Jagged Pier | New Bern, NC
This fishing pier, located in Lawson Creek Park in New Bern, still shows the scars of last summer’s Hurricane Irene. The storm surge entered the area and appears to have lifted the pier right out of the bottom of the river. I have wanted to shoot this for a while now. The way the lines sort of zig zag up and down is really neat. This particular day, the water was nice and choppy and ready to be smoothed out by a long exposure!
This is a 30 second exposure shot through a 10-stop ND filter.
Seeing the Wold in a Different Speed | 10-stop ND Filter
25 second exposure, ISO-200, f/5.6
I recently picked something up that has been on my gear wish list for some time: a 10 stop ND filter. For those of you unsure of exactly what a ND filter is or does, it is essentially a sunglasses lens for your camera. They come in different steps with 10 being the strongest. The 10-stop is the same as a piece of welding glass and allows you to stop down your lens to shoot long exposures in the daylight without over-exposing.
I haven’t used it much, in fact I haven’t even shot the cliche ‘moving water around rocks’ ND shot. I have used it a few times for post-sunset clouds. I love how it can pull out color left over from the sunset in all parts of the photo including the subtle reflection in the water that the naked eye barely notices.
138 second exposure, ISO-200, f/5.6
The following sequence was shoot in immediate succession of one another. Another great thing about shooting with the ND filter on is that what you see on your LCD after the shot is usually what you get. Meaning, you can usually tell that a photo is a keeper right away. There is little post processing to do with a long exposure like this aside from color correction and a little contrast adjustment. Minimal post processing is always a great thing! Now, the trade-off is standing around for 120-200 seconds while the photo exposes as you’re getting eaten by mosquitoes (as was the case this evening)!
123 second exposure, ISO-320, f/10
187 second exposure, ISO-320, f/9
198 second exposure, ISO-400, f/7.1
All of these shots were taken with a Nikon D90, 18-105mm VR lens, tripod held and remote fired. 77mm B+W 10 stop ND filter with 67mm step down ring.
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Path to the Clouds | New Bern, NC
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Happy first day of Spring everyone! With the way the weather has been in the Eastern US lately, it’s easy to forget that it was still technically Winter. I thought this shot of a beautiful pastel sunset behind the NC History Center would be a great way to ring in one of my favorite seasons.
The History Center, part of Tryon Palace, is one of my favorite places to shoot the sunset in New Bern. There are so many great foreground elements there, especially these boardwalks and railings. The plant life is also starting to bloom in the gardens there and I’m really looking forward to working that life into these shots!
The shot: Nikon D90, Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 lens. f/22, 1”, ISO-100. 3 exposures, tonemapped with Photomatix. All three exposures and the tonemapped file were manually masked together in Photoshop. Finished with Nik Color Efex ‘Glamour Glow’ filter and ‘Pro Contrast’ filter.
Sunset on the Trent | New Bern, NC
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On this calm, windless night, the water of the Trent River was at a glassy calm. I crawled down into this little pocket between a street and a boardwalk to get a different vantage point to a spot that I frequently shoot. Boy, the water and muck I was in to shoot this did not smell good at all!
‘Venus Over the Sunset Strip’ | New Bern, NC
Venus shines bright as the sun sets and night falls over the river walk in Union Point Park. The evening blue hour is one of my favorites to shoot. There is still color in the sky, but it’s dark enough to stretch out some long exposures without an ND filter. I think my favorite detail in this photo is the lighted operator’s tower on the drawbridge. I also like the grungy detail in the fencing on the foreground—looks like it needs a paint job!
The shot: Nikon D90, Rokinon 8mm lens. 30 second exposure, f/22, ISO-200.
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