Lifeguard Tower 4
The 4th in the series of lifeguard tower photos. In this I have made it more of a feature I think by clopping a lot close and making it portrait and boosting th...
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The 4th in the series of lifeguard tower photos. In this I have made it more of a feature I think by clopping a lot close and making it portrait and boosting the contrast between the silhouette and the sky.
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Dec, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo while on a field trip with my camera club to Semaphore beach in Adelaide Australia.Time
As I hope you can see this image was taken late in the day as the sun was going down. As Daylight savings had not long started this meant it was just after 6pm. I must say I did get very lucky to be ready to take the photo while the sun was just in the right spot.Lighting
This is all just natural lighting with the aim to get a beautiful silhouette.Equipment
This was taken with my Nikon D750 hand held with my Tamron 70-300mm lens. This would seem to be a funny choice for taking landscape type photos but I had just finished taking some photos of seagulls. It did however turn out to be the perfect lens to capture the image as you see it as there has been no cropping.Inspiration
As the Sun was still reasonable above the horizon I was looking for photos to take while the in the golden hour and then move down to the beach to get some nice sunset shots including the Jetty that is just out of frame to the right. I happened to just get to the right place at the right time when the Sun was behind the Lifeguard tower and thought I would make some great photos silhouetted against the golden sky.Editing
Yes I did a lot actually to this and some might say maybe too much in the end. I did all editing in Lightroom trying out all the settings until I got the the final result you see. Firstly I start at the top with changing the exposure etc to in this case squash the shadows to make it more a stark silhouette. The other major thing I did was move the then recently released Dehaze slider to max. This made the colours even more intense and brought some blue back to the sky. I think if I were to edit again I would at least try to remove the blue patch in the bottom left corner. I unfortunately also had a heap of dirt on my sensor which I have had to remove which I think I have gotten the main spots but I am sure there are still some less obvious spots still there too.In my camera bag
The equipment I have in my bag is slowly improving all the time as I get new gear. I it however now at capacity so any extra additions will probably either have to go in a second bag or I will have to be selective of what I bring for the photos I want to take. To make this also more complicated I have fairly recently bought in to a second camera system and that is already in its own bag too. So my main bag I have 2 Nikon bodies (D7100 D750) 2 Flashes (SB800 and a Mk910) 5 lenses (Nikon 50mm, 200mm, Sigma 17-50, 24-105, Tamron 70-300, Tokina 11-16mm) a Black Rapid Sport strap and a Manfrotto tripod hanging off the outside. As for my new camera it is a Panasonic G7 with 3 lenses (14-42mm, 25mm, 45-150mm). I am enjoying this new camera as it is offering still very good quality images and a much smaller a lighter package.Feedback
I guess what would probably have made the image better would have been to have a graduated filter in my lens to darken the sky without needing too much post processing. Also make sure you know when sunset is and be ready to shoot for at least an hour before and after it. Ideally it would have also been good if there were some clouds in the sky to as some extra interest too but sadly there were very few. Remember with all silhouettes to focus on your subject to get its outline super sharp but expose for the sky behind it this may mean you need to take the photo with a high shutter speed. Lastly and most important for these types of photos you want to make sure both your lens and more importantly your sensor are as clean as possible as any dust will likely show up in your photo and require work removing in post.
