Shots from my daily commute.
This is another shot from yesterday’s commute stop. I figure with all the effected images I’ve been posting lately, something straight from the camera is in order. There’s no major tweaking on this image, just a little boost of the blacks and a touch of contrast to make it “pop”–and, of course, the usual sharpening after resizing for the blog format.
Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm at 46mm. 1/320 second at f/16. ISO 200.
Canon T2i dishing it up straight.
Today, at the end of my commute, I got off the freeway and took the back road for the last leg. It was a lovely day so I parked in a turnout, walked around a bit and grabbed a few shots. I particularly liked this curvy driveway. Though the raw image looked good, I couldn’t resist tweaking it a bit to make the scene more ethereal.
Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm at 85mm. 1/400 second at f/16. ISO 200.
Canon T2i almost home.
I say “hot” in the title because of the direct sun on the face of the city. With the foreground in afternoon shadow, the slightly washed out buildings makes for an interesting look. I cropped a chunk off the bottom of this photo because the sea of green grass was too dominant. This “pano” view makes for a more balanced image.
Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm.
Canon T2i taking in a full histogram.
This hazy shot of Alcatraz in the distance is another example of my current penchant for moody black and white. This style of post-processing appeals to my aesthetic sense so I’ll probably be producing many more of these kinds of scenes. The process only takes a few minutes. I choose an image, crop if there’s too much busyness around the edges and then convert to black and white with Nike Silver Efex Pro. I have a half dozen or so “presets” that I’ve created that serve as a base. I preview the image flipping through the presets until I find one that suit the scene. Once I’ve found the look I like I’ll usually do a few tweaky adjustments and save. This particular image I fussed over for about ten minutes–from opening in Photoshop to web ready.
Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm.
Canon T2i gathering pixels for a mood.
For the past three weeks it’s been very Spring-like in the Bay Area. The past several days have been weirdly warm for early February. Clear, bright blue skys have dominated the scenery so I’m tending to want to obscure the obvious perfect weather. In color this little scene looks like a typical view of most any hillside in Sonoma County on a clear day. So I gave it a pano crop, converted it to black and white, added some vignetting for moodiness.
Canon T2i setting a mood.