A Fun Little Experiment With Lady Slippers

That catchy little title is meant to get your attention. No, I'm not wearing June's house slippers. This experiment involves photographing the Lady Slipper flower on Buffalo Mountain in Johnson City, Tennessee.

June and I went hiking on the Lady Slipper Loop Trail with our friends Dina and Peter. We had great conditions for close-up flower photography.  It was late in the afternoon, the skies were overcast, and there was no breeze at all. Best of all, these rare wild orchids were abundant along the trail. Thanks to Dina and Peter for guiding us right to the flowers.

This time I brought along my flash and two remote triggers. I don't normally bring these along on hikes but I wanted to try a little experiment with the flash and flowers.  I placed one remote trigger on my Fuji camera and the other on my old Canon flash.  I was using both camera and flash in manual mode so it didn't matter that I was mixing brands. Using the remotes allowed me to hold the flash and point it at the flowers from any direction or distance.  I also used a Rogue Flash Bender on my flash to soften the light.

Here are two examples from my little experiment.

No flash, 1/40 sec, f/2.4

With flash, 1/250 sec, f/2.4

The two photos illustrate how the flash can emphasize the flower while letting the background go dark. The faster shutter speed in the second shot made anything lit only by the ambient light darker. I tried to position the flash to light the flowers without lighting the background.

The problem with this technique is the light from the flash can create harsh shadows on the subject, in this case, the flowers. Here's a series of shots that show what happens when the flash is in different positions.

If you click the first image then use the keyboard arrow keys you can flip through each one to easily see the differences.

The camera and flash settings were the same in each photo. Notice the shadows?  There are bright and dark spots in each photo due to the different position of the flash. I want to have more even light to make a more pleasing flower photo.   

Here's the really cool part of the experiment.  Remember I said there was no breeze?  Because the camera was on a tripod and the flower was not moving I was able to blend these five shots into one using the HDR tool in Adobe Lightroom.

Blended Image

I used the Lightroom HDR tool because it tends to create a more realistic result. In this case, the shadows and bright spots are smoothed out to a more pleasing image.  The problem is, it also made the background brighter, which I didn't want.  I used one of the darker original images and manually blended it's background into the image using Photoshop.  Turning the image a little made the stem come from one corner and the petal point to the opposite corner for a better composition.

Final Result

This all sounds much more complicated than it really was.  It's actually pretty easy with some basic Lightroom and Photoshop skills.

I learned how to manually control remote flashes while working on my real estate photography skills. It's interesting how skills learned in one area help in a completely different application. There are good reasons to learn new photography skills, even in areas that might not be you favorite.

First try using non-HDR techniques

High Dynamic Range or HDR is a popular technique for handling situations where the difference between the brightest and darkest parts of a photograph is too great for a digital camera to handle.   HDR is so popular that it is built into cameras and even cell phones.  However, HDR can produce images that appear unnatural.   This may be fine for some subjects, but it's not typically a good choice for landscapes.  

Here's a recent example.  I took the following three images

1 1/3 stops under-exposed

Default exposure

1 1/3 stops over-exposed

Using the Google Nik HDR Efex Pro software I created an HDR image from these three.

HDR Image

I used settings in the HDR software to create a result that was as natural as possible.  I then used On1 Effects software to apply some filters to take away some of the harsh look in the image.  As you can see, the HDR image just doesn't look right.

I then tried a new Photoshop technique called Apply Image Masking.  I learned this from a recent article on the Light Stalking website.   In less than one minute in Photoshop, I created what I think is a much more realistic image. I then applied the same On1 Effect filters.  Here is the end result.

Apply Image Masking in Photoshop

Click on one of the images above and you will be able to use arrow keys to flip between the different versions.

I think I have found a new go-to tool for my image editing toolbox that I will use instead of HDR. This will not work for all situations.   If there is movement between the different images, such as a person walking or trees blowing in the wind, defects will be produced that look like ghosts.

