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New zealand HDR



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12 Comments | Report
abbieex3
 
abbieex3 January 22, 2016
HDR boss right here. I love this.
Studio70
 
Studio70 January 27, 2016
Great time of day.
NatureLoverJJWal
 
NatureLoverJJWal January 30, 2016
Very beautiful place. You captured it at the golden hour. You've capture the clouds very nicely. Great color rendition. Really fascinating. You've captured the details in your middle ground too. Congratulations on your award!
kathymuhle PRO+
 
kathymuhle February 16, 2016
Beautiful photo to wake up to - love the layers of the picture - congratulations on your win!
pascalweytjens
 
pascalweytjens February 18, 2016
marvelous! such beauty!
Beegirl
 
Beegirl September 01, 2016
Very Nice capture
Beegirl
 
Beegirl September 01, 2016
Congrats
Beyondtessaseyes
 
Beyondtessaseyes October 17, 2016
This is one of my favorites!! Beautiful job!
kathyk_abq
 
kathyk_abq November 10, 2016
Lovely image!
nannyl73
 
nannyl73 October 02, 2017
Absolutely awesome
John256
 
John256 March 05, 2018
Nice image, love the view with the low sun.
CharRenee
 
CharRenee September 30, 2018
Love this !
See all

Behind The Lens

Location

I shot this landscape picture on the road to Cape Reinga, which is the northernmost point of New-Zealand. The Cape is about a 100 Km north of the nearest town, and there's just a long stretch of road going to the lighthouse. On each side, typical NZ hills for as far as the eyes can see. We were driving north, having not met any other cars for a while, when we discovered this right in front of us after clearing a hill. No place to stop but I just had to take this pic, so I just stopped right in the middle of the road, and grabbed my stuff before the sun was too low !

Time

It was just before dawn, we had taken a cruise in the bay of islands in the morning then driven 4 hours to get to cape reinga to set camp there. The road goes full north and both size have very low horizons so we could actually see the sun going down on the west side. I stayed there until the sun was almost set, then we drove to the very tip of the cape to see it disapear behind the ocean.

Lighting

The low sun was casting a very warm light, with rays splitted by the trees and fence posts. I wanted to have this old, knocked up fence on the foreground but it was obviously backlit, so I decided to go HDR, which usually works well on old wood and metals.

Equipment

I used my old Canon 60D, which is my first DSLR I bought 5 years ago with my first salary ! I had a canon 10-22 on it and I shot as wide as I could. I actually shot handheld which is something I rarely do when shooting HDR, but I had left the tripod in the campervan on the other side of the hill and I was too exhausted to bother going back ! Plus the sun was going down quite fast and I did not want to loose too much light.

Inspiration

Well, I'd say New Zealand did. I lived there for a year, traveled around both Islands in a campervan for about 4 month, and shot over 7000 pics ! NZ truly is a magnificient place, where you can have sea, mountain, lakes, cities, beaches, rain, wind, sun and rain again all within a one-day, 300 Km drive. I'd say the south Island has the most fantastic sceneries, but these kind of low profile, grass covered hills are so common on the north island that any Kiwi looking at this pic could probably recognise his home country in a heartbeat !

Editing

I combined the 3 HDR shots using a separate software, then finnished the post processing with lightroom. I find it really hard to get a nice result when processing HDR. Too light on the cursors, and you get something flat without the expected effect, too heavy and you get an over the top, sketchy result. I wanted to show all the details on the foreground fence, without ending with an over contrasted dark blue sky and a weird looking orange potatoe for sun ! I had to apply a graduated filter to keep an interesting sky more faithful to the true colors it had this day. Although I did the post-processing almost 1 year after the pic was taken, because the laptop I was traveling with was too slow to compute HDR !

In my camera bag

I don't carry a lot of stuff, because i'm using a Belt Lowepro bag, which I choose to be able to also carry a backpack for trecks etc. It's still big enough to put my 60D and its 18-135, a 10-22, and usually a 50mm. I have an additional case to hold my tamron 70-300 and a fish-eye, but most of the time it stays home or in the car, and I switch lenses according to the needs. I also pack an extra battery, a tiny, 'emergency' tripod, a dust-catching lens clothe and sometimes a cobra flash. I also have a small pouch for the ND8, ND400 and polarizing filters I carry around.

Feedback

I think it's really about taking the opportunity. When you travel, don't just go "well this would have been a great shot" while driving away. Stop, take the time to find the best set up with an interesting foreground, and put it in the box. Even if it's just with a phone camera, it will still be a great pic and a great memory. I remember tens of scenes that I regret not having shot when I could, and now i'm 10,000 Kms aways and I will probably never can. When composing, try and determinate what makes the place's uniqueness. For me, It was this fence, because we had driven miles through unfenced hills, and then there it was, a single, almost broken down fence separating hills from other, identical hills and nothing else, yet someone had taken time to maintain it for some reason. I think that every great shot has that kind of element, which even if its not conscious, triggers the interest and curiosity in the viewers mind !

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