Early Spring evening with heavy storm clouds moving across the sky to the west barring any possibility of a grand sunset, and ruins of old boardwalk and pier in the foreground - I wished I had brought my tripod to this day. But wait... this camera I was carrying not only had a built in ND filter but also a rock solid IBIS allowing one to take longer than sub seconds exposures. As someone who grew up taking long exposure photographs at night in the wilderness, shooting handheld was quite the breakthrough in terms of experience.
Sea stack and sun flare
One would find amazing work in photography and paintings of sunset over Haystack Rock in Canon Beach, Oregon. But what stuck in my mind the most, even before visiting this place the first time two decades ago was monochrome photographs from the turn of the century I found while researching on the history. Now I know this is not the first time anyone has thought and executed this before but by fat the years I have visited and photographed these sea stacks I have never been satisfied with the results until now.
This is not an analog photography propaganda, I am just thrilled that I have created something special.
Smoke in the Mountains
The new “normal” late summer/early fall.
1/100 sec at f/8, ISO 100
1/640 sec at f/6.8, ISO 100
1/125 sec at f/8, ISO 400
1/250 sec at f/8, ISO 160
1/160 sec at f/8, ISO 200
Smoky sunset in the woods
Dense forest fire smoke from Bolt Creek fire started pouring over Western Washington on September 10th, 2022 but the air quality wasn’t great for a while - possibly due to smoke traveling from other fires in the region. These photographs were taken on the 9th during an evening walk in the forest - I was not expecting to find smoke trapped in the trees and in the sky above, rendering fog-like scene especially at sunset.
1/160 sec at f/4, ISO 800
1/180 sec at f/8, ISO 3200
1/40 sec at f/6.8, ISO 3200
Dust in the wind
Wind gusts were not as dry as I thought it could have been, for they were carrying both water (from Columbia below) droplets and dust particles several dozen feet above the ground. I wouldn’t have had luck using a tripod, the roof of my car provided adequate support for steadiness required for telephoto shots like these.
No, that famous song by Kansas wasn’t in my head but it felt like it should have.
End of a day
After several days of very warm weather, we got a cloud cover today, that extended beyond the Cascades and over the plains to the east. The wheat fields were harvested but the farmers were kind to leave few rows uncut by the highway.
When the sun bleeds through the clouds
Every photograph has its story, but I can remember only a handful of them weeks and months later and this is one of those untold stories.
This photograph is a composite of three exposures, an HDR image that I created in Lightroom then color graded (also in LR). I am not a fan of auto-bracketing since my cameras don’t allow me to select a multi-point metering matrix for it to auto-bracket. A linear exposure stops bracketing rarely gets it right.
The three photographs with manually bracketed exposures were shot on June 18th, 2022 around 9:00 PM Pacific at Picnic Pt. Park. The month of June in 2022 has been unnaturally cold, with clouds and rain lingering around for an extended Spring and deep into summer, creating great opportunities for shooting sunsets. We arrived at the park about an hour to sunset - we knew the area fairly well because we had been to the place many times. I started off shooting a beautiful algae bloom over the beach but the sun was too bright for photography - the kind off lighting that I was hoping to find in that cloudy day. It made sense to wait till the sun is at the horizon or below it, for it could light the clouds over the horizon.
Minutes before sunset the sun peeked out from the clouds and suddenly the clouds started to catch the light. I had very limited time to capture it. I wanted to put the pier ruins in front of the island at distance and below the sun at the horizon but also make sure the pier stumps are not over the dark island mass in the background. The tide seemed high, so I had to shoot from a distance, an unusual spot that I was not familiar with and had not explored before. Once I was at a convenient spot with the view I desired, switched from 21mm to 45mm lens because I was far from the subject and quickly started shooting.
Fast forward to today, July 3rd evening when I was culling through my Lightroom catalog came across these bracketed RAWs. I quickly put them together, searched for a BTS photo on my phone and wrote this blog post.
