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Sep, 2015Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
At Monument Valley, from a balloon. First time I ever rode in a balloon, and it was so much fun! You get such a different perspective on everything.Time
It was early morning. The winds were a little high, so at first it looked as if we would not be able to go, but then they died down and we were flying.Lighting
The light was amazing that day. There were scattered clouds, so there were interesting shadows moving across the landscape, and great definition of the rocks.Equipment
I used a Canon 7D at ISO 160, with a EF-S15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens set at 16 mm, 1/1250 sec; f/4.0. No use trying a flash or tripod on a balloon! I know most people would shoot at something like f/16, but I wanted to emphasize the details in the closest rocks and give more of a feeling of going on forever in the less-clear distance. I took this 5 years ago and was pretty new to photography at the time, so I was trying all sorts of combinations of apertures/shutter speeds and well as .Inspiration
I particularly liked how the rock formation leads you from the bottom of the frame into the image, and then gives you space before the symmetric formations further in. I also really liked how the clouds seem to be pressing down, sandwiching the horizon.Editing
I originally just bumped up the clarity and saturation a little bit, and that looked pretty good. As I got better at post-processing after a few years, I re-visited this image because it is my favorite from that trip and increased contrast significantly using a Topaz Restyle filter. I masked the opacity of the filter layer selectively in Photoshop to get the exact look I wanted.In my camera bag
For landscape, I go light, because I get tired of hauling stuff around and then get so engrossed in shooting that I forget to use what I am carrying anyway. I have also come to the conclusion that no matter how much gear you have, you have a limited selection, so there will always be shots you cannot get. Instead, i focus on getting the best shots I can with the gear I have. So my landscape gear is now almost always just a Nikon D810 with a 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 lens and a polarizing filter. I only bring a tripod if I plan on doing some slow shutter speeds on water. And a bunch of lens cleaning wipes.Feedback
I was shooting constantly in the balloon, changing settings, moving around the basket, shooting standing up, hanging out of the basket, through the ropes, through the holes in the basket that provide handholds. When there was a feature that really caught my eye, I did stop to consider the best way to capture it , but I had to do that quickly because the balloon keep moving and the moment passes. Especially when the light is changing. So it was a situation where I think going with the flow and constantly thinking about how many different ways I could shoot a rock formation was a better approach than taking fewer shots with more thought. The other good thing I did on that trip was to bring my backup camera (a Canon Rebel, borrowed from my daughter). I was on a 4 day photo tour and wanted to make sure I could still shoot even if I had camera problems. As it happened, I did accidentally change a switch position on my 7D towards the end of the balloon trip, and couldn't figure out what was wrong. So I just switched over to the Rebel and didn't lose any shooting time. The only downside was that I usually shoot in RAW and could only do jpegs with the Rebel, but the light was not extreme, so it didn't really matter.
