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'Spotlight' A shaft of sunlight breaks the forest canopy

Just a quick post before I head to bed, this is shot I took at the Pancake Rocks, New Zealand of a shaft of light breaking the forest canopy to light this tree stump. I kept telling myself when I walked around New Zealand taking photos, that I should sometimes look beyond the major attraction and sometimes look down or go off the normal path taken by tourists. This tree stump caught my eye walking back to car as there just only this spot of light coming through the trees while the rest of area was fairly dark from the surrounding forest. While Belinda patiently waited on the path I went all terrain to get closer to the subject. I love the fact you can see the few strands of spider web caught by the sun.

How I got this shot is totally different to what the camera’s exposure meter would have set if I was on any of the auto modes. I set the camera to spot metering mode to get a reading off the sunlit side of the stump. This totally rendered the background and shadows completely black, so it frames the fine details that caught my eye to start with. It began with a vision in my head what the image would look like before I even took it. The aperture I selected was f3.2 on my Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens to get a shallow depth of field, but not totally wide open as most lenses are not at it’s sharpest then. The resulting shutter speed was 1/200th of second which is more than adequate to hand hold.

Lake Crucible defrosting in the Siberia Valley, New Zealand.

One of the highlights of our trip to New Zealand’s South Island is the Siberia Experience that flies out of Makarora not far from the beautiful Lake Wanaka. After checking in at the one of only a few buildings in town, you are sent over to a shed across the road to wait for your ride, either a 6seater Cessna aircraft or a 5seater helicopter. We thankfully had the helicopter as you can see out the bottom easier and it was more exciting than a plane I thought. 

The ride was a descent 25 to 30 minutes through the Siberia & Wilkin Valleys and over snow covered mountain tops of the Mount Aspiring National Park. In the helicopter you get to see nearly untouched wilderness, hidden valleys, ancient glaciers and frozen lakes. On the way we got to do a flyover Top Gun style over the top of a Jet Boat taking a spin up the Wilkin River. Our guide was very informative and relaxed while he took us for our flight as well as offering to take a picture of my wife and I in front of the helicopter after it dropped us off in depths of the Siberia Valley in preparation for our 3hour hike.

In the photo you see the Crucible Lake which is a glacial lake that freezes over every winter. You can also see the river of melt water that comes off it heading down the mountain side with chunks of ice floating down it. You can also make out in the lower part of the picture the massive and brittle ice shelf floating in the water. There are walking tours available to this spot, but a high degree of fitness and cold weather endurance is required if you hike there in the snow season.

The images specs are 1/1600th of a second at f5.6, ISO250. I had to keep the shutter speeds nice and fast to avoid any vibration caused by the helicopter engine as well to avoid blur to compensate for the speed of we were moving at. I used aperture priority with about 1/3rd to 2/3rds of plus exposure compensation to keep the snow bright and white instead of grey. I selected f5.6 for the aperture as this is the shapest setting of the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens.

The first glow of sunrise touches the side of Mt Cook/Aoraki

One thing I loved about New Zealand was that I didn’t have to get up at 4:30AM and drive/walk for miles to catch a sunrise, this one was about 6:40 from the window of our hotel room. I setup the camera with the Canon 70-200mm f4L IS lens on a tripod at the window before retiring for the night. All I had to do was set the alarm, roll out of bed and crack the curtain a bit to capture the first light on this amazing view of the mountain and the Hooker Valley. I even snuck back to bed for another hour before getting up to do a hike through the Hooker Valley and then later followed by boat ride in the Mueller Glacier Lake.

The image specs for the enthusiasts is 1/15th of second, f7.1 at ISO100 with some the basic natural adjustments in Adobe Lightroom.

This is one of my favorite images from the first leg of our trip around New Zealand. After scouting the area for a spot for some sunset photos I settled on this amazing rocky outcrop on the Kaikoura Peninsula that looks up to some snow covered mountains right by the coast. The light wasn’t that spectacular on the mountains so I turned to the rocks by my feet. The area had some intriguing shapes and textures defined by the warm evening light.