I love learning new things and the realm of digital photography is always changing.   I wonder what I will learn today?

Cades Cove Methodist Church - The Living and Enduring Word

I've been slacking.  I haven't written anything about the photos in my 2015 calendar yet this year.  And February is almost gone!   As I write this our third big snow storm of the month is rapidly approaching.  I think I'm ready for March and the promise of spring.

The photo for February was taken from the pulpit of the Cades Cove Methodist Church in the Smoky Mountains National Park.   John D. McCampbell, who was a carpenter and the pastor,  built the church building in 1902 in 115 days for $115.   How's that for a church building campaign?

The building featured two front doors, a common feature of architectural feature in the 1800s, which allowed men to enter and sit on one side of the chapel and women and children on the other.  In a move that may have raised some eyebrows at the time, the Cades Cove Methodist Church permitted its congregants to sit where they pleased instead of separating the men from the women..

The church was affected greatly by the Civil War.  Divisions among the congregation during both the war and Reconstruction resulted in a church split and the formation of the Hopewell Methodist Church, which not longer stands.

Today the Cades Cove Methodist Church is visited by hundreds of people every day.  We were there on a cold early Spring day and pretty much had the church to ourselves.   With no light other than what came in through the windows, the photos required a long exposure time.  However, those long exposures meant everything outside the windows was completely washed out.  I created a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo by combining 7 different shots with exposures ranging from 0.4 seconds to 30 seconds.

I wanted the words in the Bible to be clear and even readable in the photo.   I also wanted the back of the church and the trees outside to be in focus.  To get that extreme depth of field I used a very small aperture of f/22.

All this photo needs is for the pews to be full of people in the clothes of hard working farmers from the early 20th century.  They might have been listening to a sermon on perishable vs. imperishable seed.   The Word was on that pulpit in 1902 and it's still there today.

The wide photo at the bottom of the calendar page for February is also from Cades Cove.  It was taken from the loop road looking across the cove to the mountains to the south.   You can't find a prettier place in the park.

Calendar Chronicles for February - Palouse Falls

Welcome to February 2014.  It's time to turn the page on the calendar.

The photo for February is Palouse Falls in eastern Washington State.  It was surprising to find falls this high and a canyon as spectacular as this in the region of low rolling hills. The reason they are here is the falls and the canyon downstream were created by the great Missoula Floods that periodically swept across eastern Washington and across the Columbia River Plateau during the last ice age.  The floods changed the course of the river and started the process of carving the canyon.

The canyon at the falls is 377 ft deep, exposing a large cross-section of the basalt. The lower falls in this photo are about 180 ft. high.  The upper falls are just to the left behind a rock outcrop and are about 20 ft. high.  On April 21, 2009, Tyler Bradt ran the falls in a kayak setting an unofficial world record for the highest waterfall run (You Tube video).

Getting this shot required a couple hours and a lot of patience.  The skies had been cloudless or what photographers call "bald skies" for days.   Our group had arrived at the falls a couple of hours before sunset.  The June sun was very bright creating very bright areas and much darker shadows.  Our eyes and brain have been created to be able to see the bright and dark areas at the same time.  I could see the canyon and sky at the same time, but the range of brightness, or dynamic range, was too extreme for a camera to be able to capture. 

I could adjust my camera to bring the exposure down and darken the bright areas, but that made the shadow areas too dark. 

Under exposed 2-stops

I could also adjust the other way, making the photo brighter so the details can be seen in the shadows, however that made the bright areas too bright.

Over exposed +1 stop

Here's where patience comes in.  If you look at the two photos above you can see the sun was hitting the left side of the canyon creating a bright spot.  These shots were taken at 8:00 PM.  We decided to hang around a while longer waiting on the sun to set, which would reduce the dynamic range of the light, potentially making a photo possible.   The photo on the calendar was taken 49 minutes later.

