Tag Archives: Canon

Photo of the Week – Peyton Hale

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Perfect Design and Execution by Nature

Peyton Hale - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Peyton Hale - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

You may contract with a landscape architect and spend thousands of dollars with the best landscaping firm to execute the design and not even come close to what nature provides if just left alone. This excellent capture by Raleigh member Peyton Hale is proof of that fact. This scene was found on the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River in the Tremont region of Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee side. The plentiful rain and mild spring this year led to a profusion of flowering dogwoods, spring green foliage and plentiful flows in the streams and rivers.
Peyton’s camera is a Canon EOS 5D Mark II full frame DSLR fitted here with the EF17-40mm f/4L USM lens zoomed to 25mm. He chose a slow shutter speed of .6 second to capture the gentle motion of the water’s flow and f/13 for sharp near and far focus. He added a Singh Ray LB Warming Polarizer to bring out the rich spring colors.

Peyton is scheduled to present the program at July’s meeting.

Photo of the Week – Christopher Pratt

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High Dynamic Range – As Good As It Gets

Christopher Pratt - Belk Library - ASU Campus

Christopher Pratt - Belk Library - ASU Campus

Recent member Christopher Pratt gets the credit for this great floor-to-ceiling capture of the entrance foyer of the Belk Library on the ASU campus. He initially intended to shoot only the circular balconies, walls and ceiling but wisely decided to include the bronze statue in the foreground which adds depth to the scene and a very definite focal point. It was this decision that took the shot out of the ordinary.
To achieve the lovely lighting and control the dynamic range, Christopher used a tripod and remote cable release to take five consecutive bracketed shots at 1 f/stop intervals, then loaded all five RAW images into the software program Photomatix to combine all the exposures. He then applied what is called “Tone Mapping” in Photomatix to produce this final image. The result is an excellent HDR capture that doesn’t go over the top but provides a realistic photographic image. The great depth and sharp focus is the result of using a very wide angle 10mm lens.