To get the smooth and silky look of the water I set up my camera on my tripod with its legs splayed over the jagered rocks and set up my composition. In order to get the slowest shutter speed possible, I used a neutral density filter to absorb some light and combined with an aperture of f10 to get some good depth of field and it resulted in a shutter speed of 6seconds. To make sure I got the maximum sharpness on the rocks in the photo I used a cable release and the mirror lock up function in the camera to make sure the camera didn’t vibrate one bit. I was happy with the results on the LCD screen so I shot little else and headed back to the car to put the heater on full blast!

Post processing back home was pretty simple; just the usual natural enhancements and sharpening just in Adobe Lightroom (no Photoshop).

I encourage some feedback in the comments, and if I get enough interest I’ll be releasing it as a very limited edition print.

The last minute of light taken on the Grand Canyon from the South Rim

This particular photo is very precious to my fiance and myself because it is the exact spot where I proposed to her just two minutes later. Only a few minutes before that, we had a crowd of people behind as we sat behind my camera on the tripod waiting for the sun to go down, but luckily not knowing the best light comes when the sun actually goes beyond the horizon, most of them left us alone for me to pop the question. 

Enough of that, how was the picture taken!? This is a series of 5 images taken on a panoramic head on my carbon fibre travel tripod stitched together in Photoshop CS4. 3 images where used in the final image as overlaps where too great, so I didn’t need them all. I first attempted this pano stitch over a year ago on my old PC with Photoshop CS3 and after numerous crashes, the blend was terribly obvious and I chose to abandon the project. After all the post processing I enlarged the file so I could print it at a massive 60×30 inches, not a normal size but I split the file into three TIFs to have printed on Metallic Kodak Endura Paper and mounted on 3 pieces of black edged craftwood. Even with my new iMac with 4GB ram it struggled to handle the 2GB PSD file. The three saved TIFs totalled about 450MB and then they were uploaded to my lab. 

June Catch Up

• We attended the PMA Digital Life Expo on the weekend at the MECC in Melbourne and boy, did I have a great time. I took numerous free training seminars on the Friday night and all day Saturday. I saw the huge range of photo-book and print suppliers and numerous retailers and wholesalers from the photographic industry. I also got to meet and listen to talks by some of my Australian Photographer idols, including having a posing demonstration applied to Belinda and I by world famous wedding photographer Jerry Ghionis. He borrowed Belinda as a model bride not once, not twice, but three times. It was quite a laugh and I learnt heaps.
• Due to PMA I will be changing my Photo-book supplier again, I got to see every supplier’s samples in person and got to talk to some representatives. Some suppliers were top of the tree in terms of quality, but with that comes price. I found one supplier that is only 5 minutes drive from home that has a great range of products and their quality is great. I signed up as a wholesale supplier on the spot as their prices were very competitive even compared to my previous supplier which offered mediochre quality. I will have a special launch price for previous wedding clients when the books are ranged.
• I also found a new printing technology that bonds photographic ink directly to metal. This means prints will pretty much last forever, are water proof, scratch proof and mould resistant. This enable the buyer to hang up prints in high impact areas like bathrooms, kitchens, garages, pool or spa areas and outdoors if you would want. The quality level is outstanding, the company is based in Victoria and the staff are fantastic. I’m excited to give them a go to add a new product to my range of printed products. I will drop my canvas and foam mounted products to make room for them.
• Of course there is a new price list revision coming this week to accommodate the range changes.
• The Annual Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk has been announced, full details here.
• I am still taking registrations of interest for Digital SLR Camera training, so far I have at least 3 interested, I just need at least another 5 to make it worth while for me to go ahead with. Email me from the contact page to submit your details. I am investigating venues to hold the event and planning for a survey of participants is in the works.

For the larger version, click here and go to ‘All sizes’