Even at 8:49 the sky was still much brighter than inside the canyon.  To compensate I took three shots at three different exposures (-1 1/3, -1/3, +2/3 stops) and blended them together using Nik HDR Efex software to create the February photo.   Of course this burst of three shots was taken with the camera on a tripod.

I wouldn't have gotten this shot if it wasn't for June.   It had been a long day, we had been at the falls for two hours and we had a long drive back to the hotel.  Many of our group had already left and I was ready to pack it in and leave.  June said "why don't you take one more?"   I have learned to listen when June gives me a suggestion like this.  I walked over to the canyon edge and took the shots.  They turned out to be the best of the day!

Calendar Chronicles - November 2013

According to the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language a chronicle is

1. an extended account in prose or verse of historical events, sometimes including legendary material, presented in chronological order and without authorial interpretation or comment.

2. A detailed narrative record or report.

 Now that I am in the process of distributing my 2014 calendars I thought it might be fun to revisit each photo each month, give some details about how I took the photo, the place or subject and any stories that might go along with each.   I'm going to try and do this at the beginning of each month.  

Although it's now November 24, I'm going to start out with the November 2013 photo.  Here goes.

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming.  One day the skies with His glories will shine"  Glorious Day by Casting Crowns

Sunrise From Sun Point

Glacier National Park, Montana

This was taken on September 5, 2012 while on a vacation to Glacier National Park.   This day was extra special to June and I because 30 years ago to the day we were married in Aulander North Carolina.  We were blessed with a beautiful sunrise to celebrate our first 30 years together.  We spent the rest of our anniversary hiking to waterfalls, taking boat rides across beautiful mountain lakes, and enjoying Huckleberry Pie and Ice Cream.

Sun Point is a point of land sticking out into Lake Saint Mary just off the Going To The Sun Road.  A short 0.7 mile trail from the parking lot brought us to this point where we were the only people there to witness the sunrise.  When we got there the sun was not yet up but it was light enough to find our way to this high point above the lake looking east across the lake.   We were both excited about the possibility of a spectacular sunrise, however the excitement started to fade as we waited.  It was very cold and very windy up there.  Both of us had jumped out of the car too quickly and left our warmest clothes behind.  We were getting colder and colder waiting on the light to appear.   I had my photography to take my mind off the cold but June really wanted to go back down to the car and get some warmer clothes.  Because there were no other people around and there was a good chance of running into a bear I convinced her to stay with me.  How many wives would spend their 30th freezing to death before the sun came up.  I'm so blessed!

This photo is one of a 94 I took that morning before getting back to the car and cranking up the heat.   Yes, 94!   With the bright sunrise and dark mountains it was difficult to get a good exposure.  I was shooting multiple exposures using a feature called bracketing where the camera would take multiple shots under and over the exposure the camera calculated was correct.   That automatically gives me three times the number of images.   This photo was created by combining three exposures - 0.125, 0.3, and 0.6 seconds with an aperture of f/22, ISO 100 and a fairly wide focal length of 28mm.  Even with the bracketed exposures the mountains and gnarled tree branches appear almost black.

What I like about this photo is the cool cloud wisps that mirror the tree branches and the rich color contrast between the blue sky and orange clouds.   

I thought the lyrics from the Casting Crowns song really fit with this sunrise.  I can just imagine God coming on the clouds in a blaze of glory just like this.  What a great day!

A larger version of this photo is available on my gallery site by clicking here.   All photos are available as prints in a variety of sizes and material.

Welcome to my friends across the pond in Morriston.

While checking the stats on my website I noticed some people have come to my site from The Morriston Camera Club in the UK. Curious I went to their club website and found The Siggins Photography is the website of the month for August 2011! How cool is that! Not sure how they found me but I'm sure glad they like my site and photography.

Morriston is on the west coast of of the UK about 200 miles west of my birthplace in Arrington, Cambridgeshire. Browsing through their member galleries I see that they have some talented members in their club. They live in a great and I'd love to join them to go shooting one day.

