Category Archives: Landscape

Photographer’s Choice – Polly Terriberry

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A Magnificent Oak captured in the Infrared Spectrum

Polly Terriberry - Oak Tree in Fauquier County, Virginia

Polly Terriberry - Oak Tree in Fauquier County, Virginia

A standard DSLR has a filter mounted in front of the sensor that blocks the light in the infrared spectrum wavelength longer than that of visible light. It’s possible to replace this blocking filter with a different filter that allows photography in the infrared spectrum which is what Polly had done to a Nikon D70. It should be pointed out that once this change is made, the camera is no longer suitable for normal photography.
Polly had driven pass the oak tree above many times, thinking that it should be photographed. Finally she and a couple of photographer friends decided to meet at the site and take their different approaches to working with the tree. She chose a 28-80mm lens set to its widest angle with an aperture of f/11 and a shutter speed of 1/125 and an ISO of 200. In post processing, she dialed the clarity setting to a minus 100 to obtain the soft, dreamy look in the final image. The result is a totally different and dramatic look at a somewhat ordinary scene.

Photographer’s Choice – Nicole Robinson

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Looking for a Shot, Finding Another

Nicole Robinson - Point Bonita Lighthouse

Nicole Robinson - Point Bonita Lighthouse

Nicole was looking for a vantage point to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge and stumbled on this scene of the Point Bonita Lighthouse in the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco. Hoping for something unique and to properly convey the scene, she set up her tripod and opted for the very long exposure of 20 seconds which allowed the ocean waves to appear more like wispy fog than moving water. This softness provides a strong contrast between the soft spray and the rugged, prominent rock formations. Because the light was far too intense to use this slow shutter speed without blowing out the scene, she attached an 8x neutral density filter which brought the effective shutter down to about 1/13 second. Using an aperture setting of f/11, the total light reaching the sensor was controlled.
Her camera is the Canon EOS 50d with the excellent EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens. For this scene, the lens was zoomed to 125mm. The final image is certainly an excellent capture.