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.
‘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
Standing at the Edge of the World | Emerald Isle, NC
Here’s a shot of my friend and fellow photog Brad Styron taking in an awesome sunset on the coast. I thought I would use this shot to take a moment and explain some of my post-processing a little more in-depth than usual. My methods have changed recently and this adaptation in processing has helped to strengthen my images. Where I used to tonemap and create HDR images, I now manually blend exposures. Hopefully the workflow breakdown below can explain it better:
Gear: Nikon D90, 18-105mm VR Nikkor lens, tripod
EXIF: Three bracketed exposures @ f/22, ISO-200. (1/6 sec., 1/2 sec., 2.5 sec.) Manual white balance.
Step 1: I opened all 3 files in Photoshop. Adjusted the levels slightly in the lowest and middle exposures to bring out a little more brightness.
Step 2: Masking. How you do this is based on your preference. I like to layer my darkest exposure on top of the middle, work on it & flatten it, then layer that on top of my brightest exposure. I just like to work on a darker image and lighten it as I go.
There was only minor blending on the first two exposures, but on the final mask I brought in the water at 100% opacity. Using a brush of around 15%, I slowly lightened some of the highlights in the sky. That’s it. I then flattened the image.
Step 3: Using Nik Color Efex, I fixed the blue color cast in the image and added just a touch of contrast using the Pro Contrast Filter.
Step 4: With Nik Viveza, I selectively adjusted the structure in the foreground to add some extra sharpness. On a separate layer of Viveza, I dropped the saturation in the foreground sand (again, using the selective area feature). After applying the layer, I then masked a bit of it away in Photoshop to get rid of some of the over spill of the adjustment.
Step 5: I duplicated that layer and used the Dodge Tool to lighten the foam of the surf and the highlights in the clouds. Mind you, the tool was set very low (5-10%) and set to dodge the midtones. This was just a minor tweak to bring the scene back to more of my taste.
Step 6: After this was all done, I flattened the image and added on final filter. Using Nik Color Efex, I added a Glamour Glow (set very low, at 8%) with a very low touch of warmth to bring a calm, minimal glow to the scene. I flattened again and saved.
If there was one theme that you noticed, it was the use of ‘just a touch,’ ‘a little bit,’ ‘very low,’ and ‘light.’ The key to what I’ve been doing lately is to use every effect in moderation. Just because a slider or setting goes up to 100 doesn’t mean it should.
Most of what I do pretty much follows that workflow. Maybe a few less or few more uses of Viveza and Color Efex or a little more dodging and burning, but that’s the gist of it. Also, many times I end up simply blending two exposures rather than all three. It’s usually the darkest exposure that gets discarded in that case.
Hope that helps to explain what I do and can help you make a better image!
As always, you can comment or pick my brain at any of these sites: Facebook | Twitter | Flickr | 500px | Google+
©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
‘Railway Sunset’
This sunset image was shot in downtown New Bern a few nights ago. I shared it on Facebook, Google + and everywhere else yesterday evening. Time has been hard to find to process a few more images, so I’m posting it here today. I’ve been working on revamping my website for the past two days and can finally say, it’s done. I wanted to give it the same look and feel that I’m bringing to my Twitter page, Facebook and other spots which is a clean, uncluttered, unobtrusive black and white. I have a few other sites to work on, but everything’s finally coming together. I really buy into the idea of branding yourself and developing a ‘look’ as far as marketing goes. Let me know if you notice any bugs or if there’s something you like/don’t like!
The shot itself is three exposures, manually blended in Photoshop (no tonemapped HDR here). I’m really enjoying the way these exposure blended photos are turning out and looking forward to continue exploring this method!
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