unranged

by Kevin MacLeod
Civilization Summit Twin Peaks, San Francisco. I’ve been here before and taken a couple of photos I happen to really like, but this time I came with a different idea in mind. My dad and I have been growing our arsenal of lenses recently, and Twin Peaks at night is a perfect place to test how these lenses perform in regards to landscapes. An extremely contrasty scene with copious amounts of bright lights, mixed with incredibly sharp architectural elements at every distance, makes for the perfect equipment test field. The lenses I used for this particular shoot were the Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF-D (seen here), the Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art lens, and Samyang 14mm 2.8 ultra wide. My goal wasn’t to create and a perfect shot-for-shot comparison between these lenses - those are boring, and readily available elsewhere for those who care - rather, my goal was to create some interesting pieces of artwork with each of them, with the commonality being the scene and conditions. I plan on uploading an example of a piece of art made using each of the lenses, then a second picture detailing some more technical details and pixel-level analysis. That keeps nicely with my belief that the art you create with a piece of technology is more important than the technology itself, but also feeds my (and potentially your) interest in discussing the nitty-gritty pixel-level detail. I’ll keep a series of posts coming over the next few days, then write an article in summery of my findings that will be available on my site afterwards. Anyways, on to this picture: This particular photograph is a two part multi-exposure panorama, taken with the Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF-D lens, and processed in Photoshop. I’ve always liked these long-exposure city shots, but I’ve just never been able to do them particularly well until recently. But hey, if the view from Twin Peaks can’t inspire you to take a good shot, you’re not trying hard enough! It really is a breathtaking sight, and the way I processed this one, I was simply trying to do the scene justice.

Civilization Summit

Twin Peaks, San Francisco.

I’ve been here before and taken a couple of photos I happen to really like, but this time I came with a different idea in mind.

My dad and I have been growing our arsenal of lenses recently, and Twin Peaks at night is a perfect place to test how these lenses perform in regards to landscapes. An extremely contrasty scene with copious amounts of bright lights, mixed with incredibly sharp architectural elements at every distance, makes for the perfect equipment test field. The lenses I used for this particular shoot were the Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF-D (seen here), the Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art lens, and Samyang 14mm 2.8 ultra wide.

My goal wasn’t to create and a perfect shot-for-shot comparison between these lenses - those are boring, and readily available elsewhere for those who care - rather, my goal was to create some interesting pieces of artwork with each of them, with the commonality being the scene and conditions. I plan on uploading an example of a piece of art made using each of the lenses, then a second picture detailing some more technical details and pixel-level analysis. That keeps nicely with my belief that the art you create with a piece of technology is more important than the technology itself, but also feeds my (and potentially your) interest in discussing the nitty-gritty pixel-level detail.

I’ll keep a series of posts coming over the next few days, then write an article in summery of my findings that will be available on my site afterwards.

Anyways, on to this picture:

This particular photograph is a two part multi-exposure panorama, taken with the Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF-D lens, and processed in Photoshop.

I’ve always liked these long-exposure city shots, but I’ve just never been able to do them particularly well until recently. But hey, if the view from Twin Peaks can’t inspire you to take a good shot, you’re not trying hard enough! It really is a breathtaking sight, and the way I processed this one, I was simply trying to do the scene justice.

Twilight Gold San Francisco moonrise; second in the series. Similar to the previous shot in this series, the basic composition and idea for this shot were in my head for some time - at least since taking this shot from the same location. I was waiting for the weather conditions and time of day to be such that the composition of rocks, city, and pier had some sort of counterpoint. After a few fruitless visits, I finally got one I like! This is also my first upload taken with the new Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art lens. Not the first I’ve taken - I have a bunch just waiting to edit - but the first upload. It’s a really, really amazing lens. Of course sharpness isn’t everything, but this lens is still unbelievably sharp - I have a few pictures where it resolves per-pixel detail at 36 megapixels on the D800E. I’ll talk more about this lens in future uploads that are geared more towards testing it, but suffice it to say, it’s a real stunner. Aside from that, this was taken with the Nikon D800E, and processed in Photoshop.

Twilight Gold

San Francisco moonrise; second in the series.

Similar to the previous shot in this series, the basic composition and idea for this shot were in my head for some time - at least since taking this shot from the same location. I was waiting for the weather conditions and time of day to be such that the composition of rocks, city, and pier had some sort of counterpoint. After a few fruitless visits, I finally got one I like!

This is also my first upload taken with the new Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art lens. Not the first I’ve taken - I have a bunch just waiting to edit - but the first upload. It’s a really, really amazing lens. Of course sharpness isn’t everything, but this lens is still unbelievably sharp - I have a few pictures where it resolves per-pixel detail at 36 megapixels on the D800E. I’ll talk more about this lens in future uploads that are geared more towards testing it, but suffice it to say, it’s a real stunner.

Aside from that, this was taken with the Nikon D800E, and processed in Photoshop.

Bay Moon San Francisco moonrise. I’ve been working on the ideas that would eventually lead to this shot for some time. I knew I wanted to do a long-exposure shot of the water rushing over the rocks, I knew I wanted to do a wide angle shot incorporating the water and the cityscape, and I knew I wanted to get something with the full moon in it. I wasn’t necessarily planning to combine all of them into one shot, but when I got here, everything just sort of seemed perfect. And even then, I almost missed the shot - I just barely managed to get the moon before it creeped away behind the clouds! With that said, this shot did take a fair amount of work to get right, both at the time of the shooting and in post work. The ISO was higher than it should of been because the depth of field was so high, and I was using a weaker lens than I should have been. Ultimately though, it’s worth any amount of work to get a photo you’re happy with. This was a multi-exposure shot, taken with the Nikon D800E, and processed in Photoshop.