So in honor of the Morriston Camera Club here's a photo I've been working on.

This is a HDR photo of Echo Lake on the north side of Franconia Notch in New Hampshire just north of the town of Lincoln taken last fall (thanks to Miles Smith who's memory is better than mine). It was taken before the sun was high enough to light up this lake or the hills around it but the warm sunlight was reflecting off clouds and giving everything a nice warm color. Because the hills were already yellow, orange, and red with fall color it made for a very warm image. I took a lot of shots similar to this one and never liked any of them. I just could not get the image to look natural or anything like what it really looked like.

I recently upgraded my HDR Efex Pro software from Nik Software to version 2. It is a much more powerful tool than version 1 and can create a more natural finished image. I decided to try it out on one of my problem photos from the past and this was the one I picked to try.

I am much happier with this version than any other I was able to come up with last year.

I am a big fan of all the Nik software and really like the new HDR Efex Pro 2. I encourage you to check it out.

I have uploaded this photo to my website and it is available for purchase. Just click here.

Unexpected

Several weeks ago I went to a Revolutionary War Reenactment with plans of shooting some action shots of the battle.   Before all the action started I was wandering around the fort mostly looking for shots of the actors.  If you've not been to one of these events you don't know what you're missing.  It's like being transported back hundreds of years.  These people are very good at what they do and seem to enjoy it immensely . 

Being primarily a landscape photographer, I almost always travel with my tripod but that day I didn't have it.   I needed to be able to wander around and a tripod would only get in the way.

Then I looked in one of the windows at the fort and saw that a table had been set with period items.  I was outside in bright sun and the inside was very dark (no electric lights in 1776).  No way I was going to be able to capture the entire range of light with a single exposure.   I needed to take multiple shots at different exposures to be able to blend time together using HDR software.   I always use a tripod when shooting for HDR so that the camera does not move.  Any camera movement will make an HDR image useless.   I decided, what the heck.  I have the time and it's only pixels.  I'll give it a try.

When I got home and started processing the images the result I got was totally unexpected. 

My three exposures were at 1/6, 1/13, 1/25 of a second, really too slow to hand hold and
I never expected the the shots to line up, but they did!

One of my sayings is "You'll never get the shot if you don't go".  That usually involves getting up around 3 AM and driving to get a sunrise that may or may not work.   My new saying is "You never know what you'll get until you try".  Conventional photography wisdom said this shot was a waste of time.  If I had followed conventional wisdom I never wold have gotten this photo.

This has become one of my favorite shots.   Maybe because I never expected it to work or maybe because it is different from what I usually shoot.   I don't know if anyone else will like it at all, but I went and printed it and it is for sale at the Star Trails Downtown Gallery in Kingsport.   Stop by the gallery and check out all the artwork that is on display.  It's really a nice gallery and some very talented people are represented.

Star Trail Gallery
246 Broad Street, Kingsport, TN 37660
Tuesday – Thursday  |  11 AM – 7 PM
Friday & Saturday  |  11 AM – 8 PM

Appreciating My Backyard

This is what I see right now when standing in my backyard.   It looks a little different from the March 25 view I posted earlier.  The field is full of yellow buttercups.   Cattle graze here and I wondered why they didn't eat the buttercups.   I've learned that buttercups are poisonous and the acrid taste and the blistering of the mouth caused by their poison means the buttercups are left alone to grow and spread across the hills. 

I've been watching for dramatic skies at sunset but it does not happen very often and when it does it's usually gone by the time I can get out there.  I'll keep watching and trying to get out there in time.

This photo reminds me just how blessed I am.   Sometimes I focus too much on the material things and miss the blessings God has placed right in front of me.   This view is just one of those blessings.   My photography has made me appreciate God's gifts of beauty all around us.   June and I both notice that we are stopping and looking at things we would have passed right by without noticing a few years ago.   Canada Violets are pretty common around here in the spring.  They're not something that you would stop and take time to appreciate, especially in the rain.  But this one was taken last weekend in the Smokies in between rain storms.   If we hadn't taken the time to stop and been willing to risk the rain, we would have missed this wildflower decorated with jewels of rain.

