THE SOFT RED ROCKS RIVER
A small romantic town in a basin - surrounded by huge red rocks (better: sandstone rocks). This is Sedona, close to the famous Grand Canyon in the middle of Ari...
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A small romantic town in a basin - surrounded by huge red rocks (better: sandstone rocks). This is Sedona, close to the famous Grand Canyon in the middle of Arizona, USA. The sun went slowly down and the "Oak creek" was flowing silently and softly. A very special moment.
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Jan, 2017Views
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Contest Finalist in Backcountry Photo Contest
Peer Award
Absolute Masterpiece
Superb Composition
Magnificent Capture
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Behind The Lens
Location
In the small and romantic artist's town right in the middle of one of the most beautiful, almost circular basin in South-West USA - fantastically surrounded by huge rusty-colored monoliths and the steep walls of the Lower Oak Creek Canyon. It is called Sedona and located very close to the famous Grand Canyon in the center of Arizona. The Red Rocks County. The sun went down slowly and the Oak Creek, winding its way through the city, flowed softly past me. I stood on a very lonely spot of the red sand banks, and looked towards the orange-red rock formations of sandstone that towered up the other side of the river. A very special, intense and touching moment.Time
It was late afternoon on this beautiful day in January 2017. The sun was already very deep and shone in all yellow and orange colors, beautiful clouds made the partly deep blue sky a natural experience. The hot air shimmered. The different brown, yellow and orange shades of the landscape and the river bank were constantly changing by the fast-moving clouds, the shadows moving as if they were alive. The Oak Creek drew me into its spell.Lighting
If you want to be able to realize long-term exposure during the day outdoors, if possible also during sunshine, this could be problematic. Normally there is always too little light - in this rare case, however, it is precisely turned around - there is too much light to deal with most long-term exposures. Even with the lowest ISO number and wide aperture, you can quickly reach your limits when it comes to the exposure time. There is simply too much light to avoid overexposure of the subject when it is desired to expose it for a long time (e.g., to display water movements). The solution to this problem is the purchase of a so-called gray filter. This is screwed in front of the lens. Simplified, one can also call a gray filter as "sunglasses for the lens". It does not allow a certain amount of light to pass, thus obscuring the image. This again gives you more flexibility to extend the exposure time. Gray filters areavailable in different strengths.Equipment
I took the photo with a Nikon D750. I used the f/1.4 35 mm telephoto lens - of course with a tripod. It is recorded with an exposure time of 13/0 s at f/10 and ISO 71.Inspiration
It was very quiet at this place. Although the river went right through Sedona. The old big trees swayed in the hot wind. I felt completely alone in this world. I heard the gentle waves and suddenly saw at a certain point rapids. They somehow did not fit into this rest, slowness, and sentimental mood. What can I say: I could not stop the river water, but maybe I could take a picture that also integrated the river into the overall mood with its movement. So I came up with the idea of recording the water with a long-term exposure. I think I made over 100 shots until I found the right one. The nature had won. The rapids became gentle, wavy cushions. And suddenly they they fit perfectly into the overall picture.Editing
I really did not have to make so much changes in picture processing back at home. It is and was just perfect. Maybe I`ve put a few more lights, a little more dynamism and slightly more depth, no cuts or magnification, no further corrections. I never thought that colors, mood, motive, and that silence could fit together in that way. So I left the photo essentially as I had originally shoot it.In my camera bag
My Nikon D800 or D750, a gorilla pod, a large carbon tripod with ball head and panoramic lens. If I have a focus that I would like to shoot, I put a macro, one or two telephoto lenses and / or a strong wide-angle lens into my backpack. Otherwise, I always have a 14-24mm, 24-70mm, 105mm, 70-200mm, 200-500mm lens, a teleconverter, a cordless remote trigger, and various gray filters for long-term photos. Enough memory cards and batteries are not forgotten. There is an iPad Mini 4 for the control of time lapse recording.Feedback
Long exposure is not quite as simple as it looks. What is a long-term exposure? A long-term exposure is called when an image is exposed for several seconds in photography. There is no precisely defined limit as to when an exposure counts as long-term exposure. Subjectively, I would say from a second upwards. Obviously, there is no restriction to the top. For long-term exposure you need so-called ND filters, also called gray filter. These block a large part of the incident light and ensure that you do not take an over-exposure picture even in exposure times of several minutes. Long-term exposure can be used to simplify an image. In a 60 second exposure you can have the way of clouds with in the picture. This can be an interesting effect and should be synonymous to fit the picture. Alternatively, with an 8 minute exposure, almost no clouds are left in the picture, because during this time so much has happened in the sky. This makes the sky appear very even, which simplifies the image. This can also be used in water. Sea and rivers often show many details that lead the attention away from elements in the picture. By long-term exposure, a simplification and a surreal effect can be achieved. And now still 6 short advices for better pictures with long-term exposures: 1. With the classical long-term exposures during the day, it has proved to be a good idea to combine specifically movable objects with immobile objects. This can be, for example, a tree which stands for calmness and immobility, and on the other hand a sky in which the cloud movement is clearly visible at a minute exposure time 2. This composition works well even at sea. A bridge or a pier in combination with the waves gets a surreal effect in a long-term exposure 3. When exposure times exceed 10 minutes, the camera's noise increases significantly. So I try to stay below these limits 4. If the exposure time with two filters is not enough, a polarizing filter can also be misused, since this light also swallows 5. Water has a surreal effect from 5 seconds upwards. If you still want to capture the motion of the water without all the details being visible, select an exposure time of 0.3 seconds. This works especially well with waves on the beach and with mountain streams 6. A special form of long-term exposure is fireworks photography.
