Last nite, Chip and I took the dogs for a walk at Coyote Hills. We ran smack into the herd of goats and sheep that graze there over the winter. I read that they help control non-native plants. Everybody was very interested in us and most particularly the dogs.
Author: DorothyPhoto
Alameda Creek
This shot, I literally fell into. I was hurrying back to the car where Chip was waiting with the dogs. The side of the creek were really muddy so I moved off the roadway and slid down on my rump. That was when I noticed the beautiful light on the water.
Sunol
This was the last shot from Sunol taken from the parking lot on top of a picnic table. I think I should have used mirror lockup because the image is nowhere near as sharp as it should be. It is okay for the web but that is it.
Sunol – Indian Joe Trail #2
This is my second shot from my walk tonite out in Sunol. This was the last shot of the night because the area went into shadow right after finishing this one. This is a high-dynamic range image.
Sunol – Indian Joe Trail
Tonite, Chip and I took the dogs out for a walk at Sunol. Cho-cho ran out of steam very early on in the walk. So, Chip stayed behind. I hurried up the hill because I could see the light was golden.
Swanson Creek #3
Another shot from Swanson creek from this weekend. In the bottom right, the water is mimicking a sharpening defect. It is actually in the original.
For this shot, I had to light-paint after the fact to open up the heavy shadows in to the top of the image. This is really handy when you are not using flash in the field. In Photoshop, make a duplicate of your flattened image. The image must be in 8-bit color for this filter to work. Select Filter | Render | Lighting Effects. At the top, choose Flashlight from the Style dropdown list. Now, position the center of the flashlight beam where you want. You can size the flashlight beam by grabbing the edges in the preview window and dragging. There are a lot of sliders that you can ignore. You may want to play a little with ambience. This controls how fast the light drops off to black. Click OK.
Now, you have a bright spot in your image fading to black. Add a layer mask to the duplicate layer and fill with black. Take a soft brush with Opacity 50% / Flow %30 and slowly start revealing where you added light. By building the light slowly, you should avoid an obvious edge. If you want a stronger effect keep increasing the Opacity of your brush.
Swanson Creek #2
Another shot from Uvas Canyon this weekend. Just a small detail shot of the creek.
Sunol
Today, I finally made it back out to Sunol. I arrived a little too late for the nice light. It was a beautiful sunny day but not great for photos.
Swanson Creek
Went out today to Uvas Canyon. This park is truly magical after some rain. Unfortunately, I was not feeling inspired so I reverted to one of my ‘comfortable’ landscape. I am still adjusting to the full frame of the 5D. I have never anything but a cropped sensor before so all my lenses felt really really wide. Of course, the details are beautiful and the dynamic range seems larger. I wish I could of gotten a slightly higher viewpoint so that the boulders in the middle of the frame were separated.
Waterlily and Lights
Today, I received my new Canon 5D just after the sunlight was gone. I decided to buy an upgrade because I am going to starting marketing my prints. My friends from the printing class recommended that I be able to make larger prints. Good advice so I decided to bump up my resolution to give me cropping room and still be big enough for large printing sizes. Time will tell how long it takes to adjust to a full frame sensor. This is a sandwich with a waterlily shot with a 5D shot of wide open lights and grasses.
DorothyPhoto 