What else has God placed before us?   The grand panoramas and the little jewels are all around us and say "Look what God has done here!".  A friend sent me an email this week with this verse that says it better than I can.

"God's invisible qualities and divine nature have been clearly seen in all creation, so that men are without excuse."  -  Romans 1:20

Let's slow down and appreciate God's invisible qualities and divine nature all around us.

View From Our Backyard

I was washing dishes Saturday afternoon and looked out the kitchen window to see this.

We get some awesome sunsets across that pasture and I've tried to capture them before.  Most of the time by the time I get my camera and tripod out, run outside, and set up the light is gone.   I've never been able to capture any of those light displays.  This time was different.  I had just gotten a new Canon 5D Mark ii the day before and it was sitting out where I could grab it on the way out the door.   I didn't bother with the tripod and decided to do the best I could without it.

The bright sky and relatively dark field was much to big of a dynamic range of light for the camera to capture.  Either the sky was going to be blown out bright white or the field and trees were going to be very dark.  I shot three exposures (-1 EV, 0, +1 EV) to capture the entire range of light.   I should have gone with a wider spread because the brightest part of the sky was blown out at -1.   After I made those shots I changed the settings and poof the light was gone!   Unlike the light in my last post, this time it only lasted a couple minutes.

I used ISO 800 and f/22 to try and get a star burst from the clouds.  At that setting I got shutter speeds of 1/20, 1/40 and 1/80.  I was hand holding with image stabilization on.  I had no idea if the three images would line up or if I had too much camera shake.

My workflow for this photo was longer than most:

1. Ran the three exposures through Nik Define to remove the digital noise due to the ISO of 800.
2. Combined them using Nik HDR Efex Pro using a Natural setting.  I used some control points to tone down the dramatic clouds that HDR processing created.  I used another control point to brighten up the tree on the right that had come out too dark.
3. Edited in Photoshop Elements to remove some severe lens flare created by shooting into the sun and some power lines in the distance.
4. Edited in Nik Color Efex 4 to fix the clouds (they came out light brown), make the rolling hills more distinct, and bring out the "God Beams" of sunlight.  Also added a little dark vignette  around the edges.

I am truly blessed to live in such a beautiful part of the country, have such a great view right outside my back door, and have a God that creates such beauty each and every day.  I'm also thankful for my wife June who first pointed out the light and offered to finish the dishes while I went out and played. My photography would be dull and uninteresting without her spotting the shots for me.

Of course, you can buy prints of this photo online 

I've just ordered the biggest print I've ever made

For some time I've wanted to create a large pano print to hang over the living room couch.  I have a framed print there now but it's just not big enough.   I'm talking about something about 4 feet wide!

To print something that large takes some preparation.   A single 18 Megapixel photo cropped down wouldn't have the printed resolution I was looking for.  I needed to take several images and stitch them together to create a wide pano.   I wanted a landscape scene that would look good with the colors in the couch.  I had made several attempts but never cared for what I got.  Either the light was not good, the colors didn't match, the scene was not great or the stitch didn't work.  On a recent photo workshop I had the conditions I was looking for.

I wanted to the pano to be wide enough to give me some flexibility for cropping to print.  I decided to make a series of 7 images.   In this case I was looking into a sunrise and the range of light was going to be more extreme than my digital camera sensor was going to be able to handle.  I needed to take three different exposures at each point in the arc to capture the full range of light so I could blend them together later using HDR software.   That meant I had to take 21 images!   The sun was coming up and the light was changing so I wouldn't get a lot of chances at this.   To make the stitch come out I set the camera exposure on manual, exposure bracketing -1EV, 0EV and +1EV, aperture at f/14, ISO at 100 and set to daylight white balance, removed the polarizer filter, and made sure the camera and tripod were level.  These are all things I learned the hard way on the other failed attempts.

