Twilight at Bhy Kracke Park: Pentax 645D, Pentax-A 645 120mm f/4 Macro

Please click on the image to see a larger version. I recently learned of this view of Seattle.  Although Mt. Rainier is hidden, the perspective from Bhy Kracke Park offers another wonderful look at downtown Seattle.  I think late fall or early winter is a good time to visit this location because the Space Needle can be framed between the branches of the leafless tree on the right.  This image is a stitch of 5 vertically oriented shots.  I hope you enjoy it, and happy  holidays, everyone!

Here is a 90% crop to give you an idea of the awesome detail being captured by the 40 megapixel CCD sensor of the Pentax 645D.

90% Crop: Pentax 645D, Pentax-A 645 120mm f/4 Macro

The Emerald City in Monochrome - View from the Space Needle: Pentax 645D, Pentax-A 645 45mm f/2.8

Please click on images to see larger versions. We’ve had some wonderful weather in Seattle recently.  I hope those of you living here have been able to enjoy it.  I’ve been out and about, snapping pictures left and right…well, perhaps it’s a little more involved than just “snapping.”  Anywho, here are a few scenes from my favorite city.  Enjoy!

Kerry Park Magic: Pentax 645D, Pentax DFA 645 55mm f/2.8

Alki on my Mind: Pentax 645D, Pentax DFA 645 55mm f/2.8

A View from the Water Tower - Volunteer Park: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8

Needle in a Building Stack - View from Smith Tower: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8

Sound Vessel - View from Smith Tower: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 16-50mm f/2.8

Daydream: Leica M9, Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/1

The Art of Imitation - Pike Place Market: Panasonic Lumix LX-5

Gone Fishin': Leica M9, Zeiss Biogon T* 35mm f/2.0 ZM

My Blue Heaven: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8

Please click on images to see larger versions. Here are a few miscellaneous shots from the past few days:  Some scenics, some birdies.  I’m off to Columbus, OH in a couple of days for about two weeks.  Hopefully I’ll have the weekends to do some photography.  I don’t know what’s there, but if I find anything interesting, I promise to share.

Early Riser: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8

Seattle Light: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 16-50mm f/2.8

Chugga Chugga Choo! Choo!: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 16-50mm f/2.8

Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8

Spring is in the Air: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8

In the Blackberry Bush: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8

Stargazer: Pentax K-5, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8

Needle in a Blossom Stack: Pentax K-5, Pentax 18-135mm f/3.5.5.6ED AL IF DC WR

Please click on the images to see larger versions. It’s that time of year again.  Early April, and the cherry blossoms are our in full force at UW’s main campus.  If anyone wants to see these blossoming beauties, now is the best time.  I hope you enjoy this year’s pickin’s.

Pretty in Pink: Pentax K-5, Pentax 18-135mm f/3.5.5.6ED AL IF DC WR

Raitt Hall: Pentax K-5, Pentax 18-135mm f/3.5.5.6ED AL IF DC WR

The Quad: Pentax K-5, Pentax 18-135mm f/3.5.5.6ED AL IF DC WR

Building Blossoms: Pentax K-5, Pentax 18-135mm f/3.5.5.6ED AL IF DC WR

Small Blossoms: Pentax K-5, Pentax 18-135mm f/3.5.5.6ED AL IF DC WR

Sunset Storm Over Seattle: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40mm f/4L

Please click on the images to see larger versions. It is often said the best time to capture dramatic light is when a storm is approaching or abating.  Keeping that important principle in mind, I headed out to Gas Works Park.  There was wind, rain, rainbows, colorful clouds…basically, there was a lot of drama.  My favorite spot at Gas Works Park is on top of the grassy mound where a beautifully intricate sundial is located.  After a rainy day, the sundial is frequently surrounded by shallow water, perfect for reflections.  This time I was even lucky enough to encounter a friendly kite flyer.  It was a cold, wet evening, but totally worth it!  I hope you agree.

