All in a Row | New Bern, NC
Along the railing of the New Bern Grand Marina, you can usually find some bicycles lined up. Belonging to the folks who are staying on their boats, they can hop on a bike and take a quick ride to pretty much anywhere downtown.
Walking along the waterfront at sunset, I thought that it would make a neat shot to get right up against the bikes with my wide angle as the sun was setting behind them. I didn’t get as big a sun flare as I wanted, but this turned out just right.
The shot: Nikon D90, 8mm Rokinon lens, f/22. 3 exposures, manually masked together in Photoshop.
Symmetric Sunset | New Bern, NC
After a pretty much grey and dismal day, I noticed the clouds moving very quickly as the sky began to brighten up before sunset. I gathered my gear and decided to go try and grab some sunset shots or maybe a timelapse. As I arrived at the New Bern Grand Marina, the sky cleared and the sun burst through giving the entire area a golden glow.
I was walking along the waterfront when the symmetry of this entrance to the dock caught my eye. It’s a little busier of a shot than what I normally do, but I couldn’t pass up this awesome symmetrical scene!
The Shot: Nikon D90, 8mm Rokinon lens, f/22, ISO-100. 3 exposures manually masked together in Photoshop.
Early Bloom
Thanks to the crazily mild winter that we’ve had here in Eastern North Carolina, signs of spring are already showing up on some confused plant life. In the past couple of days, most of the flowering bushes around my house have bloomed. This morning I woke up and went outside to see that even my Crepe Myrtles were flowering. This is all great until I realize that the grass needs mowed already…
Although I am not sure of what this bush is, it has been my favorite. The flowers resemble roses, although I do know it isn’t a rose bush. There was a morning dew beaded up on its petals and with a beam of sunlight shining down on it, I had to go grab my camera and take a few frames.
The shot on the left was taken with my Nikkor 70-300 VR lens and the one on the right was taken using a Nikkor 50mm 1.8. Both with a Nikon D90 body.
‘Lone Tree’ | New Bern, NC
This is the tree that you may recognize from my Lawson Creek Park time lapse. I couldn’t help grabbing a few stills before I left. The lighting was really neat on the foreground and tree. In addition, water usually surrounds the tree but heavy wind had blown the tide out toward the sea leaving this shelly river floor exposed.
The shot: Nikon D90, Rokinon 8mm lens. 3 bracketed exposures. Middle and brightest exposures manually masked together in Photoshop using a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet. Darkest exposure discarded.
©2012 Zach Frailey
Waves in the Sand | Fort Macon, North Carolina
It’s a very foggy morning here in Eastern NC, so I thought I’d bring some clearer skies to your monitors today. This scene was shot at the end of last week at Fort Macon, NC. From late afternoon all the way through sunset; I don’t think that I’ve had the privilege to shoot in more perfect light.
This was shot with what is currently my favorite and most useful landscape lens in my bag- the 8mm Rokinon ‘fisheye.’ It’s classified as a fisheye, and rightfully so at 8mm, but there’s nothing fishy about it. At the right angle, there is little to no distortion on the edges and it is sharp as a tack. I shoot everything with it at f/16 and up and it produces the sharpest landscapes I’ve made. And at around $300, it’s an absolute steal! Keep in mind, it’s 100% manual, but it’s fun and liberating to not be tempted to fall back into what the camera thinks is best.
The shot: Nikon D90, Rokinon 8mm lens, tripod held and remote fired. f/16, 1/200 sec., ISO-200. 2 exposures, manually masked in Photoshop. No color correction.
©2012 Zach Frailey