When I got home I found I had what I had been hoping for.  I ran each set of three bracketed images through the Nik HDR Efex software to create seven new single HDR images using saved the settings so I could process each set exactly the same.   I then used Hugin pano stitching software to create a final image that was wide enough to fill 4 feet.  The end result could have gone up to 6 1/2 feet wide without having to scale up!

For printing I wanted to create a Triptych, which is three prints hung side by side.  In this case I wanted to create the appearance of looking out windows to a beautiful landscape.   Enter Groupon codes for 16x20 gallery wrapped canvas prints from Canvas on Demand (I'm getting hooked on Groupon).  I divided my photo into three 16x20 panels and placed my order.   It's going to be a while before I get my prints, but when hung on the wall the should look something like this

I'm real happy with the way this came out and can't wait to see the actual prints.  Check back in a few weeks for the end results.

Reflections of The Past

June and I met Jerry while shooting in Saltville VA last Saturday.  He described himself as the Church Historian of the Madam Russell Methodist Church.   We got to spend a long time with Jerry while he told us some of the history of the area, Saltville, and the Madam Russell Methodist Church.  

Jerry mentioned that he keys to the William Alexander Stuart house and we could go by there for a personal tour and photo shoot.   William Alexander was Confederate General J.E.B. "Jeb" Stuart's brother and manager of the Saltville Salt Works during the civil war.   When Jeb Stuart was killed his wife and children moved in with William in Saltville.   The house came under both Confederate and Union guns during battles for the Saltworks.

I came away with some interesting photos from inside the old house.  It's been lived in, upgraded over the years, and was purchased years ago to become a B&B.   As you can see, the B&B didn't quite make it.

These photos are all multiple exposure High Dynamic Range photos.   In each one I took several different exposures from very under exposed to very over exposed.  I then used Nik HDR Efex Pro to combine the different images into a single tone-mapped image.  The Nik software has a number of different tools that can be applied to give the final image many different looks from realistic to cartoonish.  I chose to bring out the texture in these to convey the old and weathered look.

3 exposure, -2. 0. +2 EV

6 exposure, -3 2/3 EV to +1 1/3 EV

3 exposure, -2, 0, +2 EV

The first two fit the Reflections of The Past theme with the mirrors.   This last one was taken in an upstairs bedroom looking out into the hall to the top of the stairs.   I think the beautiful wood floors contrast with the cracking paint on the door, the peeling ceiling, and the old wallpaper.  

I've found the older I get the more I enjoy photographing old things.   I guess I have more of an appreciation of history.

Storms Coming to Rich Valley

I spent last Sunday taking photos around Smyth County Virginia.   My first stop was the Visitor's Center in Chilhowie to get some suggestions for places to shoot.   The folks there were very helpful, giving me enough ideas to last for days.  One suggestion was the Rich Valley Overlook on northern boarder of Hungry Mother State Park.  This is not a marked spot and is easily missed.  In fact I drove about a mile down the other side of the mountain before I found a place to turn around and head back up to the top where there was the only pull off I saw for miles.   You couldn't see the valley from the pull off so I was standing on the edge of the road against the guard rail hoping a car didn't come by and send me and my gear over the edge.

It had been thundering for a while and I knew from the weather map on my phone that an afternoon thunderstorm was going to hit about the time I got to my spot.  Just before and after a storm is some of the best times to get dramatic lighting on the landscape so I knew I had to try.  I had just enough time to set up and fire off several shots before the rains hit and chased me back inside my car.   You can see the rain coming up the valley on the left side of this photo.

Be sure to click this image for a larger view

To capture the entire range of light I took bracketed shots at -2EV, 0EV and +2EV.  I used Nik HDR Efex Pro to merge them together, then a little Lightroom adjustments to lighten the trees, increase the vibrance, cut some of the noise, and add a little vignette.

