Orchard Beach Storm
Jun, 2021Views
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Ultimate
terrymccollum
February 07, 2022
Sorry this challenge requires people or animals to be included in the photo.
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at Orchard Beach State Park, just north of Manistee, Michigan. Our campsite was right along this bluff, and as we sat and watched the storm roll in, I snapped this panorama.Time
It was early evening when this storm started to roll in from over Lake Michigan. I quickly set up my tripod, and took a series of images from left (south) to right (north) in vertical orientation. It was around 7:30 pm.Lighting
The lighting was all-natural, but the low light-level required me to use a higher ISO than I normally would have.Equipment
I used my tripod mounted Canon 80D with my EF-S 10-18mm wide angle zoom set at 18mm focal length. My camera was mounted in portrait orientation so I would get maximum pixel density when I combined the images later in post-processing. No filters were used at all, and no flash.Inspiration
Surprisingly enough, the previous night a similar storm rolled in, and we weren't at the campground and I didn't have my camera bag with me. I was pretty bummed that I missed the opportunity to capture THAT storm. I guess the photography gods were smiling on me when this storm came along the very next day. I wasn't going to miss this one, so while my wife hunkered down in our camper, I was standing out in this storm to grab the pano images before the wind and rain came ashore. I got my equipment put away just in time, too, and spent the next half-hour or so standing in the cold wind and rain holding down the awning to our camper! What an experience!Editing
First of all, I combined the images into a single panorama using Microsoft's Image Composite Editor. Once I was satisfied, I used Topaz Labs DenoiseAI to get rid of some of the noisiness from the high ISO. Finally, I used LuminarAI to finish the image, using an included template and doing some tweaks of that template to get the final image.In my camera bag
I typically carry my Canon 80D with five lenses (Canon 50mm f/1.8, 10-18mm wide angle zoom, 18-55mm zoom, and 55-250mm zoom, and Tokina 100mm macro prime lens). I also have my Haida M10 pro filter holder with a 10-stop ND and 3-stop GND filter and circular polarizer. Of course, I always have my standard accessories like spare batteries, lens hoods, memory cards, etc., and I carry a Godox V860-II speedlight with MagMod Sphere & MagBeam flash modifiers with color gels and gobos. I also have my trusty tripod!Feedback
My advice is always simple...soak up everything about where you are, and feel the story that starts to reveal itself about your subject and your surroundings. I'm always amazed that eventually a compelling story begins to emerge, and my job then becomes how best to capture that story. Sometimes that's easy to do, sometimes it's damn hard, and sometimes I'm not able to do it at all. It's those times that I just enjoy the story and the moment, and then later it drives me to get better at my craft so in the future I can perhaps succeed.
