Moose News Blog

Ah, Jedidiah Smith, Reed Grove, I know of no finer forest of Coastal Redwoods to photograph! We had a spectacular morning of shooting starting with fog that slowly burnt off to let in selective God Beams to kiss the massive giants. I know it was a great morning of shooting because CF cards were being bummed off me, folks had filled up theirs.

One thing I learned that shooting this 13stop range eats up card space. I’ll have to rethink hard drive storage space next time I photograph for a week in the redwoods.

Photo captured by D3, 24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

We spent the evening out on the rocks over Battery Point. While this God Beam is kissing the horizon, McNally has nine guys lighting themselves with SB-800s just out of frame left on a rock out in the water. It’s a typical scene at DLWS but man, did we draw a crowd.

The main show was the Battery Point Lighthouse. While it normally doesn’t work this way (requiring the taking of two photos, one for the waves and a second for the light), I lucked out and got the waves and light in one capture making my post time a snap. For the very first time, I found a when the “vivid” setting in the D3 worked.

Photos captured by D3, 200f2VR on Lexar UDMA digital film

We were in the redwoods today where you can literally not see the trees through the forest. Working the road where there were natural amphitheaters, I looked for large trunks I could use as visual anchors points. This photo was produced using the technique for compressing exposure range.

exact same technique as above. Both images finished in CS3 using Viveza and Color Efex 3.0

This is a straight shot in that it didn’t require any special technique to compress the exposure range. It was finished the same way those in post using the two same Nik products. All these photos were taken in the rain! The best photos often come in the worst weather.

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Photos captured by D3, 24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

Redwoods DLWS headed to Harris Beach in OR tonight for a spectacular show of clouds. While we didn’t get the traditional “sunset” color one expects at the beach, the clouds spread across the heavens in the winds in a hundred different patterns over the evening. The challenge was racing up and down the beach to find the perfect foreground to go with them. Of course, there was the occasional wave to dodge.

I want to recommend you head to the other DLWS blogs to see some very cool images from the same shoots. Head to Laurie’s, Kevin, Josh, Brad and Jake to see what I missed.

Photos captured by D3, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

What a typical DLWS morning. Started off with the participants thinking we were nuts with our shoot locale. While exploring, a participant Mary Ellen found this cool boat being worked on. She found me later and told me and while the staff was walking back to the van after already shooting 10GB, I told McNally about the boat and off to the races we went!

The owner of the yard was great, invited us in, told us what they were doing and then opened the giant doors letting in amazing light as you can see above. Joe being Joe quickly found the perfect model and the pixels, they went a flyin! Don’t tell Joe this, but he is magic!

Photos captured by D3, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film