A Lovely Late Afternoon in Napa, CA
After an amazing day of tasting wine in Napa valley, we retreated to the town of Napa for an equally amazing dinner and one of the best sunsets we've seen in th...
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After an amazing day of tasting wine in Napa valley, we retreated to the town of Napa for an equally amazing dinner and one of the best sunsets we've seen in the area in a long time. If there is a heaven on Earth, I'm thoroughly convinced, it's in Napa Valley.
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Mar, 2014Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
If heaven exists on Earth, I thoroughly believe it's in Napa Valley. This image was taken from the 3rd street bridge in downtown Napa after a full day of touring wineries in the valley. I had recently acquired Nikon's 14-24mm lens and was still very much in awe of the field of view at 14mm. Almost every image I took that day was at 14mm. Not because they should have been, but because, wow, look at that, I can see so much!!Time
This was taken during the golden hour at sunset (as most good landscape shots are). I'm genetically incapable of getting up before sunrise, so I do my best work at sunset. Specifically, it was 8:10PM on June 1st.Lighting
The natural beauty of the sunlight during the golden hour provided the intense color found in the sky. If I had magical powers, I would rotate the river just enough so that the sun would light the front of the buildings instead of having them backlit, but that's what HDR is for ;)Equipment
This was shot handheld with a Nikon D800, Nikon 14-24mm at 14mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/25sec. I metered to ensure I didn't blow any highlights in the sky.Inspiration
This image jumped out at me as I was crossing the bridge. I was struck by the unique architecture and varying colors of the shops, the soft reflection in the river, and the beautiful light from the golden hour.Editing
As you can infer from the light on the side of the building on the right, the buildings were back lit. Since I was shooting handheld, I metered for a good mix of the sky (being careful not to blow any highlights) and buildings with the intent of doing single shot HDR in post. To accomplish that, I made virtual copies in Lightroom with exposure at +2 and -2. That was enough to bring out detail in the buildings and sky, respectively. I then loaded the original and virtual copies into HDR Efex Pro and worked the sliders pretty hard until I was reasonably happy with the result. I used a few control points to boost the shadows along the river and to bring out the golden color in the clouds. After saving the TIFF back to Lightroom, I continued to tweak the Hue/Saturation/Luminance until I was happy with the colors. Whenever you pull the shadows up as much as I had to with this image, the colors are always a bit dull. The finishing detail was a touch of Split Toning. I added a hint of gold to the highlights to match the sunset and a bit of blue to the shadows to make it look a bit more natural.In my camera bag
My standard kit has evolved rapidly over the past couple of years. The only thing that's remained constant has been my trusty Gitzo tripod, Markins ballhead, and Nikon D800. I was a huge fan of Nikon's 14-24mm and even bought a filter holder kit so I could do long exposure with it, but I grew tired of the keystone effect (when buildings appear to lean away from you if you angle your camera up), so I broke down and bought Nikon's 24mm PC-E (tilt-shift). It's a manual focus prime, but it's a lot lighter than the 14-24 and takes standard filters, 2 very big advantages. To fill out the rest of the range, I carry Nikon's 50mm f/1.4 and 70-200mm f/2.8. Maybe one day Santa will see fit to leave a 24-70mm in my stocking instead of socks, but, until then, I like how light the 50mm is.Feedback
If I could go back in time and shoot this image all over again, I'd definitely mount the camera on a tripod and shoot a proper HDR sequence. Having the natural colors from an extended exposure for the shadows would have saved me a lot of time in post. If you have to shoot for single shot HDR, always remember to expose for the highlights. You can recover shadows, but if you blow your highlights, they're gone forever!