Do You Feel Persecuted?

Many churches today are persecuted in one way or another for many different reasons.   The Prince William's Parish Church, or the Sheldon Church as it is known today, has seen extreme persecution in it's 266 year history.  The church is located between the towns of Beaufort and Yemassee in South Carolina.  It was built between 1745 and 1753 and funded by William Bull, who was the Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina.  Bull died before the church was even completed and was buried at the base of the altar inside the church.  His grave is there, inside the old walls.

William Bull's Grave

During the Revolutionary War, the church was set on fire when British General Augustine Prevost invaded the area in 1779.  In 1826, the church was rebuilt using the surviving walls of the original structure.  On January 14, 1865, the church was burned a second time when it was set on fire by Sherman's troops during his "March to the Sea'' campaign.   It was never rebuilt.

I have done a little internet research to try and understand why churches were burned during the wars.  One site claimed gunpowder was stored in the church during the Civil War.  Another claimed the British associated some churches with American revolutionaries.   I never did find anything definitive. 

Today the wall and front columns are still standing surrounded by beautiful Live Oaks and Dogwoods.   There are a few graves around the church dating back to the early 1700's.

Some of the oldest graves

Old Sheldon Church

We got to the church not long after sunrise to take advantage of the soft, warm early morning light.   Before the sun was high enough to shine on the church itself, the indirect light made the church ruins glow like there was a light on inside.   It was a bit hazy early in the morning, which made the skies white or grey.   I've intentionally cropped the photos to remove as much of the sky as possible.

After spending some quality time with South Carolina's finest mosquitoes, we were getting ready to leave when the sun got just high enough to shine through the tree leaves.   I took advantage of this to capture a "sun burst" above the church.   To get this effect you need to shoot with a small aperture (I used f/25 here) and position the camera so the sun is partially blocked, creating a pinpoint light source. 

I hope you enjoy these photos.  These and others are available for purchase in the Sheldon Church Gallery

Sunrise Layers

June and I got up at 3:30 AM Saturday, jumped in the car and drove 1 1/2 hours to Carvers Gap on the Tennessee - North Carolina state line then took off up the Appalachian Trail towards Round Bald to be there for sunrise.   We were hoping for some clouds to make the sunrise dramatic but when the sky started in lighten there were no clouds in sight.   When the sun did come up over the mountains of Western North Carolina the sky was very bright but the mountains and grassy bald we were standing on was still very dark.  No digital camera can handle this extreme tonal range from dark to very bright without the darks being almost black or the sky being totally white or "blown out".

To handle this I used a combination of two techniques - graduated neutral density filter and High Dynamic Range or HDR.

The Graduated Neutral Density Filter or ND Grad is dark grey on one side and clear on the other.  I placed the filter on the front of my lens with the dark grey on the top to block much of the light from the bright sky and the clear portion on the bottom so I didn't darken the already dark grasses and mountain ridges.  I used a 2-stop ND grad, which cut the light from the sky to 25%.  That wasn't quite dark enough.  I think I need to get a 3-stop ND Grad for my camera bag for these conditions.

I also took three different exposures of the same image shown below



As metered by the camera



-2 stops darker



+2 stops brighter


The first exposure was almost good enough but some of the sky was blown out, meaning there was no information there only bright light.   A 3-stop filter would have fixed this but I didn't have one.  When I got back home I used HDR Efex Pro from Nik Software to combine the three images.   The software will basically take the properly exposed parts from each image and blend them together to make one High Dynamic Range or HDR image.   I use HDR Efex Pro because it allows me to create HDR images that are realistic and close to what my eye was able to see.

Once I had the HDR image I did a little additional editing in Adobe Lightroom to crop it, adjust the tone curve, update the color balance, add a little edge vignette and sharpened the photo.  Here's the end result.

This is not what I was hoping for when we got up at 3:30 AM, but I do like the layers of green, blue/grey and orange. 

