LENS CAPTURE

Vol. 1 No. 43

Last Sunday my wife and I took a drive to Red Hook Brooklyn to visit the new IKEA store that opened in the summer of 2008. The 300,000+ square foot store is was built on the site of the old dry docks located right along the waterfront. The maze of a store is just one attraction.

The waterfront area adjacent to the store's parking lot has been revitalized. Huge spotlit gantry cranes majestically hold a place on their respective piers. The waterfront provides a place to sit and stroll while enjoying the views across the Erie Basin and Red Hook Channel.

Vol. 1 No. 35

As promised, I have organized a photo walk for August 16, 2009 to the High Line in Manhattan.



The plan is to meet on Sunday, August 16 at 9:00 am EDT at Ganesvoort Street and Washington Street in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan. From there we will climb the stairs to the elevated High Line park (click here for more information on the High Line). We will leisurely stroll the High Line up to the end of the Phase One section at West 20th Street. Once there, we then turn around and head back south along the High Line so you can capture those images you missed on you northbound trek. When we get back to our starting point, we will return to street level and head across West Street to the Hudson River Park.

Once in the park, we will begin heading south exploring the piers and garden areas until we reach the dog run at Leroy Street. Along the way, we will have time to grab a snack and something to drink. The total walk, start to finish is less than 2 miles and, with our relaxed pace, should conclude around noon.

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Vol. 1 No. 25

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Photographing our closest celestial body, the Moon, presents some challenges. You have probably attempted this in the past and wound up with a blown-out blob in the sky. Devoid of any detail.

The key thing to remember is the moon is illuminated by the Sun - the brightest object in our sky. You can photograph the moon using the trusted "Sunny 16" rule which states on a sunny day, set your aperture to f/16 and your shutter to 1/ISO speed. So to get shadow detail in your image you could set you camera, on a tripod of course, to ISO 100 (the lower the ISO the better to reduce noise), your aperture to f/16, and your shutter to 1/100 seconds. Do not expect to find detail in any other objects in the frame such as foreground elements (trees, buildings, etc.). These objects will be totally underexposed and lost in the shadows.

So how do you add interest in your moonscape images?

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The best way to accomplish this type of photograph is through the use of double-exposure. The image above, again, taken on a tripod, consists of two different exposures. The first capture was exposed for the Moon. The second image was taken to provide some detail in the sky, notice the cloud streak, and the park setting in the foreground. Depending on your camera model, you might be able to accomplish this type of photograph right in your camera. Otherwise, you will need to combine them later in post-production using tools like Adobe Elements or Photoshop.

Adding foreground elements when shooting moonscapes definitely makes the scene more interesting. Another useful tip is knowing when the Moon rises and where it will be in the sky. A very useful website is Time and Date.com's Moonrise and Moonset Calculator. Just select your location and it will present you with the when (times) and the azimuth, or where in the sky to see the moon. The Moon is usually largest just after moonrise and just before moonset.

One last tip. When photographing the Moon, if you wait till it is full, it will usually look somewhat flat. Capturing the Moon while crescent or, in the images above, in the last phase before a full Moon called "Waxing Gibbous," will show more dimension or shadowing.


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Vol. 1 No. 24

Spent last Monday enjoying the sights along the Brooklyn waterfront. The Inspiration came from a friend's recent post on this site. An avid photographer, Conrad Tinney shared his review of the Nikon School. His photograph showing the Manhattan Bridge framed by the Civil War era coffee warehouse archway, motivated me to check out the view firsthand.

Here's my take on Connie's theme:

The Empire State Fulton Ferry Park and the adjacent Brooklyn Bridge Park offer fantastic vantage points to make some incredible photographs. Bordered by the Manhattan Bridge to the north, the Brooklyn Bridge to the south, and the Manhattan skyline to the west, photographic opportunities are everywhere.

The view even moved me to take a quick jaunt over to the Manhattan side so I could capture the images I needed for this panorama.

I created this image by taking a series of 12 portrait-aspect images and stitching them together in Photoshop's photomerge using perspective mode. I was careful to shoot this using a tripod (only way to make a quality multi-image pano), in manual mode, manual focus and a preset white balance. Using auto modes will definitely screw-up a panorama. Each of the images used in this pano was shot with a Nikon D300 at 18mm focal length, f/11 at 1/800 sec ISO 200.

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