Autumn at Lake Panorama National GC

With chilly north winds blowing over Lake Panorama National Golf Course, fall approached this golfing season changing the golf course from green hues to rich autumn hues. These images were taken at two different shoots and unfortunately, with the strong winds this fall, the leaves did not stick around like I had hoped.

I drove around the course with the D90 in hand equipped with the 18-105mm or 12-24mm lense. Surprisingly, this was the first time I had the 12-24mm on the golf course and it offered a new wide angle perspective on some of the beautiful holes. The camera was set to RAW to capture the golf holes in full color. The aperture of f9 to f14 was used along with the auto bracketing feature on the D90. This allowed me to get different exposed images at rapid pace. With plenty of light, the ISO was kept at 200.

Once on the computer, ViewNX was used to change the RAW files by adjusting the white balance to direct sunlight and the picture control to landscape-nature. The highlight and shadow protection sliders were used at a minimum on these images. The final step was changing the RAW files to Tiff’s to export into PSE8.

In PSE8, I used the cloning tool to clone out hazard stakes and other items that I didn’t want in the images. Adjustment layers and masks were used in combination with hue/saturation, brightness/contrast and smart paint brush to further enhance the images. The ability to stack layers and masks on top of each other is one of the biggest processing powers of Photoshop.

The golf course will soon be covered in snow but the beauty of Lake Panorama National GC will be back in the spring to greet golfers once again.

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Harvesting Golden Moments

These past few weeks is the favorite time of year for me as the weather starts to turn, the harvest is in full swing and hunting season begins. With all this going on, having the Nikon with me at all times is a must. While riding the gravel roads and helping the family on the farm, I had the opportunity to capture the moments that matter most.

For these images, I used the D90 that was fitted with either the 18-105mm or 12-24mm lense since I was capturing landscape scenes. The camera was set to RAW to allow post processing of the files on the computer. I ranged the aperture from f9 to f11 and the ISO from 200 all the way up to 3200.  ISO 3200 was needed to capture the shots in the dark but next time I need to remember to change a few settings in camera to help with noise reduction. To capture the bright colors of the sunset, I used either exposure compensation or bracketing to help darken the sky. Since I was shooting on the go, my tripods were not used at any time.

Using ViewNX, I changed the white balance to either cloudy or shade to get the right colors I wanted for these fall scenes along with a picture control of landscape-nature that I use so often. The highlight and shadow protection sliders were also used if needed to get the right balance between the sky and farm equipment.

After the files were changed to tiff’s, I opened them up in PSE8 to do the final adjustments. A little cloning was done to get rid of unwanted objects. To improve the sky even more, I used a levels adjustment along with a layer mask to finalize the beauty that fall sunsets offer.

My favorite image of the batch is with the combine unloading corn into the grain cart blowing corn dust towards me with the sun setting behind the combine. This image was taken standing on top of the tractor tire while it was parked and is #19.

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Guthrie County Arts Show - A Great Success

Thank you to everyone that stopped by my display last night at the Guthrie County Arts Council Show.

 I had a great time showing off my work and talking with everyone. It was a great turnout with a lot of great artists displaying their work. The music that was provided added a nice background to the event along with the wine, cheese and crackers.

Thank you to those that purchased or ordered prints. Be sure to take a look around my website and see more of my work that can be purchased in different size prints. I look forward to being out in the outdoors these next few months as the seasons change capturing more great images.

Lake Panorama National - Summer 11

Over the summer, Lake Panorama National Golf Course has been a beautiful place to play golf which also meant a great place to photograph. During the day or when leaving at night, I tried to get a few images when the lighting was just right.

Since most of these images were taking in quick circumstances, I did not use my tripod but did my best to rest the camera against my body or something else to help keep the camera still. The D90 was fitted with the 18-105mm for all of these shots. Aperture values ranged from just f8 to f13 since the sweet spot of the lense is right around those values. Because I shot from bright sunlight to sunset conditions, I ranged the ISO from 200 to 800 depending on how much light I needed to hit the sensor. If needed, exposure compensation was used to darken the sky.

Needing to change the white balance and picture control values, ViewNX was used to adjust these two adjustments. I was able to change the picture control to the custom Landscape-nature picture control because I was shooting in RAW. This control helps get the golf course colors to be contrasty but yet bright.

Not much was done in PSE8 other then cloning out hazard stakes and divots to improve the look of the holes. I did use a little blue filter to enhance the color of the ponds to get that Augusta look.

With fall approaching, I want to get out a few more times and capture the autumn leafs on the golf course before the golfing season is over.

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Coneflowers & Asters underneath the D90

Still waiting for the fall to arrive, I’ve been taking pictures of flowers when I get a chance and was able to get these beautiful flowers one night after work. I targeted the purple coneflower and aster with the camera on this particular shoot.

I set up the D90 for close up photography with extension tubes and used the 18-105mm or 70-300mm lense on the Slik tripod. Shooting in AV mode, I used a range of apertures from f8 up to f18 to vary what I wanted in focus. While using a low ISO of 200 or 400, the shutter speeds were on the low end so I’m glad I had a good tripod. The D90 was set to RAW to allow me more flexibility in post process.

Nikon’s ViewNX was used to make changes to the white balance, picture control, exposure and shadow/highlight protection. Without using RAW, I wouldn’t be able to make these important adjustments when the image is not quite to my liking. The custom landscape-nature picture control was used for all of these.

The final step was done in PSE8 were I used the cloning and healing brush tool to get rid of imperfections and spider webs that were in between some of the pedals. Clipping masks and fliters/plug-in’s were then used to give the coneflower and aster a special look. From PSE8, I used poster edges and craquelure filters and used a WWII black and white filter from VirtualPhotographer to give them that extra special look. With a lot of edges on these flowers, I zoomed in between 200-300% in order to erase the clipping mask with the brush.

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