Towering Redwoods
Oct, 2018Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I am a self taught photographer and have been in love with this learning process for about 5 years. This shot was taken while on vacation in the redwood forests of California. This was one of my successful shots during that trip. I have to give most of the credit to these magnificent trees...I was fortunate enough to capture their beauty1Time
This is one of my favorite shots. It was about 1pm on a slightly cloudy day. What caught my attention, in addition to the beauty of the redwoods, was the dappled light on the trees. The sun happened to be peaking through the canopy and I just felt it was a perfect setting.Lighting
I am always attracted to the play of light on objects... it is usually the first thing to draw me to a scene. If the sun is in my shot I usually try to use a smaller aperture to capture the starburst effect. I find it hard sometimes to capture in photos what I "see", as far as light patterns are concerned. I usually take lots of shots of the same scene varying the aperture and move my position in hopes of capturing the right effects.Equipment
I shot this picture with a Nikon D750. I had just purchased a fish eye lens with the intent to "experiment" while on vacation. I love the lens' wide angle ability to draw the eye to a central point. The combination of the lens and the height of the trees made the picture much more dramatic.Inspiration
The redwoods themselves inspired the shot. I wanted to show their massive height and strength. I had taken several photos with a standard wide angle lens, and, although they were lovely, they did not provide the drama I was hoping to capture. The setting was made for a super wide angle lens.Editing
The gods were looking down on me that day, as I had little processing to do on this shot. Although it was sunny, the canopy provided quite a lot of light filtering. That, in combination with the aperture setting, resulted in some noise. I used denoise software and minor adjustment in brightness and contrast. The last step was a little extra tweaking in cropping to have less severe arching of the woodland floor and to remove other people in the shot.In my camera bag
I usually set out with a plan for the day, sometimes macro, landscape, or infrared. That dictates my lenses that I will bring. I use my Nikon D750 for macro and landscapes. If my plan is macro, I use a Nikon 105mm and 200mm for macro and will bring a Nikon 28-300mm just in case something pops up that I need to capture. If I'm planning on landscapes, I'll bring I'll bring Nikon 16-35mm and fish eye lens. I will again bring the 28-300mm that I can use for macro and/or wildlife. In addition I have several filters and small tripodFeedback
I literally had my camera on the main tree trunk, facing up. Although it added to the noise of the shot, I wanted to capture the starburst from the sun, so I shot with a smaller aperture. I spent some time moving around the base of the tree to assure that my composition was able to get the convergence point of the trees in the upper third of picture.