Gas Works Color: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40mm f/4L

Somewhere Under the Rainbow: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40mm f/4L

Mt. Baker Ridge Viewpoint: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS

When I think of the best Seattle viewpoints, places such as Kerry Park, Alki Beach, and Rizal Bridge come to mind.  Until yesterday, I had never heard of the Mt. Baker Ridge Viewpoint.  It is located at 1403 31st Avenue South, in a small neighborhood commercial district directly atop the I-90 tunnel, at the high point of the Mt. Baker Ridge. The Viewpoint offers a wonderful perspective of downtown, the Olympics and Puget sound.  I visited the viewpoint last night and this morning.  The photograph is from this morning.  It is a 7-shot stitched panorama (with the camera in portrait orientation).  The final image is a whopping 114 Megapixel file with detail and sharpness than could give you a corneal laceration if you look too closely.  Please click on the opening image to see a larger version.  I promise it’ll be worth your while.  Below are a couple of thumbnail links to 100% crops.  Click on them to see the original sizes (slightly degraded by JPEG compression artifact).  BTW, did you notice the peek-a-boo view of the Space Needle?

Needle New Year: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS

It was a cold but clear New Year’s night in Seattle.  Cindy and I drove up to her brother’s place, which has a great rooftop view of the Space Needle and Lake Union.  I set up my tripod and rang in the new year in our usual fashion…photographing the Space Needle fireworks show.  I hope you enjoy my first image of 2011, and Happy New Year to everyone!

Glorious Seattle Sunset: Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon 50mm f/1.4

Tonight’s annual UW Radiology graduation banquet was held again at Columbia Tower in downtown Seattle.  I’ve been going for the past nine years, camera in hand, and praying for great light, as the view from the 76th floor is nothing short of amazing.  Each year, I leave disappointed, but not tonight.  I was fortunate enough to witness an unbelievably fantastic sunset.  The evening was even more special, because this was my first year as Fellowship Program Director for Pediatric Radiology.  It was a great evening, and congratulations to all the graduates!

Mt. Baker Over Seattle: Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon 50mm f/1.4

Congrats to Class of 2010 UW Radiology Residents!: Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II

Anywho, here are a couple of shots from the outing.  If you look carefully at the first image, you can see the Space Needle in the distance.  I really love the pink hues on the blossoms.  I hope you do also.  Let me know what you think.

Panasonic GF-1, 14-45 f/3.5-5.6, 20mm (40mm equivalent), f/8, ISO 100, (1/15, 1/30, 1/60 second exposures)

Panasonic GF-1, Panasonic 45-200 f/4.5-5.6, 45mm (90mm equivalent), f/8, ISO 100, (1/8, 1/4, 1/2 second exposures)

Introduction

Have you ever seen a photograph of a city skyline?  Of course you have.  When done right, it can be extremely beautiful and awe-inspiring.  For me, the most memorable skyline photographs are those with a colorful sky and well-lit buildings.  This combination, however, is almost impossible to capture in a single exposure, because the sky is typically most colorful just after sunset, whereas the buildings appear well lit sometime later.  The artificial building lights are most conspicuous after some of the natural ambient light has vanished.  So, how do we capture the beauty of a vibrant sky while maintaining a nighttime look to the skyline?  Read on, and I’ll show you how I do it.

Before we dive into the tutorial, let me first briefly mention the two programs I use to organize and “make” my photographs:

• Adobe Lightroom 2.6
• Photoshop CS4 (Version 11.0)

I use Lightroom to organize my photographs and make minor adjustments such as exposure, clarity and vibrancy.  For major edits requiring layers, I use Photoshop.  By the way, I’m using a Macintosh computer running OSX, version 10.6.2.

In the Field

Arrive at your location with plenty of time to set up and find your favorite spot.  Make sure you’re using a very steady tripod.  I can’t stress this enough.  Pick your spot, compose the image, and wait.  A cable release is highly recommended, so you don’t have to actually touch the camera to take a picture.  If your camera has a mirror lockup feature, enable it.  This will minimize tiny vibrations from the camera’s mirror movement.  If you haven’t figured it out already, the goal is to have the camera as steady as possible.

I typically bracket my exposures 1 1/3 to 2 stops on either side of 0 and shoot in RAW.  This “protects” me if exposure and white balance aren’t “perfect.”

