vanguard Abeo Plus 363CT Tripod, Lightroom & Photoshop CC

This fall, I was looking forward to the autumn tree color after a dry summer that can produce brilliant leaf color and the south shore of the main basin of Lake Panorama didn’t disappoint. One morning, I headed there with my camera equipment and started shooting with the sun shining on the shore.

I used the 70-300mm lense on my D750 and put the set up on the VanGuard tripod to help with sharpness along with I was going to shoot some pano images. Shooting in RAW, ISO was at 100 with an aperture of f7.1. I used live view to help focus and then turned off autofocus and VR on the lense. To help with the dramatic range of colors of the scene, I used bracketing on the D750 too. A three second self timer was used on the camera too. I shot from three or four different locations around the marina to capture these images.

Using Lightroom Classic, I first used the landscape preset and either left the white balance at shade or changed it to direct sunlight. I increased the saturation slider on red, yellow and orange to help enhance the fall color. Lens correction for the 70-300mm was applied to the images as well. I also used the graduated filter tool to improve the look of the water or trees has the final step in LR.

To create the panoramic images, I used LR to combine four or five different images into one using its panoramic feature that worked well for these images.

In Photoshop CC, unwanted objects were first cloned out using the clone tool or content aware fill tool. Next came layer adjustments using the levels and vibrance masks to put one final color adjustment on the water and trees. The brush tool was used on these masks to determine which parts of the images I wanted adjusted. I then straightened and cropped the image if needed. A sharpening layer was then applied as the last step of the process.

Just days after capturing these images, the trees were past their prime color and the wind started to blow the leaves off so I think I captured the south shore at its peak this fall. 

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Harvest Moments in the Field

Equipment Used: Nikon D750, Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 DI VC G2 Lense, Nikon 70-300mm f4-5.6 VR Lense, SB-700 Speedlight, Vanguard Abeo Plus 363CT Tripod, Lightroom & Photoshop CC

The fall is the favorite time of the year for me for a number of reasons and one of the reasons is being in the field harvesting the corn and beans. Big equipment rolling across the fields with beautiful sunsets or sitting underneath the clear night sky, made for a great scene to capture with my camera.

For the night sky images, the D750 was used with the Tamron 24-70mm while the sunsets were captured with the 70-300mm. During the night exposures, aperture was set at f2.8 and ISO ranged from 3200-8000. Shutter speeds ranged from 5 to 20 seconds. Shooting from the tripod, I manual focused on the combine and turned off VR. The SB-700 Speedlight was used for additional light when needed. The self timer was used to trigger the camera. For the sunset images, I used the 70-300mm with an aperture of f6.3 to f9 and ISO of 100-1250.

To edit the images, Lightroom Classic was first used on the RAW files by first using the presets that I’ve developed for landscapes and star images. A little further adjustment to the sliders was made on an individual image basis but the presets were a great start and saved time. Lens correction was made using the catalog of lenses that Lightroom has in their program for distortion and vignetting.

To finalize the images, Photoshop CC was used to clone out unwanted spots in the image using the clone tool or content aware fill tool. If further noise reduction was needed, I applied that in PS. I then straightened and cropped the image if needed. A sharpening layer was then applied as the last step of the process.

With nearly all the fields out in the area, the harvest is almost complete and once again, the scenes didn’t disappointment the farmer and photographer in me. 

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B.N.S.F. Locomotive in rural Iowa on the Tracks

Equipment Used: Nikon D750, Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 DI VC G2 Lense, SB-700 Speedlights paired with Vello Flash Triggers, Slik Pro 500DX Tripod, Lightroom & Photoshop CC

In the middle of October while out scouting water conditions in local marshes, I noticed a train at the end of the track east of Bayard. I stopped briefly in the morning to check it out and returned that afternoon to capture some sunset images and wait for the stars to come out.

The D750 and the Tamron 24-70mm was the equipment of choice that afternoon and night along with using the Slik tripod. The Slik tripod was used over the VanGuard because the Slik allowed me to get lower to the ground since its center column is shorter. I used manual focus and VR was turned off on the lense. Shooting in RAW, I used aperture priority during sunset and then changed over to manual mode once the stars came out. Aperture ranged from f2.8 to f11 while shutter speeds ranged from 5 to 15 seconds. ISO ranged from 100 during sunset capture to 1600-6400 at dark. I used a pair of SB-700’s to light up the track and train triggered by Vello Flash Triggers.

Lightroom CC was used to edit these images by creating a preset of slider adjustments for the sunset images and then using the star preset I had already made for the night images. A little further adjustments to the sliders were made on an individual image basis but the presets were a great start and saved time. When shooting the images, I did bracket the exposures with -2, 0 & +2 exposure compensation and found myself using the -2 exposed image in Lightroom. The under exposed image allowed the sky to be exposed perfectly and then train was exposed using shadow and exposure sliders in Lightroom.

In Photoshop CC, I first cloned out unwanted spots in the image and corrected a lense flare problem in the star images that was created from the light on the train. The content aware fill tool in PS worked pretty well on the flare problems in the image. I then straightened and cropped the image if the train was not perfectly straight. Using adjustment layer masks, small changes were made to saturation and other sliders.

From spending three hours lying on the side of the railroad track to processing these images, it was a joy to see these turn out like they did. I even got alittle scare when half way through the night, the train engines turned on and I believe no one was inside the locomotive.  I got up off the track pretty quickly when the engines fired up but returned to them when I realized the train wasn’t going to go anywhere. 

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Astrophotography Image Selected for High Plains Journal Contest

During the summer, High Plains Journal held their 2018 Down Country Roads Calendar Contest that required entries that showcased the scenes of down country roads in the Midwest. Images were selected for each month of the calendar for next  year along with an overall winner.

I entered the contest and one of my milky way images over the Templeton farm got selected for the month of July.

Below is the link to the picture and the rest of the winners. Congratulations to all the photographers that were selected.

http://www.hpj.com/ag_news/down-country-roads-calendar-contest-winners/collection_52b4eb7a-9a5a-11e7-9d99-838b4ec53472.html#1

Summer Storm Clouds over Farm Country

Equipment Used: Nikon D750, Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 DI VC G2 lense, Lightroom & Photoshop CC

It sure didn’t happen very often this summer but there were storm clouds rolling through the country side that produced dramatic skies. I happened to be getting off work when two of these storms passed through so I got my camera out to capture the scene.

The D750 was fitted with the new Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 G2 to shoot landscapes for the first time on these two nights. The VR was kept on as I was shooting handheld with shutter speeds as low as 1/80 sec. RAW format with an ISO of 400-640 and aperture of f7.1 to f9. Matrix metering was used as well and a -1.0 to +.3 exposure compensation adjustment.

Lightroom CC did the majority of the post processing with adjustments to a number of sliders. I first changed the white balance to shade followed by adjustments to exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, clarity, vibrance and saturation. A slight S was put into the tone curve and dehaze was increased as well. Once the above adjustments were done, I created a preset to be able to post process the other images much quicker.

In Photoshop CC, I first cloned out the unwanted spots from a dirty camera using the clone brush tool and straightened the image based off of the corn crib or other buildings I wanted straight. I then made a selection on the corn crib to be able to apply an exposure mask to just the crib.  Because of the red, yellow and white paint on the north side of the crib, I increased the exposure to make it more visible using that selection mask. The final step was to hit F12 to apply the sharpening action I had created previously.

With fall fast approaching, the harvest of corn and soybeans will begin soon so I look forward to getting out in the fields and capturing the farmer’s scenes with the Nikon and Tamron. 

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