Bay Moon

San Francisco moonrise.

I’ve been working on the ideas that would eventually lead to this shot for some time. I knew I wanted to do a long-exposure shot of the water rushing over the rocks, I knew I wanted to do a wide angle shot incorporating the water and the cityscape, and I knew I wanted to get something with the full moon in it. I wasn’t necessarily planning to combine all of them into one shot, but when I got here, everything just sort of seemed perfect. And even then, I almost missed the shot - I just barely managed to get the moon before it creeped away behind the clouds!

With that said, this shot did take a fair amount of work to get right, both at the time of the shooting and in post work. The ISO was higher than it should of been because the depth of field was so high, and I was using a weaker lens than I should have been. Ultimately though, it’s worth any amount of work to get a photo you’re happy with.

This was a multi-exposure shot, taken with the Nikon D800E, and processed in Photoshop.

Florida Summer Watching alteredandtorn watching the Florida sunset. I posted a version of this photo a year or so ago, when I originally took it. While I like that photo, I’ve always thought it was rather busy. There is beauty in simplicity that gets lost in the desire to capture “the whole scene” - that is something I have to consciously remember, or I fall into the habit of trying to bring out detail in everything, rather than in trying to compose an interesting shot. Luckily, when you take a shot well to begin with, it gives you a lot of leeway to improve it later in post. In this instance, I was able to correct the distortion and crop the image such as to end up with the picture I probably should have just taken in the first place! Oh well, without a time machine, this was the next best thing. This one was taken with the old Nikon D200 and processed in Photoshop and Photomatix. It was a complete reprocessing job, rather than a tweak to the older version.

Florida Summer

Watching alteredandtorn watching the Florida sunset.

I posted a version of this photo a year or so ago, when I originally took it. While I like that photo, I’ve always thought it was rather busy. There is beauty in simplicity that gets lost in the desire to capture “the whole scene” - that is something I have to consciously remember, or I fall into the habit of trying to bring out detail in everything, rather than in trying to compose an interesting shot.

Luckily, when you take a shot well to begin with, it gives you a lot of leeway to improve it later in post. In this instance, I was able to correct the distortion and crop the image such as to end up with the picture I probably should have just taken in the first place! Oh well, without a time machine, this was the next best thing.

This one was taken with the old Nikon D200 and processed in Photoshop and Photomatix. It was a complete reprocessing job, rather than a tweak to the older version.

Beyond the Hills I’ve been meaning to get into more long exposure night photography - I’m hoping this is the first of many more. For a first experiment with this type of thing, I am very satisfied with the results I’m getting so far, and I’m excited to get out and shoot more! This one was taken with the Samyang 14mm f2.8 ultrawide on a Nikon D800E.

Beyond the Hills

I’ve been meaning to get into more long exposure night photography - I’m hoping this is the first of many more. For a first experiment with this type of thing, I am very satisfied with the results I’m getting so far, and I’m excited to get out and shoot more!

This one was taken with the Samyang 14mm f2.8 ultrawide on a Nikon D800E.

Perspective This one is a wide angle long exposure, taken with the D800E using the 16-35 VR. Ultra wide shots are still something I don’t have a huge amount of experience with, but they are a lot of fun, and I’m learning my way around composing them. This was a single long exposure, processed minimally in Photoshop.

Perspective

This one is a wide angle long exposure, taken with the D800E using the 16-35 VR.

Ultra wide shots are still something I don’t have a huge amount of experience with, but they are a lot of fun, and I’m learning my way around composing them.

This was a single long exposure, processed minimally in Photoshop.

Dawn City Here’s another shot from the Marin Headlands. Early morning on a week day, just before sunrise, means fewer people than usual. In fact, I had the whole place to myself for most of the time I was shooting there. If it seems like I’ve been posting a lot of pictures of this view lately, it’s because I have. It isn’t because I’m completely out of ideas, though - there’s actually a reason behind it. It is because I’ve recently been exploring new techniques and experimenting with new equipment, and it helps to do these things with a relatively consistent subject matter, in order to make. And frankly, in terms of landscapes, there are few subjects in the world quite like this one. Anyways, this one was taken as a 6-part multi-exposure HDR panorama with the D800E using a 50mm prime lens.

Dawn City

Here’s another shot from the Marin Headlands.
Early morning on a week day, just before sunrise, means fewer people than usual. In fact, I had the whole place to myself for most of the time I was shooting there.

If it seems like I’ve been posting a lot of pictures of this view lately, it’s because I have. It isn’t because I’m completely out of ideas, though - there’s actually a reason behind it. It is because I’ve recently been exploring new techniques and experimenting with new equipment, and it helps to do these things with a relatively consistent subject matter, in order to make. And frankly, in terms of landscapes, there are few subjects in the world quite like this one.

Anyways, this one was taken as a 6-part multi-exposure HDR panorama with the D800E using a 50mm prime lens.

Moonrise Bridge Wide-angle long exposure HDR, from the Marin Headlands. When I saw the moon shining this bright through the clouds, I couldn’t resist going out and trying to capture it. This one was taken the same night that this recent upload was. This one was a 5-exposure HDR panorama, with mostly RAW data manually composed. It was taken with the D800E using the 16-35 VR lens.

Moonrise Bridge

Wide-angle long exposure HDR, from the Marin Headlands. When I saw the moon shining this bright through the clouds, I couldn’t resist going out and trying to capture it.

This one was taken the same night that this recent upload was.

This one was a 5-exposure HDR panorama, with mostly RAW data manually composed. It was taken with the D800E using the 16-35 VR lens.

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