We spent the rest of the morning, which there was still plenty of, hiking the Appalachian Trail to Round Bald, Jane Bald, and Grassy Ridge Bald.   The Rhododendrons and Flame Azaleas were in full bloom and beautiful.   Photos from our hike are available in the Blue Ridge Gallery on TheSiggins.com.

Before and After - Nik HDR Efex Pro

I got a copy of the Nik HDR Efex Pro HDR software for Christmas.  Since then I've played around with it just a little trying to learn all the ins and outs of this package.   This evening I used it on a photo I took when we were in the Grand Tetons back in June of 2009.  

This was a frustrating image for me from the beginning.  First, this is one of the most beautiful spots to get a picture of the Tetons reflecting in the Snake River at Oxbow Bend.   I had anticipated taking this picture for months before going.   The clouds swallowed these magnificent peaks and ruined the image I had in my mind.  I never imagined it cloudy and rainy.

When I got home I tried to make this image a bit more interesting.  I cropped it down to a panoramic to get rid of those uninteresting clouds.  That helped a bit but it was still pretty flat and uninteresting.  

I then tried to add some contrast to make it more interesting by increasing the exposure, pulling some blacks back in, and then increasing the exposure of the dark areas using the Tone Curve in Lightroom.   It was better,

but still not what I was hoping for.  After a while I gave up and moved on.  

This evening I ran that image through the HDR Efex Pro software.   Most of the time your feeding HDR software multiple images taken and various exposures to capture a wide range of light.   In this case, I passed it a single photo that just needed a little more drama.   Not the over the top look of many HDR images, just something slight so the image still looked realistic.   Here's what I came out with.

I think I now like this photo of Oxbow Bend.  I still wish the mountains weren't covered up in clouds.  In hind sight, I wish I had taken several shots to stitch together into a panorama that could be printed large.  Even with the clouds, I wouldn't mind this one on the wall in the den.

If you would like a print of this photo it can be ordered on my website http://www.thesiggins.com/.   You'll find it under the Earth, Sea and Sky gallery, then Grand Teton National Park.   It can be printed up to 10x30 inches on photo paper, canvas or as large as 12x36 on aluminum.  Now that would be cool!  If you want something in a non-standard size let me know.

Mingus Mill in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Over the past few years we have traveled thousands of miles and visited many national parks in the US and Canada.  The ironic thing is we live within easy driving distance of the most visited National Park in the US.  We've decided we need to spend more time in the Smoky Mountains National Park. 

This week we spent three days in some familiar places and some new spots we've not been to before.  One of the new spots was the Mingus Mill.

The mill was built in 1886 for only $600.  You won't see the traditional wooden waterwheel because the mill uses a metal turbine.  

The mill is still very photogenic.  The millrace that brings water from Mingus Creek to the mill starts out in the ground with moss covered wooden sides.  When the mill is not running water flows off the side of the millrace near the mill fall near Jewell Weed growing at the base of the wooden tower.

Mingus Mill is a working mill, still grinding grain and corn that is sold at the mill.  The inside of the mill is maintained much as it looked at the end of the 19th century.

Taking photographs inside the mill was a challenge because of the dark wooden walls and the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows.   Two of these images are High Dynamic Range or HDR photos, which are made from multiple exposures blended together in software to eliminate the very dark and very bright range of light.   The photo of the lever in front of the window would have been impossible to photograph in one shot.  Either the trees outside the window would have been solid white or the walls would have been almost solid black.

The image with the wheel is also a HDR photo.  The lighting conditions were not as extreme in that photo but it was helped by using the HDR technique.

The photo of the stove is not a HDR photo.  There was no direct bright light to deal with and only indirect light from a nearby window.

The Mingus Mill is worth driving out of the way and spending an hour or so exploring this historical building.  There is also a Mountain Farm Museum near by that we didn't get to.  We will be spending more time in the park and will make our way back down to that area again before too long.