20170725-Rocky-River-Park-Sunset-0006
Jul, 2017Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This picture was taken in Rocky River, OH. Rocky River is just outside of Cleveland and is right on Lake Erie.Time
This was taken at sunset.Lighting
This was all natural light. I didn't use any sort of lighting to shoot this.Equipment
I used a Canon 5D Mark III, Sigma 24-70, Gitzo tripod, remote, and 10 stop ND filter.Inspiration
I have been to this location many times to view and shoot the sunset. It might be one of my favorite spots around Cleveland for sunsets. I showed up to the park with the intention of framing my shot with the small break wall rocks. This beach is kept clean regularly, but I lucked out and there was quite a bit of drift wood on the beach. When I saw the driftwood location, I thought I would sit down and see what kind of viewpoint I had. It was a great day for sure.Editing
I shoot RAW, so there is always some post processing involved with all my shots. I used Lightroom for the normal RAW processing and then Skylum Luminar for everything else.In my camera bag
What I have in my bag depends on what I'm going out to shoot. The Canon 16-35 f2.8 L III is amazing and has become my go to lens for nature and landscape shots where I want to shoot wide. The colors are amazing and the sharpness is great. I have the Sigma 24-70 f2.8 Art lens, although I used the previous generation (non-Art) for this shot. The Canon 70-200 f2.8 L II is a flat out amazing lens. The three lenses that never leave my bag are the 16-35, 24-70, and 70-200. In addition, I use the Sigma 12-24 when I want to go ultra wide on a shot. The 12-24 doesn't get used as much since I added the Canon 16-35 f2.8 L III to the mix. My Sigma 35 f1.4 Art comes out in very low light situations or when I feel like shooting everything at one focal length. This lens is a work of art. My Canon 100 f2.8 L Macro is macro lens. I have also used this lens for headshot work. This lens is simply amazing. For wildlife, I use the Sigma 150-600 Sport. This lens gets heavy, but I love the performance and ruggedness. I primarily shoot with my Canon 5D Mark III, but will break out the Canon 7D when I want a second body with me or when I want the added reach of using a crop sensor. I converted a Canon EOS-M to 590nm infrared and this is currently my go to infrared camera. I use a Gitzo tripod as my hiking and travel tripod and I have a gigantic Really Right Stuff tripod for studio work or when I need to have my camera at a higher height. I also have a Gitzo monopod. I use the Really Right Stuff monopod head and the Really Right Stuff BH-55 ball head for my tripods. For panorama work, I use the Really Right Stuff PG-02 pano/gimbal. For lighting, I use the Canon 580EX II for on camera flash. I have four Yongnuo speed lights for off camera flash. For studio light, I have five Paul C Buff Einstein strobes. As for bags, I use ThinkTank and Mindshift gear bags. For hiking, I have the Mindshift Gear Backlight 36L and this bag is amazing for being outdoors and active with your gear. When I need to take my studio lights and lots of other things, I use my ThinkTank Logistics Manager 50 and my ThinkTank Airport Security v2.0. I can fit all five Einsteins and several light modifiers in the Logistics Manager and everything else in my Airport Security.Feedback
For this shot, I took several shots at different settings with the intention of post process work. I tried the bracketing approach of combining several shots into one, but wasn't really pleased with the results. I wanted to get the detail of the driftwood in the shadows and the colors in the sky from the sunset without dropping the details in the shadows and without blowing out the highlights. I relied a lot on the histogram info of the shot on the back of the camera. While the picture didn't look perfect on the the camera LCD, I knew I would be able to rescue the shadows and highlights in post process because all the information was there in the histogram. The advantage of shooting RAW is being able to have more flexibility in post process than shooting RAW. To get the viewpoint, my camera was setup on a tripod and was about 10" off the ground. I wanted to shoot this at a low angle to get everything in the shot. Using a 10 stop ND filter and aperture of f16, I was able to get detail everywhere while using a longer shutter speed.
