Summer's Treat

Posted by Don Smith (California, United States) on 22 June 2009 in Landscape & Rural.

One of the many benefits of working with digital RAW files is the ability to correct "less than perfect captures." Such was the case with this image which I photographed at Gold's Bluff Beach in beautiful Humbolt County during my recently completed Redwoods/Mendocino workshop.

We spotted this sky a couple hours prior to posted sunset but had no way of knowing if the conditions would last until sunset (fortunately they did). I had scouted this particular beach the previous year and felt it had a lot of potential for creating depth with the many logs and this sensuous curving creek.

Our group hustled to get into position and I prepared them for a potential sunstar image once the sun slipped under the cloud bank which was hanging just above the horizon. In order to produce a sunstar, one needs to set their aperture at f/16 or f/22 (see my previous post). If you check my EXIF data to the right of this image, you will see that I was too busy talking and not careful enough with my own advice; for some reason, I thought I was at f/16 when in reality I was only at f/8! I did not discover this error until the next afternoon during a Photoshop workflow session with the group. Yes, I didn't get quite the sunstar I had hoped, but there were other images such as this one which I really liked. I used a Singh-Ray 3-stop reverse split neutral density filter to hold back the bright sky just above the horizon where the sun was slipping through a thin mist.

From a compositional standpoint, I really like how all the logs serve to lead the eye up from the base of the frame and towards the curved sweep of the small creek. From there, the eye moves up and through the frame and to the vibrant sunset sky. The slope of the cloud and the horizon line created an awkward juxtaposition that confused my eye for a while; diminishing perspective also caused me some confusion. I finally turned on Live View and turned-on my grid lines to help with alignment of the horizon line only.

Perhaps the bigger problem was a somewhat soft foreground in all my images. When shooting at a small f/stop, I try setting my focus one-third up from the bottom of my frame as I see it in the viewfinder. This follows the tried-and-true method of hyperfocal focus being most effective one-third into the plane of the frame (not the actual scene). I do not carry hyperfocal charts into the field as I work a lot around the fringes of the day when light levels are extremely low. I don't want to waste time consulting charts as I feel the light is too fleeting at these particular times - one must be able to work quickly. This particular method has served me well over the years (assuming I had set the correct aperture).

Fortunately I was able to sharpen the logs using Nik's incredible Sharpener Pro 3.0. I first set the sharpening just keeping my eye on the foreground logs, which obviously made the rest of the image overly sharp. But before clicking to apply, I opted for the brush tool and just painted on the logs. I spent years trying to master Photoshop's Unsharp Mask with much frustration. Nik's Sharpener Pro makes sharpening intuitive and easy!

I encourage any of you who struggle with sharpening to take a look at Sharpener Pro. If you would like to purchase your own copy, please use my promo code listed below for a 15% discount.

My Website: "how to" articles, galleries, stock photos, and more...
www.donsmithphotography.com

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