With everything set up as above, autofocus (or focus manually if you prefer) on your scene.  Once you’re happy with your focus, switch the camera to manual focus.  The reason is, once light levels fall off and ambient contrast decreases, the camera might “hunt” for focus.  This can happen if you leave autofocus on.

As the sun begins to set, take pictures periodically to capture the changing colors in the sky and clouds.  It’s difficult to judge when the sky colors are “just right.”  So, don’t be stingy with your memory.  Click away!

Typically about fifteen to thirty minutes after the sun has set, the buildings’ lights will begin to stand out.  Take a few more exposures.  When you’re happy with the nighttime look to the skyline, you’re done.  Pack up and head home to process your masterpiece.

The Digital Darkroom

Typically, I import images into Lightroom and then do the major edits in Photoshop.  Below are the two images (fig. 1 and 2) I used to make my final shot (the one at the beginning of this blog).  The two shots were obtained 15 minutes apart.  The first shows a beautiful sky but not much definition in the skyline buildings.  The 2^nd offers a brightly lit skyline with good shadow detail, but lacking an interesting sky.  Below are the steps I took to arrive at the final photograph.  For the sake for clarity, I’ll refer to the colorful sky image as “sky” and the night skyline images as “night.”

Fig. 1, "Sky"

Fig. 2, "Night"

Step 1:  Open both images in Photoshop, and make sure your top window is the “sky” image.

Step 2:  Select and copy “sky” to the clipboard:  Command-A followed by Command-C

Step 3:  Select the “night” image to make that the active window.

Step 4:  Paste the “sky” image on top of the “night” image:  Command-V.  If not already displayed, make sure you can see the “Layers” pallet.  The layers pallet should now show the “sky” thumbnail on top of the “night” thumbnail.  I recommend you change the names of the thumbnails to “sky” and “night” corresponding to their respective layers (fig. 3).  You can do this by double clicking on the text adjacent to the thumbnail in the layers pallet.  Double click the text, NOT the thumbnail itself.

Fig.3, Layers Pallet with thumbnail names changed to "Sky" and "Night"

Step 4:  Change the blending mode for the “sky” layer to “lighten” (fig. 4).  The resulting image should show the buildings’ lights “shining through” to the “sky” layer (fig 5).  Examining my image, I’m still not completely satisfied with the look of the sky or the “hazy” appearance to the skyline.  Too much of the uninteresting sky from the “night” layer is showing through, and the skyline doesn’t appear dark enough.  If you are similarly troubled by your image thus far, follow the steps below.

Fig. 4, Change blending mode to "Lighten" (black arrow)

Fig. 5, Intermediate image after step 4

Step 5:  Select the “night” layer by clicking on its thumbnail in the layers pallet.  Then, under the “Layers” menu, select “New Adjustment Layer” –> “Levels…” (fig 6).  In the dialog box that appears next, be sure to check the box next to “Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask” (fig 7).

Fig. 6, How to get to "Levels..." in Menu

Fig. 7, Layers dialog box. Be sure to check the box next to "Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask" (black arrow)

Step 6:  Make sure the “Adjustment” window is visible.  If it’s not, make it visible by selecting it from the “Window” drop down menu.  Adjust the center gray triangle until the desired effect is obtained.  In fig 8, I’m including both the Adjustment window and the Layers pallet.  For my image, I set the gray triangle value to 81.  Note the increased conspicuity of the colorful sky and darkening of the buildings, exactly the effects I wanted (fig 9).  At this point, I’m pretty much done.  To arrive at the final image (the one you saw at the beginning of this blog), the only additional steps I performed were cropping, flattening the layers, and a little bit of sharpening.  As a summary, I’m including all the steps from the “History” pallet (fig 10).

Fig. 8, Adjustment and Layers Pallet. For my image, the gray triangle value is set to 81 (black arrow). The number for your image may be different.

Fig. 9, The resulting image after step 6

Fig. 10, All the steps from the "History" pallet

I hope you have found this tutorial helpful.  If I have been unclear in any way, please ask your questions by responding to this blog or sending me an e-mail.  I promise to answer your questions as soon as I can.  Happy shooting and have fun!