The colors from the 80's
It is still a bit cold for the animals in hibernation and the cold blooded crawlers to be out on these trails in Central Washington but not cold enough for the creeks and small lakes to be frozen. It almost feels like the end of winter but the lack of a lush green skin on the hills will remind one of the remaining days of winter with warmer days just around the corner.
It is the time of the year when nature in this region is engulfed in pastel colors.
1/180 sec at f/4, ISO 800
1/100 sec at f/8, ISO 100
1/100 sec at f/4, ISO 200
1/160 sec at f/4, ISO 400
Light pillars in the lake
It is incredibly beautiful how lights at the edge of a water body form long pillar-like reflections on the water, especially when viewed from the other side of the water body.
32 sec at f/11, ISO 100
Far from home
I don’t know many people who would drive four hours for a sunset but there are creatures like me - they exist!
32 sec at f/16, ISO 100 Hasselblad XCD 4/45P
32 sec at f/22, ISO 100 Hasselblad XCD 4/45P
Another weekend, another place to shoot at sunset.
Tacoma - half day
The weather changed from clear sunny skies to rolling storm clouds in just an hour, providing me excellent opportunities to shoot in varied lighting and other variance while I learn to shoot with my (new) medium format camera. When you’re shooting with the (Hasselblad) X1DII 50c, autofocus (AF) is not your friend. There are two ways to operate or get help with manual focus (MF): focus peaking and zoom. In my experience, I found focus peaking to be very unreliable, or perhaps I was using it wrong. The earlier part of the day while using focus peaking, most of my shots turned out soft but I got lucky with a handful.
1/350 sec at f/6.8, ISO 200
1/180 sec at f/4, ISO 800
Later in the day, I started using magnify focus method and got lot more reliable result. The camera being on the tripod (for long exposures) made it easy to use this MF method.
2 sec at f/22, ISO 100
32 sec at f/11, ISO 100
All in all, I am very happy to be shooting in medium format: the large sensor and large pixels makes a difference added Hasselblad color science and DR. I am not going to express myself on how much I love the physical design of this camera, and keeping that aside the features I love the most about this new system based on a very short period of playing with it are:
In-lens shutter system eliminating vibrations especially for those extremely long exposures
Appealing and somewhat acceptable noise grain at high ISO, keeping aside the fact that you’re getting less noise than FF cameras. Say goodbye to destructive noise reduction steps in post-processing tools like LR
Superb color reproduction and sharpness
Greater dynamic range, even better than (long time king) Sony FF cameras I own
Weather sealed - I have not taken the camera out in the rain but when you are living in the PNW chances are you will, very soon
Birds of sunset
Gulls on a beach at sunset
1/250 sec at f/4.5, ISO 400
Spotlight
In the scene I could barely notice the column of sunlight illuminating Maylor Pt. across the bay. As I hurried my way out from a late lunch/early dinner to the wharf looking for signs of sunset, this scene caught my eye…
1/160 sec at f/6.3, ISO 200
Shades of summer
The shadows grew tall when the sun raced towards the near west horizon on this beautiful late summer evening in the mountains.
Hurricane Ridge
The Hurricane Ridge standing tall above Kingston
500mm 1/500 sec f/6.7 ISO 250
2022: Day One
Western Washington is still clad in ice and snow remnants from two winter storms since Christmas of 2021. There is no ice on the beach but the way to it had plenty, rendering the travel to the beach somewhat inconvenient if not difficult and dangerous.
In terms of golden hour quality, an hour before sunset the scene looked promising but soon clouds moved in. Regardless, it was a memorable dusk: As the tide receded I walked farther towards the waterline with the camera on the tripod, taking 1/2-2 seconds exposure shots, occasionally retreating for a rogue wave. The sky turned pink for a bit, the clouds however remained unlit. I was more fascinated by the retreating bubbles on small waves that were consistent with the wind blowing north.